Word Descriptors Research Articles

Characterization of Vanilla Olfactory Preference

The aroma of vanilla compliments its taste making it one of the most popular flavoring agents globally, and consequently vanilla is a product of great economic importance. The compounds in vanilla vary in both type and abundance depending on the growing location and condition of the plant, with V. planifolia being the species used in vanilla extracts. This study sought to measure vanilla extract olfactory characteristics and sensory preference. Subjects (19.3±2.6 years; female = 100, male = 22) took part in a double blind olfactory analysis of an artificial vanilla product in water (A) and of pure vanilla extracts in ethanol (B and C). On a preference scale (1‐low to 10‐high) the overall rating of vanillas A, B, and C were 6.17±1.7, 5.27±1.93, and 4.79±1.81 (p=0.0001), with A > C (p=0.0001), A > B (p=0.0001), and B > C (p =0.0142). Subjects smelled each vanilla sample two times and were asked to rate the strength (1‐low to 5‐high) of six different aroma characteristics (floral, fruity, liquor, metallic, sweet, woody) in a randomized order. Vanilla A was perceived as being sweet (3.26±1.49) and floral (1.63±1.49), B as liquor (2.26±1.67) and sweet (2.22±1.65), and C as liquor (2.6±1.57) and sweet (1.81±1.6). Subjects preferred the ethanol‐free vanilla A (sweet and floral), while the presence of ethanol in B and C was associated with the prominent perception of liquor (alcohol). This study provides a set of word descriptors that were associated with the aroma of vanilla samples could be used to help determine point of origin or growing condition. Future studies may wish to standardize the alcohol content of all vanilla samples or use dealcoholized preparations.

다중 ROI에서 영상 화질 표준화 및 선택적 허프 변환 알고리즘을 통한 고성능의 차선 인식 알고리즘

다중 ROI에서 영상 화질 표준화 및 선택적 허프 변환 알고리즘을 통한 고성능의 차선 인식 알고리즘

Long term recurrence, pain and patient satisfaction after ventral hernia mesh repair.

To compare long term outcomes of laparoscopic and open ventral hernia mesh repair with respect to recurrence, pain and satisfaction. We conducted a single-centre follow-up study of 194 consecutive patients after laparoscopic and open ventral hernia mesh repair between March 2000 and June 2010. Of these, 27 patients (13.9%) died and 12 (6.2%) failed to attend their follow-up appointment. One hundred and fifty-three (78.9%) patients attended for follow-up and two patients (1.0%) were interviewed by telephone. Of those who attended the follow-up appointment, 82 (52.9%) patients had received laparoscopic ventral hernia mesh repair (LVHR) while 73 (47.1%) patients had undergone open ventral hernia mesh repair (OVHR), including 11 conversions. The follow-up study included analyses of medical records, clinical interviews, examination of hernia recurrence and assessment of pain using a 100 mm visual analogue scale (VAS) ruler anchored by word descriptors. Overall patient satisfaction was also determined. Patients with signs of recurrence were examined by magnetic resonance imaging or computed tomography scan. Median time from hernia mesh repair to follow-up was 48 and 52 mo after LVHR and OVHR respectively. Overall recurrence rates were 17.1% after LVHR and 23.3% after OVHR. Recurrence after LVHR was associated with higher body mass index. Smoking was associated with recurrence after OVHR. Chronic pain (VAS > 30 mm) was reported by 23.5% in the laparoscopic cohort and by 27.8% in the open surgery cohort. Recurrence and late complications were predictors of chronic pain after LVHR. Smoking was associated with chronic pain after OVHR. Sixty point five percent were satisfied with the outcome after LVHR and 49.3% after OVHR. Predictors for satisfaction were absence of chronic pain and recurrence. Old age and short time to follow-up also predicted satisfaction after LVHR. LVHR and OVHR give similar long term results for recurrence, pain and overall satisfaction. Chronic pain is frequent and is therefore important for explaining dissatisfaction.

