General License Research Articles

License Plate Recognition System using Neural Networks and Multithresholding Technique

License plate recognition is a fully automated real time technique that has been widely used for identification, theft control and security validation of vehicles. For recognition and extraction of desired regions of the number plate of the vehicle, different algorithms are used. An image processing technology based on license plate recognition (LPR) that is being used to identify vehicles, using neural networks and image co-relation was developed by K. Yilmaz [2]. In this paper, a different novel approach has been presented to increase the quality of the image and to enhance the results for extracting license plate from dull and low intensity images. In the previous technique the recognition rate (percentage of image recognized) reached was 96.64% [2], but now using multithresholding and neural pattern recognition (NPR) techniques together with artificial neural networks, a higher recognition rate of 98.40% has been achieved. Certain problems related to neural networks in the previous research methodology such as blobs extraction, segmentation and character recognition, that inhibit complete extraction of features from number plate of the vehicle were analyzed in this approach. The proposed technique helps to improve the quality of the images and detect the characters or digits of the number plate with a better recognition rate. General Terms License plate recognition, Multithresholding Technique, Neural Pattern Recognition, Artificial Neural Networks.

WillItFit: a framework for fitting of constrained models to small-angle scattering data

A software framework for analysis of small-angle scattering data is presented. On the basis of molecular constraints and prior knowledge of the chemical composition of the sample, the software is capable of simultaneously fitting small-angle X-ray and neutron scattering data to analytical or semi-analytical models of biomacromolecules. The software features various fitting routines along with the possibility of incorporating instrumental resolution effects on the fit. Finally, trust region estimation, based on the profile likelihood strategy, is implemented. The algorithms and models are written in C, whereas the user interface is written in Python. Parallelization is implemented using the OpenMP extensions to C. The source code is available for free upon request orviathe associated code repository. The software runs on Linux, Windows and OSX and is available as an open-source initiative published under the General Publishing License.

Creative Commons: challenges and solutions for researchers; a publisher's perspective of copyright in an open access environment

Copyright in the digital environment is evolving at an unprecedented rate. Copyright exists to protect the rights of an owner of an original piece of work by imposing restrictions on re-use but it does not always fit well with how we use and share information in the digital sphere. The growth of open access (OA) publishing has also added to the challenge as the right to reuse as well as read content has been emphasized. Creative Commons (CC) licences were introduced to try and bridge the gaps between the barriers imposed by traditional copyright and the realities of the digital environment but, as they are general licences, it is not always clear how they apply to specific situations. This article addresses some of the key questions around how the various licences can be applied in academic publishing, what some of the consequences are, and how they affect different research areas. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence (<a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/" target="_blank">http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/</a>)

Preventing the selection of “deaf embryos” under the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008: problematizing disability?

Section 14(4) of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008 imposes – within the general licensing conditions listed in the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 – a prohibition to prevent the selection and implantation of embryos for the purpose of creating a child who will be born with a “serious disability.” This article offers a perspective that demonstrates the problematic nature of the consultation, review, and legislative reform process surrounding s 14(4). The term “serious disability” is not defined within the legislation, but we highlight the fact that s 14(4) was passed with the case of selecting deaf children in mind. We consider some of the literature on the topic of disability and deafness, which, we think, casts some doubt on the view that deafness is a “serious disability.” The main position we advance is that the lack of serious engagement with alternative viewpoints during the legislative process was unsatisfactory. We argue that the contested nature of deafness necessitates a more robust consultation process and a clearer explanation and defence of the normative position that underpins s 14(4).

Stages and transitions in medical education around the world: Clarifying structures and terminology

Background: In a world that increasingly serves the international exchange of information on medical training, many students, physicians and educators encounter numerous variations in curricula, degrees, point of licensing and terminology.Aims: The aim of this study was to shed some light for those trying to compare medical training formats across countries.Methods: We surveyed a sample of key informants from 40 countries. Survey questions included: structure of medical education, moment that unrestricted practice is allowed, various options after general medical licensing, nomenclature of degrees granted and relevant terminology related to the medical education system. In addition, we searched the literature for description of country-specific information.Results: Based on the results, we described the six models of current medical training around the world, supplemented with a list of degrees granted after medical school and an explanation of frequently used terminology.Conclusions: The results of this questionnaire study lead to the conclusion that while there are many differences between countries, there appear to be six dominant models. The models vary in structure and length of medical training, point of full registration and degrees that are granted.

