The paper explains a methodology, where previously there was none, for identifying African and diasporan naval personnel hired by the British Royal Navy to serve in the West African Station in the mid-nineteenth century. The methodology employs a variety of naval documents including: ship's musters, description books, daily sick lists, and medical journals to identify African and diasporan personnel. The Royal Navy employed four categories (Kroomen, Liberated Africans, Africans, Blacks) to describe and to differentiate the African and diasporan work force within the Station. By identifying African and diasporan naval personnel more can be learned about the ways in which race and ethnicity were constructed and applied during the age of abolition. It also provides a method capable of examining the shipboard lives and socio-economic niches carved out by 'subject' people within the British maritime Atlantic World.

Quorum sensing is a mechanism used by many proteobacteria to regulate expression of target genes in a population-dependent manner. The quorum sensing system of Vibrio fischeri activates the luminescence (lux) operon when the autoinducer signaling molecule (N-3-oxohexanoyl homoserine lactone) is recognized and bound by the activator protein LuxR. LuxR subsequently binds to the lux box centered at à 42.5 bp upstream of the transcription initiation site and activates transcription from the lux operon promoter, resulting in the emission of light at high cell densities. LuxR consists of 250 amino acids arranged into an N-terminal (regulatory) domain and a C-terminal (activation) domain, and is thought to function as an ambidextrous activator capable of making multiple contacts with the alpha and sigma subunits of RNA polymerase (RNAP). Published work describing the results of alanine scanning mutagenesis performed on the C-terminal domain of LuxR (residues 190-250) has identified residues (K198, W201 and I206) that appear to play a role in positive control of transcription initiation. Additional mutagenesis of residues 180-189 has been undertaken via a three-primer or four-primer PCR-based method in this study. Variants of LuxR were screened for their ability to activate luciferase production and to repress transcription from an artificial promoter, and production of full-length LuxR was measured, in an attempt to identify additional positive control variants. No additional positive control variants were found in this study. Work has also been undertaken to identify intergenic suppressors between positive control variants of LuxR and the RNAP alpha subunit, RpoA. Starting with a recombinant Escherichia coli strain encoding the lux operon and LuxR variant I206E, a random chemical mutagenesis was performed on a vector encoding RpoA. Following transformation of the mutated plasmids encoding RpoA, high throughput luminescence assays were used to identify isolates with phenotypes brighter than the control. Isolation of an intergenic suppressor will confirm the existence of protein-protein interactions between LuxR and RpoA within the transcription initiation complex. The ability of other LuxR family members to establish productive protein-protein interactions with RNAP necessary for transcription initiation was also examined. LuxR homologues EsaR of Pantoea stewarti ssp. stewartii, a repressor of known function, and ExpR of Erwinia carotovora subsp. carotovora were also analyzed for their ability to activate the lux operon, as well as to repress transcription from an artificial promoter containing the lux box. / Master of Science

Större och mer svårbekämpade bränder har de senaste åren svept fram på flera platser runtom i världen. Ett föränderligt klimat skapar långa torrperioder till följd av höga temperaturer och värmeböljor. Räddningstjänster i de drabbade länderna ställs ofta inför en monumental uppgift med att hantera svårsläckta bränder i många gånger extrema förhållanden. Utifrån detta är det av vikt att undersöka de bakomliggande orsakerna och faktorer som spelar in, innan, under och efter en skogsbrand för att ge en mer nyanserad bild av de utmaningar räddningstjänsten ställs inför.Syftet med detta examensarbete var vidare att undersöka antändning- och spridningsbenägenhet samt värmeutveckling i tre olika typer av vanligt förekommande undervegetation i skogarna i Götaland. Resultaten från studien visar att granmarksproverna har en mindre intensiv spridning i förhållande till tallmarksproverna. Spridningen sker däremot såväl över proverna som under ytan och skapar glödbrand. Vikten av eftersläckningsarbete tillsammans med värmekamera för att upptäcka glödbrand bör därför anses som mycket viktigt utifrån de resultat som framkommit.

