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2007. Determinants of farmer demand for fee-forservice extension in Zimbabwe‘s agricultural sector: the case
No full textAbstract The increasing complexity of African agriculture has put greater pressure on agricultural education and extension. The important role played by agricultural extension has led man
No full textAbstract Imagine a pack of predators stalking their prey. The predators may not always move directly toward their target (e.g., when circling around it), but they may be consistently facing toward it. The human visual system appears to be extremely sensitive to such situations, even in displays involving simple shapes. We demonstrate this by introducing the wolfpack effect, which is found when several randomly moving, oriented shapes (darts, or discs with "eyes") consistently point toward a moving disc. Despite the randomness of the shapes' movement, they seem to interact with the disc-as if they are collectively pursuing it. This impairs performance in interactive tasks (including detection of actual pursuit), and observers selectively avoid such shapes when moving a disc through the display themselves. These and other results reveal that the wolfpack effect is a novel "social" cue to perceived animacy. And, whereas previous work has focused on the causes of perceived animacy, these results demonstrate its effects, showing how it irresistibly and implicitly shapes visual performance and interactive behavior
S.: Cardinality-constrained texture filtering
No full text2 calculated using (b) an exact Lánczos filter, (c) an eight texel approximation using our method, and (d) trilinear interpolation applied to a Lánczos filtered mipmap. Our approximation produces an image that is nearly the same as the exact filtered image while using the same number of texels as trilinear interpolation. Abstract We present a method to create high-quality sampling filters by combining a prescribed number of texels from several resolutions in a mipmap. Our technique provides fine control over the number of texels we read per texture sample so that we can scale quality to match a memory bandwidth budget. Our method also has a fixed cost regardless of the filter we approximate, which makes it feasible to approximate higher-order filters such as a Lánczos 2 filter in real-time rendering. To find the best set of texels to represent a given sampling filter and what weights to assign those texels, we perform a cardinality-constrained least-squares optimization of the most likely candidate solutions and encode the results of the optimization in a small table that is easily stored on the GPU. We present results that show we accurately reproduce filters using few texel reads and that both quality and speed scale smoothly with available bandwidth. When using four or more texels per sample, our image quality exceeds that of conventional trilinear filtering
VIOLENCE RISK APPRAISAL OF MALE AND FEMALE YOUTH, ADULTS, AND INDIVIDUALS
No full textSummary.-Data from youth (n = 1,127), adults (n = 1,595), and individuals (N = 2,722, combined youth and adults) were followed 3 to 12 years in records to develop items to predict abuse, violence, and homicide in these 3 relevant groups for risk appraisal or safety scales. Shao's bootstrapped logistic regression yielded 14 predictors for youth (AUC = .91), 11 for adults (AUC = .99), and 13 for individuals (AUC = .96). Three regression equations were cross-validated with in-bag and outof-bag techniques. Pearson coefficients were computed with intelligence, achievement, adaptive behavior, and perception tests. Test-retest reliability was acceptable. Using case-control quasi-experimental design, this study extends probation-parole decision-making tests to infants and children as young as 3 years, with convergent and divergent validity and reliability with other tests. Sensitivity and specificity were high and minimized over-or under-identification challenges in identifying potentially violent persons in the general population. In the courts, Burgess (1928) was the first researcher to track prisoners' behavior over time, evaluating those who returned to court with the goal of predicting recidivism. His parole-probation decision-making test was followed by eight decades of continuously improving risk appraisal in the courts all over the Western world. Currently, British Commonwealth, European Union, and U.S. federal prisons use these tools in determinations of release into the community, with the dual purpose of allowing rehabilitation of criminals and safeguarding society. Courts have affirmed the reliability and the validity of parole-probation decision-making tests in the U.S., the British Commonwealth, the European Union, and the United Nations There are currently two widely used risk appraisal guides for violence and sexual offens
A SEMANTIC CENTRALITY MEASURE FOR FINDING THE MOST TRUSTWORTHY ACCOUNT
No full textABSTRACT We propose an algorithmic approach for ranking of differing textual descriptions (accounts) of the same event or story according to their likeliness to best describe the source. Application domains include the ranking of eyewitness reports, historical accounts, and news reports. For this, we developed the concept of "semantic centrality" as a measure of how central a text is among a collection of texts, in terms of semantic overlap or similarity. This measure is based on natural language processing theory, as well as graph theory. Using three different collections of humanly generated texts (gathered through a recall task, "Chinese Whispers" task, and real-world news reports), we evaluated the proposed method for ranking textual accounts by their trustworthiness to describe source events. In one experiment algorithmic ranking is compared to human ranking. Results indicate that semantic centrality as a measure for trustworthiness of textual accounts is promising and deserves further research attention
Metabolism of Bupropion by Carbonyl Reductases in Liver and Intestine
No full textABSTRACT Bupropion's metabolism and the formation of hydroxybupropion in the liver by cytochrome P450 2B6 (CYP2B6) has been extensively studied; however, the metabolism and formation of erythro/ threohydrobupropion in the liver and intestine by carbonyl reductases (CR) has not been well characterized. The purpose of this investigation was to compare the relative contribution of the two metabolism pathways of bupropion (by CYP2B6 and CR) in the subcellular fractions of liver and intestine and to identify the CRs responsible for erythro/threohydrobupropion formation in the liver and the intestine. The results showed that the liver microsome generated the highest amount of hydroxybupropion (V max = 131 pmol/min per milligram, K m = 87 mM). In addition, liver microsome and S9 fractions formed similar levels of threohydrobupropion by CR (V max = 98-99 pmol/min per milligram and K m = 186-265 mM). Interestingly, the liver has similar capability to form hydroxybupropion (by CYP2B6) and threohydrobupropion (by CR). In contrast, none of the intestinal fractions generate hydroxybupropion, suggesting that the intestine does not have CYP2B6 available for metabolism of bupropion. However, intestinal S9 fraction formed threohydrobupropion to the extent of 25% of the amount of threohydrobupropion formed by liver S9 fraction. Enzyme inhibition and Western blots identified that 11b-dehydrogenase isozyme 1 in the liver microsome fraction is mainly responsible for the formation of threohydrobupropion, and in the intestine AKR7 may be responsible for the same metabolite formation. These quantitative comparisons of bupropion metabolism by CR in the liver and intestine may provide new insight into its efficacy and side effects with respect to these metabolites
RECENT RRR MEASUREMENTS ON NIOBIUM FOR SUPERCONDUCTING RF CAVITIES AT FERMILAB *
No full textAbstract Fermilab is developing superconducting RF cavities of the bulk Niobium (Nb) type. Several prototypes of a 3 rd -harmonic cavity and a transverse deflecting mode (CKMtype) cavity were already built. The first three-cell 3 rd harmonic model recently achieved the expected performance limi
Validation of the G-PASS Code: Status Report Validation of the G-PASS Code: Status Report ANL-GenIV-115 work sponsored by
No full textA behavioral approach to the l1 optimal control problem A Behavioral Approach to the £1 Optimal Control Problem Measurement and Control Systems Internal Report, 96 1/05 A Behavioral Approach to the £1 Optimal Control Problem
No full textCitation for published version (APA): Stoorvogel, A. A., & Weiland, S. (1996). A behavioral approach to the l1 optimal control problem. (Measurement and control systems : internal report; Vol. 96I/05). Eindhoven: Eindhoven University of Technology. Document status and date