43,884 research outputs found
Special issue on novel insights on ocular biometrics
No full textOcular biometrics have a great potential to support biometric applications,
due to the unique features of the ocular traits. Notwithstanding
this, the related lines of research still present several open issues,which
justify the ongoing research efforts. For instance, the relatively recent
emergence of the periocular and sclera traits makes it worth recording
the progresses in those areas. Furthermore,wider and deeper investigations
regarding all the traits underlying the ocular region and the best
way to combine them still needs to be thoroughly undertaken. This
would not only improve the recognition robustness, but alsomake perceiving
the potential of this kind of solutions in solving problems in the
biometrics domain. Moreover, “systems interpretability”, “weakly/partial
supervised recognition” or “forensics evidence and biometric recognition”
add interest to an already rich field of research. This special issue
aims at providing a platform to publish and record the recent research
on ocular biometrics in order to push the state-of-the-art forward
Seminário sobre aquacultura 14 a 16 de dezembro de 1983
No full textA necessidade de desenvolver a aquacultura em Portugal obriga à escolha das espécies mais indicadas para tal finalidade. A propósito o autor chama a atenção para as graves consequências que podem advir das introduções e/ou transferências de animais aquáticos, quer para as espécies locais e meio ambiente, como para a para a saúde pública.Concerning the need to choose the most convenient species to cultivate in order to implement aquaculture in Portugal, the author draws the attention to the deleterious consequences of introductions and transfers of aquatic animals.Caixa Geral de Depósito
Subacute thyroiditis: An uncommon cause of fever of unknown origin
No full textSubacute thyroiditis (SAT) is a self-limited, possibly viral, inflammatory thyroid disorder usually associated with thyroid pain and systemic disorder. SAT is not uncommon and can present with pyrexia of unknown origin. High index of suspicion is required and cases are managed symptomatically
Redox-Responsive Nanocapsules for the Spatiotemporal Release of Miltefosine in Lysosome: Protection against Leishmania
No full textLeishmaniasis, a vector-borne disease, is caused by intracellular parasite Leishmania donovani. Unlike most intracellular pathogens, Leishmania donovani are lodged in parasitophorous vacuoles and replicate within the phagolysosomes in macrophages. Effective vaccines against this disease are still under development, while the efficacy of the available drugs is being questioned owing to the toxicity for nonspecific distribution in human physiology and the reported drug-resistance developed by Leishmania donovani. Thus, a stimuli-responsive nanocarrier that allows specific localization and release of the drug in the lysosome has been highly sought after for addressing two crucial issues, lower drug toxicity and a higher drug efficacy. We report here a unique lysosome targeting polymeric nanocapsules, formed via inverse mini-emulsion technique, for stimuli-responsive release of the drug miltefosine in the lysosome of macrophage RAW 264.7 cell line. A benign polymeric backbone, with a disulfide bonding susceptible to an oxidative cleavage, is utilized for the organelle-specific release of miltefosine. Oxidative rupture of the disulfide bond is induced by intracellular glutathione (GSH) as an endogenous stimulus. Such a stimuli-responsive release of the drug miltefosine in the lysosome of macrophage RAW 264.7 cell line over a few hours helped in achieving an improved drug efficacy by 200 times as compared to pure miltefosine. Such a drug formulation could contribute to a new line of treatment for leishmaniasis.A. Das acknowledges SERB (India) Grants (CRG/2020/000492 and JCB/2017/000004) and DBT Grant (BT/PR22251/NNT/28/1274/2017) for supporting this research. N. Mukherjee acknowledges SERB (India) Grant PDF/2016/001437 and K. Das acknowledges the grant EMR/2015/001674 for supporting this research. Financial support from DST (DST/INSPIRE/03/2017/002477) is acknowledged by R.T. This manuscript bears CSMCRI registration no 7/2021.Pramanik, SK (corresponding author), CSIR Cent Salt & Marine Chem Res Inst, Bhavnagar 364002, Gujarat, India.
Mukherjee, N (corresponding author), CSIR Indian Inst Chem Biol, Canc Biol & Inflammatory Disorder Div, Kolkata 700032, India.
Chattopadhy, S (corresponding author), BITS Pilani, Pilani 403726, Goa, India.
Das, A (corresponding author), Indian Inst Sci Educ & Res Kolkata, Mohanpur 741246, W Bengal, India.
