A new country record for Chrysina diversa (Ohaus, 1912) (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae: Rutelinae) in Central America

Chrysina diversa (Ohaus, 1912) is recorded for the first time from Belize. Detailed information on its capture in that country is presented.Chrysina diversa (Ohaus, 1912) est signalée pour la première fois de Belize. Des informations détaillées sur sa capture dans cette pays sont présentées ici

On Robust Face Recognition via Sparse Encoding: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

In the field of face recognition, Sparse Representation (SR) has received considerable attention during the past few years. Most of the relevant literature focuses on holistic descriptors in closed-set identification applications. The underlying assumption in SR-based methods is that each class in the gallery has sufficient samples and the query lies on the subspace spanned by the gallery of the same class. Unfortunately, such assumption is easily violated in the more challenging face verification scenario, where an algorithm is required to determine if two faces (where one or both have not been seen before) belong to the same person. In this paper, we first discuss why previous attempts with SR might not be applicable to verification problems. We then propose an alternative approach to face verification via SR. Specifically, we propose to use explicit SR encoding on local image patches rather than the entire face. The obtained sparse signals are pooled via averaging to form multiple region descriptors, which are then concatenated to form an overall face descriptor. Due to the deliberate loss spatial relations within each region (caused by averaging), the resulting descriptor is robust to misalignment & various image deformations. Within the proposed framework, we evaluate several SR encoding techniques: l1-minimisation, Sparse Autoencoder Neural Network (SANN), and an implicit probabilistic technique based on Gaussian Mixture Models. Thorough experiments on AR, FERET, exYaleB, BANCA and ChokePoint datasets show that the proposed local SR approach obtains considerably better and more robust performance than several previous state-of-the-art holistic SR methods, in both verification and closed-set identification problems. The experiments also show that l1-minimisation based encoding has a considerably higher computational than the other techniques, but leads to higher recognition rates

Investigations of lunar sampling and sample return methods

Lunar soil sampling and packaging to minimize physical damage and contaminatio

Beyond Standard Model Searches in the MiniBooNE Experiment

29 pages, 18 figures, preprint of an article submitted in Advances in High Energy Physics http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ahep/Janet Conrad thanks the National Science Foundation for support through NSF-PHY-1205175

Bags of Affine Subspaces for Robust Object Tracking

We propose an adaptive tracking algorithm where the object is modelled as a continuously updated bag of affine subspaces, with each subspace constructed from the object's appearance over several consecutive frames. In contrast to linear subspaces, affine subspaces explicitly model the origin of subspaces. Furthermore, instead of using a brittle point-to-subspace distance during the search for the object in a new frame, we propose to use a subspace-to-subspace distance by representing candidate image areas also as affine subspaces. Distances between subspaces are then obtained by exploiting the non-Euclidean geometry of Grassmann manifolds. Experiments on challenging videos (containing object occlusions, deformations, as well as variations in pose and illumination) indicate that the proposed method achieves higher tracking accuracy than several recent discriminative trackers.Comment: in International Conference on Digital Image Computing: Techniques and Applications, 201

Service-based survey of dystonia in Munich

We performed a service-based epidemiological study of dystonia in Munich, Germany. Due to favourable referral and treatment patterns in the Munich area, we could provide confident data from dystonia patients seeking botulinum toxin treatment. A total of 230 patients were ascertained, of whom 188 had primary dystonia. Point prevalence ratios were estimated to be 10.1 (95% confidence interval 8.4-11.9) per 100,000 for focal and 0.3 (0.0-0.6) for generalised primary dystonia. The most common focal primary dystonias were cervical dystonia with 5.4 (4.2-6.7) and essential blepharospasm with 3.1 (2.1-4.1) per 100,000 followed by laryngeal dystonia (spasmodic dysphonia) with 1.0 (0.4-1.5) per 100,000. Copyright (C) 2002 S. Karger AG, Base

3-hydroxykynurenine suppresses CD4+ T-cell proliferation, induces T-regulatory-cell development, and prolongs corneal allograft survival

Copyright © 2011 Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology. This article is available open access through the publisher’s website at the link below.Purpose. IDO (indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase) modulates the immune response by depletion of the essential amino acid tryptophan, and IDO overexpression has been shown to prolong corneal allograft survival. This study was conducted to examine the effect of kynurenines, the products of tryptophan breakdown and known to act directly on T lymphocytes, on corneal graft survival. Methods. The effects of kynurenines on T-cell proliferation and death, T-regulatory-cell development, and dendritic cell function, phenotype, and viability were analyzed in vitro. The effect of topical and systemic administration of 3-hydroxykynurenine (3HK) on orthotopic murine corneal allograft survival was examined. Results. T-lymphocyte proliferation was inhibited by two of the four different kynurenines: 3HK and 3-hydroxyanthranilic acid (3HAA). This effect was accompanied by significant T-cell death. Neither 3HK nor 3HAA altered dendritic cell function, nor did they induce apoptosis or pathogenicity to corneal endothelial cells. Administration of systemic and topical 3HK to mice receiving a fully mismatched corneal graft resulted in significant prolongation of graft survival (median survival of control grafts, 12 days; of treated, 19 and 15 days, respectively; P < 0.0003). While systemic administration of 3HK was associated with a significant depletion of CD4+ T, CD8+ T, and B lymphocytes in peripheral blood, no depletion was found after topical administration. Conclusions. The production of kynurenines, in particular 3HK and 3HAA, may be one mechanism (in addition to tryptophan depletion) by which IDO prolongs graft survival. These molecules have potential as specific agents for preventing allograft rejection in patients at high rejection risk.Fight for Sight and the Wellcome Trust