La problématique générale de cette thèse est de reconstituer la scène de fond à partir d’une séquence d’images en présence de masques d’avant-plan. Nous nous sommes intéressés aux méthodes pour détecter ce qui constitue le fond ainsi que les solutions pour corriger les parties cachées et les distor­sions géométrique et chromatique introduites lors de la photographie.Une série de processus est proposée, dont la mise en œuvre comporte dans l'ordre l’aligne­ment géométrique, le réglage chromatique, la fusion des images et la correction des défauts.Nous nous plaçons dans l’hypothèse où le fond est porté sur une surface plane. L'aligne­ment géométrique est alors réalisé par calcul de l'homographie entre une image quelconque et l’image qui sert de référence, suivi d’une interpolation bilinéaire.Le réglage chromatique vise à retrouver un même contraste dans les différentes images. Nous proposons de modéliser la mise en cor­respondance chromatique entre images par une approximation linéaire dont les para­mètres sont déterminés par les résultats de la mise en correspondance des points de contrôle (SIFT).Ces deux étapes sont suivies par une étape de fusion. Plusieurs techniques sont comparées.La première proposition est d’étendre la définition de la médiane dans l’espace vec­toriel. Elle est robuste lorsqu’il y a plus de la moitié des images qui voient les pixels d’arrière-plan. En outre, nous concevons un algorithme original basé sur la notion de clique. Il permet de détecter le plus grand nuage de pixels dans l'espace RGB. Cette approche est fiable même lorsque les pixels d’arrière-plan sont minoritaires.Lors de la mise en œuvre de ce protocole, on constate que certains résultats de fusion présentent des défauts de type flou dus à l’existence d’erreurs d’alignement géomé­trique. Nous proposons donc un traitement complémentaire. Il est basé sur une compa­raison entre le résultat de fusion et les images alignées après passage d'un filtre gaussien. Sa sortie est un assemblage des morceaux très détaillés d'image alignés qui ressemblent le plus au résultat de fusion associés.La performance de nos méthodes est éva­luée par un ensemble de données contenant de nombreuses images de qualités diffé­rentes. Les expériences confirment la fiabi­lisé et la robustesse de notre conception dans diverses conditions de photographie. / The general topic of this thesis is to reconstruct the background scene from a burst of images in presence of masks. We focus on the background detection methods as well as on solutions to geometric and chromatic distortions introduced during ph-otography. A series of process is proposed, which con­sists of geometric alignment, chromatic adjustment, image fusion and defect correction.We consider the case where the background scene is a flat surface. The geometric align­ment between a reference image and any other images in the sequence, depends on the computation of a homography followed by a bilinear interpolation.The chromatic adjustment aims to attach a similar contrast to the scene in different im­ages. We propose to model the chromatic mapping between images with linear approximations whose parameters are decided by matched pixels of SIFT .These two steps are followed by a discus­sion on image fusion. Several methods have been compared.The first proposition is a generation of typical median filter to the vector range. It is robust when more than half of the images convey the background information. Besides, we design an original algorithm based on the notion of clique. It serves to distinguish the biggest cloud of pixels in RGB space. This approach is highly reliable even when the background pixels are the minority.During the implementation, we notice that some fusion results bear blur-like defects due to the existence of geometric alignment errors. We provide therefore a combination method as a complementary step to ameli-orate the fusion results. It is based on a com-parison between the fusion image and other aligned images after applying a Gaussian filter. The output is a mosaic of patches with clear details issued from the aligned images which are the most similar to their related fusion patches.The performance of our methods is evaluated by a data set containing extensive images of different qualities. Experiments confirm the reliability and robustness of our design under a variety of photography conditions.

