This dissertation focuses on vision-based articulated body pose tracking and human activity analysis for interactive applications, e.g., intelligent driver assistance systems, gesture-based interactive games, and smart rooms. Although there has been a considerable amount of related research effort, developing real-time, robust, and efficient vision -based systems for real-world interactive applications is still an open and important research area. Since human activities in the real-world may happen at different levels of detail (e.g., full body, upper body, hands, head, and feet), it is desirable to have systems that look at humans at multiple levels for better understanding of their activities. In addition to common computer vision issues such as occlusion, background clutter, variable lighting condition, and human appearance, there are other research issues that need to be addressed, with the objective of analyzing human posture at multiple levels for interactivity. This dissertation discusses those issues and proposes several relevant frameworks and approaches for human posture and activity analysis at different levels of detail. First, in order to achieve real-time performance and robustness required for interactive applications, the trade-offs in developing generic versus application-specific approaches for efficiency should be considered. Focusing on applications like driver assistance systems and smart meeting rooms, we develop the very first system, as far as we are concerned, that does both real-time upper body pose tracking in 3-D by observing extremity movements and then gesture recognition using pose tracking output. Second, it is more feasible to a deploy multilevel posture analysis system if we have efficient algorithms which may apply to different body levels. In that regard, we develop an integrated framework with automatic initialization for body and hand modeling and tracking from 3-D voxel data. We also develop an optical flow-based framework for driver foot and head behavior modeling and prediction which shows potential in mitigating the incidents of pedal misapplication in the real world. Third, we develop a driver assistance system that combines information from driver head and hand activities for distraction monitoring. Lastly, we present our development of multimodal driving experiments and analysis based on the ability to track driver activities at different levels which provides insight into the effect of audio and visual cues on driver behavior

Heparin-induced thrombocytopenia (HIT) and heparin-induced thrombocytopenia with thrombosis (HITT) are rare but potentially limb- and life-threatening complications of heparin therapy. Continuation of heparin or low-molecular-weight heparin is contraindicated due to platelet activation in the presence of (heparin-dependent) HIT antibodies. Primary treatment options currently include argatroban, fondaparinux, or bivalirudin. However, the parenteral administration routes and interference of argatroban with traditional coagulation markers complicate management. The goal of this review is to assess the viability of direct oral anticoagulants as an alternative treatment option in patients with HIT/HITT. Their use in HIT/HITT is reasonable, given absent cross-reactivity preformed with HIT antibodies. Furthermore, their rapid onset of action and induction of effective anticoagulation provide a favorable basis for their use in this condition. Herein, we summarize 3 studies and 8 case reports comprising 56 patients in whom direct oral anticoagulants were used in the treatment of HIT/HITT.

Based on two years of ethnographic research on the transformation of people's emotional lives in clinical and non-clinical settings, this dissertation examines the emerging sources, forms, and subjects of anxiety in post- reform Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Since Vietnam's neoliberal reforms were initiated in 1986, many Ho Chi Minh City residents have benefited from a vastly increased standard of living yet reported worrying more now than ever before. This stands in marked contrast to a past when, according to many, extreme suffering stunted people's spirits as much as their bodies. Anxiety has become emblematic of neoliberalism's opportunities and risks in people's public and private lives, yet to worry is a key means through which individuals enact forms of personhood based on care, compassion, and filial obligation. Against claims that increased rates of anxiety and anxiety disorders are the products of modernization and the subsequent erosion of social institutions, I conceptualize worry as a cultural practice through which people can both transform themselves into neoliberal subjects and define themselves in terms of sentiment and emotional relatedness that are considered to be traditionally Vietnamese. I analyze how anxiety is articulated by cultural discourses, and vice versa, across a wide range of domains associated with the neoliberal era, including biomedical psychiatry, romance, and leisure. Recent scholarship on neoliberal modes of modernity has called attention to affective practices and relationships of sentiment as a medium linking structural transformations and subject formation. However, such studies rarely examine how the experience of these practices and relationships come to be understood as specifically emotional themselves, a process that is crucial to subject formation in Vietnam's transition to a market-oriented economy. Bringing together phenomenological and political theories of anxiety that frame it alternatively as an existential condition of humankind or the inevitable fallout of modernity's freedoms and choices, I examine the meanings and experiences of normative and pathological anxiety and the cultural forms that are marshaled to deal with potential threats--threats that may be more pressing than what has already transpired--in a society increasingly suffused with market imperatives

