Search results for "scratch"
showing 10 items of 38 documents
Melanism is related to behavioural lateralization in nestling barn owls.
2017
5 pages; International audience; Behavioural laterality is a commonly observed phenomenon in many species suggesting there might be an advantage of using dominantly one side over the other for certain tasks. Indeed, lateralized individuals were often shown to be more successful in cognitive tasks compared to non-lateralized conspecifics. However, stressed individuals are also often, but not always, more strongly lateralized. Because barn owl (Tyto alba) females displaying larger black spots on the tip of their ventral feathers produce offspring that are more resistant to a variety of environmental stressful factors, we examined whether laterality is associated with melanin-based coloration.…
Neighbor-list-free molecular dynamics on sunway TaihuLight supercomputer
2020
Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations are playing an increasingly important role in many research areas. Pair-wise potentials are widely used in MD simulations of bio-molecules, polymers, and nano-scale materials. Due to a low compute-to-memory-access ratio, their calculation is often bounded by memory transfer speeds. Sunway TaihuLight is one of the fastest supercomputers featuring a custom SW26010 many-core processor. Since the SW26010 has some critical limitations regarding main memory bandwidth and scratchpad memory size, it is considered as a good platform to investigate the optimization of pair-wise potentials especially in terms of data reusage. MD algorithms often use a neighbor-list …
Entrapment of Citrus limon var. pompia Essential Oil or Pure Citral in Liposomes Tailored as Mouthwash for the Treatment of Oral Cavity Diseases
2020
This work aimed at developing a mouthwash based on liposomes loading Citrus limon var. pompia essential oil or citral to treat oropharyngeal diseases. Vesicles were prepared by dispersing phosphatidylcholine and pompia essential oil or citral at increasing amounts (12, 25 and 50 mg/mL) in water. Transparent vesicle dispersions were obtained by direct sonication avoiding the use of organic solvents. Cryogenic transmission electron microscopy (cryo-TEM) confirmed the formation of unilamellar, spherical and regularly shaped vesicles. Essential oil and citral loaded liposomes were small in size (~110 and ~100 nm, respectively) and negatively charged. Liposomes, especially those loading citral, …
PREVALENCE OF ANTIBODIES ANTI-BARTONELLA HENSELAEIN WESTERN SICILY: CHILDREN, BLOOD DONORS, AND CATS
2011
To evaluate seroprevalence of B. henselae infection both in Sicilian children and healthy blood donors. Furthermore, circulation of Bartonella in the natural reservoir was also studied. Two hundred forty-three children, living in Sicily (Palermo), affected by various diseases, without clinical features suggesting B. henselae infection, together with 122 healthy blood donors were serologically investigated for IgG and IgM antibodies by indirect fluorescent antibody test (IFAT). One hundred twenty stray and 62 pet cats were also analyzed only for IgG. Among children 25.1% had IgG antibodies to B. henselae; 18.5% showed a titer 1:64, 2.4% 1:128, 2.4% 1:256, 0.8% 1:512, 0.4% 1:1024, and 0.4% 1:…
Scratches Removal in Digitised Aerial Photos Concerning Sicilian Territory
2007
In this paper we propose a fast and effective method to detect and restore scratches in aerial photos from a photographic archive concerning Sicilian territory. Scratch removal is a typical problem for old movie films but similar defects can be seen in still images. Our solution is based on a semiautomatic detection process and an unsupervised restoration algorithm. Results are comparable with those obtained with commercial restoration tools.
Molecular detection of Bartonella spp. in deer ked pupae, adult keds and moose blood in Finland
2014
SUMMARYThe deer ked (Lipoptena cervi) is a haematophagous ectoparasite of cervids that harbours haemotrophic Bartonella. A prerequisite for the vector competence of the deer ked is the vertical transmission of the pathogen from the mother to its progeny and transstadial transmission from pupa to winged adult. We screened 1154 pupae and 59 pools of winged adult deer keds from different areas in Finland for Bartonella DNA using PCR. Altogether 13 pupa samples and one winged adult deer ked were positive for the presence of Bartonella DNA. The amplified sequences were closely related to either B. schoenbuchensis or B. bovis. The same lineages were identified in eight blood samples collected fro…
Assessing 4th Grade Students’ Computational Thinking through Scratch Programming Projects
2020
Computational thinking (CT) has been introduced in primary schools worldwide. However, rich classroom-based evidence and research on how to assess and support students’ CT through programming are particularly scarce. This empirical study investigates 4th grade students’ (N = 57) CT in a comparatively comprehensive and fine-grained manner by assessing their Scratch projects (N = 325) with a framework that was revised from previous studies to aim towards enhancing CT. The results demonstrate in detail the various coding patterns and code constructs the students programmed in assorted projects throughout a programming course and the extent to which they had conceptual encounters with CT. Notab…
The Startup Scratch Book – Opening the Black Box of Startup Education
2021
Teaching entrepreneurship and startups is a challenging task. Approaches using real or simulated entrepreneurship as a teaching method are also common in startup education. However, as educators and researchers, we typically only observe the outcomes of the startup journey between weekly lectures and other meetings, whereas the actions taken by the student teams can seldom be observed. This makes the process a black box. All valuable learnings, realizations, and big ideas happen in the students’ minds, and little evidence exists to say what happened during the course. As a result, we are entirely missing out on the most critical elements of the learning process. To remedy this issue, we pro…
Formulation of liposomes loading lentisk oil to ameliorate topical delivery, attenuate oxidative stress damage and improve cell migration in scratch …
2021
[EN] Pistacia lentiscus L. is a sclerophyllous shrub capable of growing under harsh climatic conditions especially in the Mediterranean Basin. Different products can be obtained from this plant, such as essential oil, mastic gum or even fixed oil. The last is well known for its flavor which is mainly exploited in the food industry. Additionally, it has been traditionally used in the treatment of skin diseases, but, at the moment, any suitable formulation for skin delivery has been formulated and its biological effects was not deeply confirmed. Given that, in the present study, the lentisk oil has been formulated in liposomes at different concentrations (10, 20, 30 mg/ml) and their physicoch…
A Scratch-based Graphical Policy Editor for XACML
2015
This paper proposes a policy-maker-friendly editor for the extensible Access Control Markup Language (XACML) based on the programming language Scratch. Scratch is a blocks-based programming language designed for teaching children programming, which allows users to build programs like a puzzle. We take this concept one step further with an XACML policy editor based on the graphic programming elements of Scratch implemented in Smalltalk. This allows for aiding the user on how to build policies by grouping blocks and operators that fit together and also indicating which blocks that will stick together. It simplifies building the XACML policies while still having an XACML “feel” of the graphic …