90 research outputs found
Hidden Women: uncovering the veil of silence during the partition of Punjab
No full textDr Pippa Virdee of De Montfort University uncovers the hidden voices of Muslim women during the partition of the Punjab, India in 1947. Using first-hand accounts, Dr Virdee reveals how women, often sheltered from private and public spaces, created their own space during this complex and traumatising time.
This talk was part of The National Archives’ Diversity Week, a series of events and activities aimed at promoting equality and diversity in how we work and what we do.http://media.nationalarchives.gov.uk/index.php/author/dr-pippa-virdee
The untold story: The role of the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade in Canadian foreign intelligence.
No full textOf the Canadian agencies involved in intelligence work, the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT) has tended to be overlooked. In fact, DFAIT acts as a collector, analyzer and disseminator of foreign intelligence. It is actively involved in foreign intelligence collection, participates in international intelligence sharing, and contributes to the Canadian intelligence-community. This thesis explores and highlights for the first time DFAIT's involvement in foreign intelligence work, albeit selectively, over the past sixty years.The original print copy of this thesis may be available here: http://wizard.unbc.ca/record=b160009
Deep learning-based analysis of functional MRI and diffusion tensor imaging for Parkinson’s disease diagnosis and progression monitoring
No full textParkinson’s Disease (PD) refers to the chronic movement disorder caused by the degeneration of the brain’s motor functions. Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) and Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI) are evidence based neuroimaging procedures which evoke relevant anatomical and functional alterations in PD. The purpose of this work is to investigate whether the machine learning approach can benefit from applying deep learning for data interpretation of fMRI and DTI to detect disease at an early stage and study the progression of the disease. The objectives of this research are twofold: first, to predict the biomarkers for attending to the changed brain activity pattern using deep learning model from the fMRI data and the second one is, to find the micro structural changes in the white matter tracts that is specific to the PD using DTI data. The adopted approach is data pre-processing to clean the neuroimaging data and remove different artifacts, then features extraction using deep learning approaches such as CNNs and transformers. Data were collected from the intersection of the PD patients and controls, and similar to the machine learning models, the performance of the segmentation models was assessed using the accuracy, precision, and F1 score based on the databases of PD patients and age-matched healthy controls. Analysis shows that the newly developed deep learning models outperforms previous conventional machine learning techniques with more significant increases in sensitivity for early-stage PD diagnosis. Respective investigation of feature importance provided significant BrainNet features related to PD diagnosis and identified main brain areas and white matter tracts involved in disease, concordant with prior clinical research. To sum up, the findings of the presented work can be useful for developing deep learning algorithms for the analysis of fMRI and DTI data in the context of PD diagnosis and further research. Lastly, the general avenue of future work will cover the combination of multiple modalities and the testing of the models on bigger and more diverse datasets
Latino/Hispanic Participation in Music Programs: Determinants and Recruitment
No full textabstract: Latino/Hispanic students in public high schools are demonstratively underrepresented in music programs throughout the United States. The following literature review synthesizes research that attempts to identify the most significant determinants of participation and explores how such factors can affect students of Latino/Hispanic descent. The study applies an anti-racist perspective to the discussion of determinants by discussing the specific presence of Latino/Hispanic community in the United States and the various ways in which the music education system may fail to represent the ethnic group in the curriculum. The review also studies research that has found ways to better represent and recruit in music programs the largest minority ethnic group in the United States. Key words: Latino, Hispanic, music education, multiculturalism, anti-racism, race, ethnicity, participation gap
Screening of DUB activity and specificity by MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry
