Small scale underwater change detection

In this paper, we present a method to deal with the constraints of the underwater medium for finding changes between sequences of underwater images. One of the main problems of underwater medium for automatically detecting changes is the low altitude of the camera when taking pictures. This emphasise the parallax effect between the images as they are not taken exactly at the same position. In order to solve this problem, we are geometrically registering the images together taking into account the relief of the scene

Jean Rouch: Un antropòleg de les fronteres

Jean Rouch (1917-2004) és una referència ineludible en la història del cinema etnogràfic. Especialista en els rituals de possessió a l'Àfrica de l'Oest i clarament influenciat pel cinema de Flaherty i de Vertov, Rouch va desenvolupar un mètode i una teoria cinematogràfica que s'oposaven frontalment als principis del positivisme científic així com a les teories objectivistes del cinema etnogràfic. Més concretament, Rouch va posar en pràctica durant el seu treball de camp una "antropologia compartida", basada en una concepció no jerarquitzada de les relacions entre l'antropòleg i la comunitat estudiada, i va situar la idea de ¿reflexivitat¿ com a eix principal del coneixement científic i del cinema etnogràfic. Crític amb la clàssica distinció entre art i ciència, el director francès sempre va reivindicar la creativitat, l'experimentació i la llibertat d'estil com a punts essencials de la recerca etnogràfica.

Housing Task Force Report, August 2008

Few disaster recovery initiatives are more important than those that house the people and assist them to repair or replace their homes. The widespread damage to housing from the tornadoes, storms, and floods in 2008 creates greater challenges in housing than the state has faced from previous disasters. The Housing Task Force gratefully submits its Report to the Rebuild Iowa Advisory Commission as an opportunity to place data, issues, priorities and recommendations before residents, communities, state officials, and policymakers at all levels for consideration of how best to guide, support, and resource these efforts. Quantifying the impact of the disasters on communities is daunting. The many personal accounts and sets of community statistics paint pictures of Iowans who have emerged from the rubble or muck of their homes with a determination and commitment to rebuild not just like they were previous to the disasters, but better and stronger. Damage statistics are telling.

Supplemental Information to the August 2008 Housing Task Force Report, August 2008

Few disaster recovery initiatives are more important than those that house the people and assist them to repair or replace their homes. The widespread damage to housing from the tornadoes, storms, and floods in 2008 creates greater challenges in housing than the state has faced from previous disasters. The Housing Task Force gratefully submits its Report to the Rebuild Iowa Advisory Commission as an opportunity to place data, issues, priorities and recommendations before residents, communities, state officials, and policymakers at all levels for consideration of how best to guide, support, and resource these efforts. Quantifying the impact of the disasters on communities is daunting. The many personal accounts and sets of community statistics paint pictures of Iowans who have emerged from the rubble or muck of their homes with a determination and commitment to rebuild not just like they were previous to the disasters, but better and stronger. Damage statistics are telling. Supplemental Information to the August 2008

VGLUT1 is Present in Cortical, Hippocampal and Striatal Astrocytes

The last decade has presented studies providing evidence for astrocytic exocytosis of glutamate potentiating nerve signals. To make further investigations into this astrocytic attribute we investigated the localization of the vesicular glutamate transporter 1 (VGLUT1) in small processes of astrocytes close to glutamatergic terminals in frontal cortex, striatum, molecular layer of hippocampus and stratum radiatum of hippocampus. According to the importance of VGLUT1 in glutamate exocytosis the presence of VGLUT1 in astrocytic processes indicates the ability to exocytose glutamate. METHODS: For qualitative analysis we used immunoflourescence histochemistry. Sections from rat frontal cortex, striatum, molecular layer of hippocampus and stratum radiatum of hippocampus were labeled with antibodies against glutamine synthetase (an astrocytic marker) and VGLUT1. Z-stacks of 4.5-5 lm obtained by confocal microscopy from each section were deconvolved and 3D reconstructed in Amira. Small astrocytic processes were analysed for the presence of VGLUT1 inside the processes. The quantitative analysis was done by immunogold labeling. Ultrathin sections from each brain region were labeled for GLT (an astrocytic marker) and VGLUT1. Pictures obtained by electron microscopy were analysed and the point density (gold particles/nm2) for VGLUT1 in astrocytic processes was measured. RESULTS: Using confocal 3D reconstructions we were qualitatively able to identify VGLUT1 within small processes of astrocytes in all four brain regions. Reflecting our qualitative findings the electron microscopical immunogold quantifications showed a significant density of gold particles signaling VGLUT1 in astrocytic processes in all four brain regions. CONCLUSION: We extend the results of previous studies on glutamate release from astrocytes, which have focused on the hippocampus, proposing that astrocytic exocytosis of glutamate is a global phenomenon in the brain.

