Ease Of Acquisition Research Articles

A DFT-Based Method of Feature Extraction for Palmprint Recognition

Over the last quarter century, research in biometric systems has developed at a breathtaking pace and what started with the focus on the fingerprint has now expanded to include face, voice, iris, and behavioral characteristics such as gait. Palmprint is one of the most recent additions, and is currently the subject of great research interest due to its inherent uniqueness, stability, user-friendliness and ease of acquisition. This paper describes an effective and procedurally simple method of palmprint feature extraction specifically for palmprint recognition, although verification experiments are also conducted. This method takes advantage of the correspondences that exist between prominent palmprint features or objects in the spatial domain with those in the frequency or Fourier domain. Multi-dimensional feature vectors are formed by extracting a GA-optimized set of points from the 2-D Fourier spectrum of the palmprint images. The feature vectors are then used for palmprint recognition, before and after dimensionality reduction via the Karhunen-Loeve Transform (KLT). Experiments performed using palmprint images from the ‘PolyU Palmprint Database’ indicate that using a compact set of DFT coefficients, combined with KLT and data preprocessing, produces a recognition accuracy of more than 98% and can provide a fast and effective technique for personal identification.

A cognitive and corpus-linguistic re-analysis of the acquisition of the Zulu noun class system

One of the basic tenets of Cognitive Linguistics is that form and meaning are closely related and cannot- and should not- be studied in isolation. The idea that an elaborate formal system such as the noun class system in the Bantu languages of southern Africa has developed into a morphologically arbitrary system without any conceptual or semantic underpinning or purpose, has been shown to be misplaced. It has been argued that the Bantu noun class system is based on conceptual notions such as concreteness, attribution, spatial orientation, as well as abstractness. An unrelated empirical child language acquisition study has shown that Zulu children acquire the prefixes denoting the noun classes in their language in a very specific order. In this article, the findings of the theoretical cognitive interpretation of the Zulu noun class system, the order in which Zulu children acquire the noun classes of Zulu, and an empirical corpus-based study of adult spoken Zulu, are related to each other in order to answer the question whether the Zulu noun class system is a morphologically arbitrary system, or whether it is underpinned by conceptual notions. The results of this study show clearly that the Zulu noun class system is, in fact, grounded in conceptual notions such as prototypicality, frequency and ease of acquisition.

Three‐dimensional source inversion of self‐potential data

The self‐potential (SP) method has long been used for a variety of geophysical applications because of its ease of acquisition, but has suffered from difficulty in interpretation of the data. Self‐potential signals result from a source term that is coupled with the earth resistivity and appropriate boundary conditions. This work describes an inversion methodology for determining the self‐potential sources from measured SP and resistivity data. The SP source inversion is a linear problem, though it is complicated by nonuniqueness that is common to potential‐field problems. The linear operator is also poorly conditioned because of the limited set of measurements, which are often constrained to the earth's surface. Our approach utilizes model regularization that selects a class of solutions which fit the data with sources that are spatially compact. Large variations in sensitivity due to distance and resistivity structure throughout the model are addressed through the use of a scaling term derived from the Green's functions that define the linear operator. A significant benefit of these methods is the resolution of targets at depth from surface measurements alone. This inversion technique is first illustrated with a simple synthetic data set. In a second example we apply this approach to a field data set taken from previously published literature and investigate the effects of different resistivity structure assumptions on the inversion results. The spatial distribution of sources provides useful information that can subsequently be interpreted in terms of physical processes that generate the SP data.

Comparing and combining depth and texture cues for face recognition

Depth and texture play complementary roles in the coding of faces. While most existing face recognition methods are based on texture cues from intensity images due to their ease of acquisition, more accurate face recognition can be achieved by exploiting both modalities. To evaluate this claim, we have designed a pattern classifier for three different inputs: (1) depth map, (2) texture map, and (3) both depth and texture maps of the facial surface. Two existing face recognition methods are considered for this task, FaceIt technology and FisherFaces. Recognition performance is evaluated based on face data of 185 subjects, captured with the structured-light-based Rainbow250 3D camera.

Nanoscale investigation of pathogenic microbial adhesion to a biomaterial.