[email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]
Interview with Indra Das
No full textIndra Das is most well-recognized as the author of The Devourers (2015), a novel that won the Lambda Literary Award for straddling the genres of sci-fi, speculative, and fantasy fiction alongside LGBT themes. Das’s short fiction is widely published is horror and sci-fi anthologies, as well as magazines like Tor.com, Strange Horizons, and Asimov’s Science Fiction. He spoke candidly with Alok Amatya over email about the current literary landscape, the work of writing transgressive genre fiction, and his own experiences as an upcoming global author
"PULS." - Ein Blog als Online-Magazin für Medizinstudierende der Goethe-Universität Frankfurt
No full textIm Herbst 2009 forderten Studierende im Rahmen landesweiter Proteste auch am Fachbereich Medizin/Zahnmedizin der Goethe-Universität Frankfurt mehr Transparenz und Kommunikation zu Angelegenheiten ihres Studiums. Einen innovativen Lösungsansatz, um diesen Forderungen nachzukommen, bietet eines der Web 2.0 Werkzeuge: ein auf einer Blog-Software basierendes Online-Magazin für Studierende und andere Mitglieder des Fachbereichs.
Das öffentlich zugängliche Online-Magazin "PULS." (https://newsmagazin.puls.med.uni-frankfurt.de/wp/) wird mit einer freien Blog-Software (wordpress Version 3.1.3.) realisiert und von einer Online-Redakteurin konzipiert und geschrieben. Die Beiträge entstehen nach eigenen Recherchen sowie aus Anregungen und Gesprächen mit verschiedenen Personengruppen des Fachbereichs. Die datenschutzkonforme Auswertung der Zugriffe erfolgt über eine open-source Webanalyse-Software (Piwik). Zusätzlich werden jährlich mit dem Online-Umfrage-Tool Survey Monkey die Nutzer anonym befragt.
"PULS." ist seit dem 14.02.2010 ununterbrochen online und hat seitdem 806 Beiträge (Stand: 27.11.2012) publiziert und wird von ca. 2400 Besuchern monatlich gelesen. Das Themenspektrum ist zentriert auf die Anliegen der Frankfurter Medizin- und Zahnmedizinstudierenden. Die enge Zusammenarbeit mit verschiedenen Gruppierungen des Fachbereichs – Dekanat, Studierende und Lehrende – garantiert darüber hinaus ein fachbereichs-relevantes Themenspektrum. Das Online-Magazin begleitet komplexe Projekte und Entscheidungen mit Hintergrundinformationen und kommuniziert sie verständlich. Eine jährliche Nutzer-Evaluierung zeigt eine wachsende Leserzahl und eine sehr hohe Zustimmung für das Online-Magazin, seine Inhalte und seinen Stil. Das Web 2.0-Medium "Blog" und seine web-typische Sprache entsprechen dem Medienverhalten der Zielgruppe, d.h. den Studierenden des Fachbereichs Medizin.
"PULS." hat sich als ein geeignetes und strategisches Instrument erwiesen, um größere Transparenz, mehr Kommunikation und letztendlich eine stärkere Identifikation der Studierenden mit ihrem Fachbereich voranzutreiben
Die Türkei und das andere Europa : Phantasmen der Identität im Beitrittsdiskurs /
No full textDiese Studie analysiert das dialogische Zusammenspiel zwischen den europäischen und türkischen Diskursen um den möglichen EU-Beitritt der Türkei. Die Differenzen stellen in der Perspektive postkolonialer Theorien ein ambivalentes und formatives Moment für die Bildung einer europäischen Identität dar: Die Europäer nehmen die Beitrittsverhandlungen zum Anlass, über ihr Selbstverständnis zu reflektieren, wobei diverse Ost-West-Repräsentationen kommuniziert und strukturiert werden. Die muslimischen Migranten in Europa und die Minderheiten in der Türkei fungieren dabei als interne Symptome, die die Unvollständigkeit der europäischen bzw. türkischen Identitäten sichtbar machen.Diese Studie analysiert das dialogische Zusammenspiel zwischen den europäischen und türkischen Diskursen um den möglichen EU-Beitritt der Türkei. Die Differenzen stellen in der Perspektive postkolonialer Theorien ein ambivalentes und formatives Moment für die Bildung einer europäischen Identität dar: Die Europäer nehmen die Beitrittsverhandlungen zum Anlass, über ihr Selbstverständnis zu reflektieren, wobei diverse Ost-West-Repräsentationen kommuniziert und strukturiert werden. Die muslimischen Migranten in Europa und die Minderheiten in der Türkei fungieren dabei als interne Symptome, die die Unvollständigkeit der europäischen bzw. türkischen Identitäten sichtbar machen.Bülent Küçük (Dr. phil.) ist Soziologe und arbeitet im Forschungsprojekt "Eurosphere" an der Sabancà Universität in Istanbul. Seine Forschungsschwerpunkte sind Öffentlichkeits-, Diskurs- und Postkoloniale Theorien.Online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed October 7 2015).Includes bibliographical references.JSTO
Design of the drive mechanism for a reciprocating coal feeder