Fall colors of Iowa: Created by Amanda Carstens,1997.

This brochure includes colorful pictures of fall colors in Iowa. Also has information on why trees change colors and how to identify the species of tree through its leaves. Informs you on where and when to find the best viewing sites of fall foliage in Iowa.

The Minerals of Iowa, 1974.

This book contains maps, colored pictures and detailed information of minerals found in Iowa. It includes the localities of where they can be obtained and the characteristics by which they can be identified. This is part of the Iowa Geological Survey Educational Series 2.

History of Lake MacBride State Park,1969.

This is the history of Lake Macbride State Park written by Golda Leighton Jenkinson and dedicated to the Iowa State Conservation Commission. It includes the history of how the park developed through its history as a state park. Numerous pictures are included.

Albert Lewin: Pandora y el Holandés Errante. La potencialidad semiológica de un mito griego

Albert Lewin, conocido director de cine de Hollywood influenciado por el movimiento surrealista, une el mito de Pandora con la leyenda del Holandés errante para crear una historia de amor ejemplar, una historia de amor loco que va más allá de los límites de la racionalidad. Y, como que para creer en este tipo de amor no es la razón stricto sensu la que nos ha de guiar, construye un mundo de signos, un mundo semiológico complejo que este artículo ayuda a descifrar.

Albert Lewin: Pandora i l'Holandès Errant. La potencialitat semiològica d'un mite grec

Albert Lewin, conegut director de cinema de Hollywood influenciat pel moviment surrealista, conjumina el mite de Pandora amb la llegenda de l'Holandès errant per crear una història d¿amor exemplar, una història d¿amor foll que va més enllà del límits de la racionalitat. I, com que per creure en aquest tipus d'amor no es la raó stricto sensu la que ens ha de guiar, basteix tot un món de signes, un món semiològic complex que aquest article ajuda a desxifrar.

Albert Lewin. Pandora and the Flying Dutchman: the Semiologic Potential of a Greek Myth

Albert Lewin, a well-known Hollywood cinema director who is significantly influenced by the surrealistic movement, brings together the myth f Pandora and the legend of the flying Dutchman in order to create an exemplary love story, a crazy love story which goes beyond the limits of human reason. Bearing in mind, then, that if one wants to believe in this sort of love story must not be guided by human reason stricto sensu, he builds a world of signs, a semiologic world which this article aims at helping to interpret.

Altered brain mechanisms of emotion processing in pre-manifest Huntington's disease.

Huntington's disease is an inherited neurodegenerative disease that causes motor, cognitive and psychiatric impairment, including an early decline in ability to recognize emotional states in others. The pathophysiology underlying the earliest manifestations of the disease is not fully understood; the objective of our study was to clarify this. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate changes in brain mechanisms of emotion recognition in pre-manifest carriers of the abnormal Huntington's disease gene (subjects with pre-manifest Huntington's disease): 16 subjects with pre-manifest Huntington's disease and 14 control subjects underwent 1.5 tesla magnetic resonance scanning while viewing pictures of facial expressions from the Ekman and Friesen series. Disgust, anger and happiness were chosen as emotions of interest. Disgust is the emotion in which recognition deficits have most commonly been detected in Huntington's disease; anger is the emotion in which impaired recognition was detected in the largest behavioural study of emotion recognition in pre-manifest Huntington's disease to date; and happiness is a positive emotion to contrast with disgust and anger. Ekman facial expressions were also used to quantify emotion recognition accuracy outside the scanner and structural magnetic resonance imaging with voxel-based morphometry was used to assess the relationship between emotion recognition accuracy and regional grey matter volume. Emotion processing in pre-manifest Huntington's disease was associated with reduced neural activity for all three emotions in partially separable functional networks. Furthermore, the Huntington's disease-associated modulation of disgust and happiness processing was negatively correlated with genetic markers of pre-manifest disease progression in distributed, largely extrastriatal networks. The modulated disgust network included insulae, cingulate cortices, pre- and postcentral gyri, precunei, cunei, bilateral putamena, right pallidum, right thalamus, cerebellum, middle frontal, middle occipital, right superior and left inferior temporal gyri, and left superior parietal lobule. The modulated happiness network included postcentral gyri, left caudate, right cingulate cortex, right superior and inferior parietal lobules, and right superior frontal, middle temporal, middle occipital and precentral gyri. These effects were not driven merely by striatal dysfunction. We did not find equivalent associations between brain structure and emotion recognition, and the pre-manifest Huntington's disease cohort did not have a behavioural deficit in out-of-scanner emotion recognition relative to controls. In addition, we found increased neural activity in the pre-manifest subjects in response to all three emotions in frontal regions, predominantly in the middle frontal gyri. Overall, these findings suggest that pathophysiological effects of Huntington's disease may precede the development of overt clinical symptoms and detectable cerebral atrophy.

