query: Fruit and Vegetable Identification Using Machine Learning

positive: Heuristic evaluation of user interfaces Heuristic evaluation is an informal method of usability analysis where a number of evaluators are presented with an interface design and asked to comment on it. Four experiments showed that individual evaluators were mostly quite bad at doing such heuristic evaluations and that they only found between 20 and 51% of the usability problems in the interfaces they evaluated. On the other hand, we could aggregate the evaluations from several evaluators to a single evaluation and such aggregates do rather well, even when they consist of only three to five people.

positive: ImageNet: A large-scale hierarchical image database

positive: Convolutional networks for images, speech, and time series

positive: Stochastic Gradient Descent Tricks Chapter 1 strongly advocates the stochastic back-propagation method to train neural networks. This is in fact an instance of a more general technique called stochastic gradient descent (SGD). This chapter provides background material, explains why SGD is a good learning algorithm when the training set is large, and provides useful recommendations.

positive: Introduction to React Introduction to React teaches you React, the JavaScript framework created by developers at Facebook, to solve the problem of building complex user interfaces in a consistent and maintainable way. React.js shrugs away common front-end conventions in an effort to make things more effi cient use Introduction to React to learn about this framework and more today. Get to know the React API and it’s specifi c JavaScript extension, JSX, which makes authoring React components easier and maintainable. You will also learn how to test your React applications and about the tools you can use while building. Once you understand these core concepts, you can build applications with React. This will help you cement the ideas and fundamentals of React and prepare you to utilize React in your own use case.

negative: Wearable driver drowsiness detection using electrooculography signal Every year, more than 100,000 automobile crashes are caused by driver drowsiness. Various technologies have been developed to address this issue, including vehicle-based measurements, behavior change detection, and physiological signal analysis. Both vehicle-based measurements and behavior change detection require bulky components. They also identify the driver's drowsiness too late for effective accident prevention. The physiological signal changes in an early stage and can be used to detect the on-set of driver drowsiness. In this paper, the development of a wearable drowsiness detection system is introduced. This system measures the electrooculography (EOG) signal; transmits the signal to a smartphone wirelessly; and could alarm the driver based on a prediction algorithm that can estimate 0.5-second-ahead EOG signal behavior. This system is compact, comfortable, and cost effective. The 0.5-second-ahead estimation capability provides the critical time for a driver to correct the behavior, and ultimately saves lives.

negative: Excipient-drug interactions in parenteral formulations. Excipients are added to parenteral formulations to enhance or maintain active ingredient solubility (solubilizers) and/or stability (buffers, antioxidants, chelating agents, cryo- and lyoprotectants). Excipients also are important in parenteral formulations to assure safety (antimicrobial preservatives), minimize pain and irritation upon injection (tonicity agents), and control or prolong drug delivery (polymers). These are all examples of positive or synergistic interactions between excipients and drugs. However, excipients may also produce negative effects such as loss of drug solubility, activity, and/or stability. This review article will highlight documented interactions, both synergistic and antagonistic, between excipients and drugs in parenteral formulations. The reader will gain better understanding and appreciation of the implications of adding formulation ingredients to parenteral drug products.

negative: Standing Out from the Crowd: Emotional Labor, Body Labor, and Temporal Labor in Ridesharing CSCW researchers have become interested in crowd work as a new form of collaborative engagement, that is, as a new way in which peopleâs actions are coordinated in order to achieve collective effects. We address this area but from a different perspective â that of the labor practices involved in taking crowd work as a form of work. Using empirical materials from a study of ride-sharing, we draw inspiration from studies of the immaterial forms of labor and alternate analyses of political economy that can cast a new light on the context of crowd labor that might matter for CSCW researchers.

negative: Social Media and Information Overload: Survey Results A UK-based online questionnaire investigating aspects of usage of usergenerated media (UGM), such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, attracted 587 participants. Results show a high degree of engagement with social networking media such as Facebook, and a significant engagement with other media such as professional media, microblogs and blogs. Participants who experience information overload are those who engage less frequently with the media, rather than those who have fewer posts to read. Professional users show different behaviours to social users. Microbloggers complain of information overload to the greatest extent. Two thirds of Twitter-users have felt that they receive too many posts, and over half of Twitter-users have felt the need for a tool to filter out the irrelevant posts. Generally speaking, participants express satisfaction with the media, though a significant minority express a range of concerns including information overload and privacy. Keyword list: User-Generated Media, Social Networking, Information Overload, Information Overlook, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter

negative: Dynamic Influence Analysis in Evolving Networks We propose the first real-time fully-dynamic index data structure designed for influence analysis on evolving networks. With this aim, we carefully redesign the data structure of the state-of-the-art sketching method introduced by Borgs et al., and construct corresponding update algorithms. Using this index, we present algorithms for two kinds of queries, influence estimation and influence maximization, which are strongly motivated by practical applications, such as viral marketing. We provide a thorough theoretical analysis, which guarantees the non-degeneracy of the solution accuracy after an arbitrary number of updates. Furthermore, we introduce a reachability-tree-based technique and a skipping method, which greatly reduce the time consumption required for edge/vertex deletions and vertex additions, respectively, and counter-based random number generators, which improve the space efficiency. Experimental evaluations using real dynamic networks with tens of millions of edges demonstrate the efficiency, scalability, and accuracy of our proposed indexing scheme. Specifically, it can reflect a graph modification within a time of several orders of magnitude smaller than that required to reconstruct an index from scratch, estimate the influence spread of a vertex set accurately within a millisecond, and select highly influential vertices at least ten times faster than state-of-the-art static algorithms.

