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Automatic pelvis segmentation from x-ray images of a mouse model
No full textThe automatic detection and quantification of skeletal structures has a variety of different applications for biological research. Accurate segmentation of the pelvis from X-ray images of mice in a high-throughput project such as the Mouse Genomes Project not only saves time and cost but also helps achieving an unbiased quantitative analysis within the phenotyping pipeline. This paper proposes an automatic solution for pelvis segmentation based on structural and orientation properties of the pelvis in X-ray images. The solution consists of three stages including pre-processing image to extract pelvis area, initial pelvis mask preparation and final pelvis segmentation. Experimental results on a set of 100 X-ray images showed consistent performance of the algorithm. The automated solution overcomes the weaknesses of a manual annotation procedure where intra- and inter-observer variations cannot be avoided
The road not taken: understanding barriers to the development of police intelligence practice
Get PDFTo better understand police intelligence practice, we examined practitioners' views of their work and their relations with the wider law enforcement community. We surveyed intelligence staff (N=110), and interviewed a random sample of respondents (n=12).
Our analysis suggested that traditionalism and the dominant action-oriented culture limit the organization's understanding of intelligence practice. Largely, the focus in that context has been on street cops' propensity to reject reflection in favour of action but intelligence practitioners need also look to themselves. Too often, the philosophy of 'need to know', is prioritized over its antithesis 'dare to share'. Though perceived by practitioners as low-risk and consistent with organisational norms, we argue that inappropriately applied, 'need to know' is the enemy of efficiency and real
accountability, offering low levels of reward and discouraging the kinds of partnership, reciprocity and multi-directional knowledge transfer that policing needs, to be successful in the information age. We reconceptualised an interactivity/isolationism continuum, used in the natural sciences, to help interpret that phenomenon. We argue that isolationism is but one factor in a complex organisational dynamic but it is a significant one because it can subtly limit the influence and reach of the intelligence milieu in previously unacknowledged ways
An intervention using the Information-Motivation-Behavioral Skills Model: Tackling cyberaggression and cyberbullying in South African adolescents
No full textGiven the ever-increasing concern about cyberaggression and cyberbullying, the Information-Motivation-Behavioral Skills (IMB) model was used to develop an exploratory intervention to increase adolescents’ online risk perception and enhance online safety. The intervention workshops were piloted with 177 females in grades 8-10 (13-16 years) in South Africa. Participants’ online risk perception was assessed either before (control group) or after the workshop (intervention group). Results showed that the intervention group had higher online risk perception, indicating the intervention’s effectiveness in increasing online risk perception, a prerequisite for behavior change. The intervention was more effective when it was tailored to participants’ online behaviors and perceptions than when it was more general. The study demonstrates the utility of the IMB model for addressing cyberaggression and cyberbullying, and the chapter includes guidance for developing and conducting such an intervention
Cyber-Grooming Young Women for Terrorist Activity: Dominant and Subjugated Explanatory Narratives
Get PDFRandom projections for increased privacy
No full textThe extraordinary speed with which new models of communication and computing technologies have advanced over the last few years is mind boggling. New exciting opportunities are emerging all the time to facilitate high volume of global commercial activities, enable the citizens to enjoy convenient services as well as mobile leisure activities. These exciting opportunities and benefits come with increased concerns about security and privacy due to a plethora of reasons mostly caused by blurring of control over own data. Conventional access control to personal/organisational data assets use presumed reliable and secure mechanisms including biometric authentication, but little attention is paid to privacy of participants. Moreover, digitally stored files of online transactions include traceable personal data/reference. Recent increase in serious hacking incidents deepens the perception of lack of privacy. The emerging concept of personal and biometric data de-identification seem to provide the most promising approach to deal with this challenge. This chapter is concerned with constructing and using personalised random projections (RPs) for secure transformation of biometric templates into a domain from which it is infeasible to retrieve the owner identity. We shall describe the implications of the rapid changes in communication models on the characteristics of privacy, and describe the role that RP is, and can, play within biometric data de-identification for improved privacy in general and for cloud services in particular
IL-1β and TNFα inhibit GPR120 (FFAR4) and stimulate GPR84 (EX33) and GPR41 (FFAR3) fatty acid receptor expression in human adipocytes: implications for the anti-inflammatory action of n-3 fatty acids
Get PDFRegulation of the expression of GPCR fatty acid receptor genes has been examined in human adipocytes differentiated in culture. TNFα and IL-1β induced a marked reduction in GPR120 expression, mRNA level falling 17-fold at 24h in adipocytes incubated with TNFα. In contrast, GPR84 mRNA was dramatically increased by these cytokines (>500-fold for IL-1β at 4h); GPR41 expression was also stimulated. Rosiglitazone did not affect GPR84 expression, but GPR120 and GPR41 expression increased. Dexamethasone, insulin, linoleic and docosahexaenoic acids, and TUG891 (GPR120 agonist) had little effect on GPR120 and GPR84 expression. TUG891 did not attenuate the pro-inflammatory actions of TNFα and IL-1β. Docosahexaenoic acid slightly countered the actions of IL-1β on CCL2, IL6 and ADIPOQ expression, though not on secretion of these adipokines. GPR120 and GP84 gene expression in human adipocytes is highly sensitive to pro-inflammatory mediators; the inflammation-induced inhibition of GPR120 expression may compromise the anti-inflammatory action of GPR120 agonists
‘Dickens and the Middle-Class Weekly’
Get PDFThe 1830s saw an upsurge in cheap miscellanies of general reading material for the broadest of readerships. From the outset of his career, Charles Dickens was fascinated by the possibilities of addressing such an audience, but not until 1850, with his founding of the 2d. weekly magazine, Household Words, did he achieve his ambition of editing such a periodical. The chapter traces the development of this project, and shows how Dickens embraced hybridity of form and content to establish a secure place for his new journal in the crowded mid-century marketplace, one that straddled class identifiers. In 1859, the journal was incorporated into a new publication, All the Year Round, which carried an instalment of serial fiction as the opening article, rather than a specially-written leader. The switch anticipated the establishment of a series of upmarket monthlies that also privileged fiction over journalism, and gave Dickens and his sub-editor the opportunity to establish early readerships for their brand abroad—in Europe, the colonies, and above all in America. Two postscripts to the chapter outline the afterlife of Dickens’s weeklies following his death in 1870, and their resurrection, in digital form, in the twenty-first century
A perfect impasse? Cuba’s move towards the market and the U.S. move towards Cuba
Get PDFThis article firstly analyses the internal economic trajectory of the Cuban economic reforms and evaluates their effectiveness in delivering the extensive and intensive development needed to resolve Cuba’s structural and economic imbalances. It concludes that without the lifting of the U.S. economic sanctions, success will at best be only partial, with serious implications for long-term stability. The article then evaluates the reasons for the U.S. economic sanctions against Cuba and argues that while the embargo policy might have failed to topple the Cuban communist regime, it has served other, largely unacknowledged, purposes that are important in understanding why the policy has persisted. The article concludes by suggesting that the U.S. is not likely to jettison the sanctions regime while Cuba remains a single party, state led economic system. At the same time, Cuba is not likely to jettison its single party system while the sanctions remain