Computational Evaluation of Print Unevenness According to Human Vision

Print quality and the printability of paper are very important attributes when modern printing applications are considered. In prints containing images, high print quality is a basic requirement. Tone unevenness and non uniform glossiness of printed products are the most disturbing factors influencing overall print quality. These defects are caused by non ideal interactions of paper, ink and printing devices in high speed printing processes. Since print quality is a perceptive characteristic, the measurement of unevenness according to human vision is a significant problem. In this thesis, the mottling phenomenon is studied. Mottling is a printing defect characterized by a spotty, non uniform appearance in solid printed areas. Print mottle is usually the result of uneven ink lay down or non uniform ink absorption across the paper surface, especially visible in mid tone imagery or areas of uniform color, such as solids and continuous tone screen builds. By using existing knowledge on visual perception and known methods to quantify print tone variation, a new method for print unevenness evaluation is introduced. The method is compared to previous results in the field and is supported by psychometric experiments. Pilot studies are made to estimate the effect of optical paper characteristics prior to printing, on the unevenness of the printed area after printing. Instrumental methods for print unevenness evaluation have been compared and the results of the comparison indicate that the proposed method produces better results in terms of visual evaluation correspondence. The method has been successfully implemented as ail industrial application and is proved to be a reliable substitute to visual expertise.

Choosing the target loci : heat shock factors HSF1 and HSF2 as regulators of cell stress and development

Heat shock factors (HSFs) are an evolutionarily well conserved family of transcription factors that coordinate stress-induced gene expression and direct versatile physiological processes in eukaryote organisms. The essentiality of HSFs for cellular homeostasis has been well demonstrated, mainly through HSF1-induced transcription of heat shock protein (HSP) genes. HSFs are important regulators of many fundamental processes such as gametogenesis, metabolic control and aging, and are involved in pathological conditions including cancer progression and neurodegenerative diseases. In each of the HSF-mediated processes, however, the detailed mechanisms of HSF family members and their complete set of target genes have remained unknown. Recently, rapid advances in chromatin studies have enabled genome-wide characterization of protein binding sites in a high resolution and in an unbiased manner. In this PhD thesis, these novel methods that base on chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) are utilized and the genome-wide target loci for HSF1 and HSF2 are identified in cellular stress responses and in developmental processes. The thesis and its original publications characterize the individual and shared target genes of HSF1 and HSF2, describe HSF1 as a potent transactivator, and discover HSF2 as an epigenetic regulator that coordinates gene expression throughout the cell cycle progression. In male gametogenesis, novel physiological functions for HSF1 and HSF2 are revealed and HSFs are demonstrated to control the expression of X- and Y-chromosomal multicopy genes in a silenced chromatin environment. In stressed human cells, HSF1 and HSF2 are shown to coordinate the expression of a wide variety of genes including genes for chaperone machinery, ubiquitin, regulators of cell cycle progression and signaling. These results highlight the importance of cell type and cell cycle phase in transcriptional responses, reveal the myriad of processes that are adjusted in a stressed cell and describe novel mechanisms that maintain transcriptional memory in mitotic cell division.

Novel virtual environment and real-time simulation based methods for improving life-cycle efficiency of non-road mobile machinery