negative: Improving personalized web search using result diversification We present and evaluate methods for diversifying search results to improve personalized web search. A common personalization approach involves reranking the top N search results such that documents likely to be preferred by the user are presented higher. The usefulness of reranking is limited in part by the number and diversity of results considered. We propose three methods to increase the diversity of the top results and evaluate the effectiveness of these methods.

negative: The TNF and TNF Receptor Superfamilies Integrating Mammalian Biology The receptors and ligands in this superfamily have unique structural attributes that couple them directly to signaling pathways for cell proliferation, survival, and differentiation. Thus, they have assumed prominent roles in the generation of tissues and transient microen-capabilities are crucial in coordinating the proliferation and protective functions of pathogen-reactive cells. Here, we review the organization of the TNF/TNFR SF and how these proteins have been adapted for pro-Bethesda, Maryland 20892 cesses as seemingly disparate as host defense and or-ganogenesis. In interpreting this large and highly active area of research, we have focused on common themes Introduction that unite the actions of these genes in different tissues. We also discuss the evolutionary success of this super-Three decades ago, lymphotoxin (LT) and tumor necro-sis factor (TNF) were identified as products of lympho-family—success that we infer from its expansion across the mammalian genome and from its many indispens-cytes and macrophages that caused the lysis of certain types of cells, especially tumor cells (Granger et al., able roles in mammalian biology.The normal functions of TNF/TNFR SFPs, as well as ally, it became clear that they were members of a gene certain diseases involving them, depend on the obliga-superfamily. Not surprisingly, the receptors for these tory 3-fold symmetry that defines the essential signaling proteins also constitute a TNF receptor (TNFR)-related stoichiometry and structure (Figure 1). The ligands are gene superfamily. Large-scale sequencing of " ex-type 2 proteins that can have both membrane-embed-pressed sequence tags " (ESTs) identified many related ded " pro " as well as cleaved, soluble " mature " forms proteins, collectively referred to here as TNF-and TNFR-(for review, see Idriss and Naismith, 2000). Both forms related superfamily proteins (TNF/TNFR SFPs; reviewed are active as self-assembling noncovalent trimers, whose individual chains fold as compact " jellyroll " ␤ sandwiches and interact at hydrophobic interfaces (Fesik, UCL.ac.uk/users/hester/tnfinfo.html). The familiar as 2000) (Figure 1A). The 25%–30% amino acid similarity well as standardized names of these proteins are listed between TNF-like ligands is largely confined to internal in Table 1, together with their gene locations, pheno-aromatic residues responsible for trimer assembly. The types caused by mutations in these genes, and identified external surfaces of ligand trimers show little sequence functions. similarity, which accounts for receptor selectivity (Figure The discovery that cachectin, a protein known to 2). The ligand shape is that of an inverted bell that is cause fever and wasting, was identical to TNF provided …

negative: A Double-Sided LCLC-Compensated Capacitive Power Transfer System for Electric Vehicle Charging A double-sided LCLC-compensated capacitive power transfer (CPT) system is proposed for the electric vehicle charging application. Two pairs of metal plates are utilized to form two coupling capacitors to transfer power wirelessly. The LCLC-compensated structure can dramatically reduce the voltage stress on the coupling capacitors and maintain unity power factor at both the input and output. A 2.4-kW CPT system is designed with four 610-mm × 610-mm copper plates and an air gap distance of 150 mm. The experimental prototype reaches a dc-dc efficiency of 90.8% at 2.4-kW output power. At 300-mm misalignment case, the output power drops to 2.1 kW with 90.7% efficiency. With a 300-mm air gap distance, the output power drops to 1.6 kW with 89.1% efficiency.

negative: Depth of field rendering via adaptive recursive filtering We present a new post-processing method for rendering high-quality depth-of-field effects in real time. Our method is based on a recursive filtering process, which adaptively smooths the image frame with local depth and circle of confusion information. Unlike previous post-filtering approaches that rely on various convolution kernels, the behavior of our filter is controlled by a weighting function defined between two neighboring pixels. By properly designing this weighting function, our method produces spatially-varying smoothed results, correctly handles the boundaries between in-focus and out-of-focus objects, and avoids rendering artifacts such as intensity leakage and blurring discontinuity. Additionally, our method works on the full frame without resorting to image pyramids. Our algorithms runs efficiently on graphics hardware. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method with several complex scenes.

