The existing video coding standard H.264 could not provide expected rate-distortion (RD) performance for macroblocks (MBs) with both moving objects and static background and the MBs with uncovered background (previously occluded). The pattern-based video coding (PVC) technique partially addresses the first problem by separating and encoding moving area and skipping background area at block leve...

BACKGROUND Primary vaginal carcinoma (PVC) is a rare malignancy. Established prognostic factors include tumour stage and age at diagnosis. The leucine-rich repeats and immunoglobuline-like domains (LRIG)-1 protein functions as a tumour suppressor, but less is known about the functions of LRIG2 and LRIG3. The present study aimed to evaluate the expression of LRIG proteins and analyse their possi...

The covert security model (Aumann and Lindell, TCC 2007) offers an important security/efficiency trade-off: a covert player may arbitrarily cheat, but is caught with a certain fixed probability. This permits more efficient protocols than the malicious setting while still giving meaningful security guarantees. However, one drawback is that cheating cannot be proven to a third party, which preven...

BACKGROUND Stylets are the most frequently used devices for tracheal intubation, but can be a source of postoperative pharyngeal pain or hoarseness. In this study, we evaluated extraction forces between polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and stannum (Sn) stylets with various lubricants. FINDINGS Using a manikin, we compared extraction forces between PVC and Sn stylets under four different conditions: w...

Poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC) and natural fiber composites were prepared by melt compounding and compression molding. The influence of fiber type (i.e., bagasse, rice straw, rice husk, and pine fiber) and loading level of styrene-ethylene-butylene-styrene (SEBS) block copolymer on composite properties was investigated. Mechanical analysis showed that storage modulus and tensile strength increased ...

Gene expression analysis has many applications in the management of cancer, including diagnosis, prognosis, and therapeutic care. In this context, the reverse transcription quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) has become the "gold standard" for mRNA quantification. However, this technique involves several critical steps such as RNA extraction, cDNA synthesis, quantitative PCR, and a...

Speech Audio-visual (AV) interaction has been considered for redundancy and complementary properties at the phonetic level but a few experiments have shown a significant role in early auditory analysis. A new paradigm is proposed which uses the pre-voicing component (PVC) excised from a true /b/. When the so called target PVC is added up to a /p/ this leads to the clear perception of /b/. Moreo...

Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Streptococcus pyogenes are leading causes of medical device-associated infections. The capacity to establish and maintain these infections is thought to be associated with the ability to form surface-attached biofilms. In the present study, gallium nitrate was used to coat PVC plates and biofilm formation on the plates by Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Streptococcus pyoge...

BACKGROUND Plastics are a common cause of occupational skin disorders such as irritant or allergic contact dermatitis (ACD). CASE REPORT We report a case of occupational ACD due to a polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastic table cover used as a mouse pad for which we performed patch tests and obtained positive patch tests for the PVC table cover. Composition testing revealed the presence of phthalat...

Support for human-to-human interactions over a network is still insufficient, particularly for professional virtual communities (PVC). Among other limitations, adaptation and learning-by-experience capabilities of humans are not taken into account in existing models for collaboration processes in PVC. This paper presents a model for adaptive human collaboration. A key element of this model is t...