Traditional AP Research Articles

Near-neighbor Propagation Clustering Algorithm Based on Cuckoo Search

In this paper, a nearest neighbor propagation clustering algorithm (CSB-AP) based on cuckoo search is proposed to solve the problem of poor parameter setting of the AP algorithm. A population-intelligent optimized cuckoo search algorithm is introduced into the AP algorithm to find the appropriate parameters. Two important parameters in the nearest neighbor propagation algorithm are taken as the location of the bird’s nest. The BWP value index is introduced as the bird’s nest fitness in the process of intelligent search, and the minimum value is obtained as the final fitness through the reverse mechanism. The final parameters are substituted into the calculation as the best parameters. The CSB-AP algorithm is verified by the UCI data set, and compared with the traditional AP nearest neighbor propagation clustering algorithm, it is found that the CSB-AP algorithm proposed in this paper is better than the traditional AP nearest neighbor propagation clustering algorithm. By comparison, it can be found that the clustering result obtained by the CSB-AP algorithm is closer to the actual result, and it can be known according to the results of the BWP index, contour coefficient, Recall, and F-measure. The improved algorithm can significantly improve the clustering quality and clustering performance.

Signal enhancement in wireless sensor networks based on adaptive filters

Wireless sensor networks are widely used in communication, medical treatment, radar and detection. With the vigorous development of computer science and intelligent technology, wireless sensor networks are also constantly improving in the development. Sensor networks are prone to noise interference when input signals, which will affect the estimation accuracy of the network. In order to enhance the signal of sensor network and improve its accuracy, a distributed filtering algorithm based on fusion adaptive weighting is proposed. Before building the model, the experiment first studied the three traditional adaptive filtering algorithms, LMS, RLS and AP, as the basis for building the experimental model. Then, combined with the distributed characteristics of the sensor network, the attributes of the nodes and their influence in the network were considered in the experiment, and the importance and support of the nodes were linearly weighted to obtain the estimated certainty of each sensor node to the target. Finally, a fusion adaptive weighted distributed filtering algorithm is constructed in the experiment. The simulation experiment verifies that the constructed model can reduce the noise interference to a certain extent, which is conducive to the enhancement of its network signal, and its error estimation accuracy is also improved.

Can EOS imaging substitute traditional AP pelvis radiographs? A Comparative study

INTRODUCTION:Young patients followed for hip disorders often require serial imaging and incur significant radiation to the abdomen and pelvis. The EOS imaging system offers a low-radiation alternative. However, consistency with radiographic parameters from conventional radiographs (CR) have not been studied. We evaluated the reliability and validity of EOS imaging in comparison to CR in evaluating acetabular morphology.METHODS:48 hips (27 patients, 66.67% female, 14.4 ± 3.6 years old), indicated for open hip preservation procedure between 2015-2017, which had both EOS imaging and AP pelvis CR taken pre-operatively were examined. Both symptomatic and contralateral hips were measured, excluding hips with prior osteotomies.Three orthopaedic surgeons measured Tonnis angle, lateral center edge angle (LCEA), acetabular depth ratio (ADR), and extrusion index (EI) in both imaging modalities. Images were measured twice, two weeks apart. Reliability was assessed using intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC). Bland-Altman analysis was used to evaluate test-retest agreement and inter-modality agreement.RESULTS:Test-retest reliability was excellent for all raters on all tests (ICC range 0.8047 to 0.9714). Inter-rater reliability was also excellent for all measures on both modalities (ICC range 0.8593 to 0.9547). ICC values were consistent across EOS and CR.By Bland-Altman analysis, test-retest agreement was high, with no statistically significant mean differences in any test or modality (p > 0.6) except LCEA measured on EOS images (p = 0.02), which was 1.16° lower.Tonnis angle (p < 0.005) and ADR (p < 0.001) were statistically different from EOS to CR. Bias was also not uni-directional across tests: LCEA and ADR were, on average, higher on CR while Tonnis angle and EI were, on average, higher on EOS images. Reliability between the EOS and CR images was excellent for all raters on all tests (ICC range 0.8402 to 0.9458).DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION:LCEA, ADR, EI, and Tonnis angle have consistently high test-retest reliability, test-retest agreement, and inter-observer reliability in both EOS imaging and CR to evaluate acetabular morphology. Inter-modality disagreement was observed between EOS and CR, but the difference was small and likely not clinically significant.When establishing acetabular morphology, these results suggest that EOS may provide an opportunity to minimize radiation exposure for patients followed long-term for hip pathology while maintaining the accuracy of diagnostic measures.Table 1.Reliability between EOS and traditional X-ray modalities for each of three raters, measured by the intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC).1 Table 2.Agreement between modalities in rater 2 at time point 1 using the Bland-Altman analysis of mean difference. Group means and standard deviation are shown for reference.

