Multi-point objective-oriented sequential sampling strategy for constrained robust design

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhu, Ping; Zhang, Siliang; Chen, Wei

2015-03-01

Metamodelling techniques are widely used to approximate system responses of expensive simulation models. In association with the use of metamodels, objective-oriented sequential sampling methods have been demonstrated to be effective in balancing the need for searching an optimal solution versus reducing the metamodelling uncertainty. However, existing infilling criteria are developed for deterministic problems and restricted to one sampling point in one iteration. To exploit the use of multiple samples and identify the true robust solution in fewer iterations, a multi-point objective-oriented sequential sampling strategy is proposed for constrained robust design problems. In this article, earlier development of objective-oriented sequential sampling strategy for unconstrained robust design is first extended to constrained problems. Next, a double-loop multi-point sequential sampling strategy is developed. The proposed methods are validated using two mathematical examples followed by a highly nonlinear automotive crashworthiness design example. The results show that the proposed method can mitigate the effect of both metamodelling uncertainty and design uncertainty, and identify the robust design solution more efficiently than the single-point sequential sampling approach.

Bench press exercise: the key points.

PubMed

Padulo, J; Laffaye, G; Chaouachi, A; Chamari, K

2015-06-01

The bench press exercise (BPE) is receiving increasing interest as a field testing, training/therapeutic modality to improve neuromuscular performance or to increase bone mass density. Several studies have been performed using BPE as a standard for increasing upper-limb strength. For this purpose, the position of the bar, the loads, the sets, the number of repetitions, the recovery time in-between sets, the movement speed, the muscular work and the use of the determination of the one repetition maximum (1-RM) are the classical tools investigated in the literature that have been shown to affect the BPE effect on neuromuscular. The goal of the present short review is to make a picture of the current knowledge on the bench press exercise, which could be very helpful for a better understanding of this standard movement and its effects. Based on the related literature, several recommendations on these key points are presented here.

Antennal pointing at a looming object in the cricket Acheta domesticus.

PubMed

Yamawaki, Yoshifumi; Ishibashi, Wakako

2014-01-01

Antennal pointing responses to approaching objects were observed in the house cricket Acheta domesticus. In response to a ball approaching from the lateral side, crickets oriented the antenna ipsilateral to the ball towards it. In response to a ball approaching from the front, crickets oriented both antennae forward. Response rates of antennal pointing were higher when the ball was approaching from the front than from behind. The antennal angle ipsilateral to the approaching ball was positively correlated with approaching angle of the ball. Obstructing the cricket's sight decreased the response rate of antennal pointing, suggesting that this response was elicited mainly by visual stimuli. Although the response rates of antennal pointing decreased when the object ceased its approach at a great distance from the cricket, antennal pointing appeared to be resistant to habituation and was not substantially affected by the velocity, size and trajectory of an approaching ball. When presented with computer-generated visual stimuli, crickets frequently showed the antennal pointing response to a darkening stimulus as well as looming and linearly-expanding stimuli. Drifting gratings rarely elicited the antennal pointing. These results suggest that luminance change is sufficient to elicit antennal pointing. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Viewing another person's body as a target object: a behavioural and PET study of pointing.

PubMed

Cleret de Langavant, Laurent; Trinkler, Iris; Remy, Philippe; Thirioux, Bérangère; McIntyre, Joseph; Berthoz, Alain; Dupoux, Emmanuel; Bachoud-Lévi, Anne-Catherine

2012-07-01

Humans usually point at objects to communicate with other persons, although they generally avoid pointing at the other's body. Moreover, patients with heterotopagnosia after left parietal damage cannot point at another person's body parts, although they can point at objects and at their own body parts and although they can grasp the others' body parts. Strikingly, their performance gradually improves for figurative human body targets. Altogether, this suggests that the body of another real person holds a specific status in communicative pointing. Here, we test in healthy individuals whether performance for communicative pointing is influenced by the communicative capacity of the target. In Experiment 1, pointing at another real person's body parts was compared to pointing at objects, and in Experiment 2, the person was replaced by a manikin. While reaction times for pointing at objects were shorter compared to pointing at other person's body parts, they were similar for objects and manikin body parts. By adapting Experiment 1 to PET-scan imaging (Experiment 3), we showed that, compared to pointing at objects, the brain network for pointing at other person's body parts involves the left posterior intraparietal sulcus, lesion of which could cause heterotopagnosia. Taken together, our results indicate that the specificity of pointing at another person's body goes beyond the visuo-spatial features of the human body and might rather rely on its communicative capacity. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

41 CFR Appendix A to Subpart B of... - 3-Key Points and Principles

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-07-01

... Principles A Appendix A to Subpart B of Part 102 Public Contracts and Property Management Federal Property.... B, App. A Appendix A to Subpart B of Part 102-3—Key Points and Principles This appendix provides... principles that may be applied to situations not covered elsewhere in this subpart. The guidance follows: Key...

Salient Point Detection in Protrusion Parts of 3D Object Robust to Isometric Variations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mirloo, Mahsa; Ebrahimnezhad, Hosein

2018-03-01

In this paper, a novel method is proposed to detect 3D object salient points robust to isometric variations and stable against scaling and noise. Salient points can be used as the representative points from object protrusion parts in order to improve the object matching and retrieval algorithms. The proposed algorithm is started by determining the first salient point of the model based on the average geodesic distance of several random points. Then, according to the previous salient point, a new point is added to this set of points in each iteration. By adding every salient point, decision function is updated. Hence, a condition is created for selecting the next point in which the iterative point is not extracted from the same protrusion part so that drawing out of a representative point from every protrusion part is guaranteed. This method is stable against model variations with isometric transformations, scaling, and noise with different levels of strength due to using a feature robust to isometric variations and considering the relation between the salient points. In addition, the number of points used in averaging process is decreased in this method, which leads to lower computational complexity in comparison with the other salient point detection algorithms.

Non-contact local temperature measurement inside an object using an infrared point detector

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hisaka, Masaki

2017-04-01

Local temperature measurement in deep areas of objects is an important technique in biomedical measurement. We have investigated a non-contact method for measuring temperature inside an object using a point detector for infrared (IR) light. An IR point detector with a pinhole was constructed and the radiant IR light emitted from the local interior of the object is photodetected only at the position of pinhole located in imaging relation. We measured the thermal structure of the filament inside the miniature bulb using the IR point detector, and investigated the temperature dependence at approximately human body temperature using a glass plate positioned in front of the heat source.

A multiple-point spatially weighted k-NN method for object-based classification

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tang, Yunwei; Jing, Linhai; Li, Hui; Atkinson, Peter M.

2016-10-01

Object-based classification, commonly referred to as object-based image analysis (OBIA), is now commonly regarded as able to produce more appealing classification maps, often of greater accuracy, than pixel-based classification and its application is now widespread. Therefore, improvement of OBIA using spatial techniques is of great interest. In this paper, multiple-point statistics (MPS) is proposed for object-based classification enhancement in the form of a new multiple-point k-nearest neighbour (k-NN) classification method (MPk-NN). The proposed method first utilises a training image derived from a pre-classified map to characterise the spatial correlation between multiple points of land cover classes. The MPS borrows spatial structures from other parts of the training image, and then incorporates this spatial information, in the form of multiple-point probabilities, into the k-NN classifier. Two satellite sensor images with a fine spatial resolution were selected to evaluate the new method. One is an IKONOS image of the Beijing urban area and the other is a WorldView-2 image of the Wolong mountainous area, in China. The images were object-based classified using the MPk-NN method and several alternatives, including the k-NN, the geostatistically weighted k-NN, the Bayesian method, the decision tree classifier (DTC), and the support vector machine classifier (SVM). It was demonstrated that the new spatial weighting based on MPS can achieve greater classification accuracy relative to the alternatives and it is, thus, recommended as appropriate for object-based classification.

Provisional-Ideal-Point-Based Multi-objective Optimization Method for Drone Delivery Problem

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Omagari, Hiroki; Higashino, Shin-Ichiro

2018-04-01

In this paper, we proposed a new evolutionary multi-objective optimization method for solving drone delivery problems (DDP). It can be formulated as a constrained multi-objective optimization problem. In our previous research, we proposed the "aspiration-point-based method" to solve multi-objective optimization problems. However, this method needs to calculate the optimal values of each objective function value in advance. Moreover, it does not consider the constraint conditions except for the objective functions. Therefore, it cannot apply to DDP which has many constraint conditions. To solve these issues, we proposed "provisional-ideal-point-based method." The proposed method defines a "penalty value" to search for feasible solutions. It also defines a new reference solution named "provisional-ideal point" to search for the preferred solution for a decision maker. In this way, we can eliminate the preliminary calculations and its limited application scope. The results of the benchmark test problems show that the proposed method can generate the preferred solution efficiently. The usefulness of the proposed method is also demonstrated by applying it to DDP. As a result, the delivery path when combining one drone and one truck drastically reduces the traveling distance and the delivery time compared with the case of using only one truck.

Distribution majorization of corner points by reinforcement learning for moving object detection

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wu, Hao; Yu, Hao; Zhou, Dongxiang; Cheng, Yongqiang

2018-04-01

Corner points play an important role in moving object detection, especially in the case of free-moving camera. Corner points provide more accurate information than other pixels and reduce the computation which is unnecessary. Previous works only use intensity information to locate the corner points, however, the information that former and the last frames provided also can be used. We utilize the information to focus on more valuable area and ignore the invaluable area. The proposed algorithm is based on reinforcement learning, which regards the detection of corner points as a Markov process. In the Markov model, the video to be detected is regarded as environment, the selections of blocks for one corner point are regarded as actions and the performance of detection is regarded as state. Corner points are assigned to be the blocks which are seperated from original whole image. Experimentally, we select a conventional method which uses marching and Random Sample Consensus algorithm to obtain objects as the main framework and utilize our algorithm to improve the result. The comparison between the conventional method and the same one with our algorithm show that our algorithm reduce 70% of the false detection.

Automatic pole-like object modeling via 3D part-based analysis of point cloud

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

He, Liu; Yang, Haoxiang; Huang, Yuchun

2016-10-01

Pole-like objects, including trees, lampposts and traffic signs, are indispensable part of urban infrastructure. With the advance of vehicle-based laser scanning (VLS), massive point cloud of roadside urban areas becomes applied in 3D digital city modeling. Based on the property that different pole-like objects have various canopy parts and similar trunk parts, this paper proposed the 3D part-based shape analysis to robustly extract, identify and model the pole-like objects. The proposed method includes: 3D clustering and recognition of trunks, voxel growing and part-based 3D modeling. After preprocessing, the trunk center is identified as the point that has local density peak and the largest minimum inter-cluster distance. Starting from the trunk centers, the remaining points are iteratively clustered to the same centers of their nearest point with higher density. To eliminate the noisy points, cluster border is refined by trimming boundary outliers. Then, candidate trunks are extracted based on the clustering results in three orthogonal planes by shape analysis. Voxel growing obtains the completed pole-like objects regardless of overlaying. Finally, entire trunk, branch and crown part are analyzed to obtain seven feature parameters. These parameters are utilized to model three parts respectively and get signal part-assembled 3D model. The proposed method is tested using the VLS-based point cloud of Wuhan University, China. The point cloud includes many kinds of trees, lampposts and other pole-like posters under different occlusions and overlaying. Experimental results show that the proposed method can extract the exact attributes and model the roadside pole-like objects efficiently.

Fast grasping of unknown objects using cylinder searching on a single point cloud

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lei, Qujiang; Wisse, Martijn

2017-03-01

Grasping of unknown objects with neither appearance data nor object models given in advance is very important for robots that work in an unfamiliar environment. The goal of this paper is to quickly synthesize an executable grasp for one unknown object by using cylinder searching on a single point cloud. Specifically, a 3D camera is first used to obtain a partial point cloud of the target unknown object. An original method is then employed to do post treatment on the partial point cloud to minimize the uncertainty which may lead to grasp failure. In order to accelerate the grasp searching, surface normal of the target object is then used to constrain the synthetization of the cylinder grasp candidates. Operability analysis is then used to select out all executable grasp candidates followed by force balance optimization to choose the most reliable grasp as the final grasp execution. In order to verify the effectiveness of our algorithm, Simulations on a Universal Robot arm UR5 and an under-actuated Lacquey Fetch gripper are used to examine the performance of this algorithm, and successful results are obtained.

Learning Objects and the Development of Students' Key Competencies: A New Zealand School Experience

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Falloon, Garry

2010-01-01

This paper outlines a study investigating the impact of the use of learning objects on the development of two key competencies from the revised New Zealand Curriculum Framework (Ministry of Education, 2007). It specifically focuses on the key competencies of "thinking" and "relating to others", and explores how teachers in an…

Final report on APMP.T-K7 key comparison of water triple point cells

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tsai, S. F.; White, R.; Tamba, J.; Yamazawa, K.; Ho, M. K.; Tsui, C. M.; Zaid, G.; Achmadi, A.; Gam, K. S.; Othman, H.; Ali, N. M.; Yuan, K. H.; Shaochun, Y.; Liedberg, H.; Yaokulbodee, C.

2016-01-01

APMP.T-K7, was held from February 2008 to September 2009 to compare the national realizations of the water triple point among eleven NMIs. To reach the objective, each participating laboratory sent a transfer cell to CMS and stated a value for the temperature difference of the transfer cell, relative to the corresponding national standard, representing 273.16 K. CMS (Taiwan) organized the comparison, with the support from co-pilot institutes MSL (New Zealand) and NMIJ (Japan). The other eight participating laboratories included NMIA, SCL, KIM-LIPI, KRISS, NMIM/SIRIM, NMC, NMISA, and NIMT. This report presents the results of the TPW comparison, gives detailed information about the measurements made at the CMS and at the participating laboratories, and aims to link the results of APMP.T-K7 to CCT-K7. The results of this key comparison are also represented in the form of degrees of equivalence for the purposes of the MRA. Main text To reach the main text of this paper, click on Final Report. Note that this text is that which appears in Appendix B of the BIPM key comparison database kcdb.bipm.org/. The final report has been peer-reviewed and approved for publication by the CCT, according to the provisions of the CIPM Mutual Recognition Arrangement (CIPM MRA).

Adaptive surrogate model based multi-objective transfer trajectory optimization between different libration points

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Peng, Haijun; Wang, Wei

2016-10-01

An adaptive surrogate model-based multi-objective optimization strategy that combines the benefits of invariant manifolds and low-thrust control toward developing a low-computational-cost transfer trajectory between libration orbits around the L1 and L2 libration points in the Sun-Earth system has been proposed in this paper. A new structure for a multi-objective transfer trajectory optimization model that divides the transfer trajectory into several segments and gives the dominations for invariant manifolds and low-thrust control in different segments has been established. To reduce the computational cost of multi-objective transfer trajectory optimization, a mixed sampling strategy-based adaptive surrogate model has been proposed. Numerical simulations show that the results obtained from the adaptive surrogate-based multi-objective optimization are in agreement with the results obtained using direct multi-objective optimization methods, and the computational workload of the adaptive surrogate-based multi-objective optimization is only approximately 10% of that of direct multi-objective optimization. Furthermore, the generating efficiency of the Pareto points of the adaptive surrogate-based multi-objective optimization is approximately 8 times that of the direct multi-objective optimization. Therefore, the proposed adaptive surrogate-based multi-objective optimization provides obvious advantages over direct multi-objective optimization methods.

Ensuring quality: a key consideration in scaling-up HIV-related point-of-care testing programs

PubMed Central

Fonjungo, Peter N.; Osmanov, Saladin; Kuritsky, Joel; Ndihokubwayo, Jean Bosco; Bachanas, Pam; Peeling, Rosanna W.; Timperi, Ralph; Fine, Glenn; Stevens, Wendy; Habiyambere, Vincent; Nkengasong, John N.

2016-01-01

Objective: The objective of the WHO/US President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief consultation was to discuss innovative strategies, offer guidance, and develop a comprehensive policy framework for implementing quality-assured HIV-related point-of-care testing (POCT). Methods: The consultation was attended by representatives from international agencies (WHO, UNICEF, UNITAID, Clinton Health Access Initiative), United States Agency for International Development, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention/President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief Cooperative Agreement Partners, and experts from more than 25 countries, including policy makers, clinicians, laboratory experts, and program implementers. Main outcomes: There was strong consensus among all participants that ensuring access to quality of POCT represents one of the key challenges for the success of HIV prevention, treatment, and care programs. The following four strategies were recommended: implement a newly proposed concept of a sustainable quality assurance cycle that includes careful planning; definition of goals and targets; timely implementation; continuous monitoring; improvements and adjustments, where necessary; and a detailed evaluation; the importance of supporting a cadre of workers [e.g. volunteer quality corps (Q-Corps)] with the role to ensure that the quality assurance cycle is followed and sustained; implementation of the new strategy should be seen as a step-wise process, supported by development of appropriate policies and tools; and joint partnership under the leadership of the ministries of health to ensure sustainability of implementing novel approaches. Conclusion: The outcomes of this consultation have been well received by program implementers in the field. The recommendations also laid the groundwork for developing key policy and quality documents for the implementation of HIV-related POCT. PMID:26807969

a Two-Step Classification Approach to Distinguishing Similar Objects in Mobile LIDAR Point Clouds

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

He, H.; Khoshelham, K.; Fraser, C.

2017-09-01

Nowadays, lidar is widely used in cultural heritage documentation, urban modeling, and driverless car technology for its fast and accurate 3D scanning ability. However, full exploitation of the potential of point cloud data for efficient and automatic object recognition remains elusive. Recently, feature-based methods have become very popular in object recognition on account of their good performance in capturing object details. Compared with global features describing the whole shape of the object, local features recording the fractional details are more discriminative and are applicable for object classes with considerable similarity. In this paper, we propose a two-step classification approach based on point feature histograms and the bag-of-features method for automatic recognition of similar objects in mobile lidar point clouds. Lamp post, street light and traffic sign are grouped as one category in the first-step classification for their inter similarity compared with tree and vehicle. A finer classification of the lamp post, street light and traffic sign based on the result of the first-step classification is implemented in the second step. The proposed two-step classification approach is shown to yield a considerable improvement over the conventional one-step classification approach.

41 CFR Appendix A to Subpart C of... - 3-Key Points and Principles

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-01-01

... Management Regulations System (Continued) FEDERAL MANAGEMENT REGULATION GENERAL 3-FEDERAL ADVISORY COMMITTEE... or agency management directives; (iv) The applicability of conflict of interest statutes and other... 41 Public Contracts and Property Management 3 2011-01-01 2011-01-01 false 3-Key Points and...

Shifts in Key Time Points and Strategies for a Multisegment Motor Task in Healthy Aging Subjects.

PubMed

Casteran, Matthieu; Hilt, Pauline M; Mourey, France; Manckoundia, Patrick; French, Robert; Thomas, Elizabeth

2018-05-05

In this study, we compared key temporal points in the whole body pointing movement of healthy aging and young subjects. During this movement, subject leans forward from a standing position to reach a target. As it involves forward inclination of the trunk, the movement creates a risk for falling. We examined two strategic time points during the task-first, the crossover point where the velocity of the center of mass (CoM) in the vertical dimension outstripped the velocity in the anteroposterior dimension and secondly, the time to peak of the CoM velocity profile. Transitions to stabilizing postures occur at these time points. They both occurred earlier in aging subjects. The crossover point also showed adjustments with target distance in aging subjects, while this was not observed in younger subjects. The shifts in these key time points could not be attributed to differences in movement duration between the two groups. Investigation with an optimal control model showed that the temporal adjustment as a function of target distance in the healthy aging subjects fits into a strategy that emphasized equilibrium maintenance rather than absolute work as a control strategy.