American Art Therapy Association, Inc.: 2011 Membership Survey Report

The American Art Therapy Association (AATA) surveys its members biennially to gather information on general demographics, employment-related characteristics, licensing, and professional affiliations. The surveys are used in the development of national media opportunities and public policy initiatives to help increase recognition for the field of art therapy. This report presents results of the 2011 membership survey and provides statistical comparisons to the previous 2009 survey. Results suggest that member demographics and many employment-related attributes such as primary job title have remained fairly stable. With notable limitations in generalizability, significant differences between the 2011 and 2009 surveys were obtained when comparing work setting, population served, employment specialization, licensure, and professional membership.

Radiological Safety at a Broad Scope Radioactive Materials License

Operating a radiological safety program under a broad-scope license at a major research university introduces many elements not encountered by general or industrial licenses. This article outlines elements of the radiological safety program in place at Texas A&M University.

Enacting Diversity in Dual Certification Programs

This exploratory study, based on a content analysis of program descriptions, course syllabi, and related program documents, examined the curricula of three fully merged teacher education programs that were redesigned to better prepare teachers for the full range of diversity in their student populations. In these programs, graduates earn a general and special education elementary license simultaneously. Results suggest that attention to disability is more prevalent than attention to other social identity markers such as race, class, culture, or language.

Neuerungen im Genehmigungsverfahren „Medizinische Forschung“ gemäß Röntgen- und Strahlenschutzverordnung

This publication outlines the "medical research" licensing procedure as specified in the amendment of the German Radiation Protection Ordinance of November 1, 2011. The general licensing requirements for the use of radiation have not been changed by the amendment. Three so-called use restrictions (i. e., dose limits of 10 mSv and 20 mSv, age limit of 50 years) have been modified. They will only apply to healthy volunteers in the future. In addition, there are considerable simplifications with respect to applications and licensing procedures of the Federal Office for Radiation Protection (Bundesamt für Strahlenschutz, BfS) regarding the use of radiation in the newly introduced "accompanying diagnostics" ("Begleitdiagnostik") case group. The newly established, independent panel of experts at the German Radiological Society (Deutsche Röntgengesellschaft, DRG) may provide essential support to principal investigators, qualified physicians and sponsors for differentiating between "medical research" and "health care", the latter not being subject to licensing. An expert statement will be issued by the DRG within four weeks of an inquiry. This consulting service is subject to confidentiality, and is free of charge for inquirers and without any commitment.

Tb in a Global Health Exchange Program

To the Editor:— A series of publications in JGIM have begun to examine the personal health risks encountered in global health training programs, including tuberculin skin test (TST) conversion and blood and body fluid exposure1–3. Clearly, global health training programs abroad harbor risks for trainees. This can be due to disease prevalence (e.g., multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis), the availability of personal protective equipment, and/or the extent to which trainees are prepared, among other factors. Helping minimize risks to trainees in global health training programs is more than a logistic concern: it is an ethical obligation3–5. Merlin et al.3 and Cooke4 engage in an important discussion about several ethical issues, including the ethical obligations of training programs to their trainees; the provision of adequate supervision; the importance of weighing of benefits and burdens to the host community; and the appropriate relationship between training programs and governing bodies where they operate. The Working Group on Ethics Guidelines for Global Health Training5 recently published a set of ethics and best practice guidelines. These guidelines, developed through an international collaborative effort among multiple stakeholders, specifically reference the ethical obligations of sponsors, sending and host institutions, and trainees to develop and regularly update plans for helping ensure personal safety. The guidelines also address the importance of supervision; ensuring mutual and equitable benefits and costs among collaborators; demonstrating cultural competency; and meeting general professional and licensing standards. Translating the guidelines into a practical and teachable format is the next challenge. To that end, we are currently developing an introductory Web-based ethics curriculum geared toward trainees who will engage in short-term (<1 year) training or service in global health. Using ten cases adapted from real-world scenarios, this brief curriculum uses video vignettes, multiple choice questions, and corrective feedback to address ten core ethical themes. Ensuring personal safety represents one theme. It will be freely available at http://www.ethicsandglobalhealth.org. Open and targeted recruitment strategies will evaluate the effectiveness of the curriculum in the near term.