Image Classification Based on KPCA and SVM with Randomized Hyper-parameter Optimization

Image classification is one of the most fundamental and useful activities in computer vision domain. For better accuracy and executing efficiency under the circumstance of high dimensional feature descriptors in image classification, we proposes a novel framework for multi-class image classification based on kernel principal component analysis(KPCA) for feature descriptors post-processing and support vector machine (SVM) with randomized hyper-parameter optimization for classification. We produce the image feature representation by extracting pyramid histogram of visual word (PHOW) descriptors of image, then map the descriptors though additive kernels. At the third step we use KPCA for feature dimensionality reduction. Finally we classify image by SVM with randomized hyper-parameter optimization. Extensive experiments are tested on two data sets: Msrcv2, 15-Scenes. These experiments justify that (1) feature descriptors with KPCA is superior to that with PCA for dimensionality reduction;(2)SVM with randomized hyper-parameter optimization greatly saves time while keeping high accuracy.

Arabic word descriptor for handwritten word indexing and lexicon reduction

Word recognition systems use a lexicon to guide the recognition process in order to improve the recognition rate. However, as the lexicon grows, the computation time increases. In this paper, we present the Arabic word descriptor (AWD) for Arabic word shape indexing and lexicon reduction in handwritten documents. It is formed in two stages. First, the structural descriptor (SD) is computed for each connected component (CC) of the word image. It describes the CC shape using the bag-of-words model, where each visual word represents a different local shape structure, extracted from the image with filters of different patterns and scales. Then, the AWD is formed by sorting and normalizing the SDs. This emphasizes the symbolic features of Arabic words, such as subwords and diacritics, without performing layout segmentation. In the context of lexicon reduction, the AWD is used to index a reference database. Given a query image, the reduced lexicon is obtained from the labels of the first entries in the indexed database. This framework has been tested on Arabic word databases. It has a low computational overhead, while providing a compact descriptor, with state-of-the-art results for lexicon reduction on the Ibn Sina and IFN/ENIT databases.

New color GPHOG descriptors for object and scene image classification

This paper presents a novel set of image descriptors that encodes information from color, shape, spatial and local features of an image to improve upon the popular Pyramid of Histograms of Oriented Gradients (PHOG) descriptor for object and scene image classification. In particular, a new Gabor-PHOG (GPHOG) image descriptor created by enhancing the local features of an image using multiple Gabor filters is first introduced for feature extraction. Second, a comparative assessment of the classification performance of the GPHOG descriptor is made in grayscale and six different color spaces to further propose two novel color GPHOG descriptors that perform well on different object and scene image categories. Finally, an innovative Fused Color GPHOG (FC---GPHOG) descriptor is presented by integrating the Principal Component Analysis (PCA) features of the GPHOG descriptors in the six color spaces to combine color, shape and local feature information. Feature extraction for the proposed descriptors employs PCA and Enhanced Fisher Model (EFM), and the nearest neighbor rule is used for final classification. Experimental results using the MIT Scene dataset and the Caltech 256 object categories dataset show that the proposed new FC---GPHOG descriptor achieves a classification performance better than or comparable to other popular image descriptors, such as the Scale Invariant Feature Transform (SIFT) based Pyramid Histograms of visual Words descriptor, Color SIFT four Concentric Circles, Spatial Envelope, and Local Binary Patterns.

What is American? Ideology and Cognition in American Politics

Three hypotheses were investigated to determine whether perception of prototypical American and non-American values varied depending upon political ideology and whether the values were presented as brief images or word descriptors. Respondents were shown 40 images one at a time for 10 seconds each. Half of these images were in pictorial form and the remaining images were the corresponding textual representation. An analysis of results revealed general agreement in perception based upon political ideology and presentation form of stimuli. However, the context in which images appeared affected the ratings of respondents to some degree. Interpretations of these findings are discussed.

Visual word coding based on difference maximization

Image classification is an important topic in computer vision, which becomes more and more challenging due to the rapid increase of the amounts and categories of images, as well as the different geometric deformations and illumination variations existing in image objects. “Bag-of-Features” model, also known as “Bag-of-Words” model, plays a fundamental and crucial role in generating efficient and discriminative image content representations by using local descriptors such as visual words, making it widely used in solving image classification problems. However, because of the weak discriminative power and strong ambiguity of the low-level visual features, the visual codebook, i.e., a set of visual words, generated in this model is usually over-completed and inconsistent for capturing image semantics. To address this issue, we propose a novel visual word coding algorithm in this paper based on difference maximization technique to improve the generated codebook model. Instead of mapping an image feature vector to one or multiple nearest visual words, the proposed approach utilizes a group of the nearest and the farthest visual words together in the coding process. Consequently, the representative variations of different image features are well kept and strengthened, which can then improve the discriminative power of the visual word descriptor significantly. We examine the performance of our visual word coding model extensively on four standard real-world image datasets, demonstrating that it captures image semantic content more accurately and achieves superior classification performance.