41 CFR Appendix A to Subpart A of... - 3-Key Points and Principles

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-07-01

... 41 Public Contracts and Property Management 3 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false 3-Key Points and Principles A Appendix A to Subpart A of Part 102 Public Contracts and Property Management Federal Property Management Regulations System (Continued) FEDERAL MANAGEMENT REGULATION GENERAL 3-FEDERAL ADVISORY COMMITTEE...

Implicit Shape Models for Object Detection in 3d Point Clouds

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Velizhev, A.; Shapovalov, R.; Schindler, K.

2012-07-01

We present a method for automatic object localization and recognition in 3D point clouds representing outdoor urban scenes. The method is based on the implicit shape models (ISM) framework, which recognizes objects by voting for their center locations. It requires only few training examples per class, which is an important property for practical use. We also introduce and evaluate an improved version of the spin image descriptor, more robust to point density variation and uncertainty in normal direction estimation. Our experiments reveal a significant impact of these modifications on the recognition performance. We compare our results against the state-of-the-art method and get significant improvement in both precision and recall on the Ohio dataset, consisting of combined aerial and terrestrial LiDAR scans of 150,000 m2 of urban area in total.

[Clinical key points. Gonioscopy].

PubMed

Hamard, P

2007-05-01

Gonioscopy should be performed in all patients with glaucoma or suspected of having glaucoma. Four points are systematically evaluated: the width of the angle, the degree of trabecular pigmentation, the iridotrabecular appositions or synechia, and the level of iris insertion and the shape of the peripheral iris profile.

KEY COMPARISON: Final Report on CCT-K7: Key comparison of water triple point cells

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Stock, M.; Solve, S.; del Campo, D.; Chimenti, V.; Méndez-Lango, E.; Liedberg, H.; Steur, P. P. M.; Marcarino, P.; Dematteis, R.; Filipe, E.; Lobo, I.; Kang, K. H.; Gam, K. S.; Kim, Y.-G.; Renaot, E.; Bonnier, G.; Valin, M.; White, R.; Dransfield, T. D.; Duan, Y.; Xiaoke, Y.; Strouse, G.; Ballico, M.; Sukkar, D.; Arai, M.; Mans, A.; de Groot, M.; Kerkhof, O.; Rusby, R.; Gray, J.; Head, D.; Hill, K.; Tegeler, E.; Noatsch, U.; Duris, S.; Kho, H. Y.; Ugur, S.; Pokhodun, A.; Gerasimov, S. F.

2006-01-01

The triple point of water serves to define the kelvin, the unit of thermodynamic temperature, in the International System of Units (SI). Furthermore, it is the most important fixed point of the International Temperature Scale of 1990 (ITS-90). Any uncertainty in the realization of the triple point of water contributes directly to the measurement uncertainty over the wide temperature range from 13.8033 K to 1234.93 K. The Consultative Committee for Thermometry (CCT) decided at its 21st meeting in 2001 to carry out a comparison of water triple point cells and charged the BIPM with its organization. Water triple point cells from 20 national metrology institutes were carried to the BIPM and were compared with highest accuracy with two reference cells. The small day-to-day changes of the reference cells were determined by a least-squares technique. Prior to the measurements at the BIPM, the transfer cells were compared with the corresponding national references and therefore also allow comparison of the national references of the water triple point. This report presents the results of this comparison and gives detailed information about the measurements made at the BIPM and in the participating laboratories. It was found that the transfer cells show a standard deviation of 50 µK the difference between the extremes is 160 µK. The same spread is observed between the national references. The most important result of this work is that a correlation between the isotopic composition of the cell water and the triple point temperature was observed. To reduce the spread between different realizations, it is therefore proposed that the definition of the kelvin should refer to water of a specified isotopic composition. The CCT recommended to the International Committee of Weights and Measures (CIPM) to clarify the definition of the kelvin in the SI brochure by explicitly referring to water with the isotopic composition of Vienna Standard Mean Ocean Water (VSMOW). The CIPM

Final report on APMP.T-K7.1 key comparison of water triple point cells, bilateral NMIJ-VMI

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yamazawa, Kazuaki; Nakano, Tohru; Thanh Binh, Pham

2018-01-01

APMP.T-K7.1, was held from July 2014 to May 2015 to compare the national realizations of the water triple point between NMIJ (Japan) and VMI (Vietnam). To reach the objective, VMI sent a transfer cell to NMIJ and stated a value for the temperature difference of the transfer cell, relative to the corresponding national standard, representing 273.16 K. This report presents the results of the TPW comparison, gives detailed information about the measurements made at the NMIJ and at the VMI, and aims to link the results of APMP.T-K7.1 to APMP.T-K7 and CCT-K7. The results of this key comparison are also represented in the form of degrees of equivalence for the purposes of the MRA. Main text To reach the main text of this paper, click on Final Report. Note that this text is that which appears in Appendix B of the BIPM key comparison database kcdb.bipm.org/. The final report has been peer-reviewed and approved for publication by the CCT, according to the provisions of the CIPM Mutual Recognition Arrangement (CIPM MRA).

Laser scanning system for object monitoring

DOEpatents

McIntyre, Timothy James [Knoxville, TN; Maxey, Lonnie Curtis [Powell, TN; Chiaro, Jr; John, Peter [Clinton, TN

2008-04-22

A laser scanner is located in a fixed position to have line-of-sight access to key features of monitored objects. The scanner rapidly scans pre-programmed points corresponding to the positions of retroreflecting targets affixed to the key features of the objects. The scanner is capable of making highly detailed scans of any portion of the field of view, permitting the exact location and identity of targets to be confirmed. The security of an object is verified by determining that the cooperative target is still present and that its position has not changed. The retroreflecting targets also modulate the reflected light for purposes of returning additional information back to the location of the scanner.

SigVox - A 3D feature matching algorithm for automatic street object recognition in mobile laser scanning point clouds

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wang, Jinhu; Lindenbergh, Roderik; Menenti, Massimo

2017-06-01

Urban road environments contain a variety of objects including different types of lamp poles and traffic signs. Its monitoring is traditionally conducted by visual inspection, which is time consuming and expensive. Mobile laser scanning (MLS) systems sample the road environment efficiently by acquiring large and accurate point clouds. This work proposes a methodology for urban road object recognition from MLS point clouds. The proposed method uses, for the first time, shape descriptors of complete objects to match repetitive objects in large point clouds. To do so, a novel 3D multi-scale shape descriptor is introduced, that is embedded in a workflow that efficiently and automatically identifies different types of lamp poles and traffic signs. The workflow starts by tiling the raw point clouds along the scanning trajectory and by identifying non-ground points. After voxelization of the non-ground points, connected voxels are clustered to form candidate objects. For automatic recognition of lamp poles and street signs, a 3D significant eigenvector based shape descriptor using voxels (SigVox) is introduced. The 3D SigVox descriptor is constructed by first subdividing the points with an octree into several levels. Next, significant eigenvectors of the points in each voxel are determined by principal component analysis (PCA) and mapped onto the appropriate triangle of a sphere approximating icosahedron. This step is repeated for different scales. By determining the similarity of 3D SigVox descriptors between candidate point clusters and training objects, street furniture is automatically identified. The feasibility and quality of the proposed method is verified on two point clouds obtained in opposite direction of a stretch of road of 4 km. 6 types of lamp pole and 4 types of road sign were selected as objects of interest. Ground truth validation showed that the overall accuracy of the ∼170 automatically recognized objects is approximately 95%. The results demonstrate

Key points for abolishing Female Genital Mutilation from the perspective of the men involved.

PubMed

Ruiz, Ismael Jiménez; Martínez, Pilar Almansa; Del Mar Pastor Bravo, María

2016-03-01

female Genital Mutilation is internationally considered an affront on human rights and an act of violence against women and young girls. Furthermore, it hierarchises and perpetuates inequality and denies the right to bodily and psychosocial integrity of women and young girls. to detect the key points for the abolition of Female Genital Mutilation as well as the necessary resources for its eradication. a qualitative methodology with an ethnonursing perspective, via semi-structured interviews, held both individually and in groups, in 21 men familiar with Female Genital Mutilation. through the voices of men familiar with this tradition, five key points are presented for its gradual eradication: sensitisation and awareness building, team action, abolition-promoting media, focusing action on rural areas and applying educational means before punitive ones. awareness-raising via the combined efforts of families, communities and governments, together with the promotion of health education programmes in demonstrating the complications derived from this practice, play a vital part in eradicating Female Genital Mutilation. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Relationship between Manual Preferences for Object Manipulation and Pointing Gestures in Infants and Toddlers

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Vauclair, Jacques; Imbault, Juliette

2009-01-01

The aim of this study was to measure the pattern of hand preferences for pointing gestures as a function of object-manipulation handedness in 123 infants and toddlers (10-40 months). The results showed that not only right-handers but also left-handers and ambidextrous participants tended to use their right hand for pointing. There was a…

[Key points for the management of dermatitis in Latin America. The SLAAI Consensus].

PubMed

Sánchez, Jorge; Páez, Bruno; Macías-Weinmann, Alejandra; De Falco, Alicia

2015-01-01

The incidence of atopic dermatitis in Latin America, as in other regions, has been increasing in recent years. The SLAAI consensus is based on a systematic search for articles related to dermatitis, with focus in the pathophysiology and treatment and its impact on Latin America, and reviewed using the Delphi methodology (Revista Alergia Mexico 2014;61:178-211). In this article we highlight the key points of consensus and particular considerations in Latin America.

Off-axis phase-only holograms of 3D objects using accelerated point-based Fresnel diffraction algorithm

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zeng, Zhenxiang; Zheng, Huadong; Yu, Yingjie; Asundi, Anand K.

2017-06-01

A method for calculating off-axis phase-only holograms of three-dimensional (3D) object using accelerated point-based Fresnel diffraction algorithm (PB-FDA) is proposed. The complex amplitude of the object points on the z-axis in hologram plane is calculated using Fresnel diffraction formula, called principal complex amplitudes (PCAs). The complex amplitudes of those off-axis object points of the same depth can be obtained by 2D shifting of PCAs. In order to improve the calculating speed of the PB-FDA, the convolution operation based on fast Fourier transform (FFT) is used to calculate the holograms rather than using the point-by-point spatial 2D shifting of the PCAs. The shortest recording distance of the PB-FDA is analyzed in order to remove the influence of multiple-order images in reconstructed images. The optimal recording distance of the PB-FDA is also analyzed to improve the quality of reconstructed images. Numerical reconstructions and optical reconstructions with a phase-only spatial light modulator (SLM) show that holographic 3D display is feasible with the proposed algorithm. The proposed PB-FDA can also avoid the influence of the zero-order image introduced by SLM in optical reconstructed images.

Multi-objective Calibration of DHSVM Based on Hydrologic Key Elements in Jinhua River Basin, East China

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pan, S.; Liu, L.; Xu, Y. P.

2017-12-01

Abstract: In physically based distributed hydrological model, large number of parameters, representing spatial heterogeneity of watershed and various processes in hydrologic cycle, are involved. For lack of calibration module in Distributed Hydrology Soil Vegetation Model, this study developed a multi-objective calibration module using Epsilon-Dominance Non-Dominated Sorted Genetic Algorithm II (ɛ-NSGAII) and based on parallel computing of Linux cluster for DHSVM (ɛP-DHSVM). In this study, two hydrologic key elements (i.e., runoff and evapotranspiration) are used as objectives in multi-objective calibration of model. MODIS evapotranspiration obtained by SEBAL is adopted to fill the gap of lack of observation for evapotranspiration. The results show that good performance of runoff simulation in single objective calibration cannot ensure good simulation performance of other hydrologic key elements. Self-developed ɛP-DHSVM model can make multi-objective calibration more efficiently and effectively. The running speed can be increased by more than 20-30 times via applying ɛP-DHSVM. In addition, runoff and evapotranspiration can be simulated very well simultaneously by ɛP-DHSVM, with superior values for two efficiency coefficients (0.74 for NS of runoff and 0.79 for NS of evapotranspiration, -10.5% and -8.6% for PBIAS of runoff and evapotranspiration respectively).

The narcissism and death of Yukio Mishima--from the object relational point of view.

PubMed

Ushijima, S

1987-12-01

The author discussed the life and work of Yukio Mishima from the object relational point of view. First, he described his brief life history, pointing out the four big identity crises in his life as his fierce struggles against the suicidal wishes were likely to enlarge within himself. Then, he suggested that Mishima had been in the state of part object relationship throughout his life. Thirdly, the important role of the body or bodies in his fantastic and real life was discussed as a manifestation of not merely autoerotic activities but also disturbances of the core of identity. Finally, the fragility of the intermediate area of experience which was thought to have eventually led him to the last action, the seppuku, was examined.

Ifcwall Reconstruction from Unstructured Point Clouds

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bassier, M.; Klein, R.; Van Genechten, B.; Vergauwen, M.

2018-05-01

The automated reconstruction of Building Information Modeling (BIM) objects from point cloud data is still ongoing research. A key aspect is the creation of accurate wall geometry as it forms the basis for further reconstruction of objects in a BIM. After segmenting and classifying the initial point cloud, the labelled segments are processed and the wall topology is reconstructed. However, the preocedure is challenging due to noise, occlusions and the complexity of the input data.In this work, a method is presented to automatically reconstruct consistent wall geometry from point clouds. More specifically, the use of room information is proposed to aid the wall topology creation. First, a set of partial walls is constructed based on classified planar primitives. Next, the rooms are identified using the retrieved wall information along with the floors and ceilings. The wall topology is computed by the intersection of the partial walls conditioned on the room information. The final wall geometry is defined by creating IfcWallStandardCase objects conform the IFC4 standard. The result is a set of walls according to the as-built conditions of a building. The experiments prove that the used method is a reliable framework for wall reconstruction from unstructured point cloud data. Also, the implementation of room information reduces the rate of false positives for the wall topology. Given the walls, ceilings and floors, 94% of the rooms is correctly identified. A key advantage of the proposed method is that it deals with complex rooms and is not bound to single storeys.

Octopuses use a human-like strategy to control precise point-to-point arm movements.

PubMed

Sumbre, Germán; Fiorito, Graziano; Flash, Tamar; Hochner, Binyamin

2006-04-18

One of the key problems in motor control is mastering or reducing the number of degrees of freedom (DOFs) through coordination. This problem is especially prominent with hyper-redundant limbs such as the extremely flexible arm of the octopus. Several strategies for simplifying these control problems have been suggested for human point-to-point arm movements. Despite the evolutionary gap and morphological differences, humans and octopuses evolved similar strategies when fetching food to the mouth. To achieve this precise point-to-point-task, octopus arms generate a quasi-articulated structure based on three dynamic joints. A rotational movement around these joints brings the object to the mouth . Here, we describe a peripheral neural mechanism-two waves of muscle activation propagate toward each other, and their collision point sets the medial-joint location. This is a remarkably simple mechanism for adjusting the length of the segments according to where the object is grasped. Furthermore, similar to certain human arm movements, kinematic invariants were observed at the joint level rather than at the end-effector level, suggesting intrinsic control coordination. The evolutionary convergence to similar geometrical and kinematic features suggests that a kinematically constrained articulated limb controlled at the level of joint space is the optimal solution for precise point-to-point movements.

Object recognition and localization from 3D point clouds by maximum-likelihood estimation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Dantanarayana, Harshana G.; Huntley, Jonathan M.

2017-08-01

We present an algorithm based on maximum-likelihood analysis for the automated recognition of objects, and estimation of their pose, from 3D point clouds. Surfaces segmented from depth images are used as the features, unlike `interest point'-based algorithms which normally discard such data. Compared to the 6D Hough transform, it has negligible memory requirements, and is computationally efficient compared to iterative closest point algorithms. The same method is applicable to both the initial recognition/pose estimation problem as well as subsequent pose refinement through appropriate choice of the dispersion of the probability density functions. This single unified approach therefore avoids the usual requirement for different algorithms for these two tasks. In addition to the theoretical description, a simple 2 degrees of freedom (d.f.) example is given, followed by a full 6 d.f. analysis of 3D point cloud data from a cluttered scene acquired by a projected fringe-based scanner, which demonstrated an RMS alignment error as low as 0.3 mm.

Linking language to the visual world: Neural correlates of comprehending verbal reference to objects through pointing and visual cues.

PubMed

Peeters, David; Snijders, Tineke M; Hagoort, Peter; Özyürek, Aslı

2017-01-27

In everyday communication speakers often refer in speech and/or gesture to objects in their immediate environment, thereby shifting their addressee's attention to an intended referent. The neurobiological infrastructure involved in the comprehension of such basic multimodal communicative acts remains unclear. In an event-related fMRI study, we presented participants with pictures of a speaker and two objects while they concurrently listened to her speech. In each picture, one of the objects was singled out, either through the speaker's index-finger pointing gesture or through a visual cue that made the object perceptually more salient in the absence of gesture. A mismatch (compared to a match) between speech and the object singled out by the speaker's pointing gesture led to enhanced activation in left IFG and bilateral pMTG, showing the importance of these areas in conceptual matching between speech and referent. Moreover, a match (compared to a mismatch) between speech and the object made salient through a visual cue led to enhanced activation in the mentalizing system, arguably reflecting an attempt to converge on a jointly attended referent in the absence of pointing. These findings shed new light on the neurobiological underpinnings of the core communicative process of comprehending a speaker's multimodal referential act and stress the power of pointing as an important natural device to link speech to objects. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

System and method for confining an object to a region of fluid flow having a stagnation point

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Schroeder, Charles M. (Inventor); Babcock, Hazen P. (Inventor); Shaqfeh, Eric S. G. (Inventor); Chu, Steven (Inventor)

2006-01-01

A device for confining an object to a region proximate to a fluid flow stagnation point includes one or more inlets for carrying the fluid into the region, one or more outlets for carrying the fluid out of the region, and a controller, in fluidic communication with the inlets and outlets, for adjusting the motion of the fluid to produce a stagnation point in the region, thereby confining the object to the region. Applications include, for example, prolonged observation of the object, manipulation of the object, etc. The device optionally may employ a feedback control mechanism, a sensing apparatus (e.g., for imaging), and a storage medium for storing, and a computer for analyzing and manipulating, data acquired from observing the object. The invention further provides methods of using such a device and system in a number of fields, including biology, chemistry, physics, material science, and medical science.

Simulation and fitting of complex reaction network TPR: The key is the objective function

DOE PAGES

Savara, Aditya Ashi

2016-07-07

In this research, a method has been developed for finding improved fits during simulation and fitting of data from complex reaction network temperature programmed reactions (CRN-TPR). It was found that simulation and fitting of CRN-TPR presents additional challenges relative to simulation and fitting of simpler TPR systems. The method used here can enable checking the plausibility of proposed chemical mechanisms and kinetic models. The most important finding was that when choosing an objective function, use of an objective function that is based on integrated production provides more utility in finding improved fits when compared to an objective function based onmore » the rate of production. The response surface produced by using the integrated production is monotonic, suppresses effects from experimental noise, requires fewer points to capture the response behavior, and can be simulated numerically with smaller errors. For CRN-TPR, there is increased importance (relative to simple reaction network TPR) in resolving of peaks prior to fitting, as well as from weighting of experimental data points. Using an implicit ordinary differential equation solver was found to be inadequate for simulating CRN-TPR. Lastly, the method employed here was capable of attaining improved fits in simulation and fitting of CRN-TPR when starting with a postulated mechanism and physically realistic initial guesses for the kinetic parameters.« less

Reconstruction of 3d Objects of Assets and Facilities by Using Benchmark Points

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Baig, S. U.; Rahman, A. A.

