The mean-shift algorithm is a robust and easy method of finding local extrema in the density distribution of a data set. It has been used successfully for visual tracking in which the target is modelled using a colour histogram, and the image window with best matching histogram is sought. However a histogram is potentially a poor estimate of the underlying colour distribution: it is not invaria...

Many industrial and agricultural chemicals (including heavy metals and alkylphenols) present in the environment have adverse effects on the reproductive function in fish. Three studies were conducted to assess toxicity of these chemicals towards reproduction of freshwater fish. It was shown that heavy metals added to the diets accumulate in brain tissue of carp, and this accumulation results in...

BALB/c mice were immunized with either NP-3 or NP-4, two anticarcinoembryonic antigen murine monoclonal antibodies. Each animal produced anti-idiotype antibodies to the corresponding immunogen and no cross-reactivity between anti-NP-3 sera and anti-NP-4 sera was detected. Hybridomas were produced from these animals and two IgG1 anti-idiotype monoclonal antibodies were obtained: CM1 specific for...

We have measured the polarization of fluorescence emitted by the noble gases He, Ne, Ar, Kr, and Xe following impact excitation by polarized electrons. In He, the 3P→2S transition was studied; in the heavy noble gases the np(n11)p D3→np(n11)s P2 transitions were analyzed. We investigated these transitions as candidates for efficient optical electron polarimetry and found that, because of their ...

The authors evaluated age-related time-monitoring deficits and their contribution to older adults' reluctance to shift to memory retrieval in the noun-pair lookup (NP) task. Older adults (M = 67 years) showed slower rates of response time (RT) improvements than younger adults (M = 19 years), because of a delayed strategy shift. Older adults estimated scanning latencies as being faster than they...

The current paradigm of Content Distribution Networks (CDN) deployment requires heavy infrastructure investment since a large number of servers have to be deployed over a wide area. To overcome this difficulty, we propose a new paradigm where future CDNs are to be deployed over a leased server infrastructure. This paradigm shift changes the object placement problem in current CDNs to a combined...

The noun-pair lookup (NP) task was used to evaluate strategic shift from visual scanning to retrieval. We investigated whether age differences in feeling-of-knowing (FOK) account for older adults' delayed retrieval shift. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: (1) standard NP learning, (2) fast binary FOK judgments, or (3) Choice, where participants had to choose in adv...