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Barangay Health Care Center is a community-based facility that offers first aid, child healthcare, and other basic services to Barangay residents. This research aims to determine thelevel of satisfaction with the health care service provided by Barangay Gulod Quezon City.The result shows the percentage distribution of the respondents. The Demographic profileTable 1 shows age 18-59 50% and 60 above 50% with a total of 100%, while Gender Table2 shows the total number percentages of male respondents (33%) and female respondents(67%). Reliability Table 3 shows a composite mean of non-senior 3.35 and senior 3.52, withboth verbal interpretations strongly agreeing. Tangibles Table 4 shows a composite mean ofnon-seniors 3.44 with verbal interpretation strongly agree, and seniors 2.68 with verbalinterpretation agree. Vaccines and Medicine Table 5 composite mean of non-senior 2.53with verbal interpretation agree and senior 2.8 with verbal interpretation agree, Priority LaneTable 6 shows a composite mean of non-senior 2.27 with verbal interpretation disagree andsenior 3.24 with verbal interpretation agree, Records Table 7 shows a composite mean non-senior 2.57 with verbal interpretation agree and senior with verbal interpretation 2.55 agree,Responsiveness Table 8 shows a composite mean non-senior 3 with verbal interpretationagree and senior 3.19 with verbal interpretation agree, Table 9 shows the significantdifference between the assessments of non-senior and senior respondents in terms of citedvariables. It reveals that the reliability, vaccine and medicine, records, and responsivenesshave no significant differences between the two groups; however, the tangibles and prioritylane are significant for both respondents. Table 10 shows the problem and solution of theresearcher’s administrator.The researchers recommended an improvement plan to address the concerns highlighted inthe study and improve the healthcare center's service quality. These include conductingregular pa

Este estudio divulgado y promovido por la Cátedra de Infancia y Adolescencia de la Universitat Politécnica de València es una muestra más del trabajo y compromiso de la misma con la formación, la investigación y la transferencia de conocimiento pero sobre todo con la visibilización de la infancia y la adolescencia como ciudadanía activa y de pleno derecho procurando imple-mentar metodologías de trabajo que los y las tengan en cuenta. Fomentar una cultura de participación donde la voz de los niños,niñas y adolescentes sea tenida en cuenta en todo aquellos que les concierna, y es difícil pensar qué puede existir que no lo haga. Su consideración como sujetos de derecho frente al objeto de protección subyace a los trabajos y al enfoque de los mismos de la Cátedra.

[ES] El estrés abiótico de las plantas, especialmente la sequía, la salinidad y las altas temperaturas, son factores limitantes para la producción agrícola que ocurren con mayor frecuencia debido al cambio climático. Aumentar el rendimiento de los cultivos es un desafío para nuestra sociedad y, por lo tanto, la mejora de la tolerancia al estrés abiótico de nuestras plantas de cultivo es una necesidad urgente. La mayoría de estos estreses provocan tres condiciones intracelulares negativas para el crecimiento y producción de las plantas: acidificación, aumento de especies de calcio libre y oxígeno reactivo (ROS). Nuestros resultados recientes indican que la acidificación citosólica desencadena la producción de ROS por las oxidasas NADPH. Por lo tanto, reforzar la homeostasis del pH citosólico (pHc) podría tener efectos beneficiosos para la producción de cultivos. En este trabajo se analizarán los SNPs (Polimorfismo de nucleótido único) obtenidos tras un GWAS (estudio de asociación de genoma completo) utilizando ácido acético tamponado en la planta modelo Arabidopsis thaliana. A continuación, mediante PCR se aislarán plantas mutantes en los genes asociados a dichos SNPs y se comprobarán su tolerancia a acidificación intracelular y otros estreses., [EN] The abiotic stress of plants, especially drought, salinity and high temperatures, are limiting factors for agricultural production that occurs more frequently due to climate change. Increasing crop yields is a challenge for our society and therefore improving the abiotic stress tolerance of our crop plants is an urgent need. Most of these stresses cause three negative intracellular conditions for plant growth and production: acidification, increase in free calcium and reactive oxygen (ROS). Our recent results indicate that cytosolic acidification triggers ROS production by oxidases NADPH Therefore, reinforcing the homeostasis of cytosolic pH (pHc) could have beneficial effects for crop production. In this work, the SNPs (Single Nucleotide Polymorphism) obtained after a GWAS (Whole Genome Association Study) using buffered acetic acid in the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana Subsequently, by PCR, mutant plants in the genes associated to cited SNPs will be isolated and their tolerance to intracellular acidification and other stresses will be verified.

