Identical Photos Research Articles

Retraction notice to “Effect of different fibre types on the structural performance of recycled aggregate concrete beams with spliced bars” [J. Build. Eng. 38 (2021) 102090

This article has been retracted: please see Elsevier Policy on Article Withdrawal (https://www.elsevier.com/about/our-business/policies/article-withdrawal). This article has been retracted at the request of the Editors-in-Chief. Following an investigation of this and a related paper https://doi.org/10.1016/j.engstruct.2021.113362, the Editors-in-Chief no longer have confidence in the scientific integrity of this paper, as the same set of images has been used in two articles in different journals claiming varying conditions, which violates our publishing policies. In this article, six identical photos of tested specimens in two figures are presented as in another paper, only for different geometric (lap splice length) & material (aggregate type and fiber percentage) conditions. Furthermore, certain test specimen, testing setup, and loading condition geometric features of all eight tested specimen photos across the two figures are inconsistent with other figures presented in the paper, and there are photos presented in two other figures (to show coarse aggregates and fibers) that have been taken from internet sources without attribution. Communication with one co-author, Jorge De Brito, raised further concerns about the integrity of this work, to the extent that he expressed no longer having confidence in the content of the article.

Characterisation of a novel reverse-biased PPD CMOS image sensor

A new pinned photodiode (PPD) CMOS image sensor (CIS) has been developed and characterised. The sensor can be fully depleted by means of reverse bias applied to the substrate, and the principle of operation is applicable to very thick sensitive volumes. Additional n-type implants under the pixel p-wells, called Deep Depletion Extension (DDE), have been added in order to eliminate the large parasitic substrate current that would otherwise be present in a normal device. The first prototype has been manufactured on a 18 μm thick, 1000 Ω .cm epitaxial silicon wafers using 180 nm PPD image sensor process at TowerJazz Semiconductor. The chip contains arrays of 10 μm and 5.4 μm pixels, with variations of the shape, size and the depth of the DDE implant. Back-side illuminated (BSI) devices were manufactured in collaboration with Teledyne e2v, and characterised together with the front-side illuminated (FSI) variants. The presented results show that the devices could be reverse-biased without parasitic leakage currents, in good agreement with simulations. The new 10 μm pixels in both BSI and FSI variants exhibit nearly identical photo response to the reference non-modified pixels, as characterised with the photon transfer curve. Different techniques were used to measure the depletion depth in FSI and BSI chips, and the results are consistent with the expected full depletion.

Commentary: Disparities in tobacco use by sexual orientation amongst high school students

To examine the potential efficacy of using point-of-decision prompts to influence intentions to be active in a park setting.In June 2013, participants from across the U.S. (n = 250) completed an online experiment using Amazon's Mechanical Turk and Survey Monkey. Participants were randomly exposed to a park photo containing a persuasive, theoretically based message in the form of a sign (treatment) or an identical photo with no sign (control). Differences in intentions to engage in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity within the park were examined between the two conditions for multiple gender, age, and race groups.Participants who were exposed to the park photo with the sign reported significantly greater intentions to be active than those who viewed the photo without a sign. This effect was stronger for women and largely null for men, but no differences were observed across age or race groups.Point-of-decision prompts are a relatively inexpensive, simple, sustainable, and scalable strategy for evoking behavior change in parks and further testing of diverse messages in actual park settings is warranted.

Point-of-decision prompts for increasing park-based physical activity: A crowdsource analysis

ObjectiveTo examine the potential efficacy of using point-of-decision prompts to influence intentions to be active in a park setting. MethodsIn June 2013, participants from across the U.S. (n=250) completed an online experiment using Amazon's Mechanical Turk and Survey Monkey. Participants were randomly exposed to a park photo containing a persuasive, theoretically based message in the form of a sign (treatment) or an identical photo with no sign (control). Differences in intentions to engage in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity within the park were examined between the two conditions for multiple gender, age, and race groups. ResultsParticipants who were exposed to the park photo with the sign reported significantly greater intentions to be active than those who viewed the photo without a sign. This effect was stronger for women and largely null for men, but no differences were observed across age or race groups. ConclusionPoint-of-decision prompts are a relatively inexpensive, simple, sustainable, and scalable strategy for evoking behavior change in parks and further testing of diverse messages in actual park settings is warranted.