No full textMaterial handling is undoubtedly the most important and in fact an indispensable job in industries for it is encountered at every stage right from the time raw materials enter the factory gate to the point when it leaves in form of finished products. The engineering of material handling falls under two categories depending on form of material: bulk solid handling and unit handling. In case of handling lumpy materials like coals etc. , feeder plays a vital role as an uninterrupted source of uniform feed provider to the conveyor system. Although several feeders like belt, apron, screw, feeders etc are available, reciprocating feeders are still in use because it ensures a continuous and controlled feed rate, is low in cost, its drive mechanism is simple, it can handle wide range of miscellaneous materials including lumps, easy in assembly and disassembly and maintenance requirement is quite low. The challenge which we have taken via the project, is to design a drive mechanism for a reciprocating coal feeder. We call it a challenge because we have to design various intricate components like couplings, worm reducers, gearbox etc. We call it complicated since all the components are interdependent on each other to a great extent. So we cannot design anything randomly . We have to take into considerations the smallest of small things like the various forces acting, how each component can fail under various stress conditions. We have to optimize everything right from the motor selection, to speed reduction ratio selection, to the capacity of coal which we can handle. We are going to follow the above-mentioned strategies so that our project does not remain just a theory but can become a reality for industries
Large Scale Electronic Structure Studies on the Energetics of Dislocations in Al-Mg Materials System and Its Connection to Mesoscale Models
No full textComputational modeling of dislocation behavior is vital for designing new lightweight metallic alloys. However, extraordinary challenges are posed by the multiscale physics ranging over a vast span of interacting length-scales from electronic-structure and atomic-scale effects at the dislocation core () to long-ranged elastic interactions at the continuum scale (). In particular, quantification of the energetics associated with electronic-structure effects inside the dislocation core and its interaction with the external macroscopic elastic fields have not been explored due to limitations of current electronic-structure methods based on the widely used plane-wave based discretization. This thesis seeks to address the above challenges by developing computational methodologies to conduct large-scale real-space electronic-structure studies of energetics of dislocations in Aluminum and Magnesium, and use these results to develop phenomenological connections to mesoscale models of plasticity like discrete dislocation dynamics (DDD), which study the collective behavior of the dislocations at longer length scales ( 1--15 ).
First, a local real-space formulation of orbital-free Density Functional Theory is developed based on prior work, and implemented using finite-element discretization. The local real-space formulation coupled with bulk Dirichlet boundary conditions enables a direct computation of the isolated dislocation core energy. Studies on dislocations in Aluminum and Magnesium suggest that the core-size---region with significant contribution of electronic effects to dislocation energetics---is around seven to eleven times the magnitude of the Burgers vector. This is in stark contrast to prior displacement field based core size estimates of one to three times the magnitude of the Burgers vector. Interestingly, our study further indicates that the core-energy of the dislocations in both Aluminum and Magnesium is strongly dependent on external macroscopic strains with a non-zero slope at zero external strain.
Next, the computed dislocation core energetics is used to develop a continuum model for an arbitrary aggregate of dislocations in an infinite isotropic elastic continua. This model, which accounts for the core energy dependence on macroscopic deformation provides a phenomenological approach to incorporate the electronic structure effects into mesoscale DDD simulations. Application of this model to derive nodal forces in a discrete dislocation network, leads to additional configurational forces beyond those considered in existing DDD models. Using case studies, we show that even up to distances of nm between the dislocations, these additional configurational forces are non-trivial in relation to the elastic Peach-Koehler force. Furthermore, the core force model is incorporated into a DDD implementation, where significant influence of core force on elementary dislocation mechanisms in Aluminum such as critical stress of a Frank-Read source and structure of a dislocation binary junction are demonstrated.
To enable the above electronic-structure studies of dislocations in generic material systems, calculations using the more accurate and transferable Kohn-Sham Density Functional Theory (KS-DFT) are required. The final part of this thesis extends previous work on real-space adaptive spectral finite-element discretization of KS-DFT to develop numerical strategies and implementation innovations, which significantly reduce the computational pre-factor, while increasing the arithmetic intensity and lowering the data movement costs on both many-core and heterogeneous architectures. This has enabled systematically convergent and massively parallel (demonstrated up to 192,000 MPI tasks) KS-DFT calculations on material systems up to electrons. Using GPUs, an unprecedented sustained performance of 46 PFLOPS (27.8% peak FP64 performance) is demonstrated on a large-scale benchmark dislocation system in Magnesium containing 105,080 electrons.PhDMechanical EngineeringUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/153417/1/dsambit_1.pd
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