5,729 research outputs found
Population status of Pan troglodytes verus in Lagoas de Cufada Natural Park, Guinea-Bissau
No full textThe western chimpanzee, Pan troglodytes verus, has been classified as Endangered on the IUCN Red List since 1988. Intensive agriculture, commercial plantations, logging, and mining have eliminated or degraded the habitats suitable for P. t. verus over a large part of its range. In this study we assessed the effect of land-use change on the population size and density of chimpanzees at Lagoas de Cufada Natural Park (LCNP), Guinea-Bissau. We further explored chimpanzee distribution in relation to landscape-level proxies of human disturbance. Nest count and distance-sampling methods were employed along 11 systematically placed linear transects in 2010 and 2011. Estimated nest decay rate was 293.9 days (%CV = 58.8). Based on this estimate of decay time and using the Standing-Crop Nest Count Method, we obtained a habitat-weighted average chimpanzee density estimate for 2011 of 0.22 nest building chimpanzees/km2 (95% CI 0.08–0.62), corresponding to 137 (95% CI 51.0–390.0) chimpanzees for LCNP. Human disturbance had a negative influence on chimpanzee distribution as nests were built farther away from human settlements, roads, and rivers than if they were randomly distributed, coinciding with the distribution of the remaining patches of dense canopy forest. We conclude that the continuous disappearance of suitable habitat (e.g. the replacement of LCNP's dense forests by monocultures of cashew plantations) may be compromising the future of one of the most threatened Guinean coastal chimpanzee populations. We discuss strategies to ensure long-term conservation in this important refuge for this chimpanzee subspecies at its westernmost margin of geographic distribution.Peer reviewe
Crowd Counting via Attention and Multi-Feature Fused Network
No full textWith the rapid development of Internet of Everything and artificial intelligence techniques and massive amounts of video surveillance data, crowd counting has drawn extensive attention in computer vision. Inspired by deep learning methods, convolutional neural networks (CNN) have been dedicated to improving the effectiveness of crowd counting. As CNN is unable to capture the continuous size changes of heads in images, the large-scale variations impede the development of crowd counting. To solve this problem, this paper presents an attention and multi-feature fused network (AMFNet) containing a multi-level feature extractor and four attentional density estimator (ADE) modules. The multi-level extractor is used to extract the features of different sizes and various kinds of context information based on a deep network backbone. The existing ADE modules are built to merge different level features to generate a high-quality density map. A channel attention unit is adopted in the ADE modules to identify the head accurately. Then, four ADE modules are applied to exploit multi-level features and generate a fine-grained density map for coping with various scales. The experiment results show that the proposed AMFNet performs well in dense crowd scenarios, and that it is comparable to mainstream methods in terms of accuracy and robustness
Business Model Innovation of JF Logistics Company
No full text摘要 随着全球化经济的发展，市场竞争变得越来越复杂。信息时代使得物流供应链管理已上升到企业的战略管理高度。在这样的背景下，本文应用翁君奕老师的介观商务模式创新观点，对JF物流公司所处行业现状进行剖析，重新审视了外部客户市场以及内部自身情况，找出了JF物流公司自身的优势，并结合外部市场客户的需求，提出了“为客户提供个性化的集物流、资金流、信息流于一体的供应链物流服务”这一价值主张，并在此基础上，重新定位客户市场，创新服务产品，理顺内部管理架构和业务流程以支撑和保持这一价值主张。文中同时以例证来说明依据新价值主张所创新的服务产品给JF物流公司所带来的变化，以此说明通过商务模式创新来实行自身的战略...Abstract With the development of the global economy, the competition in market becomes more complicated. In the era of information, logistics and supply chain management is regarded as important as part of the company strategy. Under such background , the author of this essay uses the concept of “JieGuan Business Model Innovation” proposed by Professor Weng Junyi of Xiamen University, and analy...学位：管理学硕士院系专业：管理学院高级经理教育中心（EMBA项目）_管理经济学学号：X200615614
Temporal and spatial variability in speakers with Parkinson's Disease and Friedreich's Ataxia