Microbial infections of medical implants occur in more than 2 million surgical cases each year in the United States alone. These increase patient morbidity and mortality, as well as patient cost and recovery time. Many treatments are available, but none are guaranteed to remove the infection. In many cases, the device infections are caused by the adhesion of microbes to the implant, ensuing growth, pathogenesis, and dissemination. The purpose of this work is to examine the initial events in microbial adhesion by simulating the approach and contact between a planktonic cell, immobilized on an atomic force microscope (AFM) cantilever, and a biomaterial or biofilm substrate. The two model microbes used in this study, Candida parapsilosis (ATCC 90018) and Pseudomonas aeruginosa (ATCC 10145), were chosen for both their clinical relevance and their ease of acquisition and handling in the laboratory setting. Attractive interactions exist between C. parapsilosis and both unmodified silicone rubber and P. aeruginosa biofilms. Using C. parapsilosis cells immobilized on AFM cantilevers with a silicone substrate, we have measured attractive forces of 4.3 +/- 0.25 nN in the approach portion of the force cycle. On P. aeruginosa biofilms, the magnitude of the attractive force decreases to 2.0 +/- 0.40 nN and is preceded by a 2.0-nN repulsion at approximately 75 nm from the cell surface. These data suggest that C. parapsilosis may adhere to both silicone rubber and P. aeruginosa biofilms, possibly contributing to patient morbidity and mortality. Characterization of cell-biomaterial and cell-cell interactions allows for a quantitative link between the physicomechanical and physicochemical properties of implant materials and the nanoscale interactions leading to microbial colonization and infection.

Indicadores de desempenho como direcionadores de valor

Este trabalho evidencia quais as medidas estratégicas mais usadas junto à comunidade dos analistas financeiros, além das medidas tradicionais, tendo como base a sua capacidade de prever valor e a sua facilidade de obtenção. Os resultados revelam a existência de importantes hiatos de comunicação entre a empresa e os analistas e eles não reconhecem como as medidas contidas nos instrumentos de planejamento estratégico voltadas para recursos humanos, satisfação do consumidor e qualidade dos produtos, podem agregar valor. Medidas tradicionais e financeiras têm uso predominante por sua facilidade de obtenção. A capacidade de prever valor será encontrada nas medidas de governança e de eficiência de processos, aí predominando medidas não-financeiras; mas o seu acesso é limitado pelos custos de obtenção e pela falta de políticas de divulgação.

Do learners learn Zulu the way children do? A response to Suzman

This paper reports on a study of the acquisition of Zulu morphology by non-Zulu learners. The study focused on the ease of acquisition of the identificative copulative and the noun class and agreement system across Grade 6 and 7 learners. Variability in the accurate production of these structures was examined in terms of both spoken and written language data. The research was motivated by findings from a study of Zulu first language acquisition (Suzman, 1991; 1995; 1999) which proposed that early acquisition of these structures by children was attributable to the pervasive and regular nature of the agreement system. The current study investigated these claims with reference to Zulu second language acquisition and found evidence of both overgeneralization and confusion of morphemes across tasks.

Monitoring large enrichment plants using thermal imagery from commercial satellites: A case study

Thermal imagery from currently operating commercial satellites is an interesting candidate technology for monitoring certain types of fissile material production sites. Potential applications include the Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty (FMCT) or a Fissile Material Production Moratorium. To help determine the capabilities and limitations of such imagery as a monitoring tool, I have examined archived LANDSAT‐5 images of the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant, a large U.S. uranium‐enrichment facility in Ohio. My analysis indicates that large‐scale gaseous diffusion plants (GDPs) can very likely be recognized as operational with thermal imagery throughout most of the year in clear weather conditions. It may also be possible to identify certain other large‐scale changes in operations, such as the shut‐down of a single process building in a plant, by comparing rooftop temperatures of neighboring operational process buildings. However, uncertainties in the current data set prevent a definitive conclusion regarding the latter capability. This study identifies intrinsic weaknesses, including vulnerability to countermeasures, that prevent thermal imagery from satellites (at current resolutions) from being a robust stand‐alone verification tool, even for very large plants. Nonetheless, the imagery may be useful to trigger an on‐site inspection, to alert and train inspectors prior to an inspection, and to reduce the frequency of on‐site inspections required at a given site. It could have immediate utility for monitoring the two large GDPS in the United States and the French plant at Tricastin, and possibly for determining the operational status of two GDPS in China as well ‐ a total of five plants worldwide. The ease of acquisition and modest cost of thermal commercial imagery further increase its attractiveness as a verification tool.