2013-08-01

Acquiring and modeling 3D geo-data of building assets and facility objects is one of the challenges. A number of methods and technologies are being utilized for this purpose. Total station, GPS, photogrammetric and terrestrial laser scanning are few of these technologies. In this paper, points commonly shared by potential facades of assets and facilities modeled from point clouds are identified. These points are useful for modeling process to reconstruct 3D models of assets and facilities stored to be used for management purposes. These models are segmented through different planes to produce accurate 2D plans. This novel method improves the efficiency and quality of construction of models of assets and facilities with the aim utilize in 3D management projects such as maintenance of buildings or group of items that need to be replaced, or renovated for new services.

[Discussion on the key points of building modern theory of acupuncture treatment].

PubMed

Yang, Guang

2013-10-01

Acupuncture treatment is different from treatment of materia medica. However, syndrome differentiation system of internal medicine is adopted all the time for the present acupuncture textbooks. It is held that the characteristics of acupuncture can not be fully reflexed, and advantages of acupuncture can not be brought into full play. Therefore, it's urgent to build up a modem theory on acupuncture treatment which is fit for the clinical practice of acupuncture and can give a better play for the treatment of acupuncture. A clear target is one of the characteristics of acupuncture treatment. And it is based on the understanding of the location of disease, therefore, disease differentiation is held as the basis of acupuncture treatment. The aim of meridian differentiation is to select distal effective points on the base of diseases differentiation, which is also taken as the characteristics of acupuncture treatment. Syndrome differentiation is a process of understanding the general pathological states of the human body, it is an important process to enhance the therapeutic effect of acupuncture. Thus, the key point for establishing the modern acupuncture theory is clarifying the values of disease differentiation, meridian differentiation and syndrome differentiation.

Object Based Image Analysis Combining High Spatial Resolution Imagery and Laser Point Clouds for Urban Land Cover

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zou, Xiaoliang; Zhao, Guihua; Li, Jonathan; Yang, Yuanxi; Fang, Yong

2016-06-01

With the rapid developments of the sensor technology, high spatial resolution imagery and airborne Lidar point clouds can be captured nowadays, which make classification, extraction, evaluation and analysis of a broad range of object features available. High resolution imagery, Lidar dataset and parcel map can be widely used for classification as information carriers. Therefore, refinement of objects classification is made possible for the urban land cover. The paper presents an approach to object based image analysis (OBIA) combing high spatial resolution imagery and airborne Lidar point clouds. The advanced workflow for urban land cover is designed with four components. Firstly, colour-infrared TrueOrtho photo and laser point clouds were pre-processed to derive the parcel map of water bodies and nDSM respectively. Secondly, image objects are created via multi-resolution image segmentation integrating scale parameter, the colour and shape properties with compactness criterion. Image can be subdivided into separate object regions. Thirdly, image objects classification is performed on the basis of segmentation and a rule set of knowledge decision tree. These objects imagery are classified into six classes such as water bodies, low vegetation/grass, tree, low building, high building and road. Finally, in order to assess the validity of the classification results for six classes, accuracy assessment is performed through comparing randomly distributed reference points of TrueOrtho imagery with the classification results, forming the confusion matrix and calculating overall accuracy and Kappa coefficient. The study area focuses on test site Vaihingen/Enz and a patch of test datasets comes from the benchmark of ISPRS WG III/4 test project. The classification results show higher overall accuracy for most types of urban land cover. Overall accuracy is 89.5% and Kappa coefficient equals to 0.865. The OBIA approach provides an effective and convenient way to combine high

End points and assessments in esthetic dental treatment.

PubMed

Ishida, Yuichi; Fujimoto, Keiko; Higaki, Nobuaki; Goto, Takaharu; Ichikawa, Tetsuo

2015-10-01

There are two key considerations for successful esthetic dental treatments. This article systematically describes the two key considerations: the end points of esthetic dental treatments and assessments of esthetic outcomes, which are also important for acquiring clinical skill in esthetic dental treatments. The end point and assessment of esthetic dental treatment were discussed through literature reviews and clinical practices. Before designing a treatment plan, the end point of dental treatment should be established. The section entitled "End point of esthetic dental treatment" discusses treatments for maxillary anterior teeth and the restoration of facial profile with prostheses. The process of assessing treatment outcomes entitled "Assessments of esthetic dental treatment" discusses objective and subjective evaluation methods. Practitioners should reach an agreement regarding desired end points with patients through medical interviews, and continuing improvements and developments of esthetic assessments are required to raise the therapeutic level of esthetic dental treatments. Copyright © 2015 Japan Prosthodontic Society. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

A Tissue-Mimicking Ultrasound Test Object Using Droplet Vaporization to Create Point Targets

PubMed Central

Carneal, Catherine M.; Kripfgans, Oliver D.; Krücker, Jochen; Carson, Paul L.; Fowlkes, J. Brian

2012-01-01

Ultrasound test objects containing reference point targets could be useful for evaluating ultrasound systems and phase aberration correction methods. Polyacrylamide gels containing albumin-stabilized droplets (3.6 µm mean diameter) of dodecafluoropentane (DDFP) are being developed for this purpose. Perturbation by ultrasound causes spontaneous vaporization of the superheated droplets to form gas bubbles, a process termed acoustic droplet vaporization (ADV). The resulting bubbles (20 to 160 µm diameter) are small compared with acoustic wavelengths in diagnostic ultrasound and are theoretically suitable for use as point targets (phase errors <20° for typical f-numbers). Bubbles distributed throughout the material are convenient for determining the point spread function in an imaging plane or volume. Cooling the gel causes condensation of the DDFP droplets, which may be useful for storage. Studying ADV in such viscoelastic media could provide insight into potential bioeffects from rapid bubble formation. PMID:21937339

Indexing and the object concept: developing `what' and `where' systems.

PubMed

Leslie, A M; Xu, F; Tremoulet, P D; Scholl, B J

1998-01-01

The study of object cognition over the past 25 years has proceeded in two largely non-interacting camps. One camp has studied object-based visual attention in adults, while the other has studied the object concept in infants. We briefly review both sets of literature and distill from the adult research a theoretical model that we apply to findings from the infant studies. The key notion in our model of object representation is the `sticky' index, a mechanism of selective attention that points at a physical object in a location. An object index does not represent any of the properties of the entity at which it points. However, once an index is pointing to an object, the properties of that object can be examined and featural information can be associated with, or `bound' to, its index. The distinction between indexing and feature binding underwrites the distinction between object individuation and object identification, a distinction that turns out to be crucial in both the adult attention and the infant object-concept literature. By developing the indexing model, we draw together two disparate sets of literature and suggest new ways to study object-based attention in infancy.

25th anniversary article: key points for high-mobility organic field-effect transistors.

PubMed

Dong, Huanli; Fu, Xiaolong; Liu, Jie; Wang, Zongrui; Hu, Wenping

2013-11-20

Remarkable progress has been made in developing high performance organic field-effect transistors (OFETs) and the mobility of OFETs has been approaching the values of polycrystalline silicon, meeting the requirements of various electronic applications from electronic papers to integrated circuits. In this review, the key points for development of high mobility OFETs are highlighted from aspects of molecular engineering, process engineering and interface engineering. The importance of other factors, such as impurities and testing conditions is also addressed. Finally, the current challenges in this field for practical applications of OFETs are further discussed. © 2013 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

Post-Newtonian equations of motion for LEO debris objects and space-based acquisition, pointing and tracking laser systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gambi, J. M.; García del Pino, M. L.; Gschwindl, J.; Weinmüller, E. B.

2017-12-01

This paper deals with the problem of throwing middle-sized low Earth orbit debris objects into the atmosphere via laser ablation. The post-Newtonian equations here provided allow (hypothetical) space-based acquisition, pointing and tracking systems endowed with very narrow laser beams to reach the pointing accuracy presently prescribed. In fact, whatever the orbital elements of these objects may be, these equations will allow the operators to account for the corrections needed to balance the deviations of the line of sight directions due to the curvature of the paths the laser beams are to travel along. To minimize the respective corrections, the systems will have to perform initial positioning manoeuvres, and the shooting point-ahead angles will have to be adapted in real time. The enclosed numerical experiments suggest that neglecting these measures will cause fatal errors, due to differences in the actual locations of the objects comparable to their size.

Semantic Segmentation of Building Elements Using Point Cloud Hashing

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chizhova, M.; Gurianov, A.; Hess, M.; Luhmann, T.; Brunn, A.; Stilla, U.

2018-05-01

For the interpretation of point clouds, the semantic definition of extracted segments from point clouds or images is a common problem. Usually, the semantic of geometrical pre-segmented point cloud elements are determined using probabilistic networks and scene databases. The proposed semantic segmentation method is based on the psychological human interpretation of geometric objects, especially on fundamental rules of primary comprehension. Starting from these rules the buildings could be quite well and simply classified by a human operator (e.g. architect) into different building types and structural elements (dome, nave, transept etc.), including particular building parts which are visually detected. The key part of the procedure is a novel method based on hashing where point cloud projections are transformed into binary pixel representations. A segmentation approach released on the example of classical Orthodox churches is suitable for other buildings and objects characterized through a particular typology in its construction (e.g. industrial objects in standardized enviroments with strict component design allowing clear semantic modelling).

Vector critical points and generalized quasi-efficient solutions in nonsmooth multi-objective programming.

PubMed

Wang, Zhen; Li, Ru; Yu, Guolin

2017-01-01

In this work, several extended approximately invex vector-valued functions of higher order involving a generalized Jacobian are introduced, and some examples are presented to illustrate their existences. The notions of higher-order (weak) quasi-efficiency with respect to a function are proposed for a multi-objective programming. Under the introduced generalization of higher-order approximate invexities assumptions, we prove that the solutions of generalized vector variational-like inequalities in terms of the generalized Jacobian are the generalized quasi-efficient solutions of nonsmooth multi-objective programming problems. Moreover, the equivalent conditions are presented, namely, a vector critical point is a weakly quasi-efficient solution of higher order with respect to a function.

Tumor shrinkage and objective response rates: gold standard for oncology efficacy screening trials, or an outdated end point?

PubMed

Bradbury, Penelope; Seymour, Lesley

2009-01-01

Phase II clinical trials have long been used to screen new cancer therapeutics for antitumor activity ("efficacy") worthy of further evaluation. Traditionally, the primary end point used in these screening trials has been objective response rate (RR), with the desired rate being arbitrarily set by the researchers before initiation of the trial. For cytotoxic agents, especially in common tumor types, response has been a reasonably robust and validated surrogate of benefit. Phase II trials with response as an end point have a modest sample size (15-40 patients) and are completed rapidly allowing early decisions regarding future development of a given agent. More recently, a number of new agents have proven successful in pivotal phase III studies, despite a low or very modest RR demonstrated in early clinical trials. Researchers have postulated that these novel agents, as a class, may not induce significant regression of tumors, and that the use of RR as an end point for phase II studies will result in false negative results, and point out that not all available data is used in making the decision. Others have pointed out that even novel agents have proven unsuccessful in pivotal trials if objective responses are not demonstrated in early clinical trials. We review here the historical and current information regarding objective tumor response.

A method of 3D object recognition and localization in a cloud of points

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bielicki, Jerzy; Sitnik, Robert

2013-12-01

The proposed method given in this article is prepared for analysis of data in the form of cloud of points directly from 3D measurements. It is designed for use in the end-user applications that can directly be integrated with 3D scanning software. The method utilizes locally calculated feature vectors (FVs) in point cloud data. Recognition is based on comparison of the analyzed scene with reference object library. A global descriptor in the form of a set of spatially distributed FVs is created for each reference model. During the detection process, correlation of subsets of reference FVs with FVs calculated in the scene is computed. Features utilized in the algorithm are based on parameters, which qualitatively estimate mean and Gaussian curvatures. Replacement of differentiation with averaging in the curvatures estimation makes the algorithm more resistant to discontinuities and poor quality of the input data. Utilization of the FV subsets allows to detect partially occluded and cluttered objects in the scene, while additional spatial information maintains false positive rate at a reasonably low level.

Election 2000: The Keys Point to Gore.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lichtman, Allan J.

2000-01-01

Asserts that Vice President Al Gore will be elected in 2000 based on the performance of the Clinton administration. Utilizes the key to the White House, 13 true-or-false diagnostic questions stated as propositions. If five or less are false then the party in power wins. (CMK)

Efficient quantitative assessment of facial paralysis using iris segmentation and active contour-based key points detection with hybrid classifier.

PubMed

Barbosa, Jocelyn; Lee, Kyubum; Lee, Sunwon; Lodhi, Bilal; Cho, Jae-Gu; Seo, Woo-Keun; Kang, Jaewoo

2016-03-12

Facial palsy or paralysis (FP) is a symptom that loses voluntary muscles movement in one side of the human face, which could be very devastating in the part of the patients. Traditional methods are solely dependent to clinician's judgment and therefore time consuming and subjective in nature. Hence, a quantitative assessment system becomes apparently invaluable for physicians to begin the rehabilitation process; and to produce a reliable and robust method is challenging and still underway. We introduce a novel approach for a quantitative assessment of facial paralysis that tackles classification problem for FP type and degree of severity. Specifically, a novel method of quantitative assessment is presented: an algorithm that extracts the human iris and detects facial landmarks; and a hybrid approach combining the rule-based and machine learning algorithm to analyze and prognosticate facial paralysis using the captured images. A method combining the optimized Daugman's algorithm and Localized Active Contour (LAC) model is proposed to efficiently extract the iris and facial landmark or key points. To improve the performance of LAC, appropriate parameters of initial evolving curve for facial features' segmentation are automatically selected. The symmetry score is measured by the ratio between features extracted from the two sides of the face. Hybrid classifiers (i.e. rule-based with regularized logistic regression) were employed for discriminating healthy and unhealthy subjects, FP type classification, and for facial paralysis grading based on House-Brackmann (H-B) scale. Quantitative analysis was performed to evaluate the performance of the proposed approach. Experiments show that the proposed method demonstrates its efficiency. Facial movement feature extraction on facial images based on iris segmentation and LAC-based key point detection along with a hybrid classifier provides a more efficient way of addressing classification problem on facial palsy type and degree

Object-Based Point Cloud Analysis of Full-Waveform Airborne Laser Scanning Data for Urban Vegetation Classification

PubMed Central

Rutzinger, Martin; Höfle, Bernhard; Hollaus, Markus; Pfeifer, Norbert

2008-01-01

Airborne laser scanning (ALS) is a remote sensing technique well-suited for 3D vegetation mapping and structure characterization because the emitted laser pulses are able to penetrate small gaps in the vegetation canopy. The backscattered echoes from the foliage, woody vegetation, the terrain, and other objects are detected, leading to a cloud of points. Higher echo densities (>20 echoes/m2) and additional classification variables from full-waveform (FWF) ALS data, namely echo amplitude, echo width and information on multiple echoes from one shot, offer new possibilities in classifying the ALS point cloud. Currently FWF sensor information is hardly used for classification purposes. This contribution presents an object-based point cloud analysis (OBPA) approach, combining segmentation and classification of the 3D FWF ALS points designed to detect tall vegetation in urban environments. The definition tall vegetation includes trees and shrubs, but excludes grassland and herbage. In the applied procedure FWF ALS echoes are segmented by a seeded region growing procedure. All echoes sorted descending by their surface roughness are used as seed points. Segments are grown based on echo width homogeneity. Next, segment statistics (mean, standard deviation, and coefficient of variation) are calculated by aggregating echo features such as amplitude and surface roughness. For classification a rule base is derived automatically from a training area using a statistical classification tree. To demonstrate our method we present data of three sites with around 500,000 echoes each. The accuracy of the classified vegetation segments is evaluated for two independent validation sites. In a point-wise error assessment, where the classification is compared with manually classified 3D points, completeness and correctness better than 90% are reached for the validation sites. In comparison to many other algorithms the proposed 3D point classification works on the original measurements

Holographic video at 40 frames per second for 4-million object points.

PubMed

Tsang, Peter; Cheung, W-K; Poon, T-C; Zhou, C

2011-08-01

We propose a fast method for generating digital Fresnel holograms based on an interpolated wavefront-recording plane (IWRP) approach. Our method can be divided into two stages. First, a small, virtual IWRP is derived in a computational-free manner. Second, the IWRP is expanded into a Fresnel hologram with a pair of fast Fourier transform processes, which are realized with the graphic processing unit (GPU). We demonstrate state-of-the-art experimental results, capable of generating a 2048 x 2048 Fresnel hologram of around 4 × 10(6) object points at a rate of over 40 frames per second.

Object-Based Coregistration of Terrestrial Photogrammetric and ALS Point Clouds in Forested Areas

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Polewski, P.; Erickson, A.; Yao, W.; Coops, N.; Krzystek, P.; Stilla, U.

2016-06-01

Airborne Laser Scanning (ALS) and terrestrial photogrammetry are methods applicable for mapping forested environments. While ground-based techniques provide valuable information about the forest understory, the measured point clouds are normally expressed in a local coordinate system, whose transformation into a georeferenced system requires additional effort. In contrast, ALS point clouds are usually georeferenced, yet the point density near the ground may be poor under dense overstory conditions. In this work, we propose to combine the strengths of the two data sources by co-registering the respective point clouds, thus enriching the georeferenced ALS point cloud with detailed understory information in a fully automatic manner. Due to markedly different sensor characteristics, coregistration methods which expect a high geometric similarity between keypoints are not suitable in this setting. Instead, our method focuses on the object (tree stem) level. We first calculate approximate stem positions in the terrestrial and ALS point clouds and construct, for each stem, a descriptor which quantifies the 2D and vertical distances to other stem centers (at ground height). Then, the similarities between all descriptor pairs from the two point clouds are calculated, and standard graph maximum matching techniques are employed to compute corresponding stem pairs (tiepoints). Finally, the tiepoint subset yielding the optimal rigid transformation between the terrestrial and ALS coordinate systems is determined. We test our method on simulated tree positions and a plot situated in the northern interior of the Coast Range in western Oregon, USA, using ALS data (76 x 121 m2) and a photogrammetric point cloud (33 x 35 m2) derived from terrestrial photographs taken with a handheld camera. Results on both simulated and real data show that the proposed stem descriptors are discriminative enough to derive good correspondences. Specifically

Indexing and retrieving point and region objects

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ibrahim, Azzam T.; Fotouhi, Farshad A.

1996-03-01

R-tree and its variants are examples of spatial data structures for paged-secondary memory. To process a query, these structures require multiple path traversals. In this paper, we present a new image access method, SB+-tree which requires a single path traversal to process a query. Also, SB+-tree will allow commercial databases an access method for spatial objects without a major change, since most commercial databases already support B+-tree as an access method for text data. The SB+-tree can be used for zero and non-zero size data objects. Non-zero size objects are approximated by their minimum bounding rectangles (MBRs). The number of SB+-trees generated is dependent upon the number of dimensions of the approximation of the object. The structure supports efficient spatial operations such as regions-overlap, distance and direction. In this paper, we experimentally and analytically demonstrate the superiority of SB+-tree over R-tree.