negative: BAP: A Binary Analysis Platform BAP is a publicly available infrastructure for performing program verification and analysis tasks on binary (i.e., executable) code. In this paper, we describe BAP as well as lessons learned from previous incarnations of binary analysis platforms. BAP explicitly represents all side effects of instructions in an intermediate language (IL), making syntaxdirected analysis possible. We have used BAP to routinely generate and solve verification conditions that are hundreds of megabytes in size and encompass 100,000’s of assembly instructions.

negative: Learning feed-forward one-shot learners One-shot learning is usually tackled by using generative models or discriminative embeddings. Discriminative methods based on deep learning, which are very effective in other learning scenarios, are ill-suited for one-shot learning as they need large amounts of training data. In this paper, we propose a method to learn the parameters of a deep model in one shot. We construct the learner as a second deep network, called a learnet, which predicts the parameters of a pupil network from a single exemplar. In this manner we obtain an efficient feed-forward one-shot learner, trained end-to-end by minimizing a one-shot classification objective in a learning to learn formulation. In order to make the construction feasible, we propose a number of factorizations of the parameters of the pupil network. We demonstrate encouraging results by learning characters from single exemplars in Omniglot, and by tracking visual objects from a single initial exemplar in the Visual Object Tracking benchmark.

negative: A Study of Big Data in Cloud Environment with their Related Challenges Big Data , it is a word which is used for the huge amount of data sets which have the big, extra various and difficu lt structure facing some difficult ies in storing the data then analyzing and visualizing the data for the final outcome [1] . Big data analytics is the procedure of probing huge amounts of data. Here we use cloud computing technology so firstly acquaint the general environment of big data and some associated technology like Hadoop. This powerful technology is used to execute the huge s cale and complicated data computing. It eradicates the requirements of hardware computing which is costly dedicated space and software’s [3]. It is a resolution for analyzing Big Data by deploying Big Data softwares like Hadoop on cloud background which gives users an innovative pattern of service called as Analytics as a Service [7]. Hadoop uses the map-reduce paradigm .We also talk about various advantages, challenges, and issues associated with Big Data.

negative: Online human gesture recognition from motion data streams Online human gesture recognition has a wide range of applications in computer vision, especially in human-computer interaction applications. Recent introduction of cost-effective depth cameras brings on a new trend of research on body-movement gesture recognition. However, there are two major challenges: i) how to continuously recognize gestures from unsegmented streams, and ii) how to differentiate different styles of a same gesture from other types of gestures. In this paper, we solve these two problems with a new effective and efficient feature extraction method that uses a dynamic matching approach to construct a feature vector for each frame and improves sensitivity to the features of different gestures and decreases sensitivity to the features of gestures within the same class. Our comprehensive experiments on MSRC-12 Kinect Gesture and MSR-Action3D datasets have demonstrated a superior performance than the stat-of-the-art approaches.

negative: On Covering a Solid Sphere with Concentric Spheres in ${\mathbb Z}^3$ We show that a digital sphere, constructed by the circular sweep of a digital semicircle (generatrix) around its diameter, consists of some holes (absentee-voxels), which appear on its spherical surface of revolution. This incompleteness calls for a proper characterization of the absentee-voxels whose restoration will yield a complete spherical surface without any holes. In this paper, we present a characterization of such absentee-voxels using certain techniques of digital geometry and show that their count varies quadratically with the radius of the semicircular generatrix. Next, we design an algorithm to fill these absentee-voxels so as to generate a spherical surface of revolution, which is more realistic from the viewpoint of visual perception. We further show that covering a solid sphere by a set of complete spheres also results in an asymptotically larger count of absentees, which is cubic in the radius of the sphere. The characterization and generation of complete solid spheres without any holes can also be accomplished in a similar fashion. We furnish test results to substantiate our theoretical findings.

negative: Automatic Text Summarization System for Punjabi Language This paper concentrates on single document multi news Punjabi extractive summarizer. Although lot of research is going on in field of multi document news summarization systems but not even a single paper was found in literature for single document multi news summarization for any language. It is first time that this system has been developed for Punjabi language and is available online at: http://pts.learnpunjabi.org/. Punjab is one of Indian states and Punjabi is its official language. Punjabi is under resourced language. Various linguistic resources for Punjabi were also developed first time as part of this project like Punjabi noun morph, Punjabi stemmer and Punjabi named entity recognition, Punjabi keywords identification, normalization of Punjabi nouns etc. A Punjabi document (like single page of Punjabi E-news paper) can have hundreds of multi news of varying length. Based on compression ratio selected by user, this system starts by extracting headlines of each news, lines just next to headlines and other important lines depending upon their importance. Selection of sentences is on the basis of statistical and linguistic features of sentences. This system comprises of two main steps: Pre Processing and Processing phase. Pre Processing phase represents the Punjabi text in structured way. In processing phase, different features deciding the importance of sentences are determined and calculated. Some of the statistical features are Punjabi keywords identification, relative sentence length feature and numbered data feature. Various linguistic features for selecting important sentences in summary are: Punjabiheadlines identification, identification of lines just next to headlines, identification of Punjabi-nouns, identification of Punjabi-proper-nouns, identification of common-EnglishPunjabi-nouns, identification of Punjabi-cue-phrases and identification of title-keywords in sentences. Scores of sentences are determined from sentence-feature-weight equation. Weights of features are determined using mathematical regression. Using regression, feature values of some Punjabi documents which are manually summarized are treated as independent input values and their corresponding dependent output values are provided. In the training phase, manually summaries of fifty newsdocuments are made by giving fuzzy scores to the sentences of those documents and then regression is applied for finding values of feature-weights and then average values of feature-weights are calculated. High scored sentences in proper order are selected for final summary. In final summary, sentences coherence is maintained by properly ordering the sentences in the same order as they appear in the input text at the selective compression ratios. This extractive Punjabi summarizer is available online.