A feature weighted affinity propagation clustering algorithm based on rough entropy reduction

In the clustering task, each feature of data sample is not taken the same contribution, some features provides more related information to the final results, if they are treated equally with other features, not only the complexity of the algorithm is increased but also the accuracy of the final results will be affected. So as a key phase in clustering, feature weighting is becoming more and more concerned by scholars. This paper proposes a feature weighted affinity propagation clustering algorithm based on rough entropy reduction (FWRER-AP). Rough entropy is used to assign weights for every feature according to their different contribution. Then the optimisation samples are used in AP clustering algorithm, we can get the final clustering results through iterations. Compared with traditional AP clustering algorithm, experiment shows that the optimal algorithm not only reduces the complexity, but also improves the accuracy at the same time.

A feature weighted affinity propagation clustering algorithm based on rough entropy reduction

In the clustering task, each feature of data sample is not taken the same contribution, some features provides more related information to the final results, if they are treated equally with other features, not only the complexity of the algorithm is increased but also the accuracy of the final results will be affected. So as a key phase in clustering, feature weighting is becoming more and more concerned by scholars. This paper proposes a feature weighted affinity propagation clustering algorithm based on rough entropy reduction (FWRER-AP). Rough entropy is used to assign weights for every feature according to their different contribution. Then the optimisation samples are used in AP clustering algorithm, we can get the final clustering results through iterations. Compared with traditional AP clustering algorithm, experiment shows that the optimal algorithm not only reduces the complexity, but also improves the accuracy at the same time.

Project Accelerate: Bringing AP® Physics 1 to Underserved Students

Economically disadvantaged and underrepresented high school students in many urban, rural, and small suburban communities don’t have access to Advanced Placement® (AP®) courses either because of a lack of trained teachers, limited or no AP program, or a school history of low participation. Physics is often a “gate keeper” course to entry into physical science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) careers and academic programs. Lacking opportunity to access rigorous physics courses in high school, these demographic groups are hard pressed to compete in STEM fields and academic programs with their peers from more affluent communities. Project Accelerate is a partnership program between Boston University (BU) and the nation’s high schools combining the supportive infrastructures from the students’ traditional school with a highly interactive private edX online instructional tool to bring a College Board accredited AP Physics 1 course to schools not offering this opportunity. During the 2015-16 academic year, Boston University piloted this model with four Boston Public School (BPS) high schools and three small suburban high schools. During the first year of the pilot, students enrolled in Project Accelerate outperformed their peer groups enrolled in traditional AP Physics 1 classrooms.

Hearing aid classification method based on improved AP algorithm

Based on the large medical data to evaluate the performance of the hearing aid is a promising way. Achieving the classification of the hearing aid is the foundation. In this paper an improved semisupervised AP clustering algorithm based on density path is proposed. The PESQ score is taken as the substitution of subjective score for the speech segments, which is also taken as a semi-supervised basis to improve classification accuracy. The Euclidean distance similarity is improved based on the density path, making it suitable for complex shape data sets. Through experimental verification, compared with the traditional AP algorithm, the improved algorithm shows obvious advantages in terms of hearing aid classification accuracy and recognition performance.