Improving Multi-Objective Management of Water Quality Tipping Points: Revisiting the Classical Shallow Lake Problem

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Quinn, J. D.; Reed, P. M.; Keller, K.

2015-12-01

Recent multi-objective extensions of the classical shallow lake problem are useful for exploring the conceptual and computational challenges that emerge when managing irreversible water quality tipping points. Building on this work, we explore a four objective version of the lake problem where a hypothetical town derives economic benefits from polluting a nearby lake, but at the risk of irreversibly tipping the lake into a permanently polluted state. The trophic state of the lake exhibits non-linear threshold dynamics; below some critical phosphorus (P) threshold it is healthy and oligotrophic, but above this threshold it is irreversibly eutrophic. The town must decide how much P to discharge each year, a decision complicated by uncertainty in the natural P inflow to the lake. The shallow lake problem provides a conceptually rich set of dynamics, low computational demands, and a high level of mathematical difficulty. These properties maximize its value for benchmarking the relative merits and limitations of emerging decision support frameworks, such as Direct Policy Search (DPS). Here, we explore the use of DPS as a formal means of developing robust environmental pollution control rules that effectively account for deeply uncertain system states and conflicting objectives. The DPS reformulation of the shallow lake problem shows promise in formalizing pollution control triggers and signposts, while dramatically reducing the computational complexity of the multi-objective pollution control problem. More broadly, the insights from the DPS variant of the shallow lake problem formulated in this study bridge emerging work related to socio-ecological systems management, tipping points, robust decision making, and robust control.

Measuring of temperatures of phase objects using a point-diffraction interferometer plate made with the thermocavitation process

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Aguilar, Juan C.; Berriel-Valdos, L. R.; Aguilar, J. Felix; Mejia-Romero, S.

An optical system formed by four point-diffraction interferometers is used for measuring the refractive index distribution of a phase object. The phase of the object is assumed enough smooth to be computed in terms of the Radon Transform and it is processed with a tomographic iterative algorithm. Then, the associated refractive index distribution is calculated. To recovery the phase from the inteferograms we use the Kreis method, which is useful for interferograms having only few fringes. As an application of our technique, the temperature distribution of a candle flame is retrieved, this was made with the aid of the Gladstone-Dale equation. We also describe the process of manufacturing the point-diffraction interferometer (PDI) plates. These were made by means of the thermocavitation process. The obtained three dimensional distribution of temperature is presented.

See-Through Imaging of Laser-Scanned 3d Cultural Heritage Objects Based on Stochastic Rendering of Large-Scale Point Clouds

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tanaka, S.; Hasegawa, K.; Okamoto, N.; Umegaki, R.; Wang, S.; Uemura, M.; Okamoto, A.; Koyamada, K.

2016-06-01

We propose a method for the precise 3D see-through imaging, or transparent visualization, of the large-scale and complex point clouds acquired via the laser scanning of 3D cultural heritage objects. Our method is based on a stochastic algorithm and directly uses the 3D points, which are acquired using a laser scanner, as the rendering primitives. This method achieves the correct depth feel without requiring depth sorting of the rendering primitives along the line of sight. Eliminating this need allows us to avoid long computation times when creating natural and precise 3D see-through views of laser-scanned cultural heritage objects. The opacity of each laser-scanned object is also flexibly controllable. For a laser-scanned point cloud consisting of more than 107 or 108 3D points, the pre-processing requires only a few minutes, and the rendering can be executed at interactive frame rates. Our method enables the creation of cumulative 3D see-through images of time-series laser-scanned data. It also offers the possibility of fused visualization for observing a laser-scanned object behind a transparent high-quality photographic image placed in the 3D scene. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our method by applying it to festival floats of high cultural value. These festival floats have complex outer and inner 3D structures and are suitable for see-through imaging.

Warm gas towards young stellar objects in Corona Australis. Herschel/PACS observations from the DIGIT key programme

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lindberg, Johan E.; Jørgensen, Jes K.; Green, Joel D.; Herczeg, Gregory J.; Dionatos, Odysseas; Evans, Neal J.; Karska, Agata; Wampfler, Susanne F.

2014-05-01

Context. The effects of external irradiation on the chemistry and physics in the protostellar envelope around low-mass young stellar objects are poorly understood. The Corona Australis star-forming region contains the R CrA dark cloud, comprising several low-mass protostellar cores irradiated by an intermediate-mass young star. Aims: We study the effects of the irradiation coming from the young luminous Herbig Be star R CrA on the warm gas and dust in a group of low-mass young stellar objects. Methods: Herschel/PACS far-infrared datacubes of two low-mass star-forming regions in the R CrA dark cloud are presented. The distributions of CO, OH, H2O, [C ii], [O i], and continuum emission are investigated. We have developed a deconvolution algorithm which we use to deconvolve the maps, separating the point-source emission from the extended emission. We also construct rotational diagrams of the molecular species. Results: By deconvolution of the Herschel data, we find large-scale (several thousand AU) dust continuum and spectral line emission not associated with the point sources. Similar rotational temperatures are found for the warm CO (282 ± 4 K), hot CO (890 ± 84 K), OH (79 ± 4 K), and H2O (197 ± 7 K) emission in the point sources and the extended emission. The rotational temperatures are also similar to those found in other more isolated cores. The extended dust continuum emission is found in two ridges similar in extent and temperature to molecular millimetre emission, indicative of external heating from the Herbig Be star R CrA. Conclusions: Our results show that nearby luminous stars do not increase the molecular excitation temperatures of the warm gas around young stellar objects (YSOs). However, the emission from photodissociation products of H2O, such as OH and O, is enhanced in the warm gas associated with these protostars and their surroundings compared to similar objects not subjected to external irradiation. Table 9 and appendices are available in

Secure content objects

DOEpatents

Evans, William D [Cupertino, CA

2009-02-24

A secure content object protects electronic documents from unauthorized use. The secure content object includes an encrypted electronic document, a multi-key encryption table having at least one multi-key component, an encrypted header and a user interface device. The encrypted document is encrypted using a document encryption key associated with a multi-key encryption method. The encrypted header includes an encryption marker formed by a random number followed by a derivable variation of the same random number. The user interface device enables a user to input a user authorization. The user authorization is combined with each of the multi-key components in the multi-key encryption key table and used to try to decrypt the encrypted header. If the encryption marker is successfully decrypted, the electronic document may be decrypted. Multiple electronic documents or a document and annotations may be protected by the secure content object.

Many-objective optimization and visual analytics reveal key trade-offs for London's water supply

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Matrosov, Evgenii S.; Huskova, Ivana; Kasprzyk, Joseph R.; Harou, Julien J.; Lambert, Chris; Reed, Patrick M.

2015-12-01

In this study, we link a water resource management simulator to multi-objective search to reveal the key trade-offs inherent in planning a real-world water resource system. We consider new supplies and demand management (conservation) options while seeking to elucidate the trade-offs between the best portfolios of schemes to satisfy projected water demands. Alternative system designs are evaluated using performance measures that minimize capital and operating costs and energy use while maximizing resilience, engineering and environmental metrics, subject to supply reliability constraints. Our analysis shows many-objective evolutionary optimization coupled with state-of-the art visual analytics can help planners discover more diverse water supply system designs and better understand their inherent trade-offs. The approach is used to explore future water supply options for the Thames water resource system (including London's water supply). New supply options include a new reservoir, water transfers, artificial recharge, wastewater reuse and brackish groundwater desalination. Demand management options include leakage reduction, compulsory metering and seasonal tariffs. The Thames system's Pareto approximate portfolios cluster into distinct groups of water supply options; for example implementing a pipe refurbishment program leads to higher capital costs but greater reliability. This study highlights that traditional least-cost reliability constrained design of water supply systems masks asset combinations whose benefits only become apparent when more planning objectives are considered.

Point-of-purchase health information encourages customers to purchase vegetables: objective analysis by using a point-of-sales system.

PubMed

Ogawa, Yoshiko; Tanabe, Naohito; Honda, Akiko; Azuma, Tomoko; Seki, Nao; Suzuki, Tsubasa; Suzuki, Hiroshi

2011-07-01

Point-of-purchase (POP) information at food stores could help promote healthy dietary habits. However, it has been difficult to evaluate the effects of such intervention on customers' behavior. We objectively evaluated the usefulness of POP health information for vegetables in the modification of customers' purchasing behavior by using the database of a point-of-sales (POS) system. Two supermarket stores belonging to the same chain were assigned as the intervention store (store I) and control store (store C). POP health information for vegetables was presented in store I for 60 days. The percent increase in daily sales of vegetables over the sales on the same date of the previous year was compared between the stores by using the database of the POS system, adjusting for the change in monthly visitors from the previous year (adjusted ∆sales). The adjusted ∆sales significantly increased during the intervention period (Spearman's ρ = 0.258, P for trend = 0.006) at store I but did not increase at store C (ρ = -0.037, P for trend = 0.728). The growth of the mean adjusted ∆sales of total vegetables from 30 days before the intervention period through the latter half of the intervention period was estimated to be greater at store I than at store C by 18.7 percentage points (95% confidence interval 1.6-35.9). Health-related POP information for vegetables in supermarkets can encourage customers to purchase and, probably, consume vegetables.

Object matching using a locally affine invariant and linear programming techniques.

PubMed

Li, Hongsheng; Huang, Xiaolei; He, Lei

2013-02-01

In this paper, we introduce a new matching method based on a novel locally affine-invariant geometric constraint and linear programming techniques. To model and solve the matching problem in a linear programming formulation, all geometric constraints should be able to be exactly or approximately reformulated into a linear form. This is a major difficulty for this kind of matching algorithm. We propose a novel locally affine-invariant constraint which can be exactly linearized and requires a lot fewer auxiliary variables than other linear programming-based methods do. The key idea behind it is that each point in the template point set can be exactly represented by an affine combination of its neighboring points, whose weights can be solved easily by least squares. Errors of reconstructing each matched point using such weights are used to penalize the disagreement of geometric relationships between the template points and the matched points. The resulting overall objective function can be solved efficiently by linear programming techniques. Our experimental results on both rigid and nonrigid object matching show the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.

[Key-point investigation list of traditional Chinese medicinal materials for national survey of Chinese material medica resources].

PubMed

Zhang, Xiao-Bo; Guo, Lan-Ping; Zhang, Yan; Zhou, Liang-Yun; Huang, Lu-Qi

2014-04-01

Base on the traditional Chinese medicinal materials list that include Pharmacopoeia of the People's Republic of China, Dao-di Herbs, the common used herbs, endangered species, to analyze the key-point investigation traditional Chinese medicinal materials list was analysed. Results displayed that the variety number of traditional Chinese medicinal materials in Pharmacopoeia of the People's Republic of China is 894, the variety number of Dao-di Herbs is 495, the variety number of the common use is 326, the variety number of traditional Chinese medicinal materials from endangered species is 280, and during the third national survey of Chinese material medica resources the variety number of traditional Chinese medicinal materials that were analysed is 360. In the list of Dao-di Herbs and common used herbs over 85% are in the list of Pharmacopoeia of the People's Republic of China, in the list of the common used herbs over 80% are in the list of Dao-di Herbs, in the list of Pharmacopoeia of the People's Republic of China and Dao-di Herbs over 10% are in the list of endangered species. The key-point investigation traditional Chinese medicinal materials list includes three part, the first part includes 563 variery traditional Chinese medicinal materials that need to statistics quantity of resource by field investigation, the second part includes 457 variery that need to monitor the changing situation, the third part includes 280 variery that need to estimated endangered situation.

Use of Self-to-Object and Object-to-Object Spatial Relations in Locomotion

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Xiao, Chengli; Mou, Weimin; McNamara, Timothy P.

2009-01-01

In 8 experiments, the authors examined the use of representations of self-to-object or object-to-object spatial relations during locomotion. Participants learned geometrically regular or irregular layouts of objects while standing at the edge or in the middle and then pointed to objects while blindfolded in 3 conditions: before turning (baseline),…

Implementation of Point-of-Care Diagnostics in Rural Primary Healthcare Clinics in South Africa: Perspectives of Key Stakeholders.

PubMed

Mashamba-Thompson, Tivani P; Jama, Ngcwalisa A; Sartorius, Benn; Drain, Paul K; Thompson, Rowan M

2017-01-08

Key stakeholders' involvement is crucial to the sustainability of quality point-of-care (POC) diagnostics services in low-and-middle income countries. The aim of this study was to explore key stakeholder perceptions on the implementation of POC diagnostics in rural primary healthcare (PHC) clinics in South Africa. We conducted a qualitative study encompassing in-depth interviews with multiple key stakeholders of POC diagnostic services for rural and resource-limited PHC clinics. Interviews were digitally recorded and transcribed verbatim prior to thematic content analysis. Thematic content analysis was conducted using themes guided by the World Health Organisation (WHO) quality-ASSURED (Affordable, Sensitive, Specific, User friendly, Rapid and to enable treatment at first visit and Robust, Equipment free and Delivered to those who need it) criteria for POC diagnostic services in resource-limited settings. 11 key stakeholders participated in the study. All stakeholders perceived the main advantage of POC diagnostics as enabling access to healthcare for rural patients. Stakeholders perceived the current POC diagnostic services to have an ability to meet patients' needs, but recommended further improvement of the following areas: research on cost-effectiveness; improved quality management systems; development of affordable POC diagnostic and clinic-based monitoring and evaluation. Key stakeholders of POC diagnostics in rural PHC clinics in South Africa highlighted the need to assess affordability and ensure quality assurance of current services before adopting new POC diagnostics and scaling up current POC diagnostics.

Implementation of Point-of-Care Diagnostics in Rural Primary Healthcare Clinics in South Africa: Perspectives of Key Stakeholders

PubMed Central

Mashamba-Thompson, Tivani P.; Jama, Ngcwalisa A.; Sartorius, Benn; Drain, Paul K.; Thompson, Rowan M.

2017-01-01

Introduction: Key stakeholders’ involvement is crucial to the sustainability of quality point-of-care (POC) diagnostics services in low-and-middle income countries. The aim of this study was to explore key stakeholder perceptions on the implementation of POC diagnostics in rural primary healthcare (PHC) clinics in South Africa. Method: We conducted a qualitative study encompassing in-depth interviews with multiple key stakeholders of POC diagnostic services for rural and resource-limited PHC clinics. Interviews were digitally recorded and transcribed verbatim prior to thematic content analysis. Thematic content analysis was conducted using themes guided by the World Health Organisation (WHO) quality-ASSURED (Affordable, Sensitive, Specific, User friendly, Rapid and to enable treatment at first visit and Robust, Equipment free and Delivered to those who need it) criteria for POC diagnostic services in resource-limited settings. Results: 11 key stakeholders participated in the study. All stakeholders perceived the main advantage of POC diagnostics as enabling access to healthcare for rural patients. Stakeholders perceived the current POC diagnostic services to have an ability to meet patients’ needs, but recommended further improvement of the following areas: research on cost-effectiveness; improved quality management systems; development of affordable POC diagnostic and clinic-based monitoring and evaluation. Conclusions: Key stakeholders of POC diagnostics in rural PHC clinics in South Africa highlighted the need to assess affordability and ensure quality assurance of current services before adopting new POC diagnostics and scaling up current POC diagnostics. PMID:28075337

Accuracy assessment of the Precise Point Positioning method applied for surveys and tracking moving objects in GIS environment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ilieva, Tamara; Gekov, Svetoslav

2017-04-01

The Precise Point Positioning (PPP) method gives the users the opportunity to determine point locations using a single GNSS receiver. The accuracy of the determined by PPP point locations is better in comparison to the standard point positioning, due to the precise satellite orbit and clock corrections that are developed and maintained by the International GNSS Service (IGS). The aim of our current research is the accuracy assessment of the PPP method applied for surveys and tracking moving objects in GIS environment. The PPP data is collected by using preliminary developed by us software application that allows different sets of attribute data for the measurements and their accuracy to be used. The results from the PPP measurements are directly compared within the geospatial database to different other sets of terrestrial data - measurements obtained by total stations, real time kinematic and static GNSS.

Augmented reality system using lidar point cloud data for displaying dimensional information of objects on mobile phones

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gupta, S.; Lohani, B.

2014-05-01

Mobile augmented reality system is the next generation technology to visualise 3D real world intelligently. The technology is expanding at a fast pace to upgrade the status of a smart phone to an intelligent device. The research problem identified and presented in the current work is to view actual dimensions of various objects that are captured by a smart phone in real time. The methodology proposed first establishes correspondence between LiDAR point cloud, that are stored in a server, and the image t hat is captured by a mobile. This correspondence is established using the exterior and interior orientation parameters of the mobile camera and the coordinates of LiDAR data points which lie in the viewshed of the mobile camera. A pseudo intensity image is generated using LiDAR points and their intensity. Mobile image and pseudo intensity image are then registered using image registration method SIFT thereby generating a pipeline to locate a point in point cloud corresponding to a point (pixel) on the mobile image. The second part of the method uses point cloud data for computing dimensional information corresponding to the pairs of points selected on mobile image and fetch the dimensions on top of the image. This paper describes all steps of the proposed method. The paper uses an experimental setup to mimic the mobile phone and server system and presents some initial but encouraging results

Global analysis of plasticity in turgor loss point, a key drought tolerance trait.

PubMed

Bartlett, Megan K; Zhang, Ya; Kreidler, Nissa; Sun, Shanwen; Ardy, Rico; Cao, Kunfang; Sack, Lawren

2014-12-01

Many species face increasing drought under climate change. Plasticity has been predicted to strongly influence species' drought responses, but broad patterns in plasticity have not been examined for key drought tolerance traits, including turgor loss or 'wilting' point (πtlp ). As soil dries, plants shift πtlp by accumulating solutes (i.e. 'osmotic adjustment'). We conducted the first global analysis of plasticity in Δπtlp and related traits for 283 wild and crop species in ecosystems worldwide. Δπtlp was widely prevalent but moderate (-0.44 MPa), accounting for 16% of post-drought πtlp. Thus, pre-drought πtlp was a considerably stronger predictor of post-drought πtlp across species of wild plants. For cultivars of certain crops Δπtlp accounted for major differences in post-drought πtlp. Climate was correlated with pre- and post-drought πtlp, but not Δπtlp. Thus, despite the wide prevalence of plasticity, πtlp measured in one season can reliably characterise most species' constitutive drought tolerances and distributions relative to water supply. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd/CNRS.

Pointing to others: How the target gender influences pointing performance.

PubMed

Cleret de Langavant, Laurent; Jacquemot, Charlotte; Cruveiller, Virginie; Dupoux, Emmanuel; Bachoud-Lévi, Anne-Catherine

2016-01-01

Pointing is a communicative gesture that allows individuals to share information about surrounding objects with other humans. Patients with heterotopagnosia are specifically impaired in pointing to other humans' body parts but not in pointing to themselves or to objects. Here, we describe a female patient with heterotopagnosia who was more accurate in pointing to men's body parts than to women's body parts. We replicated this gender effect in healthy participants with faster reaction times for pointing to men's body parts than to women's body parts. We discuss the role of gender stereotypes in explaining why it is more difficult to point to women than to men.