negative: Calibration of Ultrawide Fisheye Lens Cameras by Eigenvalue Minimization We present a new technique for calibrating ultrawide fisheye lens cameras by imposing the constraint that collinear points be rectified to be collinear, parallel lines to be parallel, and orthogonal lines to be orthogonal. Exploiting the fact that line fitting reduces to an eigenvalue problem in 3D, we do a rigorous perturbation analysis to obtain a practical calibration procedure. Doing experiments, we point out that spurious solutions exist if collinearity and parallelism alone are imposed. Our technique has many desirable properties. For example, no metric information is required about the reference pattern or the camera position, and separate stripe patterns can be displayed on a video screen to generate a virtual grid, eliminating the grid point extraction processing.

negative: An Approach to Discovering Temporal Association Rules The goal of discovering association rules is to discover aH possible associations that accomplish certain restrictions (minimum support and confidence and interesting). However, it is possible to find interesting associations with a high confidence level hut with little support. This problem is caused by the way support is calculated, as the denominator represents the total number of transactions in a time period when the involved items may have not existed. If, on the other hand, we limit the total transactions to the ones belonging to the items' lifetime, those associations would be now discovered, as they would count on enough support. Another difficulty is the large number of rules that could be generated, tbr which many solutions have been proposed. Using age as an obsolescence tactor for rules helps reduce the number of rules to be presented to the user. In this paper we expand the notion of association rules incorporating time to the frequent itemsets discovered. The concept of temporal support is introduced and. as an example, the known algorithm A priori is modified to incorporate the temporal notions.

negative: Liquid Biopsy in Liquid Tumors The availability of a minimally invasive patient simple, capable of providing tumor information, represents a valuable clinical tool. The liquid biopsy has the potential to achieve this need. Circulating cell free DNA (ccfDNA), other circulating nucleic acids such as microRNA and circulating tumor cells (CTCs), can be obtained from a peripheral blood sample. Liquid biopsy has been particularly studied in solid tumors, specially of the epitelial origin, such as a pancreatic carcinoma and advanced breast cancer. It has been considerably less applied to the study of non-solid tumors. It represents an important source for diagnosis, prognosis and predictive information. Also it is suitable to evaluate response to therapy and drugs pharmacokinetics. It provides a unique opportunity to evaluate the disease evolution in serial blood samples collection, otherwise difficult to obtain. Liquid biopsy can be rehearsed using different circulating biological fluids such as whole blood, serum, plasma and lymph, as well as, non-circulating fluids such as urine, feces, saliva, bile and accumulated pathological fluids such as ascites. This review summarizes the current status of circulating material analysis in non-solid tunors. It is specially focused on Hodgkin Lymphoma and among Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma, it refers particularly to Diffuse Large B cell Lymphoma, the most common aggressive Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma derived from germinal center B-cells in adults. It further discusses the benefit of liquid biopsy in oncohemtaological diseases and potential clinical applications.

negative: PDA: Privacy-Preserving Data Aggregation in Wireless Sensor Networks Providing efficient data aggregation while preserving data privacy is a challenging problem in wireless sensor networks research. In this paper, we present two privacy-preserving data aggregation schemes for additive aggregation functions. The first scheme -cluster-based private data aggregation (CPDA)-leverages clustering protocol and algebraic properties of polynomials. It has the advantage of incurring less communication overhead. The second scheme -Slice-Mix-AggRegaTe (SMART)-builds on slicing techniques and the associative property of addition. It has the advantage of incurring less computation overhead. The goal of our work is to bridge the gap between collaborative data collection by wireless sensor networks and data privacy. We assess the two schemes by privacy-preservation efficacy, communication overhead, and data aggregation accuracy. We present simulation results of our schemes and compare their performance to a typical data aggregation scheme -TAG, where no data privacy protection is provided. Results show the efficacy and efficiency of our schemes. To the best of our knowledge, this paper is among the first on privacy-preserving data aggregation in wireless sensor networks.