Virtual environments and real-time simulators (VERS) are becoming more and more important tools in research and development (R&D) process of non-road mobile machinery (NRMM). The virtual prototyping techniques enable faster and more cost-efficient development of machines compared to use of real life prototypes. High energy efficiency has become an important topic in the world of NRMM because of environmental and economic demands. The objective of this thesis is to develop VERS based methods for research and development of NRMM. A process using VERS for assessing effects of human operators on the life-cycle efficiency of NRMM was developed. Human in the loop simulations are ran using an underground mining loader to study the developed process. The simulations were ran in the virtual environment of the Laboratory of Intelligent Machines of Lappeenranta University of Technology. A physically adequate real-time simulation model of NRMM was shown to be reliable and cost effective in testing of hardware components by the means of hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) simulations. A control interface connecting integrated electro-hydraulic energy converter (IEHEC) with virtual simulation model of log crane was developed. IEHEC consists of a hydraulic pump-motor and an integrated electrical permanent magnet synchronous motorgenerator. The results show that state of the art real-time NRMM simulators are capable to solve factors related to energy consumption and productivity of the NRMM. A significant variation between the test drivers is found. The results show that VERS can be used for assessing human effects on the life-cycle efficiency of NRMM. HIL simulation responses compared to that achieved with conventional simulation method demonstrate the advances and drawbacks of various possible interfaces between the simulator and hardware part of the system under study. Novel ideas for arranging the interface are successfully tested and compared with the more traditional one. The proposed process for assessing the effects of operators on the life-cycle efficiency will be applied for wider group of operators in the future. Driving styles of the operators can be analysed statistically from sufficient large result data. The statistical analysis can find the most life-cycle efficient driving style for the specific environment and machinery. The proposed control interface for HIL simulation need to be further studied. The robustness and the adaptation of the interface in different situations must be verified. The future work will also include studying the suitability of the IEHEC for different working machines using the proposed HIL simulation method.

Securin, Cdc20 and Cdc27 in predicting the outcome of human breast cancer

Deregulated proliferation has been recognized among the most important factors promoting breast cancer development and progression. The aim of the project is to gain understanding of the role of specific cell cycle regulators of metaphase-anaphase transition and evaluate their potential in breast cancer prognostication and treatment decisions. Metaphase-anaphase transition is triggered by activation of anaphase promoting complex (APC) which is activated by a cascade of regulatory proteins, among them securin, Cdc20 and Cdc27. These proteins promote the metaphase–anaphase transition and participate in the timely separation of the chromatids. This study is based on a patient material of approximately 600 breast cancer patients and up to 22 years of follow-up. As the main observation, based on DNA cytometric and immunohistochemical methods, securin, Cdc20 and Cdc27 protein expressions were associated with abnormal DNA content and outcome of breast cancer. In the studied patient material, high securin expression alone and in combination with Cdc20 and Cdc27 predicted up to 9.8-fold odds for aneuploid DNA content in human breast cancer. In Kaplan–Meier analyses, high expression of securin systematically indicated decrease in breast cancer survival as compared to low expression cases. The adverse effect of high securin expression was further strengthened by combining it with Cdc20 or Cdc27 expressions, resulting in up to 6.8-fold risk of breast cancer death. High securin and Cdc20 expression was also associated with triple-negative breast cancer type with high statistical significance. Securin, Cdc20 or Cdc27 have not previously been investigated in a clinically relevant large breast cancer patient material or in association with DNA ploidy. The present findings suggest that the studied proteins may serve as potential biomarkers for identification of aggressive course of disease and unfavourable outcome of human breast cancer, and that they may provide a future research aim for understanding abnormal proliferation in malignant disease.

Detecting Deceit – Guessing or Assessing? Study on the Applicability of Veracity Assessment Methods in Human Intelligence

