Search results for "Item"
showing 10 items of 363 documents
Tomographic image processing for the morphological and metrological study of Valsalva sinuses
2012
This Phd thesis deals with the design and the use of image processing tools in order to allow a reliable and objective study of the sinuses of Valsalva which are important cavities of the aortic root. The proposed methods can be applied on cine-MR sequences and CT examinations without any change in the settings between two examinations.Firstly, we studied the morphology of this anatomical area and its constant properties in all images of the dataset. Sinuses are one of the main bright organs with limited movements. Hence a new algorithm has been designed. It detects and characterizes each bright organ by a single trajectory. Various tools of mathematical morphology are used for this step, a…
Utilisation of natural carotenoids from Momordica cochinchinensis (gac) as health compounds : extraction and bioactvity depending on the origin and o…
2014
The aril of Momordica cochinchinensis (gac), plant from the Cucurbitaceae family, is the richest source of lycopene and β-carotene, which are a strong antioxidant and a pro-vitamin A, respectively, interesting for health-complements. First, a process of soft extraction-fractionation was developed for extracting effectively the natural carotenoids from gac without loss of their original quality. Then, the lycopene and β-carotene extracted from gac were analyzed and characterized. At least 95% of the extracts were composed of the all-trans isomer. They were not degraded during the heat-treatment mimicking formulation processing. Their thermal stereo-mutation was evaluated. Lycopene is more an…
Foodborne pathogens inactivation in low-water activity foods
2016
Dried food products are common in food industry. Nevertheless, their safety is not well insured, involving numerous outbreaks every years around the world. Particularly, two pathogenic bacteria are of interest, one of them due to its number of cases, Salmonella enterica, and the other one due to its ability to survive environmental perturbations, Cronobacter spp.. A deeper comprehension of drying and heat treatment in dried state impact could lead to an optimization of drying and heating processes, insuring food safety. In the first instance, drying was considered as a supplementary decontamination step by optimizing its conditions of use. In a second phase, the rehydration impact was studi…
African trypanosomes expressing multiple VSGs are rapidly eliminated by the host immune system
2019
Significance Many parasites escape the host immune system by undergoing antigenic variation, a process in which surface antigens are regularly shed and replaced by new ones. Trypanosoma brucei employs multiple sophisticated molecular mechanisms to ensure the expression of a homogeneous VSG coat. We generated a mutant parasite that expresses multiple distinct VSGs and studied the consequences of having a multi-VSG coat during an infection. We showed that expression of multiple VSGs makes the parasites more vulnerable to the immune response, which can now control the trypanosomes from the onset of the infection, allowing most mice to survive. In the future, trypanosome infections may be treat…
In vitro and in vivo antileishmanial and trypanocidal studies of new N-benzene- and N-naphthalenesulfonamide derivatives.
2013
We report in vivo and in vitro antileishmanial and trypanocidal activities of a new series of N-substituted benzene and naphthalenesulfonamides 1-15. Compounds 1-15 were screened in vitro against Leishmania infantum , Leishmania braziliensis , Leishmania guyanensis , Leishmania amazonensis , and Trypanosoma cruzi . Sulfonamides 6e, 10b, and 10d displayed remarkable activity and selectivity toward T. cruzi epimastigotes and amastigotes. 6e showed significant trypanocidal activity on parasitemia in a murine model of acute Chagas disease. Moreover, 6e, 8c, 9c, 12c, and 14d displayed interesting IC50 values against Leishmania spp promastigotes as well as L. amazonensis and L. infantum amastigot…
A Management Model of ICT Adoption in Latvia
2012
AbstractThis paper describes and analyzes the validity of a managerial model for ICT adoption. The proposed model of ICT adoption decision has two components: an objective component (largely from an economic understanding) and a managerial component (from firm level factors). The factors in both components were considered at firm level. The analysis and confirmation come from a survey of 500 businesses in Latvia in 2008. Confirmation of the theoretical model was accomplished using Ordered Logistical Regression analysis. Analyses results revealed that the dimensions of perceived benefits (top line growth and efficiency gains), technology absorption capacity (employees openness to change, com…
Design of Scales to Assess the subjective social value of education for students in primary and secondary school.
2017
Abstract The devaluation of education, related with multiple socio-economic and psycho-school factors may be influencing decisively on academic results. A target level is observed that the socio-economic and cultural level of families can decide the student performance, however, this international trend shows inconsistent results. In addition, in different studies, we can observe that students from disadvantaged backgrounds statistics exceed expectations in performance, surpassing the expected results depending on their socioeconomic and cultural level; and students should achieve optimal results for their family situation do not get the expected performance. An interpretative hypothesis ma…
Comparing Traditional and IRT Scoring of Forced-Choice Tests.
2018
This article explores how traditional scores obtained from different forced-choice (FC) formats relate to their true scores and item response theory (IRT) estimates. Three FC formats are considered from a block of items, and respondents are asked to (a) pick the item that describes them most (PICK), (b) choose the two items that describe them the most and the least (MOLE), or (c) rank all the items in the order of their descriptiveness of the respondents (RANK). The multi-unidimensional pairwise-preference (MUPP) model, which is extended to more than two items per block and different FC formats, is applied to obtain the responses to each item block. Traditional and IRT (i.e., expected a po…
A combined optical-microwave method to retrieve soil moisture over vegetated areas
2011
A simple approach for correcting for the effect of vegetation in the estimation of the surface soil moisture (wS) from L-band passive microwave observations is presented in this study. The approach is based on semi-empirical relationships between soil moisture and the polarized reflectivity including the effect of the vegetation optical depth which is parameterized as a function of the normalized vegetation difference index (NDVI). The method was tested against in situ measurements collected over a grass site from 2004 to 2007 (SMOSREX experiment). Two polarizations (horizontal/vertical) and five incidence angles (20◦, 30◦, 40◦, 50◦, and 60◦) were considered in the analysis. The best wS est…
Attempt to Construct a Scale for the Measurement of the Effect of Suggestion on Perception1
1975
A scale based on experimental methods has been prepared for measuring the effects of indirect suggestion upon perception. Three categories are included: (1) distorting the interpretation of presented stimuli, (2) inducing sense-impressions in the absence of adequate stimuli, and (3) producing insensitivity to stimuli that are objectively present. Test situations were designed for tactual, auditory, and visual perception. The scale was tested on a sample of 112 students from the 11th and 12th grades of a large city high school (58 girls and 54 boys). Most of the item intercorrelations were positive and many significantly so. Eliminating the 9 lowest items of 21 left 12 for a reduced matrix,…