negative: An ANN-Based Synthesis Model for the Single-Feed Circularly-Polarized Square Microstrip Antenna With Truncated Corners An artificial neural network-based synthesis model is proposed for the design of single-feed circularly-polarized square microstrip antenna (CPSMA) with truncated corners. To obtain the training data sets, the resonant frequency and Q-factor of square microstrip antennas are calculated by empirical formulae. Then the size of the truncated corners and the operation frequency with the best axial ratio are obtained. Using the Levenberg-Marquardt (LM) algorithm, a three hidden layered network is trained to achieve an accurate synthesis model. At last, the model is validated by comparing its results with the electromagnetic simulation and measurement. It is extremely useful to antenna engineers for directly obtaining patch physical dimensions of the single-feed CPSMA with truncated corners.

negative: Infrapatellar saphenous neuralgia - diagnosis and treatment. Persistent anterior knee pain, especially after surgery, can be very frustrating for the patient and the clinician. Injury to the infrapatellar branch of the saphenous nerve (IPS) is not uncommon after knee surgeries and trauma, yet the diagnosis and treatment of IPS neuralgia is not usually taught in pain training programs. In this case report, we describe the anatomy of the saphenous nerve and specifically the infrapatellar saphenous nerve branch; we also discuss the types of surgical trauma, the clinical presentation, the diagnostic modalities, the diagnostic injection technique, and the treatment options. As early as 1945, surgeons were cautioned regarding the potential surgical trauma to the IPS. Although many authors dismissed the nerve damage as unavoidable, the IPS is now recognized as a potential cause of persistent anterior and anteriomedial knee pain. Even more concerning, damage to peripheral nerves such as the IPS has been identified as the cause and potential perpetuating factor for conditions such as complex regional pain syndromes (CRPS). Because the clinical presentation may be vague, it has often been misdiagnosed and underdiagnosed. There is a documented vasomotor instability, but, unfortunately, sympathetic blocks will not address the underlying pathology, and therefore patients often will not respond to this modality, although the correct diagnosis can lead to rapid and gratifying resolution of the pathology. An entity unknown to the clinician is never diagnosed, and so it is important to familiarize pain physicians with IPS neuropathy so that they may be able to offer assistance when this painful condition arises.

negative: The Timbre Model This paper presents the timbre model, a signal model which has been built to better understand the relationship between the perception of timbre and the musical sounds most commonly associated with timbre. In addition, an extension to the timbre model incorporating expressions is introduced. The presented work therefore has relation to a large field of science, including auditory perception, signal processing, physical models and the acoustics of musical instruments, music expression, and other computer music research. The timbre model is based on a sinusoidal model, and it consists of a spectral envelope, frequencies, a temporal envelope and different irregularity parameters. The paper is divided into four parts: an overview of the research done on the perception of timbre, an overview of the signal processing aspects dealing with sinusoidal modeling, the timbre model, and an introduction of some expressive extensions to the timbre model.

negative: Synthetic aperture radar interferometry-Invited paper

negative:
BreadCrumbs: forecasting mobile connectivity Mobile devices cannot rely on a single managed network, but must exploit a wide variety of connectivity options as they travel. We argue that such systems must consider the derivative of connectivity--the changes inherent in movement between separately managed networks, with widely varying capabilities. With predictive knowledge of such changes, devices can more intelligently schedule network usage.
 To exploit the derivative of connectivity, we observe that people are creatures of habit; they take similar paths every day. Our system, BreadCrumbs, tracks the movement of the device's owner, and customizes a predictive mobility model for that specific user. Combined with past observations of wireless network capabilities, BreadCrumbs generates connectivity forecasts. We have built a BreadCrumbs prototype, and demonstrated its potential with several weeks of real-world usage. Our results show that these forecasts are sufficiently accurate, even with as little as one week of training, to provide improved performance with reduced power consumption for several applications.

negative: Tracking and Connecting Topics via Incremental Hierarchical Dirichlet Processes Much research has been devoted to topic detection from text, but one major challenge has not been addressed: revealing the rich relationships that exist among the detected topics. Finding such relationships is important since many applications are interested in how topics come into being, how they develop, grow, disintegrate, and finally disappear. In this paper, we present a novel method that reveals the connections between topics discovered from the text data. Specifically, our method focuses on how one topic splits into multiple topics, and how multiple topics merge into one topic. We adopt the hierarchical Dirichlet process (HDP) model, and propose an incremental Gibbs sampling algorithm to incrementally derive and refine the labels of clusters. We then characterize the splitting and merging patterns among clusters based on how labels change. We propose a global analysis process that focuses on cluster splitting and merging, and a finer granularity analysis process that helps users to better understand the content of the clusters and the evolution patterns. We also develop a visualization process to present the results.

negative:
Pacific kids DASH for health (PacDASH) randomized, controlled trial with DASH eating plan plus physical activity improves fruit and vegetable intake and diastolic blood pressure in children. BACKGROUND
Pacific Kids DASH for Health (PacDASH) aimed to improve child diet and physical activity (PA) level and prevent excess weight gain and elevation in blood pressure (BP) at 9 months.