Adapting the Iconic Pain Assessment Tool Version 2 (IPAT2) for Adults and Adolescents With Arthritis Pain Through Usability Testing and Refinement of Pain Quality Icons

To evaluate usability and pain iconography of the Iconic Pain Assessment Tool Version 2 (IPAT2), a self-report instrument that combines word descriptors and representative images (icons) to assess pain quality, intensity, and location, among adults and adolescents with arthritis. Adults with inflammatory arthritis and adolescents with juvenile idiopathic arthritis partook in a single, semistructured, audio-recorded interview to evaluate: (1) the concreteness (object representativeness) and semantic distance (pain representativeness) of the IPAT2 iconography; (2) participants' current pain; and (3) perceptions and likes/dislikes of the IPAT2. Quantitative data were summarized descriptively and a line-by-line coding analysis identified key concepts from interview transcripts. The criterion for icon acceptability was mean and median ratings ≥5.0 for concreteness, semantic distance, and satisfaction for describing arthritis pain. The sample was comprised of 15 adults (87% female, mean 57 y) and 15 adolescents (67% female, mean age 15 y). The IPAT2 was reported to be easy to use and understand, well liked, quick to complete, and perceived as potentially valuable for communicating arthritis pain to health care providers. The median time needed to complete a single pain record, after 5-minute demonstration, was 2.3 minutes and 1.4 minutes for the adults and adolescents, respectively. All pain quality icons met or exceeded the criterion for acceptability. All a priori objectives for the IPAT2 were achieved in this sample of rheumatology outpatients. With its unique blend of pain quality descriptors and representative images, the IPAT2 may importantly aid the assessment of pain in adults and adolescents with arthritis.

Preliminary Validation of the Defense and Veterans Pain Rating Scale (DVPRS) in a Military Population

The Army Surgeon General released the Pain Management Task Force final report in May 2010. Among military providers, concerns were raised that the standard numeric rating scale (NRS) for pain was inconsistently administered and of questionable clinical value. In response, the Defense and Veterans Pain Rating Scale (DVPRS) was developed. The instrument design integrates pain rating scale features to improve interpretability of incremental pain intensity levels, and to improve communication and documentation across all transitions of care. A convenience sample of 350 inpatient and outpatient active duty or retired military service members participated in the study at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Participants completed the five-item DVPRS-one pain intensity NRS with and without word descriptors presented in random order and four supplemental items measuring general activity, sleep, mood, and level of stress and the Brief Pain Inventory seven interference items. Using systematic sampling, a random sample was selected for a word descriptor validation procedure matching word phases to corresponding pain intensity on the NRS. Parallel forms reliability and concurrent validity testing demonstrated a robust correlation. When the DVPRS was presented with the word descriptors first, the correlation between the two ratings was slightly higher, r = 0.929 (N = 171; P < 0.001), than ordering first without the descriptors, r = 0.882 (N = 177; P < 0.001). Intraclass correlation coefficient was 0.943 showing excellent alignment of word descriptors by respondents (N = 42), matching them correctly with pain level. The DVPRS tool demonstrated acceptable psychometric properties in a military population.

ON THE INFLUENCE OF WORD REPRESENTATIONS FOR HANDWRITTEN WORD SPOTTING IN HISTORICAL DOCUMENTS

Word spotting is the process of retrieving all instances of a queried keyword from a digital library of document images. In this paper we evaluate the performance of different word descriptors to assess the advantages and disadvantages of statistical and structural models in a framework of query-by-example word spotting in historical documents. We compare four word representation models, namely sequence alignment using DTW as a baseline reference, a bag of visual words approach as statistical model, a pseudo-structural model based on a Loci features representation, and a structural approach where words are represented by graphs. The four approaches have been tested with two collections of historical data: the George Washington database and the marriage records from the Barcelona Cathedral. We experimentally demonstrate that statistical representations generally give a better performance, however it cannot be neglected that large descriptors are difficult to be implemented in a retrieval scenario where word spotting requires the indexation of data with million word images.