No full textDeubiquitylases (DUBs) are key regulators of the ubiquitin system which cleave ubiquitin moieties from proteins and polyubiquitin chains. Several DUBs have been implicated in various diseases and are attractive drug targets. We have developed a sensitive and fast assay to quantify in vitro DUB enzyme activity using matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight (MALDI-TOF) mass spectrometry. Unlike other current assays, this method uses unmodified substrates, such as diubiquitin topoisomers. By analysing 42 human DUBs against all diubiquitin topoisomers we provide an extensive characterization of DUB activity and specificity. Our results confirm the high specificity of many members of the OTU and JAB/MPN/Mov34 metalloenzyme DUB families and highlight that all USPs tested display low linkage selectivity. We also demonstrate that this assay can be deployed to assess the potency and specificity of DUB inhibitors by profiling 11 compounds against a panel of 32 DUBs
Automating Genocide: Forced Pregnancies during the Cambodian and Bosnian Genocides
No full textabstract: Forced pregnancy has been and remains a tactic of implementing genocide and inflicting long-lasting damage on a population. Forced marriages during the Cambodian genocide (1975-1979) and rape camps established during the Bosnian genocide (1992-1995) are two of many ways in which forced pregnancies can be implemented. This comparative study has identified social constructs within Bosnian and Cambodian cultures that allowed forced pregnancy to impact these populations. In the context of the Cambodian genocide, the Khmer Rouge implemented forced marriages in order to reproduce an agricultural labor force that would sustain the state of Democratic Kampuchea without foreign aid. The cultural construct of marriage promoted childbearing and sustained these marriages even after the fall of the Khmer Rouge regime. The Bosnian genocide, on the other hand, was an ethnic cleansing against Bosnian Muslims. Serbian forces established rape camps to impregnate Bosnian Muslim women in order to stigmatize them to the extent that they would (culturally) no longer be able to bear children for their own ethnic community. The cultural constructs of virginity and patrilineal descent acted as key factors in the effectiveness of forced pregnancy as a method of ethnic cleansing. While Bosnian Muslim rape camp survivors faced stigma for having been raped and for keeping their children if they chose to, Cambodian survivors would not. Cambodian women faced social expectations to stay in their marriages and keep their children in order to fulfill their duties as wives and mothers. In Bosnia, however, no social construct existed to support children born outside of marriage. In addition to these cultural constructs, various other factors influenced survivors' attitudes towards their children, including the presence of third party rapists in the Cambodian genocide and the fact that many Bosnian Muslim survivors did not know the identity of the father of their children. Comparative analysis of these two genocides has contributed to a more holistic understanding of the impacts of genocide and has informed how forced pregnancy operates across multiple cultural ideologies and lifestyles
Author correction: High-Gain Metasurface in polyimide on-chip Antenna Based on cRLH-tL for Sub-terahertz integrated circuits
No full textConservation of Avian Species: Examining the Prevalence of Urban and Non-Urban Bird Species Admitted to Wildlife Centers in the Greater Phoenix Area
No full textabstract: Due to the widely accepted trend of urbanization displacing wildlife from their natural habitats and niches, many wildlife conservation organizations have sprouted up, even in Phoenix. Liberty Wildlife Foundation is one that rehabilitates avian wildlife. Several studies have mentioned an opposing theory: that urbanization helps conserve those species that have turned urban environments into a niche of their own. Since these wildlife conservation centers are localized in cities themselves, this brings into question these organizations' definitions of the term "wildlife." This study examined injury and recovery statistics to determine just how many of the patients admitted were conventional wildlife versus urban-dwelling city birds, and whether this classification had any effect on their likeliness of recovery and release. The data showed that out of over 130 species, a few key urban species contributed to an overwhelmingly large majority of injured birds admitted to the center in 2017; urban and non-urban birds, however, had relatively equal average release frequencies, demonstrating then that their likelihood of recovery was predominantly dependent on the injury borne by them
Reviewing the Recent Developments in Idiopathic Intracranial Hypertension
No full text\ua9 2020, The Author(s).There is increasing evidence and appreciation of idiopathic intracranial hypertension (IIH) in medicine. The pathological processes underlying raised intracranial pressure are being studied, with new insights found in both hormonal dysregulation and the metabolic neuroendocrine axis. These will potentially lead to novel therapeutic targets for IIH. The first consensus guidelines have been published on the investigation and management of adult IIH, and the International Headache Society criteria for headache attributable to IIH have been modified to reflect our evolving understanding of IIH. Randomized clinical trials have been published, and a number of studies in this disease area are ongoing
- …
