Texture-based feature tracking for effective time-varying data visualization

Analyzing, visualizing, and illustrating changes within time-varying volumetric data is challenging due to the dynamic changes occurring between timesteps. The changes and variations in computational fluid dynamic volumes and atmospheric 3D datasets do not follow any particular transformation. Features within the data move at different speeds and directions making the tracking and visualization of these features a difficult task. We introduce a texture-based feature tracking technique to overcome some of the current limitations found in the illustration and visualization of dynamic changes within time-varying volumetric data. Our texture-based technique tracks various features individually and then uses the tracked objects to better visualize structural changes. We show the effectiveness of our texture-based tracking technique with both synthetic and real world time-varying data. Furthermore, we highlight the specific visualization, annotation, registration, and feature isolation benefits of our technique. For instance, we show how our texture-based tracking can lead to insightful visualizations of time-varying data. Such visualizations, more than traditional visualization techniques, can assist domain scientists to explore and understand dynamic changes.     

Stress Generation, Avoidance Coping, and Depressive Symptoms: A 10-Year Model.

This study examined (a) the role of avoidance coping in prospectively generating both chronic and acute life stressors and (b) the stress-generating role of avoidance coping as a prospective link to future depressive symptoms. Participants were 1,211 late-middle-aged individuals (500 women and 711 men) assessed 3 times over a 10-year period. As predicted, baseline avoidance coping was prospectively associated with both more chronic and more acute life stressors 4 years later. Furthermore, as predicted, these intervening life stressors linked baseline avoidance coping and depressive symptoms 10 years later, controlling for the influence of initial depressive symptoms. These findings broaden knowledge about the stress-generation process and elucidate a key mechanism through which avoidance coping is linked to depressive symptoms. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The commercial use of segmentation and predictive modeling techniques for database marketing in the Netherlands

Although the application of segmentation and predictive modeling is an important topic in the database marketing (DBM) literature, no study has yet investigated the extent of adoption of these techniques. We present the results of a Dutch survey involving 228 database marketing companies. We find that managers tend to rely on intuition and on the long-standing methods RFM and cross-tabulation. Our results indicate that the application of segmentation and response modeling is positively related to company and database size, frequency of customer contact, and the use of a direct channel of distribution. The respondents indicate that future research should focus on models applicable for Internet marketing, long-term effects of direct marketing, irritation from direct marketing offers, and segmentation and predictive modeling techniques.     

Using Latent Trait Modeling to Conceptualize an Alcohol Problems Continuum.

Recent research points toward the viability of conceptualizing alcohol problems as arrayed along a continuum. Nevertheless, modern statistical techniques designed to scale multiple problems along a continuum (latent trait modeling; LTM) have rarely been applied to alcohol problems. This study applies LTM methods to data on 110 problems reported during in-person interviews of 1,348 middle-aged men (mean age=43) from the general population. The results revealed a continuum of severity linking the 110 problems, ranging from heavy and abusive drinking, through tolerance and withdrawal, to serious complications of alcoholism. These results indicate that alcohol problems can be arrayed along a dimension of severity and emphasize the relevance of LTM to informing the conceptualization and assessment of alcohol problems. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Survey of construction lawyers' attitudes and practice in the use of ADR in contractors' disputes

Continuing a survey of contractors' perceptions about alternative dispute resolution (ADR) this paper seeks to report an investigation of the level of involvement of legal advisors to the construction industry in the dispute resolution process and the perceptions that legal professionals have about the use of ADR in construction disputes. The research findings are that contractors are likely to involve lawyers in the dispute resolution procedure, particularly when disputes concern a legal issue, when the parties to the dispute are entrenched in their argument, or when the other party insists on using legal professional assistance. In these defined circumstances, legal advisors will be influential in determining the potential use of ADR. The paper concludes that lawyers are unlikely to recommend ADR for most disputes between contractors, particularly if the dispute resolution process is perceived to involve the use of delay by main contractors, if the parties are fixed in their arguments or if they are exhibiting adversarial behaviour in their approach to the dispute. In these circumstances lawyers and their clients prefer the force of the formal systems over conciliatory ADR procedures.     

Neighborhood sociodemographics and change in built infrastructure

While increasing evidence suggests an association between physical infrastructure in neighborhoods and health outcomes, relatively little research examines how neighborhoods change physically over time and how these physical improvements are spatially distributed across populations. This paper describes the change over 25 years (1985–2010) in bicycle lanes, off-road trails, bus transit service and parks, and spatial clusters of changes in these domains relative to neighborhood sociodemographics in four US cities that are diverse in terms of geography, size, and population. Across all four cities we identified increases in bicycle lanes, off-road trails, and bus transit service, with spatial clustering in these changes that related to neighborhood sociodemographics. Overall, we found evidence of positive changes in physical infrastructure commonly identified as supportive of physical activity. However, the patterning of infrastructure change by sociodemographic change encourages attention to the equity in infrastructure improvements across neighborhoods.     

Inhibition of cholesterol synthesis in mammary tissue,lung, and kidney following cholesterol feeding in the lactating rat

Pregnant rats were randomly allocated to one of 3 experimental dietary groups: Group 1–15.5% butter, 2% cholesterol, 0.78% sodium cholate purified diet; Group 2-standard rat diet with the addition of 10% lard and 2% cholesterol, and Group 3-standard rat diet. Plasma and milk cholesterol at 10 days postpartum were significantly elevated in dams fed exogenous cholesterol. The rat of incorporation of [1-¹⁴C] acetate into digitonin-precipitable sterols of mammary tissue slices from dams in Group 1 and Group 2 was eight-fold and two-fold, respectively, less than controls. Mammary tissue cholesterol was greater in dams fed dietary cholesterol. Thus, our data, for the first time, demonstrate that cholesterol synthesis in lactating rat mammary tissue is suppressed following cholesterol feeding. In a second experiment, the rate of incorporation of [1-¹⁴C] acetate into digitonin-precipitable sterols in kidney and lung tissue of Group 1 rats was suppressed; however, this response was not as marked as that observed in lactating mammary tissue. The concentration of cholesterol in kidney and lung was greater than controls. These results suggest that extrahepatic inhibition of cholesterol synthesis exists in the rat with a concomitant increase in tissue cholesterol.     

Relative fat oxidation is higher in children than adults

Background  

Prepubescent children may oxidize fatty acids more readily than adults. Therefore, dietary fat needs would be higher for children compared with adults. The dietary fat recommendations are higher for children 4 to 18 yrs (i.e., 25 to 35% of energy) compared with adults (i.e., 20 to 35% of energy). Despite this, many parents and children restrict dietary fat for health reasons.