[ES] El control del crecimiento en células animales se efectúa por dos tipos de sistemas celulares activados por dos tipos de sistemas celulares activados por señales externas: el sistema bioquímico con receptores, proteínas kinasas y factores de transcripción; y el sistema biofísico con transportadores de iones y de calcio. Ambos sistemas están desregulados en cáncer y las terapias están orientadas a corregirlos. Un pH intracelular (pHi) alto es una característica universal de células en crecimiento activo pero los sensores de este parámetro promotor del crecimiento celular son desconocidos. En este trabajo hemos encontrado evidencia preliminar en el sistema de levadura de que al bajar el pHi con ácidos débiles (sórbico, propiónico) se inhibe la fosforilación de la proteína ribosomal S6, un sustrato indirecto de la ruta TORC1, medida con anticuerpos específicos. Como la ruta TORC1 es un regulador maestro de crecimiento y proliferación celular, su inhibición a pH ácido podría explicar la inhibición del crecimiento observada en estas condiciones., [EN] Growth control of eukaryotic cells is effected by two kinds of systems activated by external signals: the biochemical systems with receptors, protein kinases and transcription factors; and the biophysical systems with ion transporters and sensors of proton and calcium concentrations. Both systems are dysregulated in cancer and therapies are directed to correct them. A high intracellular pH (pHi) is a universal feature of actively growing cells but the sensors of this parameter promoting growth are unknown. In this work we have utilized specific antibodies and found preliminary evidence with the 3 yeast model system that lowering pHi with weak organic acids inhibits phosphorylation of the ribosomal protein S6, an indirect substrate of the TORC1 pathway. As the TORC1 pathway is a master regulator of cell growth and proliferation, its inhibition at acid pHi could explain the observed inhibition of cell growth and proliferation under these conditions.

© 2017 IEEE. This paper summarises the results of the Sclera Segmentation and Eye Recognition Benchmarking Competition (SSERBC 2017). It was organised in the context of the International Joint Conference on Biometrics (IJCB 2017). The aim of this competition was to record the recent developments in sclera segmentation and eye recognition in the visible spectrum (using iris, sclera and peri-ocular, and their fusion), and also to gain the attention of researchers on this subject. In this regard, we have used the Multi-Angle Sclera Dataset (MASD version 1). It is comprised of2624 images taken from both the eyes of 82 identities. Therefore, it consists of images of 164 (82×2) eyes. A manual segmentation mask of these images was created to baseline both tasks. Precision and recall based statistical measures were employed to evaluate the effectiveness of the segmentation and the ranks of the segmentation task. Recognition accuracy measure has been employed to measure the recognition task. Manually segmented sclera, iris and peri-ocular regions were used in the recognition task. Sixteen teams registered for the competition, and among them, six teams submitted their algorithms or systems for the segmentation task and two of them submitted their recognition algorithm or systems. The results produced by these algorithms or systems reflect current developments in the literature of sclera segmentation and eye recognition, employing cutting edge techniques. The MASD version 1 dataset with some of the ground truth will be freely available for research purposes. The success of the competition also demonstrates the recent interests of researchers from academia as well as industry on this subject.