A longitudinal analysis of alcohol outlet density and domestic violence

A small number of studies have identified a positive relationship between alcohol outlet density and domestic violence. These studies have all been based on cross-sectional data and have been limited to the assessment of ecological correlations between outlet density and domestic violence rates. This study provides the first longitudinal examination of this relationship. Cross-sectional time-series using aggregated data from small areas. The relationships between alcohol outlet density and domestic violence were assessed over time using a fixed-effects model. Controls for the spatial autocorrelation of the data were included in the model. The study uses data for 186 postcodes from within the metropolitan area of Melbourne, Australia for the years 1996 to 2005. Alcohol outlet density measures for three different types of outlets (hotel/pub, packaged liquor, on-premise) were derived from liquor licensing records and domestic violence rates were calculated from police-recorded crime data, based on the victim's postcode. Alcohol outlet density was associated significantly with rates of domestic violence, over time. All three licence categories were positively associated with domestic violence rates, with small effects for general (pub) and on-premise licences and a large effect for packaged liquor licences. In Melbourne, the density of liquor licences is positively associated with rates of domestic violence over time. The effects were particularly large for packaged liquor outlets, suggesting a need for licensing policies that pay more attention to o off-premise alcohol availability.

Wordom: a user-friendly program for the analysis of molecular structures, trajectories, and free energy surfaces.

Wordom is a versatile, user-friendly, and efficient program for manipulation and analysis of molecular structures and dynamics. The following new analysis modules have been added since the publication of the original Wordom paper in 2007: assignment of secondary structure, calculation of solvent accessible surfaces, elastic network model, motion cross correlations, protein structure network, shortest intra-molecular and inter-molecular communication paths, kinetic grouping analysis, and calculation of mincut-based free energy profiles. In addition, an interface with the Python scripting language has been built and the overall performance and user accessibility enhanced. The source code of Wordom (in the C programming language) as well as documentation for usage and further development are available as an open source package under the GNU General Purpose License from http://wordom.sf.net. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Comput Chem, 2011

SU‐GG‐T‐412: PyEGS5 ‐ a Python Programming Interface for EGS5

INTRODUCTION: EGS5 is the state‐of‐the‐art implementation of the Electron Gamma Shower (EGS) Monte Carlo code system, which is written purely in Fortran language. The Fortran language is an efficient computer language for numerical calculation, however, it is much limited in functionalities like GUI, plotting. In order to make EGS5 an easy‐to‐use tool, a Python programming interface to EGS5 and a pythonic Monte Carlo simulation environment for radiation transport calculations has been developed, referred to as PyEGS5. METHOD AND MATERIALS: With binding to Python, PyEGS5 can be used in a scripting and interpreted way, while maintaining the efficiency of the Fortran binary code. As a powerful modern programming language, Python brings to EGS5 many advanced programming features and resources, with which users can create full‐featured Monte Carlo simulation applications with much less efforts than using Fortran language. RESULT: PyEGS5 is a very useful tool in medical physics research, fast‐prototyping of medical physics devices and teaching Monte Carlo simulation to medical physics students. PyEGS5 will be provided as an open source code to anybody who requires it, under the general GNU license (GNL). CONCLUSION: PyEGS5 provides the medical physics community with an easy‐to‐use programming interface to EGS5 code system which combines the advantages of the Python language and the Fortran language.

Component Sharing Through Licensing

In this paper, we consider products that are composed of distinct components that can be shared with rival firms through licensing agreements. In contrast to the standard licensing settings in which firms make binary choices (whether to license or not), the innovator decides on the set of product components to be licensed, i.e., on how much to license. The product components that are licensed out determines the degree of commonality in the competing products, which in turn affects post-licensing competition through the degree of product differentiation. In a duopoly setting we show that licensing occurs more often than what a binary choice setting predicts, while it does not necessarily imply more component-sharing between the firms. We also show that in a dynamic setting where the timing of entry depends on the components that are acquired through the license, the innovator may strategically grant a license for a smaller set of components to delay competition unless entry expands the market. Finally, we study a more general licensing scheme and show that a larger set of components are licensed out under a two-part scheme with a per-unit royalty than with a fixed fee scheme.