Intelligence from a human source, that is falsely thought to be true, is potentially more harmful than a total lack of it. The veracity assessment of the gathered intelligence is one of the most important phases of the intelligence process. Lie detection and veracity assessment methods have been studied widely but a comprehensive analysis of these methods��� applicability is lacking. There are some problems related to the efficacy of lie detection and veracity assessment. According to a conventional belief an almighty lie detection method, that is almost 100% accurate and suitable for any social encounter, exists. However, scientific studies have shown that this is not the case, and popular approaches are often over simplified. The main research question of this study was: What is the applicability of veracity assessment methods, which are reliable and are based on scientific proof, in terms of the following criteria? o Accuracy, i.e. probability of detecting deception successfully o Ease of Use, i.e. easiness to apply the method correctly o Time Required to apply the method reliably o No Need for Special Equipment o Unobtrusiveness of the method In order to get an answer to the main research question, the following supporting research questions were answered first: What kinds of interviewing and interrogation techniques exist and how could they be used in the intelligence interview context, what kinds of lie detection and veracity assessment methods exist that are reliable and are based on scientific proof and what kind of uncertainty and other limitations are included in these methods? Two major databases, Google Scholar and Science Direct, were used to search and collect existing topic related studies and other papers. After the search phase, the understanding of the existing lie detection and veracity assessment methods was established through a meta-analysis. Multi Criteria Analysis utilizing Analytic Hierarchy Process was conducted to compare scientifically valid lie detection and veracity assessment methods in terms of the assessment criteria. In addition, a field study was arranged to get a firsthand experience of the applicability of different lie detection and veracity assessment methods. The Studied Features of Discourse and the Studied Features of Nonverbal Communication gained the highest ranking in overall applicability. They were assessed to be the easiest and fastest to apply, and to have required temporal and contextual sensitivity. The Plausibility and Inner Logic of the Statement, the Method for Assessing the Credibility of Evidence and the Criteria Based Content Analysis were also found to be useful, but with some limitations. The Discourse Analysis and the Polygraph were assessed to be the least applicable. Results from the field study support these findings. However, it was also discovered that the most applicable methods are not entirely troublefree either. In addition, this study highlighted that three channels of information, Content, Discourse and Nonverbal Communication, can be subjected to veracity assessment methods that are scientifically defensible. There is at least one reliable and applicable veracity assessment method for each of the three channels. All of the methods require disciplined application and a scientific working approach. There are no quick gains if high accuracy and reliability is desired. Since most of the current lie detection studies are concentrated around a scenario, where roughly half of the assessed people are totally truthful and the other half are liars who present a well prepared cover story, it is proposed that in future studies lie detection and veracity assessment methods are tested against partially truthful human sources. This kind of test setup would highlight new challenges and opportunities for the use of existing and widely studied lie detection methods, as well as for the modern ones that are still under development.

The capillary supply of human skeletal muscle in health and disease

BACKGROUND: Capillaries function to provide a surface area for nutrient and waste exchange with cells. The capillary supply of skeletal muscle is highly organized, and therefore, represents an excellent choice to study factors regulating diffusion. Muscle is comprised of three specific fibre types, each with specific contractile and metabolic characteristics, which influence the capillary supply of a given muscle; in addition, both environmental and genetic factors influence the capillary supply, including aging, physical training, and various disease processes. OBJECTIVE: The present study was undertaken to develop and assess the functionality of a data base, from which virtual experiments can be conducted on the capillary supply of human muscle, and the adaptations of the capillary bed in muscle to various perturbations. METHODS: To create the database, an extensive search of the literature was conducted using various search engines, and the three key words - "capillary, muscle, and human". This search yielded 169 papers from which the data for the 46 variables on the capillary supply and fibre characteristics of muscle were extracted for inclusion in the database. A series of statistical analyses (ANOVA) were done on the capillary database to examine differences in skeletal muscle capillarization and fibre characteristics between young and old individuals, between healthy and diseased individuals, and between untrained, endurance trained, endurance welltrained, and resistance trained individuals, using SAS. RESULTS: There was a significantly higher capillarization in the young compared to the old individuals, in the healthy compared to the diseased individuals, and in the endurance-trained and endurance well-trained compared to the untrained individuals. CONCLUSIONS: The results of this study support the conclusion that the capillary supply of skeletal muscle is closely regulated by factors aimed at optimizing oxygen and nutrient supply and/or waste removal in response to changes in muscle mass and/or metabolic activity.