© The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2018. This study focuses on a comprehensive study of Automatic Signature Verification (ASV) for off-line Thai signatures; an investigation was carried out to characterise the challenges in Thai ASV and to baseline the performance of Thai ASV employing baseline features, being Local Binary Pattern, Local Directional Pattern, Local Binary and Directional Patterns combined (LBDP), and the baseline shape/feature-based hidden Markov model. As there was no publicly available Thai signature database found in the literature, the authors have developed and proposed a database considering real-world signatures from Thailand. The authors have also identified their latent challenges and characterised Thai signature-based ASV. The database consists of 5,400 signatures from 100 signers. Thai signatures could be bi-script in nature, considering the fact that a single signature can contain only Thai or Roman characters or contain both Roman and Thai, which poses an interesting challenge for script-independent SV. Therefore, along with the baseline experiments, the investigation on the influence and nature of bi-script ASV was also conducted. From the equal error rates and Bhattacharyya distance, the score achieved in the experiments indicate that the Thai SV scenario is a script-independent problem. The open research area on this subject of research has also been addressed.

© 2017 IEEE. In this work, we propose a posterior probability-based decision-level fusion strategy for multimodal ocular biometric in the visible spectrum employing iris, sclera and peri-ocular trait. To best of our knowledge this is the first attempt to design a multimodal ocular biometrics using all three ocular traits. Employing all these traits in combination can help to increase the reliability and universality of the system. For instance in some scenarios, the sclera and iris can be highly occluded or for completely closed eyes scenario, the peri-ocular trait can be relied on for the decision. The proposed system is constituted of three independent traits and their combinations. The classification output of the trait which produces highest posterior probability is to consider as the final decision. An appreciable reliability and universal applicability of ocular trait are achieved in experiments conducted employing the proposed scheme.

© 2018 IEEE. This paper summarises the results of the Sclera Segmentation Benchmarking Competition (SSBC 2018). It was organised in the context of the 11th IAPR International Conference on Biometrics (ICB 2018). The aim of this competition was to record the developments on sclera segmentation in the cross-sensor environment (sclera trait captured using multiple acquiring sensors). Additionally, the competition also aimed to gain the attention of researchers on this subject of research. For the purpose of benchmarking, we have developed two datasets of sclera images captured using different sensors. The first dataset was collected using a DSLR camera and the second one was collected using a mobile phone camera. The first dataset is the Multi-Angle Sclera Dataset (MASD version 1), which was used in the context of the previous versions of sclera segmentation competitions. The images in the second dataset were captured using.a mobile phone rear camera of 8-megapixel. As baseline manual segmentation mask of the sclera images from both the datasets were developed. Precision and recall-based statistical measures were employed to evaluate the effectiveness of the submitted segmentation technique and to rank them. Six algorithms were submitted towards the segmentation task. This paper analyses the results produced by these algorithms/system and defines a way forward for this subject of research. Both the datasets along with some of the accompanying ground truth/baseline mask will be freely available for research purposes upon request to authors by email.

© 2017 IEEE. This paper discusses the possibility of use of some challenging face images scenario captured from optical phenomenon in the wild for forensic purpose towards individual identification. Occluded and under cover face images in surveillance scenario can be collected from its reflection on a surrounding glass or on a smooth wall that is under the coverage of the surveillance camera and such scenario of face images can be linked for forensic purposes. Another similar scenario that can also be used for forensic is the face images of an individual standing behind a transparent glass wall. To investigate the capability of these images for personal identification this study is conducted. This work investigated different types of features employed in the literature to establish individual identification by such degraded face images. Among them, local region based featured worked best. To achieve higher accuracy and better facial features face image were cropped manually along its close bounding box and noise removal was performed (reflection, etc.). In order to experiment we have developed a database considering the above mentioned scenario, which will be publicly available for academic research. Initial investigation substantiates the possibility of using such face images for forensic purpose.

© Springer Science+Business Media Singapore 2017. This work proposes a sclera vessel texture pattern synthesis technique. Sclera texture was synthesized by a non-parametric based texture regeneration technique. A small number of classes from the UBIRIS version: 1 dataset was employed as primitive images. An appreciable result was achieved which solicits the successful synthesis of sclera texture patterns. It is difficult to get a huge collection real sclera data and hence such synthetic data will be useful to the researchers.