METHODS
PacDASH was a two-arm, randomized, controlled trial (ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT00905411). Eighty-five 5- to 8-year-olds in the 50th-99th percentile for BMI were randomly assigned to treatment (n=41) or control (n=44) groups; 62 completed the 9-month trial. Sixty-two percent were female. Mean age was 7.1±0.95 years. Race/ethnicity was Asian (44%), Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander (28%), white (21%), or other race/ethnicity (7%). Intervention was provided at baseline and 3, 6 and 9 months, with monthly supportive mailings between intervention visits, and a follow-up visit at 15 months to observe maintenance. Diet and PA were assessed by 2-day log. Body size, composition, and BP were measured. The intervention effect on diet and PA, body size and composition, and BP by the end of the intervention was tested using an F test from a mixed regression model, after adjustment for sex, age, and ethnic group.

RESULTS
Fruit and vegetable (FV) intake decreased less in the treatment than control group (p=0.04). Diastolic BP (DBP) was 12 percentile units lower in the treatment than control group after 9 months of intervention (p=0.01). There were no group differences in systolic BP (SBP) or body size/composition.

CONCLUSIONS
The PacDASH trial enhanced FV intake and DBP, but not SBP or body size/composition.

negative: A weight-neutral versus weight-loss approach for health promotion in women with high BMI: A randomized-controlled trial Weight loss is the primary recommendation for health improvement in individuals with high body mass index (BMI) despite limited evidence of long-term success. Alternatives to weight-loss approaches (such as Health At Every Size - a weight-neutral approach) have been met with their own concerns and require further empirical testing. This study compared the effectiveness of a weight-neutral versus a weight-loss program for health promotion. Eighty women, aged 30-45 years, with high body mass index (BMI ≥ 30 kg/m(2)) were randomized to 6 months of facilitator-guided weekly group meetings using structured manuals that emphasized either a weight-loss or weight-neutral approach to health. Health measurements occurred at baseline, post-intervention, and 24-months post-randomization. Measurements included blood pressure, lipid panels, blood glucose, BMI, weight, waist circumference, hip circumference, distress, self-esteem, quality of life, dietary risk, fruit and vegetable intake, intuitive eating, and physical activity. Intention-to-treat analyses were performed using linear mixed-effects models to examine group-by-time interaction effects and between and within-group differences. Group-by-time interactions were found for LDL cholesterol, intuitive eating, BMI, weight, and dietary risk. At post-intervention, the weight-neutral program had larger reductions in LDL cholesterol and greater improvements in intuitive eating; the weight-loss program had larger reductions in BMI, weight, and larger (albeit temporary) decreases in dietary risk. Significant positive changes were observed overall between baseline and 24-month follow-up for waist-to-hip ratio, total cholesterol, physical activity, fruit and vegetable intake, self-esteem, and quality of life. These findings highlight that numerous health benefits, even in the absence of weight loss, are achievable and sustainable in the long term using a weight-neutral approach. The trial positions weight-neutral programs as a viable health promotion alternative to weight-loss programs for women of high weight.