Schoolchildren’s use of poetry and paintings in conveying environmental messages

Pupils aged 12–14 from the University of Ghana Primary and Junior High School conducted studies off the coast adjacent to Accra, including a field visit to explore the effects of climate change on the country’s biology, ecology and physical environment. They composed poems and made paintings about the coast and sea as means of conveying their views about climate change. Content analysis of these compositions using a count of word descriptors revealed that particular themes or messages tended to recur in both poems and paintings. Both of them depicted Ghana as a beautiful place that was suffering from the negative impacts of climate change. There were, nevertheless, differences in the ways in which these two art forms were used to convey messages. For example, poems used words to stress the national importance of the seas, their value as assets of God’s creation and the need for everyone to work together in order to manage them at sustainable levels. Paintings, on the other hand, used images to identify specific causes of pollution and climate change and to illustrate the uses of the seas. It is argued that the creative arts should play a more significant part in the science curriculum. Not only could they bring science to life in the classroom, but they could provide powerful mechanisms whereby young people communicate their own views on environmental issues to other members of society, especially non-specialists.

Impact of the Eyjafjallajökull ash cloud: A newspaper perspective

We carried out a content analysis of eight national newspapers published during a 10‐day period spanning Eyjafjallajökull's 2010 air space closure. Our intent was to understand the amount and type of material published, and the contribution of volcanologists and emergency responders to this material. We selected the best selling broadsheets and tabloids from the UK, France, Italy and USA. A total area of 135,000 cm2 was devoted to Eyjafjallajökull. Of this, 33% dealt with social themes, followed by volcanological (24%), economic (17%), response (13%) and airline (8%) issues. If, however, we examine the sources providing information we find a very different situation. Altogether, 669 sources were cited as giving quotes, of which 33% were credited to the air industry, followed by public (22%), politicians (12%), volcanologists (9%), responders (8%) and economists (2%). We also recorded all word descriptors for the ash cloud and its effects, with a total of 5380 words being logged. Negative words were the most common, with stranded having the highest frequency (180); chaos appearing 57 times. Coverage, thus, tended to feature quotes from the air industry, and carry a negative air; at times being confusing and contradictory. This, coupled with the fact that volcanological pieces tended to be placed well down the reporting order, meant that the message was of a chaotic situation and response, the performance of those who could be ascribed blame, i.e., responsible government agencies, thus likely being perceived in a negative light.

Towards an integrated pedagogy of graphics in the United Kingdom

In this discussion paper, graphic design, graphic science and graphic art are acknowledged, substantiating the need for benefits associated with a wider perspective on how students learn graphics in the United Kingdom. A case is presented for the adoption of a single word descriptor (compared to the many variants that have developed in the higher education sector) by discussing: the historical development of art and design in the United Kingdom; the widespread use of the term graphics; an emphasis on research neglect in a field that has diversified and expanded to become one of the largest groups of students in an enlarged university sector; a lack of national professional representation that has neglected the opportunity to link practice, pedagogy and research in a growing field. The inquiry begins with an overview, of the historical context, before an exploration into the recent expansion of a category of closely related words that originate from the same etymological source. Finally, consideration is given to the scope of influences that may form the basis of research into graphic method as a logical development of first-order design principles. The paper calls for renewed efforts, by graphics educators in the UK, to establish their own professional body to consolidate shared interest in graphics pedagogy between disciplinary perspectives.

Bronchial Hyperresponsiveness, Word Descriptors, and Ethnicity: Women with Mild Asthma