© 2017 IEEE. This research proposed an automatic student identification and verification system utilising off-line Thai name components. The Thai name components consist of first and last names. Dense texture-based feature descriptors were able to yield encouraging results when applied to different handwritten text recognition scenarios. As a result, the authors employed such features in investigating their performance on Thai name component verification system. In this research, Dense-Local Binary Pattern, Dense-Local Directional Pattern, and Local Binary Pattern combined with Local Directional Pattern were employed. A base-line shape/feature i.e. Hidden Markov Model (HMM) was also utilised in this study. As there is no dataset on Thai name verification in the literature, a dataset is proposed for a Thai name verification system. The name component samples were collected from high school students. It consists of 8,400 name components (first and last names) from 100 students. Each student provided 60 genuine name components, and each of the name components was forged by 12 other students. An encouraging result was found employing the above-mentioned features on the proposed dataset.

[EN] We have identified in yeast a connection between two master regulators of cell growth: a biochemical connection involving the TORC1 protein kinase (which activates protein synthesis, nutrient uptake, and anabolism) and a biophysical connection involving the plasma membrane proton-pumping H+ -ATPase Pma1 (which drives nutrient and K+ uptake and regulates pH homeostasis). Raising the temperature to nonpermissive values in a TOR thermosensitive mutant decreases Pma1 activity. Rapamycin, a TORC1 inhibitor, inhibits Pma1 dependent on its receptor Fpr1 and on the protein phosphatase Sit4, a TORC1 effector. Mutation of either Sit4 or Tco89, a nonessential subunit of TORC1, decreases proton efflux, K+ uptake, intracellular pH, cell growth, and tolerance to weak organic acids. Tco89 does not affect Pma1 activity but activates K+ transport.

[EN] Analysts of university-industry interaction sometimes measure it through numbers of university-industry co-publications (UICs), because of their relative availability and international comparability. However, we do not know whether UICs correspond to another measure of interaction: university funding from firms. We propose a conceptual model on four types of relationships between UICs and university funding from firms, emphasizing the interactive nature of their relation, e.g. not only funding can lead to UICs, but also UICs can signal competences that motivate funding. We test the model with UIC and income data from the Polytechnic University of Valencia at individual level: around 6-7% of researchers participating in projects with firms were authors of UICs published in 2008-11; and around 27% of those UIC authors were participating in projects with firms during that period. Overall, we do not find evidence of any significant positive correlation between UIC output and university funding from the business sector in general. The one exception is a minority of authors who participate in business-funded projects, where we find a positive association of current UICs and business funding.

© 2016 IEEE. This work proposes a projective pairwise dictionary learning-based approach for fast and efficient multimodal eye biometrics. The work uses a faster Projective pairwise Discriminative Dictionary Learning (DL) in contrast to the traditional DL which uses synthesis DL. Projective Pairwise Discriminative Dictionary (PPDD) uses a synthesis dictionary and an analysis dictionary jointly to achieve the goal of pattern representation and discrimination. As the PPDD process of DL is in contrast to the use of l0 or l1-norm sparsity constraints on the representation coefficients adopted in most traditional DL, it works faster than other DL. Moreover, the blending of synthesis dictionary and an analysis dictionary also enhance the feature representation of the complex eye patterns. We employed the combination of sclera and iris traits to establish multimodal biometrics. The experimental study and analysis conducted fulfill the hypothesis we considered. In this work we employed a part of the UBIRIS version 1 dataset to conduct the experiments.

© The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2016. This study introduces a novel method to build up a multi-script off-line signature database aggregating many single-script off-line databases, along with a statistical performance analysis method for a fair comparison between single- and multi-script scenarios. This analysis method is based on merging the single-script databases without increasing the number of users (signers) and selecting the users for merging, based on the probability density functions of the users' equal error rates. As similar results are achieved when merging single- and multi-script databases, it is concluded that multi-script signature verification is actually a generalisation and interoperability problem. The study also concludes that a statistical performance analysis method that is Bhattacharyya distance could be used for analysing multi-script versus single-script signature verification scenarios. These results have been obtained after experimenting with nine public databases with five different scripts.