Object extraction in photogrammetric computer vision

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mayer, Helmut

This paper discusses state and promising directions of automated object extraction in photogrammetric computer vision considering also practical aspects arising for digital photogrammetric workstations (DPW). A review of the state of the art shows that there are only few practically successful systems on the market. Therefore, important issues for a practical success of automated object extraction are identified. A sound and most important powerful theoretical background is the basis. Here, we particularly point to statistical modeling. Testing makes clear which of the approaches are suited best and how useful they are for praxis. A key for commercial success of a practical system is efficient user interaction. As the means for data acquisition are changing, new promising application areas such as extremely detailed three-dimensional (3D) urban models for virtual television or mission rehearsal evolve.

Strength of object representation: its key role in object-based attention for determining the competition result between Gestalt and top-down objects.

PubMed

Zhao, Jingjing; Wang, Yonghui; Liu, Donglai; Zhao, Liang; Liu, Peng

2015-10-01

It was found in previous studies that two types of objects (rectangles formed according to the Gestalt principle and Chinese words formed in a top-down fashion) can both induce an object-based effect. The aim of the present study was to investigate how the strength of an object representation affects the result of the competition between these two types of objects based on research carried out by Liu, Wang and Zhou [(2011) Acta Psychologica, 138(3), 397-404]. In Experiment 1, the rectangles were filled with two different colors to increase the strength of Gestalt object representation, and we found that the object effect changed significantly for the different stimulus types. Experiment 2 used Chinese words with various familiarities to manipulate the strength of the top-down object representation. As a result, the object-based effect induced by rectangles was observed only when the Chinese word familiarity was low. These results suggest that the strength of object representation determines the result of competition between different types of objects.

Synthesis of Key Points from the OSEP Early Childhood Transition FAQ (SPP/APR Indicators C-8, B-11 and B-12)

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Diefendorf, M.; Henson, J.; Lucas, A.; Whaley, K.

2010-01-01

This document is a synthesis of the key points provided in the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) Early Childhood Transition FAQs: SPP/APR indicators C-8 and B-12 released on December 1, 2009. It was developed to assist states with the implementation of effective transition policies and practices. The following is included: (1) Transition…

Direct manipulation of virtual objects

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Nguyen, Long K.

validated, linked, and extended several previous research findings, using one common test bed and participant pool. The results provided a proven method and solid reference points for further research. The second set of experiments leveraged the first to explore the full R-V spectrum and included additional, relevant sensory modalities. It consisted of two full-factorial experiments providing for rich data and key insights into the effect of each type of environment and each modality on accuracy and timeliness of virtual object interaction. The empirical results clearly showed that mean depth perception error in personal space was less than four millimeters whether the stimuli presented were real, virtual, or mixed. Likewise, mean error for the simple task of pushing a button was less than four millimeters whether the button was real or virtual. Mean task completion time was less than one second. Key to the high accuracy and quick task performance time observed was the correct presentation of the visual cues, including occlusion, stereoscopy, accommodation, and convergence. With performance results already near optimal level with accurate visual cues presented, adding proprioception, audio, and haptic cues did not significantly improve performance. Recommendations for future research include enhancement of the visual display and further experiments with more complex tasks and additional control variables.

Application of inertial instruments for DSN antenna pointing and tracking

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Eldred, D. B.; Nerheim, N. M.; Holmes, K. G.

1990-01-01

The feasibility of using inertial instruments to determine the pointing attitude of the NASA Deep Space Network antennas is examined. The objective is to obtain 1 mdeg pointing knowledge in both blind pointing and tracking modes to facilitate operation of the Deep Space Network 70 m antennas at 32 GHz. A measurement system employing accelerometers, an inclinometer, and optical gyroscopes is proposed. The initial pointing attitude is established by determining the direction of the local gravity vector using the accelerometers and the inclinometer, and the Earth's spin axis using the gyroscopes. Pointing during long-term tracking is maintained by integrating the gyroscope rates and augmenting these measurements with knowledge of the local gravity vector. A minimum-variance estimator is used to combine measurements to obtain the antenna pointing attitude. A key feature of the algorithm is its ability to recalibrate accelerometer parameters during operation. A survey of available inertial instrument technologies is also given.

Corkscrew point spread function for far-field three-dimensional nanoscale localization of pointlike objects

PubMed Central

Lew, Matthew D.; Lee, Steven F.; Badieirostami, Majid; Moerner, W. E.

2011-01-01

We describe the corkscrew point spread function (PSF), which can localize objects in three dimensions throughout a 3.2 µm depth of field with nanometer precision. The corkscrew PSF rotates as a function of the axial (z) position of an emitter. Fisher information calculations show that the corkscrew PSF can achieve nanometer localization precision with limited numbers of photons. We demonstrate three-dimensional super-resolution microscopy with the corkscrew PSF by imaging beads on the surface of a triangular polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) grating. With 99,000 photons detected, the corkscrew PSF achieves a localization precision of 2.7 nm in x, 2.1 nm in y, and 5.7 nm in z. PMID:21263500

Corkscrew point spread function for far-field three-dimensional nanoscale localization of pointlike objects.

PubMed

Lew, Matthew D; Lee, Steven F; Badieirostami, Majid; Moerner, W E

2011-01-15

We describe the corkscrew point spread function (PSF), which can localize objects in three dimensions throughout a 3.2 μm depth of field with nanometer precision. The corkscrew PSF rotates as a function of the axial (z) position of an emitter. Fisher information calculations show that the corkscrew PSF can achieve nanometer localization precision with limited numbers of photons. We demonstrate three-dimensional super-resolution microscopy with the corkscrew PSF by imaging beads on the surface of a triangular polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) grating. With 99,000 photons detected, the corkscrew PSF achieves a localization precision of 2.7 nm in x, 2.1 nm in y, and 5.7 nm in z.

Object-based benefits without object-based representations.

PubMed

Fougnie, Daryl; Cormiea, Sarah M; Alvarez, George A

2013-08-01

Influential theories of visual working memory have proposed that the basic units of memory are integrated object representations. Key support for this proposal is provided by the same object benefit: It is easier to remember multiple features of a single object than the same set of features distributed across multiple objects. Here, we replicate the object benefit but demonstrate that features are not stored as single, integrated representations. Specifically, participants could remember 10 features better when arranged in 5 objects compared to 10 objects, yet memory for one object feature was largely independent of memory for the other object feature. These results rule out the possibility that integrated representations drive the object benefit and require a revision of the concept of object-based memory representations. We propose that working memory is object-based in regard to the factors that enhance performance but feature based in regard to the level of representational failure. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved.

Lagrange Point Missions: the Key to Next-Generation Integrated Earth Observations. DSCOVR Innovation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Valero, F. P. J.

2016-12-01

From L-1 DSCOVR is capable of new, unique observations potentially conducive to a deeper scientific understanding of the Earth sciences. At L-1 and L-2 the net gravitational pull of the Earth and Sun equals the centripetal force required to orbit the Sun with the same period as the Earth. Satellites at or near L-1 and L-2 keep the same position relative to the Sun and the Earth. DSCOVR does not orbit the Earth but the Sun in synchronism with Earth, acts like a planetoid (orbits the Sun in the ecliptic plane) while acquiring integrated plus spatially and time resolved scientific data as Earth rotates around its axis. Because of the planet's axial tilt relative to the ecliptic plane, the Polar Regions are visible during local summer from L-1 and local winter from L-2 (Fig. 1). DSCOVR's synoptic and continuous observations solve most of the temporal and spatial limitations associated with low Earth (LEO) and Geostationary (GEO) orbits. Two observatories, one at L-1 (daytime) and one at L-2 (nighttime), would acquire minute-by-minute climate quality data for essentially every point on Earth. The integration of L-1, L-2, LEO, and GEO satellites plus the Moon offers new scientific tools and enriched data sets for Earth sciences. Lagrange points observatories are key to next-generation integrated Earth observations. For example, DSCOVR at L-1 views the Earth plus the Moon (a reference) and simultaneously, at one time or another, all LEO and GEO satellites. The L-1 and L-2 satellites would be the link between the Moon, LEO and GEO satellites while providing the data needed to build an integrated Earth observational system. The above properties are the bases for DSCOVR's innovation and scientific approach that systematically observes climate drivers (radiation, aerosols, ozone, clouds, water vapor, vegetation) from L-1 in a way not possible but synergistic with other satellites. Next step: more capable L-1 plus L-2 satellites. The way of the future.

Section-Based Tree Species Identification Using Airborne LIDAR Point Cloud

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yao, C.; Zhang, X.; Liu, H.

2017-09-01

The application of LiDAR data in forestry initially focused on mapping forest community, particularly and primarily intended for largescale forest management and planning. Then with the smaller footprint and higher sampling density LiDAR data available, detecting individual tree overstory, estimating crowns parameters and identifying tree species are demonstrated practicable. This paper proposes a section-based protocol of tree species identification taking palm tree as an example. Section-based method is to detect objects through certain profile among different direction, basically along X-axis or Y-axis. And this method improve the utilization of spatial information to generate accurate results. Firstly, separate the tree points from manmade-object points by decision-tree-based rules, and create Crown Height Mode (CHM) by subtracting the Digital Terrain Model (DTM) from the digital surface model (DSM). Then calculate and extract key points to locate individual trees, thus estimate specific tree parameters related to species information, such as crown height, crown radius, and cross point etc. Finally, with parameters we are able to identify certain tree species. Comparing to species information measured on ground, the portion correctly identified trees on all plots could reach up to 90.65 %. The identification result in this research demonstrate the ability to distinguish palm tree using LiDAR point cloud. Furthermore, with more prior knowledge, section-based method enable the process to classify trees into different classes.

Restabilizing attachment to cultural objects. Aesthetics, emotions and biography.

PubMed

Benzecry, Claudio E

2015-12-01

The scholarship on aesthetics and materiality has studied how objects help shape identity, social action and subjectivity. Objects, as 'equipment[s] for living' (Luhmann 2000), become the 'obligatory passage points humans have to contend with in order to pursue their projects (Latour 1991). They provide patterns to which bodies can unconsciously latch onto, or help human agents work towards particular states of being (DeNora 2000, 2003). Objects are central in the long term process of taste construction, as any attachment to an object is made out of a delicate equilibrium of mediators, bodies, situations and techniques (Hennion and his collaborators (Hennion and Fouquet 2001; Hennion and Gomart 1999). In all of these accounts objects are the end result of long-term processes of stabilization, in which the actual material object (a musical piece, a sculpture, an art installation, a glass of wine, the oeuvre of Bach as we know it) is both a result and yet a key co-producer of its own generation. Whereas the literature has been generous and detailed in exploring the processes of assembling and sustaining object-centered attachments, it has not sufficiently engaged with what happens when the aesthetic elements of cultural artifacts that have produced emotional resonance are transformed: what do these artifacts morph into? What explains the transition (or not) of different cultural objects? And relatedly, what happens to the key aesthetic qualities that were so central to how the objects had been defined, and to those who have emotionally attached to them? To answer these questions, this article uses as exemplars two different cases of attachment, predicated on the distinctive features of a cultural object--the transcendence of opera and the authenticity of a soccer jersey--that have undergone transformations. © London School of Economics and Political Science 2015.

Objects of attention, objects of perception.

PubMed

Avrahami, J

1999-11-01

Four experiments were conducted, to explore the notion of objects in perception. Taking as a starting point the effects of display content on rapid attention transfer and manipulating curvature, closure, and processing time, a link between objects of attention and objects of perception is proposed. In Experiment 1, a number of parallel, equally spaced, straight lines facilitated attention transfer along the lines, relative to transfer across the lines. In Experiment 2, with curved, closed-contour shapes, no "same-object" facilitation was observed. However, when a longer time interval was provided, in Experiment 3, a same-object advantage started to emerge. In Experiment 4, using the same curved shapes but in a non-speeded distance estimation task, a strong effect of objects was observed. It is argued that attention transfer is facilitated by line tracing but that line tracing is encouraged by objects.

A novel space-based observation strategy for GEO objects based on daily pointing adjustment of multi-sensors

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hu, Yun-peng; Li, Ke-bo; Xu, Wei; Chen, Lei; Huang, Jian-yu

2016-08-01

Space-based visible (SBV) program has been proved to be with a large advantage to observe geosynchronous earth orbit (GEO) objects. With the development of SBV observation started from 1996, many strategies have come out for the purpose of observing GEO objects more efficiently. However it is a big challenge to visit all the GEO objects in a relatively short time because of the distribution characteristics of GEO belt and limited field of view (FOV) of sensor. And it's also difficult to keep a high coverage of the GEO belt every day in a whole year. In this paper, a space-based observation strategy for GEO objects is designed based on the characteristics of the GEO belt. The mathematical formula of GEO belt is deduced and the evolvement of GEO objects is illustrated. There are basically two kinds of orientation strategies for most observation satellites, i.e., earth-oriented and inertia-directional. Influences of both strategies to their own observation regions are analyzed and compared with each other. A passive optical instrument with daily attitude-adjusting strategies is proposed to increase the daily coverage rate of GEO objects in a whole year. Furthermore, in order to observe more GEO objects in a relatively short time, the strategy of a satellite with multi-sensors is proposed. The installation parameters between different sensors are optimized, more than 98% of GEO satellites can be observed every day and almost all the GEO satellites can be observed every two days with 3 sensors (FOV: 6° × 6°) on the satellite under the strategy of daily pointing adjustment in a whole year.

Binding Objects to Locations: The Relationship between Object Files and Visual Working Memory

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hollingworth, Andrew; Rasmussen, Ian P.

2010-01-01

The relationship between object files and visual working memory (VWM) was investigated in a new paradigm combining features of traditional VWM experiments (color change detection) and object-file experiments (memory for the properties of moving objects). Object-file theory was found to account for a key component of object-position binding in VWM:…

KEY COMPARISON Report to the CCT on key comparison EUROMET.T-K6 (EUROMET Project no. 621): Comparison of the realizations of local dew/frost-point temperature scales in the range -50 °C to +20 °C

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Heinonen, Martti

2010-01-01

The first humidity CIPM key comparison, CCT-K6, will be completed in 2010. The corresponding European regional key comparison, EUROMET.T-K6, was carried out in 2004 to 2008. National metrology institutes from 24 countries participated in the comparison. The comparison covered the dew-point temperature range from -50 °C to +20 °C. It was organized as three parallel loops with two specially manufactured precision chilled mirror hygrometers as transfer standards in each loop. The comparison scheme was designed to ensure high quality results with evenly spread workload for the participants. MIKES was coordinating the project. This report presents the results of the comparison and provides detailed information on the measurements performed by all participating laboratories and the analysis of the results. Conclusions on the equivalence of the dew-point temperature standards are drawn on the basis of calculated bilateral degrees of equivalence and deviations from EURAMET comparison reference values (ERV). Main text. To reach the main text of this paper, click on Final Report. Note that this text is that which appears in Appendix B of the BIPM key comparison database kcdb.bipm.org/. The final report has been peer-reviewed and approved for publication by the CCT, according to the provisions of the CIPM Mutual Recognition Arrangement (MRA).

KEY COMPARISON: Final report of APMP.T-K6 (original name APMP-IC-1-97): Comparison of humidity measurements using a dew point meter as a transfer standard

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Li, Wang; Takahashi, C.; Hussain, F.; Hong, Yi; Nham, H. S.; Chan, K. H.; Lee, L. T.; Chahine, K.

2007-01-01

This APMP key comparison of humidity measurements using a dew point meter as a transfer standard was carried out among eight national metrology institutes from February 1999 to January 2001. The NMC/SPRING, Singapore was the pilot laboratory and a chilled mirror dew point meter offered by NMIJ was used as a transfer standard. The transfer standard was calibrated by each participating institute against local humidity standards in terms of frost and dew point temperature. Each institute selected its frost/dew point temperature calibration points within the range from -70 °C to 20 °C frost/dew point with 5 °C step. The majority of participating institutes measured from -60 °C to 20 °C frost/dew point and a simple mean evaluation was performed in this range. The differences between the institute values and the simple means for all participating institutes are within two standard deviations from the mean values. Bilateral equivalence was analysed in terms of pair difference and single parameter Quantified Demonstrated Equivalence. The results are presented in the report. Main text. To reach the main text of this paper, click on Final Report. Note that this text is that which appears in Appendix B of the BIPM key comparison database kcdb.bipm.org/. The final report has been peer-reviewed and approved for publication by the CCT, according to the provisions of the CIPM Mutual Recognition Arrangement (MRA).

Method for contour extraction for object representation

DOEpatents

Skourikhine, Alexei N.; Prasad, Lakshman

2005-08-30

Contours are extracted for representing a pixelated object in a background pixel field. An object pixel is located that is the start of a new contour for the object and identifying that pixel as the first pixel of the new contour. A first contour point is then located on the mid-point of a transition edge of the first pixel. A tracing direction from the first contour point is determined for tracing the new contour. Contour points on mid-points of pixel transition edges are sequentially located along the tracing direction until the first contour point is again encountered to complete tracing the new contour. The new contour is then added to a list of extracted contours that represent the object. The contour extraction process associates regions and contours by labeling all the contours belonging to the same object with the same label.

Communication target object recognition for D2D connection with feature size limit

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ok, Jiheon; Kim, Soochang; Kim, Young-hoon; Lee, Chulhee

2015-03-01

Recently, a new concept of device-to-device (D2D) communication, which is called "point-and-link communication" has attracted great attentions due to its intuitive and simple operation. This approach enables user to communicate with target devices without any pre-identification information such as SSIDs, MAC addresses by selecting the target image displayed on the user's own device. In this paper, we present an efficient object matching algorithm that can be applied to look(point)-and-link communications for mobile services. Due to the limited channel bandwidth and low computational power of mobile terminals, the matching algorithm should satisfy low-complexity, low-memory and realtime requirements. To meet these requirements, we propose fast and robust feature extraction by considering the descriptor size and processing time. The proposed algorithm utilizes a HSV color histogram, SIFT (Scale Invariant Feature Transform) features and object aspect ratios. To reduce the descriptor size under 300 bytes, a limited number of SIFT key points were chosen as feature points and histograms were binarized while maintaining required performance. Experimental results show the robustness and the efficiency of the proposed algorithm.

A novel point cloud registration using 2D image features

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lin, Chien-Chou; Tai, Yen-Chou; Lee, Jhong-Jin; Chen, Yong-Sheng

2017-01-01

Since a 3D scanner only captures a scene of a 3D object at a time, a 3D registration for multi-scene is the key issue of 3D modeling. This paper presents a novel and an efficient 3D registration method based on 2D local feature matching. The proposed method transforms the point clouds into 2D bearing angle images and then uses the 2D feature based matching method, SURF, to find matching pixel pairs between two images. The corresponding points of 3D point clouds can be obtained by those pixel pairs. Since the corresponding pairs are sorted by their distance between matching features, only the top half of the corresponding pairs are used to find the optimal rotation matrix by the least squares approximation. In this paper, the optimal rotation matrix is derived by orthogonal Procrustes method (SVD-based approach). Therefore, the 3D model of an object can be reconstructed by aligning those point clouds with the optimal transformation matrix. Experimental results show that the accuracy of the proposed method is close to the ICP, but the computation cost is reduced significantly. The performance is six times faster than the generalized-ICP algorithm. Furthermore, while the ICP requires high alignment similarity of two scenes, the proposed method is robust to a larger difference of viewing angle.