negative: ENVIRONMENT AND CRIME IN THE INNER CITY Does Vegetation Reduce Crime? Although vegetation has been positively linked to fear of crime and crime in a number of settings, recent findings in urban residential areas have hinted at a possible negative relationship: Residents living in “greener” surroundings report lower levels of fear, fewer incivilities, and less aggressive and violent behavior. This study used police crime reports to examine the relationship between vegetation and crime in an inner-city neighborhood. Crime rates for 98 apartment buildings with varying levels of nearby vegetation were compared. Results indicate that although residents were randomly assigned to different levels of nearby vegetation, the greener a building’s surroundings were, the fewer crimes reported. Furthermore, this pattern held for both property crimes and violent crimes. The relationship of vegetation to crime held after the number of apartments per building, building height, vacancy rate, and number of occupied units per building were accounted for. The highway from one merchant town to another shall be cleared so that no cover for malefactors should be allowed for a width of two hundred feet on either side; landlords who do not effect this clearance will be answerable for robberies committed in consequence of their default, and in case of murder they will be in the king’s mercy. —Statute of Winchester of 1285, Chapter V, King Edward I 343 AUTHORS’ NOTE: A portion of these findings was presented in invited testimony to the National Urban and Community Forestry Advisory Council (NUCFAC). This ENVIRONMENT AND BEHAVIOR, Vol. 33 No. 3, May 2001 343-367 © 2001 Sage Publications, Inc. There is a long tradition of addressing crime in problem areas by removing vegetation. As early as 1285, the English King Edward I sought to reduce highway robbery by forcing property owners to clear highway edges of trees and shrubs (Pluncknett, 1960). Today, that tradition continues as park authorities, universities, and municipalities across North America engage in active programs to remove vegetation because it is thought to conceal and facilitate criminal acts (Michael & Hull, 1994; Nasar & Fisher, 1993; Weisel, Gouvis, & Harrell, 1994). One of the settings in which crime is of greatest concern today is the inner-city neighborhood. To combat crime in this setting, should vegetation be removed? This article suggests the opposite. We present theory and evidence to suggest that far from abetting crime, high-canopy trees and grass may actually work to deter crime in poor inner-city neighborhoods. COULD THERE BE EXCEPTIONS TO THE RULE? As a rule, the belief is that vegetation facilitates crime because it hides perpetrators and criminal activity from view. Here, we review the evidence in support of this “rule” and suggest conditions under which it might not apply. Although no studies to date have examined whether crime rates are actually higher in the presence of dense vegetation, a variety of evidence links dense vegetation with fear, fear of crime, and possibly crime itself. It is certainly the case that many people fear densely vegetated areas. In research on urban parks, densely wooded areas have consistently been associated with fear. In one study, safety ratings for 180 scenes of urban parks showed that individuals felt most vulnerable in densely forested areas and safest in open, mowed areas (Schroeder & Anderson, 1984). And in another study, individuals who were asked for their open-ended responses to photo344 ENVIRONMENT AND BEHAVIOR / May 2001 work was also supported by the Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, under Project No. ILLU-65-0387. Weare grateful for the assistance of many individuals and other institutions as well. John Potter and Liesette Brunson assisted in data entry and data analysis in the initial stages of this project. A reviewer’s suggestion substantially strengthened the analyses presented here. The Chicago Housing Authority and the management of Ida B. Wells were helpful in many ways, and the Chicago Police Department graciously gave us access to their year-end crime reports. Jerry Barrett helped produce the figures, and Helicopter Transport of Chicago donated the helicopter flight over Ida B. Wells. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Frances E. Kuo, HumanEnvironment Research Laboratory, University of Illinois, 1103 S. Dorner, Urbana, IL, 61801; e-mail: f-kuo@uiuc.edu. graphs of urban parks indicated that heavily vegetated areas seemed dangerous (Talbot & Kaplan, 1984). Although neither of these studies specifically probed fear of crime (as opposed to more general fear), it was clear that at least some participants had crime in mind; one respondent specifically suggested that weedy areas gave muggers good hiding places (Talbot & Kaplan, 1984). Dense vegetation has also been linked specifically to fear of crime. In safety ratings for 180 scenes of parking lots, the more a photo was covered by vegetation, the lower the perceived security (Shaffer & Anderson, 1985). And in research examining fear of crime on a university campus, dense understories that reduced views into areas where criminals might hide were associated with fear of crime (Nasar & Fisher, 1993). In these and other studies, view distance seems to be an important factor. Fear of crime is higher where vegetation blocks views (Fisher & Nasar, 1992; Kuo, Bacaicoa, & Sullivan, 1998; Michael & Hull, 1994). Not only has dense vegetation been linked to general fears and to fear of crime in particular, but two studies have pointed more directly at a facilitative role of vegetation in crime. In the first study, park managers and park police indicated that dense vegetation is regularly used by criminals to conceal their activities (Michael & Hull, 1994). In the second, burglars themselves lent support to this notion. In this study, automobile burglars described how they used dense vegetation in a variety of ways, including to conceal their selection of a target and their escape from the scene, to shield their examination of stolen goods, and finally, in the disposal of unwanted goods (Michael, Hull, & Zahm, 1999). At the same time, Michael and his coauthors made it clear that vegetation was neither necessary nor sufficient for a crime to take place. The clear theme in all these studies is that dense vegetation provides potential cover for criminal activities, possibly increasing the likelihood of crime and certainly increasing the fear of crime. Large shrubs, underbrush, and dense woods all substantially diminish visibility and therefore are capable of supporting criminal activity. But, not all vegetation blocks views. A well-maintained grassy area certainly does not block views; widely spaced, high-canopy trees have minimal effect on visibility; and flowers and low-growing shrubs seem unlikely to provide cover for criminal activities. We suggest that although the rule that vegetation aids crime may hold for visibility-decreasing forms of vegetation, there are systematic exceptions to this rule. To wit, we propose that widely spaced, high-canopy trees and other visibility-preserving forms of vegetation do not promote crime. Kuo, Sullivan / VEGETATION AND CRIME 345

negative: Wound healing activity of the fruit skin of Punica granatum. The skin of the fruit and the bark of Punica granatum are used as a traditional remedy against diarrhea, dysentery, and intestinal parasites. The fruit skin extract of P. granatum was tested for its wound healing activity in rats using an excision wound model. The animals were divided into three groups of six each. The experimental group of animals was topically treated with P. granatum at a dose of 100 mg/kg every day for 15 days, while the controls and standard group animals were treated with petroleum jelly and mupirocin ointment, respectively. Phytochemical analysis of the extract revealed the presence of saponins, triterpenes, tannins, alkaloids, flavonoids, and cardiac glycosides. Extract-treated animals exhibited 95% reduction in the wound area when compared with controls (84%), which was statistically significant (P<.01). The extract-treated wounds were found to epithelize faster compared with controls. The hydroxyproline content of extract-treated animals was significantly higher than controls (P<.05). The fruit skin extract did not show any antimicrobial activity against the microrganisms tested. P. granatum promotes significant wound healing in rats and further evaluation of this activity in humans is suggested.