© 2015 Elsevier B.V. In this research a new framework for software-based liveness detection for direct attacks in multimodal ocular biometrics across the visible spectrum is proposed. The framework aims to develop a more realistic method for liveness detection compared to previous frameworks proposed in the literature. To fulfil the above highlighted aims in this framework, intra-class level (i.e. user level) liveness detection is introduced. To detect liveness, a new set of image quality-based features is proposed for multimodal ocular biometrics in the visible spectrum. A variety of transformed domain (focus related) aspect and contrast-related quality features are employed to design the framework. Furthermore a new database is developed for liveness detection of multimodal ocular biometrics, which has the prominent presence of multimodal ocular traits (both sclera and iris). Moreover this database is comprised of a larger variety of fake images; those were prepared by employing versatile forging techniques which can be exhibited by imposters. Therefore the proposed schema has dealt with versatile categories of spoofing methods, which were not considered previously in the literature. The database contains a set of 500 fake and 500 genuine eye images acquired from 50 different eyes. An appreciable liveness detection result is achieved in the experiments. Furthermore, the experimental results conclude that this new framework is more efficient and competitive when compared to previous liveness detection schemes.

© 2016 IEEE. This article reports and summarizes the results of a competition on sclera segmentation and recognition benchmarking, called Sclera Segmentation and Recognition Benchmarking Competition 2016 (SSRBC 2016). It was organized in the context of the 9th IAPR International Conference on Biometrics (ICB 2016). The goal of this competition was to record the recent developments in sclera segmentation and recognition, and also to gain the attention of researchers on this subject of biometrics. In this regard, we have used a multi-angle sclera dataset (MASD version 1). It is comprised of 2624 images taken from both the eyes of 82 identities. Therefore, it consists of images of 164 (82∗2) different eyes. We have prepared a manual segmentation mask of these images to create the baseline for both tasks. We have, furthermore, adopted precision and recall based statistical measures to evaluate the effectiveness of the segmentation and the ranks of the competing algorithms. The recognition accuracy measure has been employed to measure the recognition task. To summarize, twelve participants registered for the competition, and among them, three participants submitted their algorithms/ systems for the segmentation task and two their recognition algorithm. The results produced by these algorithms reflect developments in the literature of sclera segmentation and recognition, employing cutting edge segmentation techniques. Along with the algorithms of three competing teams and their results, the MASD version 1 dataset will also be freely available for research purposes from the organizer's website. The competition also demonstrates the recent interests of researchers from academia as well as industry on this subject of biometrics.

[EN] The stress hormone abscisic acid (ABA) induces expression of defence genes in many organs, modulates ion homeostasis and metabolism in guard cells, and inhibits germination and seedling growth. Concerning the latter effect, several mutants of Arabidopsis thaliana with improved capability for H+ efflux (wat1-1D, overexpression of AKT1 and ost2-1D) are less sensitive to inhibition by ABA than the wild type. This suggested that ABA could inhibit H+ efflux (H+ -ATPase) and induce cytosolic acidification as a mechanism of growth inhibition. Measurements to test this hypothesis could not be done in germinating seeds and we used roots as the most convenient system. ABA inhibited the root plasma-membrane H+ -ATPase measured in vitro (ATP hydrolysis by isolated vesicles) and in vivo (H+ efflux from seedling roots). This inhibition involved the core ABA signalling elements: PYR/PYL/RCAR ABA receptors, ABA-inhibited protein phosphatases (HAB1), and ABA-activated protein kinases (SnRK2.2 and SnRK2.3). Electrophysiological measurements in root epidermal cells indicated that ABA, acting through the PYR/PYL/RCAR receptors, induced membrane hyperpolarization (due to K+ efflux through the GORK channel) and cytosolic acidification. This acidification was not observed in the wat1-1D mutant. The mechanism of inhibition of the H+ -ATPase by ABA and its effects on cytosolic pH and membrane potential in roots were different from those in guard cells. ABA did not affect the in vivo phosphorylation level of the known activating site (penultimate threonine) of H+ -ATPase in roots, and SnRK2.2 phosphorylated in vitro the C-terminal regulatory domain of H+ -ATPase while the guard-cell kinase SnRK2.6/OST1 did not.