A summarized photo visualization system with maximal clique finding algorithm

The affordability of digital cameras, storage, processors and the advances made in these areas are encouraging people to continuously take hundreds of photos. However, managing the large number of photographs involves arduous tasks such as selecting good quality photos and classifying and labeling each photo. Generally, users put their photos into certain user-designated folders on their local PCs without considering any classified information. One of the main problems related to this management method is that users do not systematically create their photo folders because they are careless and apathetic. This practice results in confusion when the users want to find their photos. One method to overcome this problem is to construct a central photo management system that can manage many photos on the user's local PC. This paper proposes an integrated photo management system coupled with a database on the web, which provides users with an automated photo clustering and visualization function that allows photo overlaps. The proposed system provides spatial clustering for Nearly Identical Photos, and it places photos with overlaps to improve space efficiency for the user. This system also provides users with a CUDA version of Depth of Field evaluation and blur estimation functions. In order to evaluate our system, we conducted two quantitative experiments relating to space efficiency and clustering correctness. First, we investigate the placed photo areas of ACDSee (grid layout) and our system to evaluate how much screen space is saved by nearly identical photos overlapping. Second, we also calculate the precision and recall of our system and Cooper's with regard to user-classified photo sets.

Women’s Preferences for Minimally Invasive Incisions

Study Objective To determine whether traditional, robotic, or single-site laparoscopic incisions are more appealing to women. Design Descriptive study using a survey (Canadian Task Force classification III). Setting Single-specialty referral-based gynecology practice. Patients All patients older than 18 years who came for care to the Newton-Wellesley Hospital Minimally Invasive Gynecological Surgery Center from April 2, 2010, to June 30, 2010. Interventions Three identical photos of an unscarred female abdomen were each marked with a black pen to indicate typical incision lengths and locations for robotic, single-site, and traditional laparoscopic surgery. Subjects were then asked to rank these incisions in order of preference. Additional demographic and surgical history questions were included in the survey. Measurements and Main Results Two-hundred fifty of 427 patients (58.5%) returned surveys, and of these, 241 completed critical survey elements. Preference for traditional laparoscopic incisions was 56.4% (95% confidence interval [CI], 50.1%–62.7%), for a single incision was 41.1% (95% CI, 34.8%–47.3%), and for robotic surgery was 2.5% (95% CI, 0.5%–4.5%). Two-sample test of proportion (Z test) showed the difference in preference for traditional over the other methods to be significant: p = .007 for a single incision and p <.001 for robotic surgery. Multivariatble analysis for factors influencing choice of single-site incision demonstrated that Latina/Hispanic ethnicity was the only significant factor (p = .02). Conclusion Women prefer both single-site and traditional laparoscopic incisions over robotic procedures. Inasmuch as aesthetics are an important consideration for many women and clinical outcomes are similar, during the informed-consent procedure, location and length of incisions should be included in the discussion of risks, benefits, and alternatives.

From LBJ's Great Society to Hurricane Katrina - Are We There Yet?: The Law as a Vehicle for Social Change

In the wake of the Hurricane Katrina fiasco and its aftermath, there were stark examples of the difference in the law between blacks and whites. LBJ's idea of a Great Society did not include mass media coverage including virtually identical photos of desperate whites finding what little food they could, while blacks were described as looting. In this paper the issue of law as a vehicle for social change is explored, with an analysis of whether it can work to change hearts and minds as well.

Naturally dead and downed wood in Norwegian boreal forests: public preferences and the effect of information

This study investigated public aesthetic preferences regarding naturally occurring dead and downed wood in Norwegian boreal forests. In an Internet-based survey conducted in cooperation with a commercial polling company, 1082 respondents from south-eastern and middle Norway were asked to rate 24 photos of forest settings. All photos had been taken at a stand level in primary or lightly altered semi-natural forests, although this was not disclosed to the respondents. Survey participants showed a clearly greater preference for images of forests settings containing little or no visible dead or downed wood. Participants also rated photos of forest settings with the dead wood elements removed through digital manipulation substantially higher than otherwise identical non-manipulated photos. However, public aesthetic perception of dead wood in forest setting did appear to be influenced by their understanding of the ecological benefits dead wood provides to forest biodiversity. Photos shown with an accompanying text describing the ecology or natural history of forest scenes containing dead wood received significantly higher ratings than identical photos without accompanying text. Our results suggest that those involved in maintaining or increasing forest biodiversity by retaining standing and fallen dead wood also need to incorporate outreach efforts that educate the public about the ecological benefits of these forest elements.

Preparation and Use of 3‐Dimension Projections in Teaching Soil Classification

AbstractThe study of relationships of geomorphology, soil parent materials, and soil type is greatly facilitated in classroom teaching through the use of 3‐dimension projections. Such projections can be prepared from existing photo flights already available in most areas by masking out identical photo areas in the overlap portion of adjacent photos. Separate negatives of each area placed in a stereo slide mount will enable a large group to view the topography in 3‐dimension through use of stereo equipment and polarized glasses.