Mass drug administration (MDA) with antimalarials has been shown to reduce prevalence and interrupt transmission in small populations, in populations with reliable access to antimalarial drugs, and in populations where sustained improvements in diagnosis and treatment are possible. In addition, when MDA is effective it eliminates both drug-resistant parasites and drug-sensitive parasites, which has the long-term benefit of extending the useful therapeutic life of first-line therapies for all populations, not just the focal population where MDA was carried out. However, in order to plan elimination measures effectively, it is necessary to characterize the conditions under which failed MDA could exacerbate resistance. We use an individual-based stochastic model of Plasmodium falciparum transmission to evaluate this risk for MDA using dihydroartemisinin-piperaquine (DHA-PPQ), in populations where access to antimalarial treatments may not be uniformly high and where re-importation of drug-resistant parasites may be common. We find that artemisinin-resistance evolution at the kelch13 locus can be accelerated by MDA when all three of the following conditions are met: (1) strong genetic bottlenecking that falls short of elimination, (2) re-importation of artemisinin-resistant genotypes, and (3) continued selection pressure during routine case management post-MDA. Accelerated resistance levels are not immediate but follow the rebound of malaria cases post-MDA, if this is allowed to occur. Crucially, resistance is driven by the selection pressure during routine case management post-MDA and not the selection pressure exerted during the MDA itself. Second, we find that increasing treatment coverage post-MDA increases the probability of local elimination in low-transmission regions (prevalence < 2%) in scenarios with both low and high levels of drug-resistance importation. This emphasizes the importance of planning for and supporting high coverage of diagnosis and treatment post-MDA.

Playing as a knight going on an adventure to save the princess. There are power up to collect and dragon to kill.

This music score was submitted for the Kaleidoscope 2020 Call for Scores, an open access collaboration with the UCLA Music Library.

This music score was submitted for the Kaleidoscope 2020 Call for Scores, an open access collaboration with the UCLA Music Library.

Chloroplasts house the photosynthetic apparatus that allows oxygenic photosynthesis to occur. The assembly of these core complexes requires both proteins that are synthesized in the plastid as well as proteins that are translocated across the chloroplast envelope from the cytosol. In both instances, the photosynthetic subunits need to be folded or re-folded into the correct confirmation to ensure their functionality. To assist with protein folding, chloroplasts have evolved to contain a large number of molecular chaperones that prevent protein polypeptide chains from aggregating before they can achieve their native state. In addition to molecular chaperones, chloroplasts have also evolved to contain a protein disulfide isomerase that is involved in redox signaling and which can potentially be used to form disulfide bridges in complex multi-subunit proteins. Although some of the chloroplast protein folding machinery is of a eukaryotic origin most the components still resemble those of their prokaryotic ancestors. To increase our understanding of the complex protein folding machinery of chloroplasts we examined the ability of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii chloroplasts to fold and assemble complex multi-subunit proteins such as a full-length human antibody and immuotoxin proteins. The assembly of a human antibody is a complex process that requires molecular chaperones to hold proteins in a non-aggregated state while a protein disulfide isomerase catalyzes the formation of 16 disulfide bonds. The ability to assemble an antibody demonstrates biochemically that the protein disulfide isomerase in chloroplast is capable of functioning cohesively with the plastid molecular chaperones to form disulfide bridges. We were also able to produce enzymatically active immuntoxin proteins in chloroplasts and demonstrate that they were able to target and kill specific cancer cells. This ability to accumulate immunotoxin proteins demonstrates that chloroplast protein transport is unidirectional and that no proteins escape the chloroplast. Many of the biological protein folding components have been identified in chloroplasts but little is known about how they function cohesively to allow complex proteins to fold into their native states. A thorough understanding of the biochemical nature of chloroplast protein folding and how they function together will supplement the basic knowledge of protein folding in all organisms and may also assist in the design and use of algae as a biotechnological tool to generate difficult to produce multi-subunit proteins

Cheju kihaeng, a small yet growing genre of academicized travel writing, looks at Cheju Island as existing in a liminal time and space or as a position. Writing amidst as well as against tourism’s dominance on Cheju, kihaeng writers emphasize engagement with localities as vantage points from which one can not only recover long-ignored or suppressed subjectivities but also reject notions of Korean homogeneity. This article examines the books of Cheju historian and high school teacher Yi Yǒngkwǒn, journalist Kim Hyǒnghun, and former Provincial Office of Education director Mun Yǒngt’aek. Although these three authors share the overall objective of writing kihaeng literature from a Cheju islander’s perspective, their scope and interests demonstrate overlapping and sometimes divergent approaches to grounding history in the island’s geography as they respond to or criticize trends in Cheju cultural tourism since the early 2000s. These three authors’ treatment of local history and what it means to identify as a Cheju person reveals multiple complex layers and anxieties about how to begin to define as well as interrogate a notion of the Chejudodaun (Cheju-esque). Keywords: Cheju, Jeju Island, kihaeng, tapsa, travel writing, heritage, cultural tourism, South Korea