Licensed to Kill : Endangered Fauna Licensing Under the National Parks &amp; Wildlife Act 1974 (NSW) Between 1991-1995

The focus of this paper is on the effectiveness of administration of the Endangered Fauna (Interim Protection) Act 1991 by the National Parks and Wildlife Service of NSW, Australia, between 1991 and 1995, particularly in regulating the effects on biodiversity of logging operations in NSW publicly owned native forests. A key mechanism of the Act was its requirement that those seeking to significantly modify the habitat of fauna seek a licence to take or kill, and that they prepare a Fauna Impact Statement (FIS) justifying their activity. This historical and empirical study focuses on the licensing practices of the NPWS considering temporary licensing, licence variations and the use of authorities in place of licensing. This study presents previously unpublished data on the operation of the licensing system. 95% of the licences granted to the Forestry Commission were temporary licences. Thus the Forestry Commission held those licences without ever having been required to complete FIS and without the threat of public appeal against decisions to grant general licences. The paper examines the reasons for accommodatory approaches by regulators such as the NPWS, and finds that some of these factors were present in some instances of particular aspects of the implementation of the Act. These factors included lack of agency resources, imbalance of power and insecure basis of regulatory agency authority, avoidance of perceived economic dislocation, lack of public support, and the undermining effect of plans for new legislation. Examination of the history of operation of these EFIP Act provides an excellent vantage point from which to examine other biodiversity legislation. Australian biodiversity and ecosystems are unlikely to be protected by merely enacting legislation which bears the name endangered species protection if attention is not paid to the issue of implementation. The drafters of any new legislation need to consider how political pressure will tend to result in the misuse of specific provisions. The paper closes with a historical account of the circumstances surrounding the enactment of the EFIP Act, arising from the Corkill litigation over logging of Chaelundi State Forest.

Licensing and Negotiations for Electronic Content

ABSTRACT This article provides an overview of the basic characteristics of database, or eContent, license agreements, defines general licensing terms, maps the anatomy of an electronic resources subscription agreement, and discusses negotiating skills and techniques for library staff.

The Purposes for State Residential General Contractor Licensing in the United States

Justification of professional licensure for residential general contractors in the United States is a topic that has been debated for some time. Many believe license laws are enacted to protect consumers from unscrupulous builders or to guarantee quality construction. Others argue that they are enacted to limit entry to the profession. Others might think licensure fulfills both purposes. This study identifies the stated purposes for licensing residential general contractors and identifies the methods used to evaluate whether or not those purposes are being fulfilled. In addition, requirements for licensure are reported. Only about half the states require licensure for residential general contractors, and most find they lack the manpower to effectively regulate contractors and protect consumers. Because the main purpose of licensure is to protect the health and safety of consumers, and because states have a difficult time enforcing their own regulations, it can be argued that licensure may not be fulfilling its stated purpose.

Response to: Vision and drivers--a South Wales survey

In an increasingly mobile and ageing population road safety considerations are vital to reduce deaths and injuries resulting from road traffic accidents. Anuradha et al.1 have recognized the potential benefits of measuring visual acuity at the roadside as a method of assessing true levels of impaired vision in motorcar users. We acknowledge the difficulties facing a small department when undertaking such a survey and the authors recognized many of the methodological limitations caused by the setting and a cross-sectional survey. However, the randomized recruitment of drivers could have been defined more clearly. For example, the investigators may have introduced selection biases by choice of vehicle type, colour and condition. The extrapolation figures should have been quoted more cautiously because the sample had 7.5% more people aged 60 or over and 12.6% fewer people aged less than 39 years than the general licence holder population in Wales. A larger study is required to address such issues as different times of day, months of the year and driving conditions. More fundamentally, we question whether the DVLA guidelines2 should be under reconsideration to include not only visual acuity but reaction times, ability to anticipate events and other factors related to experience.

Science, applications, and regulation

Science, applications, and regulation

General licensing schemes for a cost-reducing innovation

Optimal combinations of upfront fees and royalties are considered for a cost-reducing innovation in a Cournot oligopoly for both outside and incumbent innovators. It is shown that for any nondrastic innovation (a) the license is practically sold to all firms, ensuring full diffusion of the innovation, (b) consumers are better off, firms are worse off and the social welfare is improved, (c) the optimal licensing policy involves positive royalty for relatively significant innovations, (d) compared to an incumbent firm, an outsider invests more in R&D and has higher incentive to innovate and (e) as a function of the magnitude of the innovation, the industry size that provides the highest incentive to innovate is U-shaped.