No full textSpeech variability in groups of speakers with Parkinson's disease (PD) and with Friedreich's ataxia was compared with healthy controls. Speakers repeated the same phrase 20 times at one of two rates (fast or habitual). A non-linear analysis of variability was performed which used some of the principles behind the spatio-temporal index (STI). The STI usually employs variation in lip displacement over repetitions of the same utterance and a linear analysis of such signals is conducted to represent the combined variation in spatial and temporal control. When working with patients, audio measures (here we used speech energy) are preferred over kinematics ones as they are minimally disruptive to speech. Non-linear methods allow spatial variability to be estimated separately from temporal variability. The results are tentatively interpreted as showing that PD speakers were distinguished from healthy control speakers in spatial variability and ataxic speakers were distinguished from controls in temporal variability. These findings are consistent with the speech symptoms reported for these disorders. We conclude that the non-linear analysis using the speech energy measure is worth investigating further as it is potentially revealing of the differences underlying these two pathologies
Muscles of facial expression in the chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes): descriptive, comparative and phylogenetic contexts
No full textRole of peripheral pan-retinal photocoagulation in diabetic macular edema treated with intravitreal ziv-aflibercept
No full textAhmad M Mansour,1,2 Khalil El Jawhari,3 J Fernando Arevalo4 1Department of Ophthalmology, American University of Beirut, Beirut, Lebanon; 2Department of Ophthalmology, Rafik Hariri University Hospital, Beirut, Lebanon; 3Medical School, Medical University of Lodz, Lodz, Poland; 4Wilmer Eye Institute, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA Purpose: The aim of this study was to investigate the possibility of decreasing the number of intravitreal anti-VEGF by peripheral pan-retinal photocoagulation (PPRP) in managing diabetic macular edema (DME) in a subcategory of patients who cannot comply to strict anti-VEGF follow-up protocols.Materials and methods: This is a pilot prospective study. Consecutive patients with naïve DME were offered the choice of treatment and extend intravitreal ziv-aflibercept if they showed willingness for good compliance or PPRP with modified pro re nata intravitreal injections.Results: Six eyes of 3 patients had PPRP versus 4 eyes of 4 patients had injections only. The number of anti-VEGF injections was markedly decreased when PPRP was administered from a mean number of injections of 16.8 (range 13–21; mean follow-up 24.3 months) to a mean number of 4.5 (range 0–8; mean follow-up 33.7 months). Mean initial central macular thickness (CMT) was 462.0 mm in the injection only group vs 457.3 mm in the PPRP group. Mean final CMT was 462.0 in the injection only group vs 350.0 in the PPRP group. Baseline and final mean logMAR (Snellen equivalent) best-corrected visual acuity was initially and finally 0.84 (20/137) and 0.60 (20/80) in the injection only group and 0.70 (20/100) and 0.69 (20/98) in the PPRP group, respectively. The monthly cost for the PPRP group was one-third of the monthly cost for the injection only group.Conclusion: PPRP allowed for a decrease in the number of intravitreal anti-VEGF injections in selected DME patients (sick, difficult to ambulate, financial burden, and fear of injections). Keywords: vascular endothelial growth factor, laser therapy, diabetic retinopath
Additional file 6 of Prevalence of chronic cough in China: a systematic review and meta-analysis
No full textAdditional file 6. Fig. S1. Distribution of children with chronic cough across Mainland China. NOTE: Red star in the map represents Beijing City. The map was developed in XL Toolbox NG by ourselves, without the conflict of copyright. Fig. S2. Pooled chronic cough prevalence of adults stratified by region. Abbreviations: CI, confidence intervals. NOTE: The three author labels of ZHANG JF 1999 are from the same literature, and the two author labels of Venners 2001 are from the same literature. Fig. S3. Pooled chronic cough prevalence of adults stratified by diagnostic criteria. Abbreviations: CI, confidence intervals. NOTE: The three author labels of ZHANG JF 1999 are from the same literature, and the two author labels of Venners 2001 are from the same literature. Fig. S4. Pooled chronic cough prevalence of adults stratified by year of publication. Abbreviations: CI, confidence intervals. NOTE: The three author labels of ZHANG JF 1999 are from the same literature, and the two author labels of Venners 2001 are from the same literature. Fig. S5. Pooled chronic cough prevalence of adults stratified by age. Abbreviations: CI, confidence intervals. NOTE: The three author labels of ZHANG JF 1999 are from the same literature, and the two author labels of Venners 2001 are from the same literature. Fig. S6. Pooled chronic cough prevalence of adults stratified by sampling methods. Abbreviations: CI, confidence intervals. NOTE: The three author labels of ZHANG JF 1999 are from the same literature, and the two author labels of Venners 2001 are from the same literature. Fig. S7. Pooled chronic cough