SU‐G‐BRA‐03: PCA Based Imaging Angle Optimization for 2D Cine MRI Based Radiotherapy Guidance

Purpose:To develop an imaging angle optimization methodology for orthogonal 2D cine MRI based radiotherapy guidance using Principal Component Analysis (PCA) of target motion retrieved from 4DCT.Methods:We retrospectively analyzed 4DCT of 6 patients with lung tumor. A radiation oncologist manually contoured the target volume at the maximal inhalation phase of the respiratory cycle. An object constrained deformable image registration (DIR) method has been developed to track the target motion along the respiration at ten phases. The motion of the center of the target mass has been analyzed using the PCA to find out the principal motion components that were uncorrelated with each other. Two orthogonal image planes for cineMRI have been determined using this method to minimize the through plane motion during MRI based radiotherapy guidance.Results:3D target respiratory motion for all 6 patients has been efficiently retrieved from 4DCT. In this process, the object constrained DIR demonstrated satisfactory accuracy and efficiency to enable the automatic motion tracking for clinical application. The average motion amplitude in the AP, lateral, and longitudinal directions were 3.6mm (min: 1.6mm, max: 5.6mm), 1.7mm (min: 0.6mm, max: 2.7mm), and 5.6mm (min: 1.8mm, max: 16.1mm), respectively. Based on PCA, the optimal orthogonal imaging planes were determined for cineMRI. The average angular difference between the PCA determined imaging planes and the traditional AP and lateral imaging planes were 47 and 31 degrees, respectively. After optimization, the average amplitude of through plane motion reduced from 3.6mm in AP images to 2.5mm (min:1.3mm, max:3.9mm); and from 1.7mm in lateral images to 0.6mm (min: 0.2mm, max:1.5mm), while the principal in plane motion amplitude increased from 5.6mm to 6.5mm (min: 2.8mm, max: 17mm).Conclusion:DIR and PCA can be used to optimize the orthogonal image planes of cineMRI to minimize the through plane motion during radiotherapy guidance.

Implementation and Performance Analysis of Mobile Handoff Process on OpenFlow-based Wi-Fi Network

Research in communication networks has its limits due to the problems of supply frequency and equipment. To overcome this problem, open source can be the solution to build a helpful test bed for research or academic purposes. Open source networks can be developed using a Software Defined Network (SDN) which has been continuously developed due an enormous number of installed base equipment and protocols that are inflexible, predefined, and fixed since SDN offers a flexible, dynamic, and programmable functionality of network systems. By using OpenFlow as its protocol, we can program the network flow in a flow table on different switches and routers. This research approches an OpenFlow-based Wi-Fi environment using an OpenFlow-based Access Point (OFAP) and an OpenFlow controller. Each OFAP is deployed in two different rooms and several experiments were performed to evaluate handoff delay. The result of these experiments shows that an OpenFlow-based network delivers a more stable process than a traditional network because of the installed flows that are given to each packet. However, the discovered value needs to be examined further due to a better mechanism for installed flows. The handoff delay between OFAPs is 24% faster than the handoff delay between a traditional AP with an average of 79.9 miliseconds. By using this system, we believe it could deliver a high performance network and an increased reliability for real-time traffic over WLAN, by reducing the handoff delay compared to a classical Wi-Fi environment.