Background. Few studies have examined the ethnic differences in symptom reporting and airway hyperresponsiveness (AHR) for women with mild asthma during a methacholine (McH) challenge. Objective. The purpose of this sub-analysis was to determine: (1) whether AHR to McH varied by the ethnicity of women with mild asthma and (2) whether ethnic word descriptors (EWDs) varied by the ethnicity during induced bronchoconstriction. Methods. Specific inclusion criteria included the following: FEV1 (forced expiratory volume in 1 second) ≥ 70% predicted normal, PC30 ≤ 8 mg/McH, β2 inhaler only, and self-reported ethnicity of African American (AFAM), Mexican American–Hispanic–Latino (MexAMLat), Asian-Pacific Islander (Asian PI), or white. Serial pulmonary function testing (PFT) and Borg, visual analogue scale (VAS), and EWDs were collected. Results. A total of 44 women, mean age of 31.3 years old, with a mean baseline FEV1 of 2.85 L comprised this sub-analysis. Ethnic–racial diversity included: 12 AFAMs, 5 MexAMLat, 13 Asian-PIs, and 14 whites. All had atopy ≥ 2 pinprick responses of 3 mm. At PC30, Asian-PI women required a significantly (p < .05) smaller mean dose of McH 1.9 mg/mL. MexAMLat women required an McH dose of 1.6 mg/mL. At PC30, McH dose was 2.9 mg/mL for AFAMs and 3.0 mg/mL for whites, respectively. Asian-PIs who used only upper airway EWDs at PC30 vere itchy throat, itchy chin, and constricted throat (p < .001). AFAMs significant EWDs were itchy throat, itchy chin/face, and tight throat (p < .01). Lower airway EWD was used by both MexAMLat and whites. Significant EWD for Whites were tight chest (p < .01) and hard to inhale/lungs tight (p < .001). Conclusion. Asian-PI women required a significantly smaller dose (p < .05) of McH to induce a PC30. AFAM and whites required a comparable dose of Mch at PC30. Asian-PI and AFAM women used only upper airway EWD. Asian-PI women may be at a greater risk for acute asthma episodes that are not recognized or treated due to their upper airway symptom reporting.

A national study of pain in the bleeding disorders community: a description of haemophilia pain

The National Pain Study was a prospective, computer-based, descriptive survey of the pain experience of persons with a bleeding disorder conducted in the United States over a 28 month period from 2007 to 2009. The aim of this study was to (i) determine the language used by patients to describe and differentiate acute and persistent pain, (ii) describe pharmacological and non-pharmacological strategies utilized to control pain, (iii) assess the perceived effectiveness of current pain management on quality of life and, (iv) to determine who provides pain management to this population. One thousand, one hundred and four surveys were received. Only the responses of the 764 respondents who reported having hemophilia A or B were evaluated for this paper. Thirty nine percent of participants reported their pain was not well treated. The average acute pain score associated with a bleed reported was 5.97/10 while the average persistent pain score reported was 4.22/10. The most frequently reported word descriptors for acute pain were: throbbing, aching, sharp, tender and miserable. The most frequently reported word descriptors for persistent pain were aching, nagging, tiring, sharp, and tender. The most frequently reported pain strategies for acute and persistent pain included factor, rest, ice, elevation, and compression. Alcohol and illicit drugs were reportedly used to manage both acute pain as well as persistent pain. Primarily, short-acting opioids and acetaminophen were reported to treat both acute and persistent pain. Hematologists and primary care providers provide the majority of pain management for persons with hemophilia (PWH). Quality of life (QOL) scores were lowest in the domains of pain, energy/fatigue and physical problems indicating disruption of QOL. This substantiates under-recognition and under-treatment of pain in the hemophilia population when combined with the 39% of respondents who felt their pain was not well treated and literature in the general pain population of wide spread under-treatment of pain. The NPS is an initial step in recognizing the prevalence and description of pain in PWH. HTC providers should educate themselves in pain management techniques to better serve this population. Further research is necessary to develop specific pain management guidelines for the bleeding disorders population that include multimodal holistic treatment plans.

Action recognition using graph embedding and the co-occurrence matrices descriptor

Recognizing actions from a monocular video is a very hot topic in computer vision recently. In this paper, we propose a new representation of actions, the co-occurrence matrices descriptor, on the intrinsic shape manifold learned by graph embedding. The co-occurrence matrices descriptor captures more temporal information than the bag of words (histogram) descriptor which only considers the spatial information, thus boosting the classification accuracy. In addition, we compare the performance of the co-occurrence matrices descriptor on different manifolds learned by various graph-embedding methods. Graph-embedding methods preserve as much of the significant structure of the high-dimensional data as possible in the low-dimensional map. The results show that nonlinear algorithms are more robust than linear ones. Furthermore, we conclude that the label information plays a critical role in learning more discriminating manifolds.