Ojos aniquilados: ceguera reveladora y apagamiento de las imágenes en el cine de Angelopoulos, Bresson, Kiarostami, Majidi, Sokurov

A partir de tres ideas -la "impercepción" (el "punctum caecum") en el pensamiento de Maurice Merleau-Ponty, la "ceguera" en Jacques Derrida, y la teoría del "no ver" en Maurice Blanchot y Michel de Certeau-, se analizan algunos ejemplos del cine contemporáneo que constituyen imágenes representativas de la confluencia entreexperiencia-límite y representación-límite, del apagamiento místico de los sentidos y del estrecho intervalo entre lo visible y lo invisible: "teología cero" de lo "siempre ausente" (Derrida), "éxtasis blanco" (Certeau). Algunos escritores hablan de cerrar los ojos, de ojos vacíos de mirada, de cegarse para ver (A. Breton, P. Celan, J. Joyce, R. M. Rilke): la visión coincide con el desvanecimiento de las cosas vistas para hacer de esta"ausencia de visión el punto culminante de la mirada" (M. Blanchot). En el cine de Theo Angelopoulos, Robert Bresson, Abbas Kiarostami, Majid Majidi y Aleksandr Sokurov se emplean diversos recursos -el fuera de campo, los fundidos en blanco o en negro, la pantalla a oscuras¿- orientados a expresar -por medio de este espacio vacío- aquello de otro modo inexpresable. Estos recursos reflejan la dialéctica visible-invisible, la contraimagen de la mirada, la "mirada sin mirada" (Angelopoulos) hasta "perder por completo la noción de imagen" (Bresson). Se trata, en definitiva, de "la retirada de lo divino al fondo de una presencia-ausencia" (Jean-Luc Nancy) expresada por medio del eclipse o la extinción de las imágenes.

Eye movements in the blind

Objectives : Eye movements are necessary to stabilize the retinal picture and to find a new object. This seems useless for blind people, so why do they nevertheless have them. We report on an EOG study on 29 blind volunteers and 5 volunteers with closed eyes. Material and methods: We recorded eye movements by EOG and let the volunteers fulfill different exercises by following an acoustic running point by gaze, pointing, imagining in the room, listing words that begin with the vocal U and a finger labyrinth. Results: We found slow eye movements as well as pathological eye movements in the blind subjects. We found that blind subjects have a horizontal preferency.The duration of fixation of pictures is shorter in the blind subjects. The blind could even modulate saccade amplitudes . Discussion: Eye movements seem to be structural properties of the brain which prepare the organism for certain situations-even if they do not take place. We think that eye movements are partially independent of the experience of view. We did not expect that the blind subjects could modify gaze according to the subject. This leads to the hypothesis of a preformed dimensional system.

Sex-linked genetic markers in the shrews of the Sorex araneus group : from free gene flow to speciation