Proprotein convertase subtilisin/kexin type 9 in human disease

Les maladies cardiovasculaires (MCV) demeurent au tournant de ce siècle la principale cause de mortalité dans le monde. Parmi les facteurs de risque, l’hypercholestérolémie et l’obésité abdominale sont directement liées au développement précoce de l’athérosclérose. L’hypercholestérolémie familiale, communément associée à une déficience des récepteurs des lipoprotéines de basse densité (LDLR), est connue comme cause de maladie précoce d’athérosclérose et de calcification aortique chez l’humain. La subtilisine convertase proprotéine/kexine du type 9 (PCSK9), membre de la famille des proprotéines convertases, est trouvée indirectement associée aux MCV par son implication dans la dégradation du LDLR. Chez l'humain, des mutations du gène PCSK9 conduisent soit à une hypercholestérolémie familiale, soit à une hypocholestérolémie, selon que la mutation entraîne un gain ou une perte de fonction, respectivement. Il demeure incertain si les individus porteurs de mutations causant un gain de fonction de la PCSK9 développeront une calcification aortique ou si des mutations entraînant une perte de fonction provoqueront une obésité abdominale. Dans cette étude, nous avons examiné : 1) l’effet d’une surexpression de PCSK9 dans le foie de souris sur la calcification aortique ; 2) les conséquences d’une déficience en PCSK9 (Pcsk9 KO), mimant une inhibition pharmacologique, sur le tissu graisseux. Nous avons utilisé un modèle de souris transgénique (Tg) surexprimant le cDNA de PCSK9 de souris dans les hépatocytes de souris et démontrons par tomographie calculée qu’une calcification survient de façon moins étendue chez les souris PCSK9 Tg que chez les souris déficientes en LDLR. Alors que le PCSK9 Tg et la déficience en LDLR causaient tous deux une hypercholestérolémie familiale, les niveaux seuls de cholestérol circulant ne parvenaient pas à prédire le degré de calcification aortique. Dans une seconde étude, nous utilisions des souris génétiquement manipulées dépourvues de PSCK9 et démontrons que l’accumulation de graisses viscérales (adipogenèse) apparaît régulée par la PCSK9 circulante. Ainsi, en l’absence de PCSK9, l’adipogenèse viscérale augmente vraisemblablement par régulation post-traductionnelle des récepteurs à lipoprotéines de très basse densité (VLDLR) dans le tissu adipeux. Ces deux modèles mettent en évidence un équilibre dynamique de la PCSK9 dans des voies métaboliques différentes, réalisant un élément clé dans la santé cardiovasculaire. Par conséquent, les essais d’investigations et d’altérations biologiques de la PCSK9 devraient être pris en compte dans un modèle animal valide utilisant une méthode sensible et en portant une attention prudente aux effets secondaires de toute intervention.

Human Rights Violations in Police Custody

Human rights are the basic rights of every individual against the state or any other public authority as a member of the human family irrespective of any other consideration. Thus every individual of the society has the inherent right to be treated with dignity in all situations including arrest and keeping in custody by the police. Rights of an individual in police custody are protected basically by the Indian Constitution and by various other laws like Code of Criminal Procedure, Evidence Act, Indian Penal Code and Protection of Human Rights Act. The term `custody' is defined neither in procedural nor in substantive laws. The word custody means protective care. The expression `police custody' as used in sec. 27 of Evidence Act does not necessarily mean formal arrest. In India with special reference to Kerala and evolution and development of the concept of human rights and various kinds of human rights violations in police custody in different stages of history. Human rights activists and various voluntary organisations reveals that there are so many factors contributing towards the causes of violations of human rights by police. Sociological causes like ambivalent outlook of the society with respect to the use of third degree methods by the police, economic causes like meager salary and inadequate living conditions, rampant corruption in police service, unnecessary political interference in the crime investigation, work load of police personnel without any time limit and periodic holidays, unnecessary pressure from superior police officers and the general public for speedy detection causing great mental strain to the investigating officers, defective system of recruitment and training, imperfect system of investigation and lack of public co-operation are some of the factors identified in the field survey towards the causes of violations of human rights in police custody.

Human Resources Development in Higher Education in Kerala

The study is entitled “HUMAN RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT IN HIGHER EDUCATION IN KERALA”. The concept “Human Resource Development” is of high value in business and industry and has been used and applied since years. In industry and business the 'human' element is considred as a resource and hence its development and protection is very essential and inevitable. Of all the factors of production, human resource is the only factor having rational faculty and therefore, it must be handled with utmost care. Right recruitment, right training and right induction followed by faultless monitoring and welfare measures are but decisive factors in business and industry. Altogether there is a constant attention up on human factor there. But this is not a practice at all in education. So far there has not been any such measure of care and close watch and performance analysis of human resource on education front. This may be the main reason for lack of accountability in the sphere of education. The present study reveals the importance of introducing HRD practices in higher educational institutions in Kerala. In order to promise human capital formation through education, it is basic requirement. The higher educational institutions must follow the method of industry and commerce because education can be treated as an industry in service sector. There also we can follow the methods of right recruitment, right training and promotion, delegation, performance analysis and accountability checking of human resource. HRD is a powerful idea of transformation of human being into highly productive and contributing factor The HRD of students is the sum total of HRD of teachers. Reminding the primordial usage 'Yatha Raja Thadha Praja’ the quality of faculty resembles in students. The quality of administrative staff in colleges also affects the quality of higher education. Hence, it is high time to introduce the managerial method of HRD with all its paraphernalia in higher educational institutions so as to assure proper human capital formation in higher education in India.