A meta-synthesis of research on leg ulceration and neuropathic pain

Leg ulceration represents a substantial health problem, and pain is likely to be an associated symptom. The aim of this meta-synthesis was to undertake a systematic review of qualitative studies investigating the experience of chronic painful leg ulceration. This study undertook the meta-synthesis approach described by Sandelowski and Barroso (2003), which is a synthesis and re-interpretation of the findings from several qualitative studies. Findings were extracted and synthesized. The overarching theme was that patients with chronic leg ulceration suffer from persistent pain with associated sequelae. Word descriptors used by participants also suggested that patients have neuropathic pain. In addition, findings from the meta-synthesis suggested that pain associated with chronic leg ulcer may have a neuropathic pain component. Pain associated with leg ulceration is likely to have nociceptive properties as well as neuropathic properties. If neuropathic pain is not identified and managed effectively, patients are at risk of developing a chronic pain condition with associated sequelae, such as poor sleep, depression and suicidal ideation. It is proposed that early identification and management may enable appropriate pain management which may prevent or reduce the associated risks.

Event-related potentials: Search for positive and negative child-related schemata in individuals at low and high risk for child physical abuse

Objective The present investigation used event-related potentials (ERPs, N400 and N300) to determine the extent to which individuals at low and high risk for child physical abuse (CPA) have pre-existing positive and negative child-related schemata that can be automatically activated by ambiguous child stimuli. Methods ERP data were obtained from individuals at low ( n = 13) and high risk ( n = 12) for CPA and used in a procedure check, from which a sub-group of low-risk ( n = 7) and high-risk ( n = 7) individuals were selected for inclusion in the main study. ERP data were collected during the presentation of a priming paradigm consisting of non-child pictures (primes) and congruent and incongruent word descriptors (targets). ERP data also were collected during a second priming paradigm consisting of ambiguous child pictures (primes) and positive and negative word descriptors (targets). Data from this second paradigm were used to test the hypothesis that low-risk and high-risk individuals’ putative pre-existing child-related schemata (i.e., positive schemata in low-risk individuals and negative schemata in high-risk individuals) provide a context that influences whether targets (positive or negative word descriptors) are congruent or incongruent with ambiguous child picture primes. Results Analyses revealed the expected larger N400 waves in response to non-child picture, incongruent word pairs. There were no N400 differences between risk groups nor were there any risk group interactions, indicating that all participants responded in a similar manner to the non-child picture, congruent/incongruent word presentations. However, when ambiguous child picture primes were used with positive and negative word descriptors, low-risk individuals showed greater N400 and N300 responses to negative, relative to positive, word descriptors; whereas high-risk individuals showed no ERP differences with respect to positive and negative word descriptors. Conclusions ERP evidence supports the view that low-risk individuals have greater accessibility to pre-existing positive (relative to negative) child-related schemata, which may reduce the likelihood of negative child-related evaluations. In contrast, high-risk individuals have pre-existing positive and negative child-related schemata that are equally accessible. Hence, high-risk, relative to low-risk, individuals appear to have greater accessibility to negative child-related schemata that may increase the likelihood of negative child-related evaluations and attributions that have been linked to CPA risk.

Assessment of acute and persistent pain management in patients with haemophilia

A descriptive survey was conducted in Region V-E of the United States to bridge the gap in available information on pain issues in the bleeding disorders population. The aim of this study was to a) determine language used by patients to describe and differentiate acute and persistent pain, b) describe pharmacological and non-pharmacological strategies utilized to control pain, c) determine the providers of pain management to this population and d) evaluate quality of life incorporating the SF-36 QOL tool. A total of 202 surveys were returned. For the purposes of this paper, it was decided to analyse only haemophilia data (n = 114). Average persistent daily pain levels were 5/10 (P < 0.001). The three most common word descriptors for both acute and persistent pain were the same - achy, throbbing and tender; the most utilized pain medications were NSAIDs and acetaminophen. Factor replacement was used for what respondents described as acute pain management 79% of the time and for persistent pain management 38% of the time. Participants described acute and persistent pain with the same pain descriptors leading to the conclusion that patients have difficulty distinguishing between acute and persistent pain. This lack of differentiation was further displayed by the use of factor replacement to treat persistent pain associated with arthritic discomfort (38%) which would be viewed as inappropriate, as well as lack of factor replacement use by 21% of respondents who identified pain as from an acute bleed. Opportunities exist to improve pain management through patient and provider-directed educational programs.