Synthesis and Characterization of Nanoporous Graphitic Nanocages by Sulfur-doping Template Method

A new sulfur(S)-doping template approach was demonstrated to fabricate highly nanoporous graphitic nanocages (GNCs) by air-oxidizing the template in the graphitic shells to create nanopores. Sulfur was introduced into graphitic shells, when Fe@C core-shell nanoparticles were prepared and then S-doped GNCs were obtained by re- moving their ferrous cores. Due to removing S-template, both the specific surface area and the mesopore volume of the GNCs have sharply risen from 540 to 850 m 2 /g, 0.44 to 0.90 cm 3 /g, respectively. Compared with traditional ap-

The Irish Free State and Public Diplomacy: The First Official Visit of William T. Cosgrave to the United States

The contemporary use of the term is generally attributed to the retired diplomat Edmond A. Gullion, when, as dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy he opened the Edward R. Murrow Center in 1965. By public diplomacy Dean Gullion meant the attempts by a state to carry out a foreign policy objective by reaching directly to the public, rather than the traditional ap- proach of diplomats of a government working exclusively with their diplomatic counterparts. 1 In particular, the circumstances of the Cold War led to the great powers attempting to influence both foreign populations and their own com - munities in favor of their policy However, the practice of attempting to win favorable support both at home and abroad was by no means unique to the Cold War era. Indeed, it might be said that the publication in 1861 of The Pa- pers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States was an effort to win both international and domestic public support for the Union's diplomatic policies in the American Civil War. The British, too, undertook a form of public diplomacy in 1934 with the establishment of offices and programs of the British Council (originally called the British Council for Relations with Other Countries) in numerous countries, through which it hoped to show that British culture and interests would be shown in a sympathetic light. The Voice of America, created during the World War II, and the United States Information Agency, founded in 1953, performed similar functions. It should not be surprising, therefore, to find the fledgling Irish Free State also engaged in a form of public diplomacy. The Dail Eireann government from 1. One definition of public diplomacy applicable to William T. Cosgrave's objectives for his visit to the United States in 1928 reads as follows: Public diplomacy was defined as government action to generate support, through information and persuasion, for national security objectives. En- cyclopedia of American Foreign Policy, ed. Alexander DeConde, Richard Dean Burns, and Frederik Logevall (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2002), vol. 3, p. 498.

Describing Learning in an Advanced Online Case-Based Course in Environmental Science

Researchers increasingly embrace online courses to compensate for lack of access to educational opportunities otherwise available in traditional school settings. Researchers also recommend alternatives to traditional AP coursework to better meet the diverse learning styles and needs of advanced learners. These recommendations have particular applicability to students attending poor or rural schools where access to advanced course options and gifted programs are limited, to students who cannot fit additional advanced courses into their school schedules, or to homeschooled or homebound learners. However, little research exists on the use of online alternatives to traditional AP programs for students who lack access to advanced course options. This qualitative study investigated the learning outcomes for 138 students enrolled in an advanced online case-based course in environmental sciences. The course utilized problem-based and case-based learning methods and was developed using the guidelines provided by best practices for advanced learners and science pedagogy. Analyses of student online discussion boards, case resolutions, student grades, student and parent surveys obtained at the end of the course, e-mails, and AP examination results showed that many students enrolled in the course demonstrated learning, engagement, and challenge. Findings further support the conclusion that the course provided a viable learning alternative to traditional AP environmental science courses for many, but not all, students.

Genea-Logik: Generation, Tradition und Evolution zwischen Kultur- und Naturwissenschaften by Sigrid Weigel