Human Resources Development in Higher Education in Kerala

The study is entitled “HUMAN RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT IN HIGHER EDUCATION IN KERALA”. The concept “Human Resource Development” is of high value in business and industry and has been used and applied since years. In industry and business the ‘human’ element is considred as a resource and hence its development and protection is very essential and inevitable. Of all the factors of production, human resource is the only factor having rational faculty and therefore, it must be handled with utmost care. Right recruitment, right training and right induction followed by faultless monitoring and welfare measures are but decisive factors in business and industiy. Altogether there is a constant attention up on human factor there. But this is not a practice at all in education. So far there has not been any such measure of care and close watch and performance analysis of human resource on education front. This may be the main reason for lack of accountability in the sphere of education. The present study reveals the importance of introducing HRD practices in higher educational institutions in Kerala. In order to promise human capital formation through education, it is basic requirement. The higher educational institutions must follow the method of industry and commerce because education can be treated as an industry in service sector. There also we can follow the methods of right recruitment, right training and promotion, delegation, performance analysis and accountability checking of human resource. HRD is a powerful idea of transformation of human being into highly productive and contributing factor The HRD of students is the sum total of HRD of teachers. Reminding the primordial usage ‘Yatha Raja Thadha Praja’ the quality of faculty resembles in students. The quality of administrative staff in colleges also affects the quality of higher education. Hence, it is high time to introduce the managerial method of HRD with all its paraphernalia in higher educational institutions so as to assure proper human capital formation in higher education in India.

Distribution patterns of infection with multiple types of human papillomaviruses and their association with risk factors

Background: Infection with multiple types of human papillomavirus (HPV) is one of the main risk factors associated with the development of cervical lesions. In this study, cervical samples collected from 1,810 women with diverse sociocultural backgrounds, who attended to their cervical screening program in different geographical regions of Colombia, were examined for the presence of cervical lesions and HPV by Papanicolau testing and DNA PCR detection, respectively. Principal Findings: The negative binomial distribution model used in this study showed differences between the observed and expected values within some risk factor categories analyzed. Particularly in the case of single infection and coinfection with more than 4 HPV types, observed frequencies were smaller than expected, while the number of women infected with 2 to 4 viral types were higher than expected. Data analysis according to a negative binomial regression showed an increase in the risk of acquiring more HPV types in women who were of indigenous ethnicity (+37.8%), while this risk decreased in women who had given birth more than 4 times (-31.1%), or were of mestizo (-24.6%) or black (-40.9%) ethnicity. Conclusions: According to a theoretical probability distribution, the observed number of women having either a single infection or more than 4 viral types was smaller than expected, while for those infected with 2-4 HPV types it was larger than expected. Taking into account that this study showed a higher HPV coinfection rate in the indigenous ethnicity, the role of underlying factors should be assessed in detail in future studies.