The study aimed to determine the relationship between the medial olivocochlear (MOC) efferent reflex strength and susceptibility to noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL). This was evaluated by measuring the efferent suppression (ES) results from the contralateral suppression of Transient Evoked Otoacoustic Emissions (TEOAEs). It was predicted by several researchers that the strength of the MOC efferent reflex could determine the susceptibility to hearing loss (HL). The prediction was that an individual with a stronger MOC efferent reflex was less susceptible to developing a HL and an individual with a weaker MOC efferent reflex was more susceptible to developing a HL. The design used in the study was a categorical independent comparative design. The independent values used in the study were the results from the contralateral suppression of the TEOAEs and the thresholds obtained from each participant’s pure tone audiogram. A quantitative research approach was used as different numerical values were collected from each participant. The numerical results obtained for each participant were objectively compared between the two identified groups. Forty-one participants between the ages of 30 and 45 years, who had been exposed to noise levels between 89.3 dBA and 101.6 dBA at a Platinum mine in the North West Province, were used for the study. Twenty participants presented thresholds within normal limits of 0 to 15 dB and 21 participants presented with a permanent minimal NIHL with thresholds of 16 to 40 dB at 3000 Hz, 4000 Hz and 6000 Hz averaged. The data was analysed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) program version 25 (IBM Inc.). Non-parametric tests were used with the Mann-Whitney U test, where the ES of the two independent groups were compared. The results showed no statistically significant difference in the ES of the normal hearing participants compared to the participants with a minimal HL. However, participants with normal hearing presented, on average, with a slightly stronger ES than the participants with a minimal HL. The lowest p-values in this study were calculated at 2000 Hz and 4000 Hz, with a p-value of 0.085 at 4000 Hz for the age category 30 to 35 years and a p-value of 0.086 at 2000 Hz for the age category 41 to 45 years. This suggests that it could be possible that the MOC reflex strength may predict the degree of HL. It is recommended that more research be done on contralateral suppression of TEOAE measurements on participants who present with permanent NIHL to possibly use the MOC reflex to predict susceptibility to HL in clinical practice. / Dissertation (MCommunication Pathology (Audiology))--University of Pretoria, 2021. / Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology / MCommunication Pathology (Audiology) / Unrestricted

Cílem této dizertační prace je vylepšit existující detektory objektů pomocí sdílení informace a výpočtů mezi blízkými pozicemi v obraze. Navrhuje dvě metody, které jsou založené na Waldově sekvenčním testu poměrem pravděpodobností a algoritmu WaldBoost. První z nich, Early non-Maxima Suppression , přesunuje rozhodování o potlačení nemaximálních pozic ze závěrečné fáze do fáze vyhodnocování detektoru, čímž zamezuje zbytečným výpočtům detektoru v nemaximálních pozicích. Metoda neighborhood suppression doplňuje existující detektory o schopnost zavrhnout okolní pozice v obraze. Navržené metody je možné aplikovat na širokou škálu detektorů. Vyhodnocení obou metod dokazují jejich výrazně vyšší efektivitu v porovnání s detektory, které vyhodnocují jednotlivé pozice obrazu zvlášť. Dizertace navíc prezentuje výsledky rozsáhlých experimentů, jejichž cílem bylo vyhodnotit vlastnosti běžných obrazových příznaků v několika detekčních úlohách a situacích.

京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(医学) / 甲第21680号 / 医博第4486号 / 新制||医||1036(附属図書館) / 京都大学大学院医学研究科医学専攻 / (主査)教授 伊佐 正, 教授 村井 俊哉, 教授 松原 和夫 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Medical Science / Kyoto University / DFAM

No description available.

No description available.

Identification of genes specific to fiber development would improve the efforts in developing cotton plants with superior fiber quality. Through genetic introgression, 17 interspecific chromosome substitution lines (CS-B lines) of upland cotton in G. hirsutum (TM-1) have been developed and released recently. These substitution lines have TM1 as background and contain either whole chromosome or chromosome arms of G. barbadense (line 3-79) chromosomes. CS-B25 has chromosome 25 from G. barbadense substituted into TM-1 G. hirsutum was reported to show superior fiber properties. In this study, suppression subtraction hybridization (SSH) combined with Affymetrix cotton genome microarray arrays were used to identify differentially expressed genes in CS-B25. An SSH fiber cDNA library was constructed with differentially expressed genes identified in CS-B25. Microarray analysis showed that 23 genes were up-regulated and 9 down-regulated. Majority of these genes were involved in Ethylene signal pathway, Ubiquitin-proteasome pathway and cell wall synthesis.