Introduction to teaching science with three-dimensional images of dinosaur footprints from Cristo Rey, New Mexico

In this paper we discuss the use of three-dimensional (3-D) imagery and virtual field trips to teach pre-university and non-major university geoscience courses. In particular, 3-D PDF (Portable Document Format) files can be used to either prepare students for or completely replace a field trip when logistical problems make the actual trip too difficult to be effective or when some students need an alternative accommodation. Three-dimensional images can replace or supplement classroom activities, such as the identification of rocks and minerals from hand samples or the identification of geologic structures from 2-D photographs and limited field observations. Students can also become involved in data collection and processing to further their understanding of photogrammetry and visualization. The use of 3-D imagery can make additional time available to instructors to cover more advanced topics and teach students more about the role of science in geologic research. We use an example from Cristo Rey, New Mexico, where dinosaur footprints and tracks are present but difficult to see in many cases, and they are often in places that are hard to access for many people. At this site, approximately 10 000 photographs were collected and processed as 3-D images to show one approximately 72 m2 area of known footprints. However, we also conducted some very simple digital manipulations of the images that allowed us to identify new footprints and tracks that were not apparent when viewed in the field. The photographs and 3-D images have been donated to the Insights El Paso Science Center (denoted Insights Museum herein) that owns the fossil site, and they are now being used to develop educational materials and lessons for the nearby communities.

A Universal Malicious Documents Static Detection Framework Based on Feature Generalization

In this study, Portable Document Format (PDF), Word, Excel, Rich Test format (RTF) and image documents are taken as the research objects to study a static and fast method by which to detect malicious documents. Malicious PDF and Word document features are abstracted and extended, which can be used to detect other types of documents. A universal static detection framework for malicious documents based on feature generalization is then proposed. The generalized features include specification check errors, the structure path, code keywords, and the number of objects. The proposed method is verified on two datasets, and is compared with Kaspersky, NOD32, and McAfee antivirus software. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method achieves good performance in terms of the detection accuracy, runtime, and scalability. The average F1-score of all types of documents is found to be 0.99, and the average detection time of a document is 0.5926 s, which is at the same level as the compared antivirus software.

Visualizing the phenotype diversity: a case study of Alexander disease

Since only a small number of patients have a rare disease, it is difficult to identify all of the features of these diseases. This is especially true for patients presenting with the rarest diseases. It can also be difficult for the patient, their families, and even clinicians to know which one of a number of disease phenotypes the patient is exhibiting. This, again, is especially true for patients uncommonly presenting with rare diseases. To address this issue, during Biomedical Linked Annotation Hackathon 7 (BLAH7), we tried to extract Alexander disease patient data in Portable Document Format. We then visualized the phenotypic diversity of those Alexander disease patients with uncommon presentations. This led to us identifying several issues that we need to overcome in our future work.

TreatmentBank: Plazi's strategies and its implementation to most efficiently liberate data from scholarly publications

Plazi's TreatmentBank is a research infrastructure and partner of the recent European Union-funded Biodiversity Community Integrated Knowledge Library (BiCIKL) project to provide a single knowledge portal to open, interlinked and machine-readable, findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable (FAIR) data. Plazi is liberating published biodiversity data that is trapped in so-called flat formats, such as portable document format (PDF), to increase its FAIRness. This can pose a variety of challenges for both data mining and curation of the extracted data. The automation of such a complex process requires internal organization and a well established workflow of specific steps (e.g., decoding of the PDF, extraction of data) to handle the challenges that the immense variety of graphic layouts existing in the biodiversity publishing landscape can impose. These challenges may vary according to the origin of the document: scanned documents that were not initially digital, need optical character recognition in order to be processed. Processing a document can either be an individual, one-time-only process, or a batch process, in which a template for a specific document type must be produced. Templates consist of a set of parameters that tell Plazi-dedicated software how to read and where to find key pieces of information for the extraction process, such as the related metadata. These parameters aim to improve the outcome of the data extraction process, and lead to more consistent results than manual extraction. In order to produce such templates, a set of tests and accompanying statistics are evaluated, and these same statistics are constantly checked against ongoing processing tasks in order to assess the template performance in a continuous manner. In addition to these steps that are intrinsically associated with the automated process, different granularity levels (e.g., low granularity level might consist of a treatment and its subsections versus a high granularity level that includes material citations down to named entities such as collection codes, collector, collecting date) were defined to accommodate specific needs for particular projects and user requirements. The higher the granularity level, the more thoroughly checked the resulting data is expected to be. Additionally, steps related to the quality control (qc), such as the “pre-qc”, “qc” and “extended qc” were designed and implemented to ensure data quality and enhanced data accuracy. Data on all these different stages of the processing workflow are constantly being collected and assessed in order to improve these very same stages, aiming for a more reliable and efficient operation. This is also associated with a current Data Architecture plan to move this data assessment to a cloud provider to promote real-time assessment and constant analyses of template performance and processing stages as a whole. In this talk, the steps of this entire process are explained in detail, highlighting how data are being used to improve these steps towards a more efficient, accurate, and less costly operation.