Slopes of Avian Species-Area Relationships, Human Population Density, and Environmental Factors

There is increasing interest in how humans influence spatial patterns in biodiversity. One of the most frequently noted and marked of these patterns is the increase in species richness with area, the species–area relationship (SAR). SARs are used for a number of conservation purposes, including predicting extinction rates, setting conservation targets, and identifying biodiversity hotspots. Such applications can be improved by a detailed understanding of the factors promoting spatial variation in the slope of SARs, which is currently the subject of a vigorous debate. Moreover, very few studies have considered the anthropogenic influences on the slopes of SARs; this is particularly surprising given that in much of the world areas with high human population density are typically those with a high number of species, which generates conservation conflicts. Here we determine correlates of spatial variation in the slopes of species–area relationships, using the British avifauna as a case study. Whilst we focus on human population density, a widely used index of human activities, we also take into account (1) the rate of increase in habitat heterogeneity with increasing area, which is frequently proposed to drive SARs, (2) environmental energy availability, which may influence SARs by affecting species occupancy patterns, and (3) species richness. We consider environmental variables measured at both local (10 km × 10 km) and regional (290 km × 290 km) spatial grains, but find that the former consistently provides a better fit to the data. In our case study, the effect of species richness on the slope SARs appears to be scale dependent, being negative at local scales but positive at regional scales. In univariate tests, the slope of the SAR correlates negatively with human population density and environmental energy availability, and positively with the rate of increase in habitat heterogeneity. We conducted two sets of multiple regression analyses, with and without species richness as a predictor. When species richness is included it exerts a dominant effect, but when it is excluded temperature has the dominant effect on the slope of the SAR, and the effects of other predictors are marginal.

Human language as a culturally transmitted replicator

Human languages form a distinct and largely independent class of cultural replicators with behaviour and fidelity that can rival that of genes. Parallels between biological and linguistic evolution mean that statistical methods inspired by phylogenetics and comparative biology are being increasingly applied to study language. Phylogenetic trees constructed from linguistic elements chart the history of human cultures, and comparative studies reveal surprising and general features of how languages evolve, including patterns in the rates of evolution of language elements and social factors that influence temporal trends of language evolution. For many comparative questions of anthropology and human behavioural ecology, historical processes estimated from linguistic phylogenies may be more relevant than those estimated from genes.

Terrestrial carnivores and human food production: impact and management

1. The production of food for human consumption has led to an historical and global conflict with terrestrial carnivores, which in turn has resulted in the extinction or extirpation of many species, although some have benefited. At present, carnivores affect food production by: (i) killing human producers; killing and/or eating (ii) fish/shellfish; (iii) game/wildfowl; (iv) livestock; (v) damaging crops; (vi) transmitting diseases; and (vii) through trophic interactions with other species in agricultural landscapes. Conversely, carnivores can themselves be a source of dietary protein (bushmeat). 2. Globally, the major areas of conflict are predation on livestock and the transmission of rabies. At a broad scale, livestock predation is a customary problem where predators are present and has been quantified for a broad range of carnivore species, although the veracity of these estimates is equivocal. Typically, but not always, losses are small relative to the numbers held, but can be a significant proportion of total livestock mortality. Losses experienced by producers are often highly variable, indicating that factors such as husbandry practices and predator behaviour may significantly affect the relative vulnerability of properties in the wider landscape. Within livestock herds, juvenile animals are particularly vulnerable. 3. Proactive and reactive culling are widely practised as a means to limit predation on livestock and game. Historic changes in species' distributions and abundance illustrate that culling programmes can be very effective at reducing predator density, although such substantive impacts are generally considered undesirable for native predators. However, despite their prevalence, the effectiveness, efficiency and the benefit:cost ratio of culling programmes have been poorly studied. 4. A wide range of non-lethal methods to limit predation has been studied. However, many of these have their practical limitations and are unlikely to be widely applicable. 5. Lethal approaches are likely to dominate the management of terrestrial carnivores for the foreseeable future, but animal welfare considerations are increasingly likely to influence management strategies. The adoption of non-lethal approaches will depend upon proof of their effectiveness and the willingness of stakeholders to implement them, and, in some cases, appropriate licensing and legislation. 6. Overall, it is apparent that we still understand relatively little about the importance of factors affecting predation on livestock and how to manage this conflict effectively. We consider the following avenues of research to be essential: (i) quantified assessments of the loss of viable livestock; (ii) landscape-level studies of contiguous properties to quantify losses associated with variables such as different husbandry practices; (iii) replicated experimental manipulations to identify the relative benefit of particular management practices, incorporating (iv) techniques to identify individual predators killing stock; and (v) economic analyses of different management approaches to quantify optimal production strategies.