SUMMARY: The shrews of the Sorex araneus group are morphologically .very similar, but have undergone a spectacular chromosomal evolution. Altogether, the shrews of this group present a complete array of every possible level of chromosomal and genetic differentiation. In South-Western Europe, four species are recognised: S. antiriorii, S. araneus, S. coronatus and S. granarius, which differ essentially by the amount and the composition of Robertsonian metacentric chromosomés. Additionally, several chromosome races of S. araneus are also present in the same region (i.e. Bretolet, Carlit, Cordon, Jura and Vaud). The objective of this thesis was to examine the genetic relationships between populations, races and /or species of the Sorex araneus group with a special emphasis onsex-specific markers (mtDNA and Y chromosome). We first investigate the evolutionary history of the shrews of the Sorex araneus group distributed in the South-Western Europe. The results of. these analyses confirmed the difficulty to draw a single dichotomic tree within this group. Incongruent mtDNA and Y chromosome phylogenies suggest further that genetic and chromosomal evolution are in this group partially independent processes and that the evolutionary history of the south-western European populations of the S. araneus group can only be understood if we consider secondary contacts between taxa, after their divergence (with genetic exchanges by means of hybridization and / or introgression). Using one male-inherited, one female inherited and eight biparentally inherited markers, we investigate the population genetic structure of the Valais shrew (Sorex antinorii). Overall there results suggest that two already well-differentiated genetic lineages colonized the Swiss Alps after the last glacial period and came into contact in the Rhône Valley. After the Valais shrew (Sorex antinorii) reached the Swiss Alps, it came into contact with the common shrew (Sorex araneus). When two species come into contact and hybridize, endogenous counter-selection of hybrids is usually first expressed as a reduced fertility or viability in hybrids of the heterogametic sex, a mechanism know as Haldane's rule (Haldane 1922). We first evaluated the extent of introgression for Y chromosome, mtDNA and autosomal markers in a hybrid zone between S. antinoriii and S. araneus. The overall level of genetic and karyotypic differentiation between the two species must be strong .enough to allow the detection asymmetric introgression. Secondly, we compared the levels of gene flow between chromosome common to both species and chromosome differently rearranged in each of them. We detected a significantly stronger genetic structure in rearranged chromosomes. Over a 10-year period, we even observed a decrease of genetic structure for common chromosomes. These results strongly support the role of chromosomal rearrangements in the reproductive barrier between S. araneus and S. anfinorii. Overall, this thesis underlines the need to use different inherited (paternally, maternally and / or biparentally) and chromosomally located (on common vs. on rearranged chromosomes) markers to obtain more accurate pictures of genetic relationships between populations or species. RÉSUMÉ: Les musaraignes du groupe Sorex araneus sont morphologiquement très proches, mais ont connu une spectaculaire évolution chromosomique. Prises dans leur ensemble, les musaraignes de ce groupe présentent tous les nivaux possibles de différenciation génétique et chromosomique. Dans le sud-ouest de l'Europe, quatre espèces appartenant à ce groupe sont présentes : S. antinorii, S. araneus, S. coronatus et S. granarius. Celles-ci diffèrent essentiellement par leur caryotype dont la variabilité est principalement due à des fusions Robertsoniennes. De plus, plusieurs races chromosomiques appartenant à S. araneus sont aussi présentes dans la même région (i.e. les races Bretolet, Carlit, Cordon, Jura et Vaud). L'objectif de cette thèse était d'examiner les relations génétiques entre populations, races et/ou espèces du groupe S. araneus, en utilisant particulièrement des marqueurs liés aux sexes (ADN mitochondrial et Chromosome Y). Nous avons dans un premier temps retracé l'histoire évolutive des musaraignes de ce groupe dans le sud-ouest de l'Europe. Les résultats dé ces analyses confirment qu'il est difficile de tracer un simple arbre dichotomique au sein de ce groupe. Les arbres phylogénétiques obtenus sur l'ADN mitochondrial et le chromosome Y sont incongruents et suggèrent de plus que l'évolution génétique et chromosomique sont des processus indépendants. L'histoire évolutive -des populations de ce groupe ne peut. être comprise qu'en considérant des contacts secondaires entre taxa postérieure à leur divergence et induisant des échanges génétiques par hybridation et/ou introgression. Par la suite, nous avons examiné la structure génétique des populations de la musaraigne du Valais, S. antinorii, en utilisant un marqueur transmis par les mâles, un marqueur transmis par les femelles et huit marqueurs transmis par les 2 sexes. Nos résultats suggèrent que deux lignées génétiquement bien différenciées aient colonisé les Alpes Suisses, après les dernières glaciations et entrent en contact dans là Vallée du Rhône. Après avoir franchi les Alpes Suisses, la musaraigne du Valais est entrée en contact avec là musaraigne commune (S. araneus). Lorsque deux espèces entrent en contact et s'hybrident, la sélection contre les hybrides implique habituellement une baisse de fertilité ou de viabilité des hybrides du sexe hétérogamétique (i.e. les mâles XY chez les mammifères). Ce mécanisme est connu sous le nom de règle de Haldane (Haldane 1922) et implique une plus forte structuration génétique de marqueurs males - spécifiques que des marqueurs femelles spécifiques. Nous avons donc évalué le degré d'introgression des marqueurs situés sur le chromosome Y, sur l'ADN mitochondrial et sur des autosomes dans une zone hybride entre S. araneus et S. antinorii. Le niveau de différenciation chromosomique et génétique entre les 2 espèces doit être suffisamment fort pour ne pas permettre la détection d'une introgression asymétrique entre les sexes. Dans un second temps, nous avons comparé les niveaux de flux de gênes mesurés à l'échelle du chromosome, pour des chromosomes communs aux deux espèces et pour des chromosomes différemment arrangées dans chacune des deux espèces. Nous avons détecté une structure génétique significativement plus forte sur les chromosomes réarrangés et comme la zone hybride a été étudiée à dix années d'intervalle, nous observons même une diminution de la structure génétique pour les chromosomes communs au cours du temps.. Ces résultats soutiennent fortement l'hypothèse d'un rôle des réarrangements chromosomiques dans l'établissement d'une barrière reproductive entre S. araneus et S. antinorii. Ainsi cette thèse souligne l'utilité d'utiliser des marqueurs génétiques avec différents modes de transmission. (par les mâles, par les femelles et/ou par les 2 sexes) ou localisés au niveau du chromosome (chromosomes communs vs chromosomes réarrangés) afin d'obtenir une image plus juste ou du moins plus complète des relations génétiques entre populations ou espèces.