Registration algorithm of point clouds based on multiscale normal features

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lu, Jun; Peng, Zhongtao; Su, Hang; Xia, GuiHua

2015-01-01

The point cloud registration technology for obtaining a three-dimensional digital model is widely applied in many areas. To improve the accuracy and speed of point cloud registration, a registration method based on multiscale normal vectors is proposed. The proposed registration method mainly includes three parts: the selection of key points, the calculation of feature descriptors, and the determining and optimization of correspondences. First, key points are selected from the point cloud based on the changes of magnitude of multiscale curvatures obtained by using principal components analysis. Then the feature descriptor of each key point is proposed, which consists of 21 elements based on multiscale normal vectors and curvatures. The correspondences in a pair of two point clouds are determined according to the descriptor's similarity of key points in the source point cloud and target point cloud. Correspondences are optimized by using a random sampling consistency algorithm and clustering technology. Finally, singular value decomposition is applied to optimized correspondences so that the rigid transformation matrix between two point clouds is obtained. Experimental results show that the proposed point cloud registration algorithm has a faster calculation speed, higher registration accuracy, and better antinoise performance.

New Perspectives of Point Clouds Color Management - the Development of Tool in Matlab for Applications in Cultural Heritage

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pepe, M.; Ackermann, S.; Fregonese, L.; Achille, C.

2017-02-01

The paper describes a method for Point Clouds Color management and Integration obtained from Terrestrial Laser Scanner (TLS) and Image Based (IB) survey techniques. Especially in the Cultural Heritage (CH) environment, methods and techniques to improve the color quality of Point Clouds have a key role because a homogenous texture brings to a more accurate reconstruction of the investigated object and to a more pleasant perception of the color object as well. A color management method for point clouds can be useful in case of single data set acquired by TLS or IB technique as well as in case of chromatic heterogeneity resulting by merging different datasets. The latter condition can occur when the scans are acquired in different moments of the same day or when scans of the same object are performed in a period of weeks or months, and consequently with a different environment/lighting condition. In this paper, a procedure to balance the point cloud color in order to uniform the different data sets, to improve the chromatic quality and to highlight further details will be presented and discussed.

[Efficacy on hemiplegic spasticity treated with plum blossom needle tapping therapy at the key points and Bobath therapy: a randomized controlled trial].

PubMed

Wang, Fei; Zhang, Lijuan; Wang, Jianhua; Shi, Yan; Zheng, Liya

2015-08-01

To evaluate the efficacy on hemiplegic spasticity after cerebral infarction treated with plum blossom needle tapping therapy at the key points and Bobath therapy. Eighty patients were collected, in compliance with the inclusive criteria of hemiplegic spasticity after cerebral infarction, and randomized into an observation group and a control group, 40 cases in each one. In the control group, Bobath manipulation therapy was adopted to relieve spasticity and the treatment of 8 weeks was required. In the observation group, on the basis of the treatment as the control group, the tapping therapy with plum blossom needle was applied to the key points, named Jianyu (LI 15), Jianliao (LI 14), Jianzhen (SI 9), Hegu (LI 4), Chengfu (BL 36), Zusanli (ST 36), Xiyangguan (GB 33), etc. The treatment was given for 15 min each time, once a day. Before treatment, after 4 and 8 weeks of treatment, the Fugl-Meyer assessment (FMA) and Barthel index (BI) were adopted to evaluate the motor function of the extremity and the activity of daily life in the patients of the two groups separately. The modified Ashworth scale was used to evaluate the effect of anti-spasticity. In 4 and 8 weeks of treatment, FMA: scores and BI scores were all significantly increased as compared with those before treatment in the two groups: (both P<0. 05). The results in 8 weeks of treatment in the observation group were significantly better than those in the control group (all P<0. 05). In 4 and 8 weeks of treatment, the scores of spasticity state were improved as compared with those before treatment in the patients of the two groups (all P<0. 05). The result in 8 weeks of treatment in the observation group was significantly better than that in the control group (P<0. 05). In 8 weeks of treatment, the total effective rate of anti-spasticity was 90. 0% (36/40) in the observation group, better than 75. 0% (30/40) in the control group (P<0. 05). The tapping therapy with plum blossom needle at the key points

Infants' use of category knowledge and object attributes when segregating objects at 8.5 months of age.

PubMed

Needham, Amy; Cantlon, Jessica F; Ormsbee Holley, Susan M

2006-12-01

The current research investigates infants' perception of a novel object from a category that is familiar to young infants: key rings. We ask whether experiences obtained outside the lab would allow young infants to parse the visible portions of a partly occluded key ring display into one single unit, presumably as a result of having categorized it as a key ring. This categorization was marked by infants' perception of the keys and ring as a single unit that should move together, despite their attribute differences. We showed infants a novel key ring display in which the keys and ring moved together as one rigid unit (Move-together event) or the ring moved but the keys remained stationary throughout the event (Move-apart event). Our results showed that 8.5-month-old infants perceived the keys and ring as connected despite their attribute differences, and that their perception of object unity was eliminated as the distinctive attributes of the key ring were removed. When all of the distinctive attributes of the key ring were removed, the 8.5-month-old infants perceived the display as two separate units, which is how younger infants (7-month-old) perceived the key ring display with all its distinctive attributes unaltered. These results suggest that on the basis of extensive experience with an object category, infants come to identify novel members of that category and expect them to possess the attributes typical of that category.

Report to the CCT on COOMET comparison COOMET.T-K3.1 (previously COOMET.T-S1): Key regional comparison of the national standards of temperature in the range from the triple point of water to the freezing point of zinc

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pokhodun, A. I.

2010-01-01

In the framework of the CIPM MRA, a first COOMET comparison "Comparison of the ITS-90 realizations in the range from 0.01 °C to 429.7485 °C (from the triple point of water to the freezing point of zinc)", registered in the KCDB under the identifier "COOMET.T-K3", was carried out in 2005-2007. Four national metrology institutes took part in this comparison: VNIIM (Russian Federation), SMU (Slovakia), BelGIM (Republic of Belarus) and NSC IM (Ukraine), and two of them (VNIIM and SMU) ensured the linkage with key comparisons CCT-K3 and CCT-K4, in order to disseminate the metrological equivalence to the measurement standards of NSC IM and BelGIM. NSC IM, however, had to withdraw its results, and at the meeting of Technical Committee T-10 of COOMET it was decided to carry out a supplementary bilateral comparison between VNIIM and the NSC IM for realization of the ITS-90 in the same range of temperature. This was registered in the KCDB under the identifier COOMET.T-S1 and measurements were performed in 2008-2009. From the results presented in this report, it is possible to draw the conclusion that the COOMET supplementary comparison COOMET.T-S1 demonstrates the CMC uncertainties claimed by the NSC IM for the melting point of gallium 0.236 mK (k = 2), and the freezing points of indium 1.040 mK (k = 2), tin 0.858 mK (k = 2) and zinc 0.944 mK (k = 2). In September 2012 the Working Group on key Comparisons (WG 7) of the CCT upgraded this comparison to a COOMET key comparison of the 'CCT-K3' type. It is now identified as COOMET.T-K3.1. In April 2013 this report was superseded by item 03006 in the Technical Supplement of 2013. Main text. To reach the main text of this paper, click on Final Report. Note that this text is that which appears in Appendix B of the BIPM key comparison database kcdb.bipm.org/. The final report has been peer-reviewed and approved for publication by the CCT, according to the provisions of the CIPM Mutual Recognition Arrangement (MRA).

Early object relations into new objects.

PubMed

Downey, T W

2001-01-01

dramatic change that has hitherto been poorly identified and conceptualized. In child analysis, play is the medium for picking the lock of both arrested maturation and stultified development. Realizing that should permit the child analyst to engage more freely with the child in their own style of play without being overly concerned about the presence or absence of relational dynamic material. Non-dynamic play may not usually be defensive play, though it has often been misinterpreted as such. It may represent activity supporting renewed maturation--practice play in the service of memory, motility, or small or large motor function rather than in the service of the playful, repetitive externalization of threatening introjects. Dynamic play highlights the stagnant or emerging functions of the ego with regard to defense and affect management, which may then be interpreted using the play as key or using words as key to unlock the troubled relationship that is being dramatized. The analyst remains in a non-defensive stance, assigned by the analysand as audience or benign participant. Similarly, in adult analyses some individuals come pre-programmed not so much for interpretation as to discover the analyst as new object. They are in search of near psychobiological maturational closure on an object, already constituted in fantasy, that is respectful, attentive, objective, interested, and sometimes enlightening in their attempts at analytic understanding and developmental homeostasis. This phenomenon is akin to love at first sight, though without the flagrant libidinal romantic element. It occurs as the analytic narrative unfolds and the patient comes to a new sense of self, often around some developmental role or mix of roles, such as spouse, lover, mother, student, sibling, or worker. The point is that playing on the black and white keys of development and maturation leads to the appreciation of a psychoanalytic instrument that is at once more complex and yet easier to get music

Four Key Keys to Powerful Presentations in PowerPoint: Take Your Presentations to the Next Level

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Howell, Dusti D.

2008-01-01

If a person is on a presentation and he/she does not know how to go back to a previous PowerPoint slide, his/her credibility will be clouded and the audience will become frustrated. More sophisticated presenters use handheld remotes to control the basic navigation of slides. Even in this case, keyboard shortcuts can be an added benefit. For those…

Bilateral key comparison SIM.T-K6.5 on humidity standards in the dew/frost-point temperature range from -30 °C to +20 °C

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Meyer, C.; Solano, A.

2016-01-01

A Regional Metrology Organization (RMO) Key Comparison of dew/frost point temperatures was carried out by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST, USA) and the Laboratorio Costarricense de Metrología (LACOMET, Costa Rica) between February 2015 and August 2015. The results of this comparison are reported here, along with descriptions of the humidity laboratory standards for NIST and LACOMET and the uncertainty budget for these standards. This report also describes the protocol for the comparison and presents the data acquired. The results are analyzed, determining degree of equivalence between the dew/frost-point standards of NIST and LACOMET. Main text To reach the main text of this paper, click on Final Report. Note that this text is that which appears in Appendix B of the BIPM key comparison database kcdb.bipm.org/. The final report has been peer-reviewed and approved for publication by the CCT, according to the provisions of the CIPM Mutual Recognition Arrangement (CIPM MRA).

Bilateral key comparison SIM.T-K6.2 on humidity standards in the dew/frost-point temperature range from -20 °c to 20 °c

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Huang, P. H.; Meyer, C. W.; Martines-López, E.; Dávila Pacheco, J. A.; Méndez-Lango, E.

2014-01-01

A Regional Metrology Organization (RMO) Key Comparison of dew/frost point temperatures was carried out by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST, USA) and the Centro Nacional de Metrologia (CENAM, Mexico) between July 2008 and December 2008. The results of this comparison are reported here, along with descriptions of the humidity laboratory standards for NIST and CENAM and the uncertainty budget for these standards. This report also describes the protocol for the comparison and presents the data acquired. The results are analyzed, determining degree of equivalence between the dew/frost-point standards of NIST and CENAM. Main text. To reach the main text of this paper, click on Final Report. Note that this text is that which appears in Appendix B of the BIPM key comparison database kcdb.bipm.org/. The final report has been peer-reviewed and approved for publication by the CCT, according to the provisions of the CIPM Mutual Recognition Arrangement (CIPM MRA).

Object-oriented productivity metrics

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Connell, John L.; Eller, Nancy

1992-01-01

Software productivity metrics are useful for sizing and costing proposed software and for measuring development productivity. Estimating and measuring source lines of code (SLOC) has proven to be a bad idea because it encourages writing more lines of code and using lower level languages. Function Point Analysis is an improved software metric system, but it is not compatible with newer rapid prototyping and object-oriented approaches to software development. A process is presented here for counting object-oriented effort points, based on a preliminary object-oriented analysis. It is proposed that this approach is compatible with object-oriented analysis, design, programming, and rapid prototyping. Statistics gathered on actual projects are presented to validate the approach.

Classification of Dual-Wavelength Airborne Laser Scanning Point Cloud Based on the Radiometric Properties of the Objects

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pilarska, M.

2018-05-01

Airborne laser scanning (ALS) is a well-known and willingly used technology. One of the advantages of this technology is primarily its fast and accurate data registration. In recent years ALS is continuously developed. One of the latest achievements is multispectral ALS, which consists in obtaining simultaneously the data in more than one laser wavelength. In this article the results of the dual-wavelength ALS data classification are presented. The data were acquired with RIEGL VQ-1560i sensor, which is equipped with two laser scanners operating in different wavelengths: 532 nm and 1064 nm. Two classification approaches are presented in the article: classification, which is based on geometric relationships between points and classification, which mostly relies on the radiometric properties of registered objects. The overall accuracy of the geometric classification was 86 %, whereas for the radiometric classification it was 81 %. As a result, it can be assumed that the radiometric features which are provided by the multispectral ALS have potential to be successfully used in ALS point cloud classification.

Exploring Measures to Control Road Traffic Injuries in Iran: Key Informants Points of View.

PubMed

Salari, Hedayat; Motevalian, Seyed Abbas; Arab, Mohammad; Esfandiari, Atefeh; Akbari Sari, Ali

2017-05-01

Injuries and fatalities from road traffic Injuries are global public health concerns, and a major problem in the Iran. This study aimed to explore strategies to control road traffic Injuries (RTI) in Iran. We conducted a qualitative study to explore possible ways to reduce the occurrence of road traffic Injuries in Iran in 2016. Interviewees were purposively sampled from various sectors due to multidisciplinary nature of RTIs. Participants were mainly representatives from the police, Ministry of Road, Municipal, emergency services and Ministry of Health. Besides, public health authorities, researchers, and university professors were interviewed. We conducted in-depth interviews using generic guides. Data was analyzed using MAXQDA 10 software. Through content analysis, we interpreted core themes relevant to the accomplishment of our study objectives. Themes that emerged from our study include; road traffic management, governance, education, improving accident database, enforcement, driving license restrictions, and construction of pedestrian overpass. This study revealed key informants' views regarding available and affordable solutions to reduce RTIs in Iran. Many applicable strategies are identified in the control of RTIs in Iran. Although some solutions such as highway construction and/or expanding rail transportation have been suggested as effective measures for reducing accident, but they are costly and may not be fully applied in developing countries like Iran.

The goal of ape pointing

PubMed Central

Liebal, Katja; Tomasello, Michael

2018-01-01

Captive great apes regularly use pointing gestures in their interactions with humans. However, the precise function of this gesture is unknown. One possibility is that apes use pointing primarily to direct attention (as in “please look at that”); another is that they point mainly as an action request (such as “can you give that to me?”). We investigated these two possibilities here by examining how the looking behavior of recipients affects pointing in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and bonobos (Pan paniscus). Upon pointing to food, subjects were faced with a recipient who either looked at the indicated object (successful-look) or failed to look at the indicated object (failed-look). We predicted that, if apes point primarily to direct attention, subjects would spend more time pointing in the failed-look condition because the goal of their gesture had not been met. Alternatively, we expected that, if apes point primarily to request an object, subjects would not differ in their pointing behavior between the successful-look and failed-look conditions because these conditions differed only in the looking behavior of the recipient. We found that subjects did differ in their pointing behavior across the successful-look and failed-look conditions, but contrary to our prediction subjects spent more time pointing in the successful-look condition. These results suggest that apes are sensitive to the attentional states of gestural recipients, but their adjustments are aimed at multiple goals. We also found a greater number of individuals with a strong right-hand than left-hand preference for pointing. PMID:29694358

The goal of ape pointing.

PubMed

Halina, Marta; Liebal, Katja; Tomasello, Michael

2018-01-01

Captive great apes regularly use pointing gestures in their interactions with humans. However, the precise function of this gesture is unknown. One possibility is that apes use pointing primarily to direct attention (as in "please look at that"); another is that they point mainly as an action request (such as "can you give that to me?"). We investigated these two possibilities here by examining how the looking behavior of recipients affects pointing in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and bonobos (Pan paniscus). Upon pointing to food, subjects were faced with a recipient who either looked at the indicated object (successful-look) or failed to look at the indicated object (failed-look). We predicted that, if apes point primarily to direct attention, subjects would spend more time pointing in the failed-look condition because the goal of their gesture had not been met. Alternatively, we expected that, if apes point primarily to request an object, subjects would not differ in their pointing behavior between the successful-look and failed-look conditions because these conditions differed only in the looking behavior of the recipient. We found that subjects did differ in their pointing behavior across the successful-look and failed-look conditions, but contrary to our prediction subjects spent more time pointing in the successful-look condition. These results suggest that apes are sensitive to the attentional states of gestural recipients, but their adjustments are aimed at multiple goals. We also found a greater number of individuals with a strong right-hand than left-hand preference for pointing.

Small target detection using objectness and saliency

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhang, Naiwen; Xiao, Yang; Fang, Zhiwen; Yang, Jian; Wang, Li; Li, Tao

2017-10-01

We are motived by the need for generic object detection algorithm which achieves high recall for small targets in complex scenes with acceptable computational efficiency. We propose a novel object detection algorithm, which has high localization quality with acceptable computational cost. Firstly, we obtain the objectness map as in BING[1] and use NMS to get the top N points. Then, k-means algorithm is used to cluster them into K classes according to their location. We set the center points of the K classes as seed points. For each seed point, an object potential region is extracted. Finally, a fast salient object detection algorithm[2] is applied to the object potential regions to highlight objectlike pixels, and a series of efficient post-processing operations are proposed to locate the targets. Our method runs at 5 FPS on 1000*1000 images, and significantly outperforms previous methods on small targets in cluttered background.

Marketing strategy: a key leverage point for dietitians.

PubMed

Jensen, T G; Brooks, B J

1981-09-01

The time is right for planned change in the profession of dietetics. The concept of the nutrition support team offers the clinical dietitian a means of increasing the visibility and effectiveness of dietetic services. Dietitians must take advantage of the renewed interest in nutrition and intervene assertively to improve nutritional care through role expansion. By focusing on a systematic marketing strategy to expand their current role, dietitians can become proactive participants in role change, rather than reactive victims to changes dictated by others. When goals, objectives, and plans are made explicit, definite progress toward desired role changes can be recognized. This case study demonstrates that this change in role is possible within the present state of health case systems and that physicians are willing and even eager to allow dietitians to assume a high degree of responsibility for nutritional care.

Utilization of a cognitive task analysis for laparoscopic appendectomy to identify differentiated intraoperative teaching objectives.

PubMed

Smink, Douglas S; Peyre, Sarah E; Soybel, David I; Tavakkolizadeh, Ali; Vernon, Ashley H; Anastakis, Dimitri J

2012-04-01

Experts become automated when performing surgery, making it difficult to teach complex procedures to trainees. Cognitive task analysis (CTA) enables experts to articulate operative steps and cognitive decisions in complex procedures such as laparoscopic appendectomy, which can then be used to identify central teaching points. Three local surgeon experts in laparoscopic appendectomy were interviewed using critical decision method-based CTA methodology. Interview transcripts were analyzed, and a cognitive demands table (CDT) was created for each expert. The individual CDTs were reviewed by each expert for completeness and then combined into a master CDT. Percentage agreement on operative steps and decision points was calculated for each expert. The experts then participated in a consensus meeting to review the master CDT. Each surgeon expert was asked to identify in the master CDT the most important teaching objectives for junior-level and senior-level residents. The experts' responses for junior-level and senior-level residents were compared using a χ(2) test. The surgeon experts identified 24 operative steps and 27 decision points. Eighteen of the 24 operative steps (75%) were identified by all 3 surgeon experts. The percentage of operative steps identified was high for each surgeon expert (96% for surgeon 1, 79% for surgeon 2, and 83% for surgeon 3). Of the 27 decision points, only 5 (19%) were identified by all 3 surgeon experts. The percentage of decision points identified varied by surgeon expert (78% for surgeon 1, 59% for surgeon 2, and 48% for surgeon 3). When asked to identify key teaching points, the surgeon experts were more likely to identify operative steps for junior residents (9 operative steps and 6 decision points) and decision points for senior residents (4 operative steps and 13 decision points) (P < .01). CTA can deconstruct the essential operative steps and decision points associated with performing a laparoscopic appendectomy. These results

An exergame system based on force platforms and body key-point detection for balance training.