550 Reviews his engagement with thewider world; a lengthypiece on non-European motifs in the literature of the nineteenth century, from Stifter to Fontane, proves how rewarding further treatment of all of the authors covered would be; and German accounts of encounters with 'natives' on thePacific island of Palau reveal how attitudes changed between the 'philosophical' travellers of the lateeighteenth century and thevisitors of the i86os whose clear design itwas topave theway forGerman colonial penetration. Most of the other chapters show less obvious connections to the overall theme as formulated in the titleof the collection. There are, however, discernible clusters of concern: two articles trace the influence of early Shakespeare criticism on Goethe's Gotz and his Shakespeare speech and the connections between Shakespeare and Schiller's aesthetics of cruelty; threearticles deal with the theme of death (inGleim's and C. E Meyer's writings, and in epitaphs for pets); two articles highlight prob lems of translation and redaction (the examples are some ofWalter Scott's Goethe translations and differentversions of B. Traven's stories). And then there are a few contributions which do not seem tobelong to any of the thematic groupings sketched above. Methodologically, most articles combine timely concerns with traditional ap proaches of philological meticulousness; all articles present rich insights and display stupendous knowledge; some intervene in general debates, some will be of interest only to a highly specialized readership. NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF IRELAND, MAYNOOTH FLORIAN KROBB Genea-Logik: Generation, Tradition und Evolution zwischen Kultur- und Naturwis senschaften. By SIGRID WEIGEL. Munich: Fink. 2oo6. 288 pp. ?29.90. ISBN 978-3-7705-4I73-7. Generation is one of themost widely used concepts in contemporary German dis course. On the one hand it is a convenient label fornewly self-styled social cohorts (such as 'generation.com' or 'Generation Golf'), on the other the concept seems to lend itself to a 'natural' way of categorizing and delimiting historical experience. It is precisely the concept's highly intuitive but undertheorized appeal that Sigrid Weigel analyses from a cultural-historical perspective. As Weigel's careful analysis of the complex semantic history of the term shows, the idea of generation is rooted in biological meaning, but at the same time it is used to regulate legal, social, and cul tural issues of affiliation.Mapping out the separation of the discourse of the natural sciences from thatof thehumanities, Weigel makes a case fornew formsof interdis ciplinary co-operation which would set epistemic differences between the disciplines in dialogue with one another. In thisway the book also offers amethodological per spective which attempts to bridge the ever widening gap between science discourse and thecultural disciplines. Cross-stitching thecultural and natural-science perspec tives in ten chapters, thebook offers a fascinating account of the career of the idea of generation since antiquity. Chapter i takes thecontemporary dream of immortality through geneticmanipula tion as a springboard for thehistorical analysis of the episteme 'genealogy'. It argues that our contemporary understanding of 'Erbschaft' in the two senses of heritage and inheritance is theproduct of the transferof the idea of genealogy from religious and biblical discourse tobiological discourse in the eighteenth century: while in the older paradigm genealogy regulated important issues of family inheritance, lineage, and heritage, the pre-molecular biology of the eighteenth century already incorpo rated the idea inside theorganism. The paradigm shift from the idea of preformation to that of epigenesis produced a new ambiguity: while all people are now equipped with the triumphal knowledge that theywill pass on a biological inheritance, this MLR, 102.2, 2007 551 triumph isundermined by the insight thateach of us is theproduct of a biological in heritance.Weigel takes thebiological discourse from theeighteenth century through nineteenth-century evolution theory and, finally,to contemporary debates on gene tics and information theory.Analysing themetaphors that are used to textualize the genetic code, she shows how the semantic ambiguity of the idea of generation has resurfaced in the language of information theory,where the term 'information' os cillates between a pure mathematical function and a semantically connoted meaning. The switching of perspective from the emergence of the nineteenth-century theory of evolution to the evolution of systems allows her todemonstrate thatcontemporary biological discourse...

Flexible diets for diabetes care.

The nutritional aspect of diabetes treatment is often the most difficult component of care for the patient and the health professional. The demands imposed by major alter ations in lifestyle, the artificiality of therapeutic eating pro grams, and the lack of available and proven counseling are possible causes of poor patient compliance. "Diets" may also be socially stigmatic to patients with diabetes. While advances have been made in many areas of nutrition and diabetes, there has been relatively little change in the traditional nutritional counseling methods, intended to lead to an understanding and adherence to a sound nutritional program. The evolving definition of the general goals of nutri tional therapy and the lack of success with traditional ap proaches to nutritional care of diabetes have recently stimu lated the search for alternate nutritional regimens. These programs have been called "flexible diets. " They all base food selection upon the quality of food content rather than food group as in the exchange diet. Indiuidual counseling is important and is directed primarily to modify present eat ing habits rather than radical changes. The continued de velopment of flexible diets may be an exciting area of nutri tional development in the future.