prevalence of adults stratified by sample size. Abbreviations: CI, confidence intervals; ES, Effect Size. NOTE: The three author labels of ZHANG JF 1999 are from the same literature, and the two author labels of Venners 2001 are from the same literature. Fig. S8. Pooled chronic cough prevalence of adults stratified by prevalence definitions. Abbreviations: CI, confidence intervals; ES, Effect Size. NOTE: The three author labels of ZHANG JF 1999 are from the same literature, and the two author labels of Venners 2001 are from the same literature. Fig. S9. Pooled chronic cough prevalence of adults stratified by chronic cough definitions. Abbreviations: CI, confidence intervals; ES, Effect Size. NOTE: The three author labels of ZHANG JF 1999 are from the same literature, and the two author labels of Venners 2001 are from the same literature. Fig. S10. Pooled chronic cough prevalence of adults stratified by quality of articles assessed by AHRQ. Abbreviations: CI, confidence intervals; ES, Effect Size. NOTE: The three author labels of ZHANG JF 1999 are from the same literature, and the two author labels of Venners 2001 are from the same literature. Fig. S11. Pooled chronic cough prevalence of children stratified by region. Abbreviations: CI, confidence intervals. NOTE: The four author labels of ZHANG JF 2002 are from the same literature. Fig. S12. Pooled chronic cough prevalence of children stratified by diagnostic criteria. Abbreviations: CI, confidence intervals. NOTE: The four author labels of ZHANG JF 2002 are from the same literature. Fig. S13. Pooled chronic cough prevalence of children stratified by year of publication. Abbreviations: CI, confidence intervals. NOTE: The four author labels of ZHANG JF 2002 are from the same literature. Fig. S14. Pooled chronic cough prevalence of children stratified by sample size. Abbreviations: CI, confidence intervals. NOTE: The four author labels of ZHANG JF 2002 are from the same literature. Fig. S15. Pooled chronic cough prevalence of children stratified by chronic cough definitions. Abbreviations: CI, confidence intervals; ES, Effect Size. NOTE: The four author labels of ZHANG JF 2002 are from the same literature. Fig. S16. Pooled chronic cough prevalence of children stratified by quality of articles assessed by AHRQ. Abbreviations: CI, confidence intervals. NOTE: The four author labels of ZHANG JF 2002 are from the same literature. Fig. S17. Pooled chronic cough prevalence of children stratified by prevalence definitions. Abbreviations: CI, confidence intervals. NOTE: The four author labels of ZHANG JF 2002 are from the same literature. Fig. S18. Funnel plot for prevalence in studies of adults for chronic cough. Fig. S19. Sensitivity analysis for prevalence in studies of adults for chronic cough. Abbreviations: CI, confidence intervals. NOTE: The three author labels of ZHANG JF 1999 are from the same literature, and the two author labels of Venners 2001 are from the same literature. Fig. S20. The prevalence of chronic cough in adults after exclusion of the nationwide study (Li JC 2018). Abbreviations: CI, confidence intervals. NOTE: The three author labels of ZHANG JF 1999 are from the same literature, and the two author labels of Venners 2001 are from the same literature. Fig. S21. The prevalence of chronic cough in adults after exclusion of the low prevalence study (ZHANG JF 1999). Abbreviations: CI, confidence intervals. NOTE: The two author labels of ZHANG JF 1999 are from the same literature, and the two author labels of Venners 2001 are from the same literature. Fig. S22. Funnel plot for prevalence in studies of children for chronic cough. Fig. S23. Sensitivity analysis for prevalence in studies of children for chronic cough. Abbreviations: CI, confidence intervals. NOTE: The four author labels of ZHANG JF 2002 are from the same literature. Fig. S24. Pooled prevalence of chronic cough in China (including adults and children). Abbreviations: CI, confidence intervals. NOTE: The three author labels of ZHANG JF 1999 are from the same literature, the two author labels of Venners 2001 are from the same literature, and the four author labels of ZHANG JF 2002 are from the same literature
Corrigendum: The influenza hemagglutinin stem antibody CR9114:Evidence for a narrow evolutionary path towards universal protection ( vol 2 , 1049134 , 2022)