Persistent Transgene Expression and Normal Differentiation of Immortalized Human Keratinocytes In Vivo

Cells transduced ex vivo with transgenes encoded on retroviruses have constant and prolonged expression in vitro; however, in vivo expression is quickly lost. Much attention has been directed at methods to circumvent this problem. We have shown that loss of transgene expression does not occur when transduced immortalized 3T3 cells are transplanted to the in vivo setting of athymic mice. Ease of acquisition and potential for clinical application led us to assess the potential of using immortalized human keratinocytes for expression of transgenes in vivo. Human keratinocytes were immortalized with a HPV16-E6/E7 retrovirus, transduced with a lacZ retrovirus, cloned by limiting dilution, seeded onto a physiologic dermal substrate, and transplanted to athymic mice. Six weeks after transplantation, the immortalized transgene expressing keratinocytes had formed an epidermis that was indistinguishable from one formed by nonimmortalized keratinocytes; furthermore, there was no loss of expression of the lacZ gene. These observations show that methods to extend cell survival are an alternative approach to achieving stable and prolonged expression of transgenes in vivo and that HPV16-E6/ E7 immortalized keratinocytes generate an epidermis with normal morphology.

Why are some verbs learned before other verbs? Effects of input frequency and structure on children's early verb use.

This study investigated the extent to which the nature of verb input accounts for the order in which children acquire verbs. We assessed the nature of verb input using a combined sample of the speech of 57 mothers addressing their Stage I children. We assessed the order of verb acquisition using as our database a combined sample of those children's speech 10 weeks later and using as our measure of order of acquisition the frequency of verb occurrence. The first set of analyses established the validity of this measure of acquisition order by comparing it with order of acquisition data obtained from checklist and diary data. The second set of analyses revealed that three properties of the input were significant predictors of the order of acquisition of the 25 verbs that were the focus of this study. The predictive properties of input were the total frequency, final position frequency, and diversity of syntactic environments in which the verbs appeared. These findings suggest that the way verbs appear in input influences their ease of acquisition. More specifically, the effect of syntactic diversity in input provides support for the syntactic bootstrapping account of how children use structural information to learn the meaning of new verbs.

The Use of Strategic Performance Variables as Leading Indicators in Financial Analyst's Forecasts

An emerging view among managers and academicians argues for an expanded reporting system to provide more comprehensive information about organizational performance, including internal strategic performance variables, although there is little systematically gathered evidence on the views of the analyst community in this regard. Reported here are the results of a survey of 420 practitioners regarding the frequency of use, predictive value, and ease of acquisition of a variety of financial and non-financial performance measures. The patterns of use that emerge paint a picture in which analysts go well beyond the traditional financial measures and use a broad range of strategic leading indicators to assess long-term organizational success.

Sedimentation velocity spins a new weave for an old fabric

Sedimentation velocity analysis is a powerful tool for the investigation of biological macromolecules under a wide range of solution conditions. If carefully applied, it can be an effective tool for the characterization of interacting systems in solution. It is rapidly becoming a method of choice among the biotechnology community. In recent years, there have been notable advances in the ease of acquisition and analysis of analytical ultracentrifugation data.

Women's beliefs concerning condom acquisition and use.

Condoms are a time-honored and reliable method of protection against pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections. However, their use, and thus their effectiveness, is determined by individual behavior. The purpose of this paper is to report attitudes and salient beliefs related to condom use in a sample of adult women. The study used Ajzen and Fishbein's Theory of Planned Behavior to identify modal, salient beliefs regarding condom acquisition and use as intentional behaviors. The study sample consisted of 58 community women who reported using condoms for contraceptive purposes within the last five years. In face-to-face, audiotaped interviews, open-ended questions were used to solicit beliefs regarding condom acquisition and use. All subject narratives were content-analyzed for recurrent themes. Women cited accessibility and effectiveness in preventing pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases as both advantages and as factors contributing to the ease of acquisition and use. Disadvantages and factors that might deter condom acquisition and use included embarrassment, objections by male partner, and effect on spontaneity. Overall, subjects exhibited accurate knowledge regarding the benefits of condom acquisition and use. However, it is possible that expressed negative beliefs could take precedence in decision-making and reduce the probability of consistent condom use.