PubMed

Lavarda, Marcos D; de Borba, Pedro A; Oliveira, Matheus R; Borba, Gustavo B; de Souza, Mauren A; Gamba, Humberto R

2016-08-01

Postural instability affects a large number of people and can compromise even simple activities of the daily routine. Therapies for balance training can strongly benefit from auxiliary devices specially designed for this purpose. In this paper, we present a system for balance training that uses the metaphor of a game, what contributes to the motivation and engagement of the patients during a treatment. Such approach is usually named exergame, in which input devices for posturographic assessment and a visual output perform the interaction with the subject. The proposed system uses two force platforms, one positioned under the feet and the other under the hip of the subject. The force platforms employ regular load cells and a microcontroller-based signal acquisition module to capture and transmit the samples to a computer. Moreover, a computer vision module performs body key-point detection, based on real time segmentation of markers attached to the subject. For the validation of the system, we conducted experiments with 20 neurologically intact volunteers during two tests: comparison of the stabilometric parameters obtained from the system with those obtained from a commercial baropodometer and the practice of several exergames. Results show that the proposed system is completely functional and can be used as a versatile tool for balance training.

BILATERAL KEY COMPARISON SIM.T-K6.1 ON HUMIDITY STANDARDS IN THE DEW/FROST-POINT TEMPERATURE RANGE FROM -25 °C TO +20 °C.

PubMed

Meyer, C W; Hill, K D

A Regional Metrology Organization (RMO) Key Comparison of dew/frost point temperatures was carried out by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST, USA) and the National Research Council (NRC, Canada) between December 2014 and April, 2015. The results of this comparison are reported here, along with descriptions of the humidity laboratory standards for NIST and NRC and the uncertainty budget for these standards. This report also describes the protocol for the comparison and presents the data acquired. The results are analyzed, determining degree of equivalence between the dew/frost-point standards of NIST and NRC.

Bilateral key comparison SIM.T-K6.1 on humidity standards in the dew/frost-point temperature range from -25 °C to +20 °C

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Meyer, C. W.; Hill, K. D.

2015-01-01

A Regional Metrology Organization (RMO) Key Comparison of dew/frost point temperatures was carried out by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST, USA) and the National Research Council (NRC, Canada) between December 2014 and April 2015. The results of this comparison are reported here, along with descriptions of the humidity laboratory standards for NIST and NRC and the uncertainty budget for these standards. This report also describes the protocol for the comparison and presents the data acquired. The results are analyzed, determining degree of equivalence between the dew/frost-point standards of NIST and NRC. This paper is the final report of the comparison including analysis of the uncertainty of measurement results. Main text. To reach the main text of this paper, click on Final Report. Note that this text is that which appears in Appendix B of the BIPM key comparison database kcdb.bipm.org/. The final report has been peer-reviewed and approved for publication by the CCT WG-KC, according to the provisions of the CIPM Mutual Recognition Arrangement (CIPM MRA).

Orientation Control Method and System for Object in Motion

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Whorton, Mark Stephen (Inventor); Redmon, Jr., John W. (Inventor); Cox, Mark D. (Inventor)

2012-01-01

An object in motion has a force applied thereto at a point of application. By moving the point of application such that the distance between the object's center-of-mass and the point of application is changed, the object's orientation can be changed/adjusted.

Objectives over Time: A Look at Four Decades of Objectives in the Educational Research Literature

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Marken, James; Morrison, Gary

2013-01-01

While the concept of objectives is widely used in many applied fields of instruction, the systematic derivation and application of objectives for learning and instruction is a key feature of systematic instructional design. However, the treatment of objectives and the terminology surrounding them is sometimes nebulously employed. This article…

Point by Point: Adding up Motivation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Marchionda, Denise

2010-01-01

Students often view their course grades as a mysterious equation of teacher-given grades, teacher-given grace, and some other ethereal components based on luck. However, giving students the power to earn points based on numerous daily/weekly assignments and attendance makes the grading process objective and personal, freeing the instructor to…

Astrophysics of Reference Frame Tie Objects

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Johnston, Kenneth J.; Boboltz, David; Fey, Alan Lee; Gaume, Ralph A.; Zacharias, Norbert

2004-01-01

The Astrophysics of Reference Frame Tie Objects Key Science program will investigate the underlying physics of SIM grid objects. Extragalactic objects in the SIM grid will be used to tie the SIM reference frame to the quasi-inertial reference frame defined by extragalactic objects and to remove any residual frame rotation with respect to the extragalactic frame. The current realization of the extragalactic frame is the International Celestial Reference Frame (ICRF). The ICRF is defined by the radio positions of 212 extragalactic objects and is the IAU sanctioned fundamental astronomical reference frame. This key project will advance our knowledge of the physics of the objects which will make up the SIM grid, such as quasars and chromospherically active stars, and relates directly to the stability of the SIM reference frame. The following questions concerning the physics of reference frame tie objects will be investigated.

Comparison is key.

PubMed

Stone, Mark H; Stenner, A Jackson

2014-01-01

Several concepts from Georg Rasch's last papers are discussed. The key one is comparison because Rasch considered the method of comparison fundamental to science. From the role of comparison stems scientific inference made operational by a properly developed frame of reference producing specific objectivity. The exact specifications Rasch outlined for making comparisons are explicated from quotes, and the role of causality derived from making comparisons is also examined. Understanding causality has implications for what can and cannot be produced via Rasch measurement. His simple examples were instructive, but the implications are far reaching upon first establishing the key role of comparison.

Extension of RCC Topological Relations for 3d Complex Objects Components Extracted from 3d LIDAR Point Clouds

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Xing, Xu-Feng; Abolfazl Mostafavia, Mir; Wang, Chen

2016-06-01

Topological relations are fundamental for qualitative description, querying and analysis of a 3D scene. Although topological relations for 2D objects have been extensively studied and implemented in GIS applications, their direct extension to 3D is very challenging and they cannot be directly applied to represent relations between components of complex 3D objects represented by 3D B-Rep models in R3. Herein we present an extended Region Connection Calculus (RCC) model to express and formalize topological relations between planar regions for creating 3D model represented by Boundary Representation model in R3. We proposed a new dimension extended 9-Intersection model to represent the basic relations among components of a complex object, including disjoint, meet and intersect. The last element in 3*3 matrix records the details of connection through the common parts of two regions and the intersecting line of two planes. Additionally, this model can deal with the case of planar regions with holes. Finally, the geometric information is transformed into a list of strings consisting of topological relations between two planar regions and detailed connection information. The experiments show that the proposed approach helps to identify topological relations of planar segments of point cloud automatically.

Evaluation of Image Segmentation and Object Recognition Algorithms for Image Parsing

DTIC Science & Technology

2013-09-01

generation of the features from the key points. OpenCV uses Euclidean distance to match the key points and has the option to use Manhattan distance...feature vector includes polarity and intensity information. Final step is matching the key points. In OpenCV , Euclidean distance or Manhattan...the code below is one way and OpenCV offers the function radiusMatch (a pair must have a distance less than a given maximum distance). OpenCV’s

Exploring Measures to Control Road Traffic Injuries in Iran: Key Informants Points of View

PubMed Central

SALARI, Hedayat; MOTEVALIAN, Seyed Abbas; ARAB, Mohammad; ESFANDIARI, Atefeh; AKBARI SARI, Ali

2017-01-01

Background: Injuries and fatalities from road traffic Injuries are global public health concerns, and a major problem in the Iran. This study aimed to explore strategies to control road traffic Injuries (RTI) in Iran. Methods: We conducted a qualitative study to explore possible ways to reduce the occurrence of road traffic Injuries in Iran in 2016. Interviewees were purposively sampled from various sectors due to multidisciplinary nature of RTIs. Participants were mainly representatives from the police, Ministry of Road, Municipal, emergency services and Ministry of Health. Besides, public health authorities, researchers, and university professors were interviewed. We conducted in-depth interviews using generic guides. Data was analyzed using MAXQDA 10 software. Through content analysis, we interpreted core themes relevant to the accomplishment of our study objectives. Results: Themes that emerged from our study include; road traffic management, governance, education, improving accident database, enforcement, driving license restrictions, and construction of pedestrian overpass. Conclusion: This study revealed key informants’ views regarding available and affordable solutions to reduce RTIs in Iran. Many applicable strategies are identified in the control of RTIs in Iran. Although some solutions such as highway construction and/or expanding rail transportation have been suggested as effective measures for reducing accident, but they are costly and may not be fully applied in developing countries like Iran. PMID:28560198

I See Your Point: Infants under 12 Months Understand that Pointing Is Communicative

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Krehm, Madelaine; Onishi, Kristine H.; Vouloumanos, Athena

2014-01-01

Do young infants understand that pointing gestures allow the pointer to change the information state of a recipient? We used a third-party experimental scenario to examine whether 9- and 11-month-olds understand that a pointer's pointing gesture can inform a recipient about a target object. When the pointer pointed to a target, infants…

Point pattern match-based change detection in a constellation of previously detected objects

DOEpatents

Paglieroni, David W.

2016-06-07

A method and system is provided that applies attribute- and topology-based change detection to objects that were detected on previous scans of a medium. The attributes capture properties or characteristics of the previously detected objects, such as location, time of detection, detection strength, size, elongation, orientation, etc. The locations define a three-dimensional network topology forming a constellation of previously detected objects. The change detection system stores attributes of the previously detected objects in a constellation database. The change detection system detects changes by comparing the attributes and topological consistency of newly detected objects encountered during a new scan of the medium to previously detected objects in the constellation database. The change detection system may receive the attributes of the newly detected objects as the objects are detected by an object detection system in real time.

Luminance gradient at object borders communicates object location to the human oculomotor system.

PubMed

Kilpeläinen, Markku; Georgeson, Mark A

2018-01-25

The locations of objects in our environment constitute arguably the most important piece of information our visual system must convey to facilitate successful visually guided behaviour. However, the relevant objects are usually not point-like and do not have one unique location attribute. Relatively little is known about how the visual system represents the location of such large objects as visual processing is, both on neural and perceptual level, highly edge dominated. In this study, human observers made saccades to the centres of luminance defined squares (width 4 deg), which appeared at random locations (8 deg eccentricity). The phase structure of the square was manipulated such that the points of maximum luminance gradient at the square's edges shifted from trial to trial. The average saccade endpoints of all subjects followed those shifts in remarkable quantitative agreement. Further experiments showed that the shifts were caused by the edge manipulations, not by changes in luminance structure near the centre of the square or outside the square. We conclude that the human visual system programs saccades to large luminance defined square objects based on edge locations derived from the points of maximum luminance gradients at the square's edges.

The Rational Zero Point on Incentive-Object Preference Scales: A Developmental Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Haaf, Robert A.

1971-01-01

Preference judgments made by 20 males and 20 females (grades K-4) about the incentive value of 10 objects (i.e. bubble gum, Chiclet, candy corn, dried lima bean) helped determine relative and absolute scales for use of these objects as rewards. The assumption that the same object is equally rewarding at different age levels may be unwarranted.…

Final report: Bilateral key comparison SIM.T-K6.3 on humidity standards in the dew/frost-point temperature range from -30°C to 20°C

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Huang, Peter; Meyer, Christopher; Brionizio, Julio D.

2015-01-01

A Regional Metrology Organization (RMO) Key Comparison of dew/frost point temperatures was carried out by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST, USA) and the Instituto Nacional de Metrologia, Qualidade e Tecnologia (INMETRO, Brazil) between October 2009 and March 2010. The results of this comparison are reported here, along with descriptions of the humidity laboratory standards for NIST and INMETRO and the uncertainty budget for these standards. This report also describes the protocol for the comparison and presents the data acquired. The results are analyzed, determining degree of equivalence between the dew/frost-point standards of NIST and INMETRO. Main text. To reach the main text of this paper, click on Final Report. Note that this text is that which appears in Appendix B of the BIPM key comparison database kcdb.bipm.org/. The final report has been peer-reviewed and approved for publication by the CCT, according to the provisions of the CIPM Mutual Recognition Arrangement (CIPM MRA).

Cockpit management and Specific Behavioral Objectives (SBOs)

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Mudge, R. W.

1987-01-01

One of the primary tools used to accomplish the task of effective training is the specific behavioral objective (SBO). An SBO is simply a statement which specifically identifies a small segment of the final behavior sought, and a little more. The key word is specific. The company pinpoints exactly what it is it wants the pilot to do after completing training, and what it should evaluate from the point of view of both the program and the pilot. It tells the junior crewmember exactly, specifically, what he should monitor and support insofar as the management function is concerned. It gives greater meaning to the term second in command. And finally, it tells the supervisory pilot exactly what he should observe, evaluate, and instruct, insofar as the management function is concerned.

BILATERAL KEY COMPARISON SIM.T-K6.1 ON HUMIDITY STANDARDS IN THE DEW/FROST-POINT TEMPERATURE RANGE FROM −25 °C TO +20 °C

PubMed Central

Meyer, C.W.; Hill, K.D.

2015-01-01

A Regional Metrology Organization (RMO) Key Comparison of dew/frost point temperatures was carried out by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST, USA) and the National Research Council (NRC, Canada) between December 2014 and April, 2015. The results of this comparison are reported here, along with descriptions of the humidity laboratory standards for NIST and NRC and the uncertainty budget for these standards. This report also describes the protocol for the comparison and presents the data acquired. The results are analyzed, determining degree of equivalence between the dew/frost-point standards of NIST and NRC. PMID:26663952

Entropy driven key-lock assembly.

PubMed

Odriozola, G; Jiménez-Angeles, F; Lozada-Cassou, M

2008-09-21

The effective interaction between a sphere with an open cavity (lock) and a spherical macroparticle (key), both immersed in a hard sphere fluid, is studied by means of Monte Carlo simulations. As a result, a two-dimensional map of the key-lock effective interaction potential is constructed, which leads to the proposal of a self-assembling mechanism: There exists trajectories through which the key-lock pair could assemble avoiding trespassing potential barriers. Hence, solely the entropic contribution can induce their self-assembling even in the absence of attractive forces. This study points out the solvent contribution within the underlying mechanisms of substrate-protein assemblydisassembly processes, which are important steps of the enzyme catalysis and protein mediated transport.

Entropy driven key-lock assembly

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Odriozola, G.; Jiménez-Ángeles, F.; Lozada-Cassou, M.

2008-09-01

The effective interaction between a sphere with an open cavity (lock) and a spherical macroparticle (key), both immersed in a hard sphere fluid, is studied by means of Monte Carlo simulations. As a result, a two-dimensional map of the key-lock effective interaction potential is constructed, which leads to the proposal of a self-assembling mechanism: There exists trajectories through which the key-lock pair could assemble avoiding trespassing potential barriers. Hence, solely the entropic contribution can induce their self-assembling even in the absence of attractive forces. This study points out the solvent contribution within the underlying mechanisms of substrate-protein assembly/disassembly processes, which are important steps of the enzyme catalysis and protein mediated transport.

KEY ITEMS OF INNOVATION MANAGEMENT IN THE PRIMARY HEALTHCARE CENTRES CASE STUDY: FINLAND.

PubMed

Aslani, Alireza; Zolfagharzadeh, Mohammad Mahdi; Naaranoja, Marja

2015-09-01

Trends such as aging populations, excess costs, rising public expectations, and progress in medical science and technologies point out the necessity of adaptation and development of innovation in the healthcare systems particularly in developed countries. The main objective of this article is to review diffusion of innovation in the healthcare sector. Different types of innovation, diffusion characteristics, and adoption mechanisms are the subjects that are discussed in the selected case study, Finland. Finally, the key items of innovation management in the Finnish health system are introduced. The results can be implemented in other countries as well.

The registration of non-cooperative moving targets laser point cloud in different view point

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wang, Shuai; Sun, Huayan; Guo, Huichao

2018-01-01

Non-cooperative moving target multi-view cloud registration is the key technology of 3D reconstruction of laser threedimension imaging. The main problem is that the density changes greatly and noise exists under different acquisition conditions of point cloud. In this paper, firstly, the feature descriptor is used to find the most similar point cloud, and then based on the registration algorithm of region segmentation, the geometric structure of the point is extracted by the geometric similarity between point and point, The point cloud is divided into regions based on spectral clustering, feature descriptors are created for each region, searching to find the most similar regions in the most similar point of view cloud, and then aligning the pair of point clouds by aligning their minimum bounding boxes. Repeat the above steps again until registration of all point clouds is completed. Experiments show that this method is insensitive to the density of point clouds and performs well on the noise of laser three-dimension imaging.

Hierarchical extraction of urban objects from mobile laser scanning data

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yang, Bisheng; Dong, Zhen; Zhao, Gang; Dai, Wenxia

2015-01-01

Point clouds collected in urban scenes contain a huge number of points (e.g., billions), numerous objects with significant size variability, complex and incomplete structures, and variable point densities, raising great challenges for the automated extraction of urban objects in the field of photogrammetry, computer vision, and robotics. This paper addresses these challenges by proposing an automated method to extract urban objects robustly and efficiently. The proposed method generates multi-scale supervoxels from 3D point clouds using the point attributes (e.g., colors, intensities) and spatial distances between points, and then segments the supervoxels rather than individual points by combining graph based segmentation with multiple cues (e.g., principal direction, colors) of the supervoxels. The proposed method defines a set of rules for merging segments into meaningful units according to types of urban objects and forms the semantic knowledge of urban objects for the classification of objects. Finally, the proposed method extracts and classifies urban objects in a hierarchical order ranked by the saliency of the segments. Experiments show that the proposed method is efficient and robust for extracting buildings, streetlamps, trees, telegraph poles, traffic signs, cars, and enclosures from mobile laser scanning (MLS) point clouds, with an overall accuracy of 92.3%.

Algorithm for pose estimation based on objective function with uncertainty-weighted measuring error of feature point cling to the curved surface.

PubMed

Huo, Ju; Zhang, Guiyang; Yang, Ming

2018-04-20

This paper is concerned with the anisotropic and non-identical gray distribution of feature points clinging to the curved surface, upon which a high precision and uncertainty-resistance algorithm for pose estimation is proposed. Weighted contribution of uncertainty to the objective function of feature points measuring error is analyzed. Then a novel error objective function based on the spatial collinear error is constructed by transforming the uncertainty into a covariance-weighted matrix, which is suitable for the practical applications. Further, the optimized generalized orthogonal iterative (GOI) algorithm is utilized for iterative solutions such that it avoids the poor convergence and significantly resists the uncertainty. Hence, the optimized GOI algorithm extends the field-of-view applications and improves the accuracy and robustness of the measuring results by the redundant information. Finally, simulation and practical experiments show that the maximum error of re-projection image coordinates of the target is less than 0.110 pixels. Within the space 3000  mm×3000  mm×4000  mm, the maximum estimation errors of static and dynamic measurement for rocket nozzle motion are superior to 0.065° and 0.128°, respectively. Results verify the high accuracy and uncertainty attenuation performance of the proposed approach and should therefore have potential for engineering applications.