Copyright Protection of Scientific Works using Digital Watermarking by Embedding DOI QR Code

Digital identifier is a technology used to prove ownership of a work. At this time, the Digital Object Identifier is a form of implementation of the digital identifier used in every scientific work. Not infrequently there are several cases of theft of ownership or copyright of a work, both scientific works, and certain other works. Watermarking is a technique created to protect the ownership of works. Watermarking techniques can be applied to several media such as audio, video, and also documents, one of which is the Portable Document Format document file. In this study, researchers want to build copyright protection for scientific works. Researchers offer research concepts using a Digital Object Identifier which is always installed on scientific papers to be published. The Digital Object Identifier will later become the basic data in building the Quick Response Code. The Digital Object Identifier of each scientific work will not be the same as each other, this will certainly make the Quick Response Code more unique. The results show that the watermarking process in building copyright protection of scientific works can be very successful Quick Response Code can be read and detected properly without experiencing lag time. Quick Response Code readings from several variations of motion are also not very influential, so it can be concluded that distance does not limit the detection of Quick Response Codes. From this research, researchers can deduce that the watermark is performed on the scientific work not only serves as the copyright protection of that scientific paper but can also be an alternative for other researchers to access the scientific work.

Avaliação do entendimento da cartilha educativa sobre TDAH em formato de revista em quadrinhos com educadores

O presente estudo teve como objetivo realizar a avaliação do entendimento da cartilha educativa em formato de revista em quadrinhos com educadores. A metodologia utilizada na pesquisa de campo foi descritiva, com abordagem qualitativa, participaram do estudo 64 docentes, a coleta de dados aconteceu por meio dos aplicativos WhatsApp e Messenger com o envio da cartilha educativa em Portable Document Format – PDF e o questionário com 13 perguntas com posterior análise discursiva. Os dados serviram como suporte para a elaboração de uma cartilha educativa quadrinizada sobre o Transtorno de Déficit de Atenção e Hiperatividade - TDAH, a ser utilizado pelos educadores. Os resultados obtidos reforçaram a importância de compreender os aspectos do comportamento da criança com TDAH, por meio do entendimento do transtorno. Acredita-se que a cartilha educativa poderá contribuir para o conhecimento dos educadores acerca do Transtorno de Déficit de Atenção e Hiperatividade, fornecendo-lhes subsídios para lidarem com os estudantes portadores do transtorno.

Readability Enhancement for PDF Documents

Readability has been studied for decades, ranging from traditional paper reading to digital document reading, Web page reading, etc. Different audiences have different needs and the needs trigger the researchers to investigate innovative solutions. For example, in recent years, researchers have studied readability enhancement of English articles for non-native English readers, either on paper reading or hypertext document reading. Using a variety of methods, researchers were able to enhance the reading comprehension and the users’ satisfaction on hypertext document reading, such as changing content presentation with visual-syntactic text formatting (VSTF) format or Jenga format. In terms of dynamically changing content presentation for reading, one less explored format is Portable Document Format (PDF), which was traditionally viewed within a modern Web browser or Adobe Acrobat reader on the desktop. PDF format was standardized as an open format in 2008 and has been widely used to keep a fixed-layout content. However, a fixed layout document presents a challenge to apply existing transformation methods, not mention on mobile devices. In this paper, we not only present a system that uses a novel algorithm to decode PDF documents and apply content transformation to enhance its readability, but we also generalize it to a framework that allows the users to apply customizations and the developers to customize their needs. Although we used Jenga format as an example to enhance the readability of PDF documents, we envision the proposed framework can be used to adopt different customizations and transformation methods. The current result is promising, and we believe it is worth further investigation to make PDF documents readable and accessible for different populations, such as non-native English readers, people with dyslexia or special needs, etc.

PDF: The "P" Stands for Problematic

The Portable Document Format (PDF) is one of the most common document file types in academia, both in the library and the classroom. Unfortunately, PDF poses unique barriers to accessibility, particularly for the visually impaired. Ensuring that all people can read PDF content can be complex and expensive. There are alternative formats that can be made accessible with a lower level of effort, providing a better experience for both the end reader and the document author. This article serves as a call to arms for higher education to migrate away from PDF and to urge the tech community to develop new file formats that lend themselves to enhanced accessibility on a limited budget.