Single and Correlated Cues in an Artificial Language Learning Paradigm

The acquisition of the formal structure of an artificial language was examined using variants of the language that featured no cues, single extralinguistic or linguistic cues, and correlated pairs of these cues to word class. While performance on a grammatical judgment test was generally better for single cues than no cues and equal for all types of single cues, performance for correlated pairs of cues only exceeded that of corresponding single cues when both cues were fairly transparent as markers. In addition, distinctiveness of the markings played a role in ease of acquisition. These results clarify previous artificial language learning results, and are in accord with data from natural language learning.

A hospital-based infant safety seat program for low-income families: assessment of population needs and provider practices.

Evaluation of a hospital-based car safety seat education and loan program for low-income families included hospital interviews with new mothers (N = 94), a survey of pediatricians (N = 28), and a task analysis of the program coordinator's time. Mothers who entered the hospital with safety seats were more likely than those without safety seats to (1) be White or Mexican-American than Black; (2) not be dependent on public transportation; (3) have an older child who always rides in a car seat; and (4) wear seat belts themselves. Mothers with seats did not differ from mothers without seats in knowledge or beliefs about the importance of, or intent to use, car seats. Of mothers without seats, 86.3% were aware of the hospital's car seat rental program, but only 12 of 51 rented a seat from the program. 61% of pediatricians surveyed believed that mothers' lack knowledge and skills to acquire and use car seats regularly, but only 31% always included education about the importance of using car seats and only 21% always referred mothers without seats to the rental program. Car seat loan programs addressing low-income populations should place greater emphasis on education of medical providers to provide education and referrals, encourage organizational policy that requires a safe first ride home and address issues of social support and perceived norms and ease of acquisition.

The FTIR study of uranium oxides by the method of light pipe reflection spectroscopy

Light pipe infrared reflection spectra of UO2, UO3, U3O8 have been studied by using an FTIR spectrometer. The uranium oxide powders were ground to ensure fine particle size and distributed on the inner surface of a straight glass pipe with gold coating. The infrared beam from the interferometer was focused into one end of the pipe at 45° incidence and then the transmitted beam was refocused by a pair of Cassegrainian type mirrors. The resultant spectra show the infrared characteristics of the ⋯-U-O-U-O-⋯, uranyl ion UO22+ bond vibration and the active lattice vibrations predicted by group theory calculations. In comparison to the transmission spectra measured by authors or reported in literature, this 45° incident light pipe method as well as the previous light pipe method offer advantages of sensitivity, ease of acquisition and interpretation, and require a very small sample. It confirms the power of the light pipe method for studying powders and its special utility for the infrared studies of hazardous materials.

Adolescents' substance use: impact of ethnicity, income, and availability.

This study examines ethnic differences in reported use of cigarettes, alcohol, cannabis, hard drugs, and non-prescription medications among a sample of adolescents and attempts to explain these differences in terms of income, ease of acquisition, and availability from friends. Data were obtained from 847 students three times over a five-year period. Results indicate consistent and significant differences among ethnic groups substance use at all three points in time. It was hypothesized that ethnic groups have differential access to substances and economic resources to purchase various drugs. To test these hypotheses, availability from friends, perceived ease of acquisition, income from earnings and gifts/allowances, and initial substance use were examined across ethnic groups and then used as covariates of the substance differences. A split-plot repeated measures design with covariates was used to compare changes in substance use across time and between ethnic groups. Earned income made a significant impact on explaining the ethnic differences for cigarette, alcohol, and given income on cannabis consumption. Adding community variables such as availability from friends, ease of acquisition, and initial drug use not only eliminates the effects of income variables on drug use, but in most cases, the ethnic differences among adolescents as well.