negative: From Polynesian healers to health food stores: changing perspectives of Morinda citrifolia (Rubiaceae). Morinda citrifolia L (noni) is one of the most important traditional Polynesian medicinal plants. Remedies from isolated Polynesian cultures, such as that of Rotuma, illustrate traditional indications that focus upon leaves, roots, bark, and green fruit, primarily for topical ailments. Anecdotally collected Hawaiian remedies that employ noni fruit illustrate changing usage patterns with shifts in recent times to preparation of juice made of ripe or decaying fruit. Ralph M. Heinicke promoted a wide range of claims about noni, and these seem to have fueled much of the current commercial interest in the plant. Recent studies of the proliferation of commercial products have shown that noni product manufacturers are promoting a range of therapeutic claims. These claims are based upon traditional Polynesian uses, Heinicke's ideas, and fragments of recent scientific studies including the activity of noni in the treatment of cancer. A review is provided of recent studies of potential anticancer activity of noni fruit. While noni's anticancer potential is still being explored, it continues to be widely used by Polynesians and non-Polynesians alike for both traditional and newly hypothesized indications.

negative: The land unit — A fundamental concept in landscape ecology, and its applications The land unit, as an expression of landscape as a system, is a fundamental concept in landscape ecology. It is an ecologically homogeneous tract of land at the scale at issue. It provides a basis for studying topologic as well as chorologic landscape ecology relationships. A land unit survey aims at mapping such land units. This is done by simultaneously using characteristics of the most obvious (mappable) land attributes: land-form, soil and vegetation (including human alteration of these three). The land unit is the basis of the map legend but may be expressed via these three land attributes. The more dynamic land attributes, such as certain animal populations and water fluxes, are less suitable as diagnostic criteria, but often link units by characteristic information/energy fluxes. The land unit survey is related to a further development of the widely accepted physiographic soil survey see Edelman (1950). Important aspects include: by means of a systems approach, the various land data can be integrated more appropriately; geomorphology, vegetation and soil science support each other during all stages (photo-interpretation, field survey, data processing, final classification); the time and costs are considerably less compared with the execution of separate surveys; the result is directly suitable as a basis for land evaluation; the results can be expressed in separate soil, vegetation, land use and landform maps, or even single value maps. A land unit survey is therefore: a method for efficient survey of land attributes, such as soils, vegetation, landform, expressed in either separate or combined maps; a means of stimulating integration among separate land attribute sciences; an efficient basis for land evaluation. For multidisciplinary projects with applied ecologic aims (e.g., land management), it is therefore the most appropriate survey approach. Within the land unit approach there is considerable freedom in the way in which the various land attribute data are ‘integrated’. It is essential, however, that: during the photo-interpretation stage, the contributions of the various specialists are brought together to prepare a preliminary (land unit) photo-interpretation map; the fieldwork data are collected at exactly the same sample point, preferably by a team of specialists in which soil, vegetation and geomorphology are represented; the final map is prepared in close cooperation of all contributing disciplines, based on photo-interpretation and field data; the final map approach may vary from one fully-integrated land unit map to various monothematic maps.

negative: Dietary phenolics: chemistry, bioavailability and effects on health. There is much epidemiological evidence that diets rich in fruit and vegetables can reduce the incidence of non-communicable diseases such as cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, cancer and stroke. These protective effects are attributed, in part, to phenolic secondary metabolites. This review summarizes the chemistry, biosynthesis and occurrence of the compounds involved, namely the C6-C3-C6 flavonoids-anthocyanins, dihydrochalcones, flavan-3-ols, flavanones, flavones, flavonols and isoflavones. It also includes tannins, phenolic acids, hydroxycinnamates and stilbenes and the transformation of plant phenols associated with food processing (for example, production of black tea, roasted coffee and matured wines), these latter often being the major dietary sources. Events that occur following ingestion are discussed, in particular, the deglycosylation, glucuronidation, sulfation and methylation steps that occur at various points during passage through the wall of the small intestine into the circulatory system and subsequent transport to the liver in the portal vein.We also summarise the fate of compounds that are not absorbed in the small intestine, but which pass into the large intestine where they are degraded by the colonic microflora to phenolic acids, which can be absorbed into the circulatory system and subjected to phase II metabolism prior to excretion. Initially, the protective effect of dietary phenolics was thought to be due to their antioxidant properties which resulted in a lowering of the levels of free radicals within the body.However, there is now emerging evidence that themetabolites of dietary phenolics,which appear in the circulatory systemin nmol/L to low mmol/L concentrations, exertmodulatory effects in cells through selective actions on different components of the intracellular signalling cascades vital for cellular functions such as growth, proliferation and apoptosis. In addition, the intracellular concentrations required to affect cell signalling pathways are considerably lower than those required to impact on antioxidant capacity. The mechanisms underlying these processes are discussed.