In this paper, we present a methodology for off-line handwritten character recognition. The proposed methodology relies on a new feature extraction technique based on recursive subdivisions of the character image so that the resulting sub-images at each iteration have balanced (approximately equal) numbers of foreground pixels, as far as this is possible. Feature extraction is followed by a two...

Background In Japan, information of daily airborne Japanese cedar pollen counts is made public during pollen season. If symptoms severity and treatment outcome are predictable according to these pollen counts, management of seasonal allergic rhinitis may become more precise. Aims of the study To evaluate the relationship between airborne pollen counts, symptoms severity and treatment outcome in...

Thirty-one species of amphibians and reptiles have been reliably reported from Cedar Bog, Ohio including: 5 salamanders, 11 frogs and toads, 5 turtles, 1 lizard and 9 snakes, or approximately 40% of the total number of species reported for the state. Four of these species are classified as potentially threatened, endangered or of special interest in Ohio. Environmental changes due to dredging o...

Japanese Red Cedar (JRC) pollen induced allergy affects one third of Japanese and the development of effective therapies remains an unachieved challenge. We designed a DNA vaccine encoding CryJ2 allergen from the JRC pollen and Lysosomal Associated Membrane Protein 1 (LAMP-1) to treat JRC allergy. These Phase IA and IB trials assessed safety and immunological effects of the investigational CryJ...

In response to predation pressure, some insects have developed spectacular plant mimicry strategies (homomorphy), involving important changes in their morphology. The fossil record of plant mimicry provides clues to the importance of predation pressure in the deep past. Surprisingly, to date, the oldest confirmed records of insect leaf mimicry are Mesozoic. Here we document a crucial step in th...

The Cedar-Riverside neighborhood in Minneapolis, located adjacent to the University of Minnesota on the West Bank of the Mississippi River (Figure 1), has served as a settlement for new immigrants for more than two centuries, starting with the influx of families from Eastern European countries during the 1800s. More recently, significant numbers of immigrants from Africa, and to a lesser degree...