Teacher Education: Renegotiating Roles for Mainstreaming (review)

Reviews sign may represent. Those who work with brain injuries and other language disabling impairment will have to determine the clinical usefulness of this gesture code, alone and in competition with varieties of ASL and invented signs. The theory is another matter. Dr. Skelly judges the Amer-Ind code best on six criteria: (a) low-level symbolism/concrete reference base, (b) ease of acquisition, (c) ease of interpretation , (d) flexibility in encoding concepts (see above), (e) adaptability to existing gestures, (f) potential speed of execution" (which rules out writing and some fingerspelling). Fair enough—but the claim is made that this "code, not language" does not need to be learned as do sign languages, which are "highly symbolic " and require more or less work to acquire and interpret. If a code existed that did not require learning but could express what needed expression, surely speakers of the world's thousands of highly symbolic languages would give them up and communicate with ease in that code. (We note that the 236 concepts, times an average of five words per concept, give one a starting vocabulary of twice Ogden and Richards' Basic English.) But surely the real purpose and niche of this code and this book is to re-establish useful communication between victims of brain trauma and caretakers; the code is emphatically not presented as a language. Those who intend to use gestures to facilitate the acquisition of language in special children need to weigh carefully the differences between languages and codes. This book can help in that. William C. Stokoe, Ph.D. Gallaudet Research Institute Washington, D.C. 20002 Teacher Education: Renegotiating Roles for Mainstreaming , Judith K. Grosenick, Ph.D. and Maynard C. Reynolds, Ph.D. (Eds.), 410 pp., $8.50, The Council for Exceptional Children, 1920 Association Drive, Reston, Va. 22091. It was recognized by the Bureau of Education for the Handicapped (BEH), U.S. Office of Education, that if P.L. 94-142 and mainstreaming are to become effective in the public schools, there must be changes in the preparation of all teachers serving at the elementary and secondary levels to accommodate handicapped pupils in the regular classrooms. Changes are necessary for other personnel, including administrators and counselors. This in turn means there must be changes in teacher education programs in order to address the process of mainstreaming handicapped children . In order to help bring about this change, in 1977-78 BEH was supporting 81 Deans' Grants Projects in various schools and colleges of education with a total allocation of $3.2 million . This volume is a collection of reports from 22 of the participating programs. The contents are grouped in six sections with a seventh and final summarizing section by Maynard C. Reynolds , one of the editors. While each paper is a report of the special project being carried on in the particular teacher training institution (and they vary extensively) the groupings are: (1) The Need for Change in Higher Education, (2) Strategies for Change, (3) Deans' Grants Projects: Alternative Approaches, (4) Promising Practices, (5) Common Concerns, and (6) A Critique of Education. The problems of bringing about change in any kind of organization as well as in individuals are dealt with at length. One of the contributors calls for a major reform as being necessary for the appropriate preparation of all teachers: The preparation of teachers to carry on mainstreamed programs can only be part of that total reform. This volume is primarily of interest to those in the field of preparation of teachers for regular public school classes and some administrators. RichardG. Brill, Ed.D. Retired Superintendent California School for the Deaf Riverside, Ca. 92504 A.A.D. I February 1982 ...

Intradimensional Stimulus Effects and Pretraining in the Acquisition of Matching-to-Sample Behavior

The ease of acquisition in matching-to-sample tasks has been shown to be related directly to the choice of a stimulus dimension from which the task is formed. One attempt to explain this finding has suggested that (a) the discriminability of the stimuli per se is the major factor contributing to this effect and (b) the rate of matching acquisition can be predicted from knowledge of acquisition rates of simple discriminations. The current experiment was designed to explore this possibility further by selectively pretraining subjects with one of two sets of stimuli prior to acquisition of matching-to-sample. Pigeons were assigned to groups that received pretraining in which stimuli from the same dimension were presented successively and reinforced either differentially or nondifferentially. Acquisition of matching for these groups was compared to groups that received no pretraining. Results indicated that the pretraining procedures did not affect acquisition of matching-to-sample behavior differentially; however, acquisition rates for matching tasks using different sets of stimuli from the same dimension differed significantly. The analysis of matching-to-sample behavior in terms of the summation of simpler discrimination components is discussed.

Evidence for a Language Learning Strategy: On the Relative Ease of Acquisition of Prefixes and Suffixes

Evidence for a Language Learning Strategy: On the Relative Ease of Acquisition of Prefixes and Suffixes