No full textIn the published article, there was an error in the Author List. The author Jaco M. Klap was erroneously excluded. The corrected Author List appears below. Anna L. Beukenhorst, Jacopo Frallicciardi, Clarissa M. Koch, Jaco M. Klap, Angela Phillips, Michael M. Desai, Kanin Wichapong, Gerry A. F. Nicolaes, Wouter Koudstaal, Galit Alter and Jaap Goudsmit In the published article, there was an error in the Author Contributions. The author Jaco M. Klap was erroneously excluded. The corrected Author Contributions appears below. AB and JF contributed equally to the writing of this article. AB, JF, CK, JK and JG designed this article. WK, GA, CK, and JG contributed to the article and provided critical remarks. KW and GAFN performed the structural analysis, JK analyzed the in vitro neutralization data for the landscape. AP and MMD contributed to the parts regarding the evolutionary pathway of pan-influenza protection. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version. In the published article, there was an error in the Conflict of Interest Statement. The author Jaco M. Klap was erroneously excluded. The corrected Conflict of Interest Statement appears below. AB, JF, CK, JK, WK, GA, and JG have disclosed that they are employees of Leyden Laboratories with stock options in this company. The remaining authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest. In the published article, there was an error in the Acknowledgements. The author Jaco M. Klap was erroneously included in the acknowledgements when he should have been added as an author. The corrected Acknowledgements appears below. We thank Carolyn Boudreau for the useful discussions. The authors apologize for these errors and state that this does not change the scientific conclusions of the article in any way. The original article has been updated.</p
Pan-tropical prediction of forest structure from the largest trees
No full textAim: Large tropical trees form the interface between ground and airborne observations, offering a unique opportunity to capture forest properties remotely and to investigate their variations on broad scales. However, despite rapid development of metrics to characterize the forest canopy from remotely sensed data, a gap remains between aerial and field inventories. To close this gap, we propose a new pan-tropical model to predict plot-level forest structure properties and biomass from only the largest trees. Location: Pan-tropical. Time period: Early 21st century. Major taxa studied: Woody plants. Methods: Using a dataset of 867 plots distributed among 118 sites across the tropics, we tested the prediction of the quadratic mean diameter, basal area, Lorey's height, community wood density and aboveground biomass (AGB) from the ith largest trees. Results: Measuring the largest trees in tropical forests enables unbiased predictions of plot- and site-level forest structure. The 20 largest trees per hectare predicted quadratic mean diameter, basal area, Lorey's height, community wood density and AGB with 12, 16, 4, 4 and 17.7% of relative error, respectively. Most of the remaining error in biomass prediction is driven by differences in the proportion of total biomass held in medium-sized trees (50–70 cm diameter at breast height), which shows some continental dependency, with American tropical forests presenting the highest proportion of total biomass in these intermediate-diameter classes relative to other continents. Main conclusions: Our approach provides new information on tropical forest structure and can be used to generate accurate field estimates of tropical forest carbon stocks to support the calibration and validation of current and forthcoming space missions. It will reduce the cost of field inventories and contribute to scientific understanding of tropical forest ecosystems and response to climate change
Joint faulting behaviour of innovative short concrete slabs
No full textPavements are one of the largest assets of a city and their functional condition (ride quality) is priority for their clients. In jointed plain concrete pavements (JPCPs), the presence of joint faulting (JF) reduces the ride quality. Today, short slabs are available as a cost-effective JPCP innovation. The objective of this paper is to analyse the JF behaviour of JPCPs with short slabs. For this, a deterioration model to predict it and trends of JF observed in short slabs of Chile and the United States are considered. The HDM-4 model always yields lower JF per joint in short slabs than in traditional ones. However, real-world short slabs show not only lower JF per joint (that the modelled JF), but also that more joints do not necessarily mean more JF per length of pavement that affect the ride quality. One of the relevant explanatory factors for it is the radical reduction of crack width at joints, which produces a fundamental increase of the load transfer efficiency. To maintain favourable behaviour observed in the field it is recommended to assure joint activation and to provide adequate stiffness of the layers below the short slabs.Pavement Engineerin
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