Photometry and taxonomy of trans-Neptunian objects and Centaurs in support of a Herschel key program

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Perna, D.; Dotto, E.; Barucci, M. A.; Mazzotta Epifani, E.; Vilenius, E.; Dall'Ora, M.; Fornasier, S.; Müller, T. G.

2013-06-01

Context. The investigation of Centaurs and trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) provides essential information about the early conditions and evolution of the outer solar system. The radiometric technique combines measurements in the visible and thermal infrared; with these one can estimate the size and albedo of Centaurs and TNOs. Aims: Our aim is to obtain visible photometry of a sample of Centaurs and TNOs, a subset of the targets of the "TNOs are cool" key program at the Herschel Space Observatory. Methods: We carried out visible photometry of Centaurs and TNOs, making use of the DOLORES instrument at the Telescopio Nazionale Galileo (TNG, La Palma, Spain). Results: We report photometric observations of 20 objects and present the computed absolute magnitudes. We derive the taxonomy of our targets (nine are classified for the first time, the results for five objects agree with the literature, the other targets are tentatively classified based on incomplete datasets) and combine the results with the literature, searching for correlations between taxonomy and dynamics. We look for comet-like activity in our Centaur sample, including (248835) 2006 SX368, which was previously described as active. Conclusions: We provide an accurate determination of the absolute magnitude and of the relative error for each of our targets. These values can be readily used in combination with thermal infrared data. The surface of TNO (65489) Ceto seems to be heterogeneous. Our results seem to support an evolutionary origin for the color dichotomy of Centaurs, and the occurrence of a strong mixing after the TNO formation. No evident cometary activity is detected around the five Centaurs in our sample; assuming that an unresolved coma is present around (248835) 2006 SX368, we use the "photometric model" to derive the possible dust production rate, finding that Qdust is in the range 1-31 kg/s. Based on observations made with the Italian Telescopio Nazionale Galileo (TNG) operated on the island

Optical cryptography with biometrics for multi-depth objects.

PubMed

Yan, Aimin; Wei, Yang; Hu, Zhijuan; Zhang, Jingtao; Tsang, Peter Wai Ming; Poon, Ting-Chung

2017-10-11

We propose an optical cryptosystem for encrypting images of multi-depth objects based on the combination of optical heterodyne technique and fingerprint keys. Optical heterodyning requires two optical beams to be mixed. For encryption, each optical beam is modulated by an optical mask containing either the fingerprint of the person who is sending, or receiving the image. The pair of optical masks are taken as the encryption keys. Subsequently, the two beams are used to scan over a multi-depth 3-D object to obtain an encrypted hologram. During the decryption process, each sectional image of the 3-D object is recovered by convolving its encrypted hologram (through numerical computation) with the encrypted hologram of a pinhole image that is positioned at the same depth as the sectional image. Our proposed method has three major advantages. First, the lost-key situation can be avoided with the use of fingerprints as the encryption keys. Second, the method can be applied to encrypt 3-D images for subsequent decrypted sectional images. Third, since optical heterodyning scanning is employed to encrypt a 3-D object, the optical system is incoherent, resulting in negligible amount of speckle noise upon decryption. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time optical cryptography of 3-D object images has been demonstrated in an incoherent optical system with biometric keys.

The motion near L{sub 4} equilibrium point under non-point mass primaries

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Huda, I. N., E-mail: ibnu.nurul@students.itb.ac.id; Utama, J. A.; Madley, D.

2015-09-30

The Circular Restricted Three-Body Problem (CRTBP) possesses five equilibrium points, that comprise three collinear (L{sub 1}, L{sub 2}, and L{sub 3}) and two triangular points (L{sub 4} and L{sub 5}). The classical study (with the primaries are point mass) suggests that the equilibrium points may cause the velocity of infinitesimal object relatively becomes zero and reveals the zero velocity curve. We study the motion of infinitesimal object near triangular equilibrium point (L{sub 4}) and determine its zero velocity curve. We extend the study by taking into account the effects of radiation of the bigger primary (q{sub 1} ≠ 1, q{submore » 2} = 1) and oblateness of the smaller primary (A{sub 1} = 0, A{sub 2} ≠ 0). The location of L{sub 4} is analytically derived then the stability of L{sub 4} and its zero velocity curves are studied numerically. Our study suggests that the oblateness and the radiation of primaries may affect the stability and zero velocity curve around L{sub 4}.« less

[Clinical laboratory medicine: continuous amelioration with a book of objectives and satisfaction survey].

PubMed

Reix, Nathalie; Agin, Arnaud; Bahram, Seiamak; Dali-Youcef, Nassim; Grucker, Daniel; Jaulhac, Benoît; Lepiller, Quentin; Lessinger, Jean-Marc; Mauvieux, Laurent; Monier, Laurie; Schramm, Frédéric; Stoll-Keller, Françoise; Vallat, Laurent; Ludes, Bertrand; Candolfi, Ermanno; Filisetti, Denis

2015-01-01

We report in this publication the use of two educational tools, a questionnaire of satisfaction and a training book, to improve the training of students during their internship in clinical laboratory at the "Pôle de biologie des Hôpitaux universitaires de Strasbourg" in France. First, the ongoing training was assessed by the interns with a questionnaire measuring satisfaction. The analysis of this questionnaire identified four key points to improve: 1) define the teaching objectives, 2) organize the training with a schedule, 3) revise certain teaching methods and 4) ensure better integration of the students in the team of medical biologists. After this assessment, we implemented a training book to answer these four points. Indeed, the training book presents the objectives, the schedule of training, and how to validate the educational objectives. A new assessment was performed again using the same methodology. Results showed an improvement in student satisfaction from 74 to 88 %. The questionnaire of satisfaction and the training book are presented in this article. The aim of the assessment of training combined with the training book is to incite the actors of the training (students and teachers) to continually improve the training. The objectives of the Pôle de Biologie are to obtain an 80 % satisfaction rate during the 6 months trainings and to reduce or eliminate dissatisfaction, and finally to ensure the validation by students of 80 to 100 % of their predetermined objectives.

BILATERAL KEY COMPARISON SIM.T-K6.5 ON HUMIDITY STANDARDS IN THE DEW/FROST-POINT TEMPERATURE RANGE FROM -30 °C TO +20 °C.

PubMed

Meyer, C W; Solano, A

2016-01-01

A Regional Metrology Organization (RMO) Key Comparison of dew/frost point temperatures over the range -30 °C TO +20 °C was carried out by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST, USA) and the Laboratorio Costarricense de Metrología (LACOMET, Costa Rica), between February 2015 and August 2015. The results of this comparison are reported here, along with descriptions of the humidity laboratory standards for NIST and LACOMET and the uncertainty budget for these standards. This report also describes the protocol for the comparison and presents the data acquired. The results are analyzed, determining the degree of equivalence between the dew/frost-point standards of NIST and LACOMET.

Caregivers Provide More Labeling Responses to Infants' Pointing than to Infants' Object-Directed Vocalizations

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wu, Zhen; Gros-Louis, Julie

2015-01-01

Existing studies have observed a robust relationship between infants' pointing gestures and language outcomes. By contrast, infants' overall vocal production is not related to language outcomes. One possible explanation for the association between pointing and language is that pointing gestures, as compared to vocalizations, may elicit more verbal…

System and method for disrupting suspect objects

DOEpatents

Gladwell, T. Scott; Garretson, Justin R; Hobart, Clinton G; Monda, Mark J

2013-07-09

A system and method for disrupting at least one component of a suspect object is provided. The system includes a source for passing radiation through the suspect object, a screen for receiving the radiation passing through the suspect object and generating at least one image therefrom, a weapon having a discharge deployable therefrom, and a targeting unit. The targeting unit displays the image(s) of the suspect object and aims the weapon at a disruption point on the displayed image such that the weapon may be positioned to deploy the discharge at the disruption point whereby the suspect object is disabled.

Field test of wavelength-saving quantum key distribution network.

PubMed

Wang, Shuang; Chen, Wei; Yin, Zhen-Qiang; Zhang, Yang; Zhang, Tao; Li, Hong-Wei; Xu, Fang-Xing; Zhou, Zheng; Yang, Yang; Huang, Da-Jun; Zhang, Li-Jun; Li, Fang-Yi; Liu, Dong; Wang, Yong-Gang; Guo, Guang-Can; Han, Zheng-Fu

2010-07-15

We propose a wavelength-saving topology of a quantum key distribution (QKD) network based on passive optical elements, and we report on the field test of this network on commercial telecom optical fiber at the frequency of 20 MHz. In this network, five nodes are supported with two wavelengths, and every two nodes can share secure keys directly at the same time. We also characterized the insertion loss and cross talk effects on the point-to-point QKD system after introducing this QKD network.

Reach on sound: a key to object permanence in visually impaired children.

PubMed

Fazzi, Elisa; Signorini, Sabrina Giovanna; Bomba, Monica; Luparia, Antonella; Lanners, Josée; Balottin, Umberto

2011-04-01

The capacity to reach an object presented through sound clue indicates, in the blind child, the acquisition of object permanence and gives information over his/her cognitive development. To assess cognitive development in congenitally blind children with or without multiple disabilities. Cohort study. Thirty-seven congenitally blind subjects (17 with associated multiple disabilities, 20 mainly blind) were enrolled. We used Bigelow's protocol to evaluate "reach on sound" capacity over time (at 6, 12, 18, 24, and 36 months), and a battery of clinical, neurophysiological and cognitive instruments to assess clinical features. Tasks n.1 to 5 were acquired by most of the mainly blind children by 12 months of age. Task 6 coincided with a drop in performance, and the acquisition of the subsequent tasks showed a less agehomogeneous pattern. In blind children with multiple disabilities, task acquisition rates were lower, with the curves dipping in relation to the more complex tasks. The mainly blind subjects managed to overcome Fraiberg's "conceptual problem"--i.e., they acquired the ability to attribute an external object with identity and substance even when it manifested its presence through sound only--and thus developed the ability to reach an object presented through sound. Instead, most of the blind children with multiple disabilities presented poor performances on the "reach on sound" protocol and were unable, before 36 months of age, to develop the strategies needed to resolve Fraiberg's "conceptual problem". Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Three-dimensional displacement measurement of image point by point-diffraction interferometry

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

He, Xiao; Chen, Lingfeng; Meng, Xiaojie; Yu, Lei

2018-01-01

This paper presents a method for measuring the three-dimensional (3-D) displacement of an image point based on point-diffraction interferometry. An object Point-light-source (PLS) interferes with a fixed PLS and its interferograms are captured by an exit pupil. When the image point of the object PLS is slightly shifted to a new position, the wavefront of the image PLS changes. And its interferograms also change. Processing these figures (captured before and after the movement), the wavefront difference of the image PLS can be obtained and it contains the information of three-dimensional (3-D) displacement of the image PLS. However, the information of its three-dimensional (3-D) displacement cannot be calculated until the distance between the image PLS and the exit pupil is calibrated. Therefore, we use a plane-parallel-plate with a known refractive index and thickness to determine this distance, which is based on the Snell's law for small angle of incidence. Thus, since the distance between the exit pupil and the image PLS is a known quantity, the 3-D displacement of the image PLS can be simultaneously calculated through two interference measurements. Preliminary experimental results indicate that its relative error is below 0.3%. With the ability to accurately locate an image point (whatever it is real or virtual), a fiber point-light-source can act as the reticle by itself in optical measurement.

[An object-oriented intelligent engineering design approach for lake pollution control].

PubMed

Zou, Rui; Zhou, Jing; Liu, Yong; Zhu, Xiang; Zhao, Lei; Yang, Ping-Jian; Guo, Huai-Cheng

2013-03-01

Regarding the shortage and deficiency of traditional lake pollution control engineering techniques, a new lake pollution control engineering approach was proposed in this study, based on object-oriented intelligent design (OOID) from the perspective of intelligence. It can provide a new methodology and framework for effectively controlling lake pollution and improving water quality. The differences between the traditional engineering techniques and the OOID approach were compared. The key points for OOID were described as object perspective, cause and effect foundation, set points into surface, and temporal and spatial optimization. The blue algae control in lake was taken as an example in this study. The effect of algae control and water quality improvement were analyzed in details from the perspective of object-oriented intelligent design based on two engineering techniques (vertical hydrodynamic mixer and pumping algaecide recharge). The modeling results showed that the traditional engineering design paradigm cannot provide scientific and effective guidance for engineering design and decision-making regarding lake pollution. Intelligent design approach is based on the object perspective and quantitative causal analysis in this case. This approach identified that the efficiency of mixers was much higher than pumps in achieving the goal of low to moderate water quality improvement. However, when the objective of water quality exceeded a certain value (such as the control objective of peak Chla concentration exceeded 100 microg x L(-1) in this experimental water), the mixer cannot achieve this goal. The pump technique can achieve the goal but with higher cost. The efficiency of combining the two techniques was higher than using one of the two techniques alone. Moreover, the quantitative scale control of the two engineering techniques has a significant impact on the actual project benefits and costs.

Optical fixing the positions of the off-shore objects applying the method of two reference points

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Naus, Krzysztof; Szulc, Dariusz

2014-06-01

The Paper presents the optical method of fixing the off-shore objects positions from the land. The method is based on application of two reference points, having the geographical coordinates defined. The first point was situated high on the sea shore, where also the camera was installed. The second point was intended for use to determine the topocentric horizon plane and it was situated at the water-level. The first section of the Paper contains the definition of space and disposed therein reference systems: connected with the Earth, water-level and the camera system. The second section of the Paper provides a description of the survey system model and the principles of the Charge Coupled Device - CCD array pixel's coordinates (plate coordinates) transformation into the geographic coordinates located on the water-level. In the final section there are presented the general rules of using the worked out method in the optical system. W artykule przedstawiono optyczną metodę wyznaczania pozycji obiektów nawodnych z lądu. Oparto ją na dwóch punktach odniesienia o znanych współrzędnych geograficznych. Pierwszy umiejscowiono wysoko na brzegu morza i przeznaczono do zamontowania kamery. Drugi przeznaczono do określania płaszczyzny horyzontu topocentrycznego i umiejscowiono na poziomie lustra wody. W pierwszej części artykułu zdefi niowano przestrzeń i rozmieszczone w niej układy odniesienia: związany z Ziemią, poziomem lustra wody i kamerą. Drugą część artykułu stanowi opis modelu układu pomiarowego oraz zasad transformacji współrzędnych piksela (tłowych) z matrycy CCD na współrzędne geograficzne punktu umiejscowionego na poziomie lustra wody. W części końcowej zaprezentowano ogólne zasady wykorzystywania opracowanej metody w systemie optycznym.

Online phase measuring profilometry for rectilinear moving object by image correction

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yuan, Han; Cao, Yi-Ping; Chen, Chen; Wang, Ya-Pin

2015-11-01

In phase measuring profilometry (PMP), the object must be static for point-to-point reconstruction with the captured deformed patterns. While the object is rectilinearly moving online, the size and pixel position differences of the object in different captured deformed patterns do not meet the point-to-point requirement. We propose an online PMP based on image correction to measure the three-dimensional shape of the rectilinear moving object. In the proposed method, the deformed patterns captured by a charge-coupled diode camera are reprojected from the oblique view to an aerial view first and then translated based on the feature points of the object. This method makes the object appear stationary in the deformed patterns. Experimental results show the feasibility and efficiency of the proposed method.

Object Detection using the Kinect

DTIC Science & Technology

2012-03-01

Kinect camera and point cloud data from the Kinect’s structured light stereo system (figure 1). We obtain reasonable results using a single prototype...same manner we present in this report. For example, at Willow Garage , Steder uses a 3-D feature he developed to classify objects directly from point...detecting backpacks using the data available from the Kinect sensor. 4 3.1 Point Cloud Filtering Dense point clouds derived from stereo are notoriously

Extending key sharing: how to generate a key tightly coupled to a network security policy

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kazantzidis, Matheos

2006-04-01

Current state of the art security policy technologies, besides the small scale limitation and largely manual nature of accompanied management methods, are lacking a) in real-timeliness of policy implementation and b) vulnerabilities and inflexibility stemming from the centralized policy decision making; even if, for example, a policy description or access control database is distributed, the actual decision is often a centralized action and forms a system single point of failure. In this paper we are presenting a new fundamental concept that allows implement a security policy by a systematic and efficient key distribution procedure. Specifically, we extend the polynomial Shamir key splitting. According to this, a global key is split into n parts, any k of which can re-construct the original key. In this paper we present a method that instead of having "any k parts" be able to re-construct the original key, the latter can only be reconstructed if keys are combined as any access control policy describes. This leads into an easily deployable key generation procedure that results a single key per entity that "knows" its role in the specific access control policy from which it was derived. The system is considered efficient as it may be used to avoid expensive PKI operations or pairwise key distributions as well as provides superior security due to its distributed nature, the fact that the key is tightly coupled to the policy, and that policy change may be implemented easier and faster.

Field test of classical symmetric encryption with continuous variables quantum key distribution.

PubMed

Jouguet, Paul; Kunz-Jacques, Sébastien; Debuisschert, Thierry; Fossier, Simon; Diamanti, Eleni; Alléaume, Romain; Tualle-Brouri, Rosa; Grangier, Philippe; Leverrier, Anthony; Pache, Philippe; Painchault, Philippe

2012-06-18

We report on the design and performance of a point-to-point classical symmetric encryption link with fast key renewal provided by a Continuous Variable Quantum Key Distribution (CVQKD) system. Our system was operational and able to encrypt point-to-point communications during more than six months, from the end of July 2010 until the beginning of February 2011. This field test was the first demonstration of the reliability of a CVQKD system over a long period of time in a server room environment. This strengthens the potential of CVQKD for information technology security infrastructure deployments.

Fast and fuzzy multi-objective radiotherapy treatment plan generation for head and neck cancer patients with the lexicographic reference point method (LRPM)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

van Haveren, Rens; Ogryczak, Włodzimierz; Verduijn, Gerda M.; Keijzer, Marleen; Heijmen, Ben J. M.; Breedveld, Sebastiaan

2017-06-01

Previously, we have proposed Erasmus-iCycle, an algorithm for fully automated IMRT plan generation based on prioritised (lexicographic) multi-objective optimisation with the 2-phase ɛ-constraint (2pɛc) method. For each patient, the output of Erasmus-iCycle is a clinically favourable, Pareto optimal plan. The 2pɛc method uses a list of objective functions that are consecutively optimised, following a strict, user-defined prioritisation. The novel lexicographic reference point method (LRPM) is capable of solving multi-objective problems in a single optimisation, using a fuzzy prioritisation of the objectives. Trade-offs are made globally, aiming for large favourable gains for lower prioritised objectives at the cost of only slight degradations for higher prioritised objectives, or vice versa. In this study, the LRPM is validated for 15 head and neck cancer patients receiving bilateral neck irradiation. The generated plans using the LRPM are compared with the plans resulting from the 2pɛc method. Both methods were capable of automatically generating clinically relevant treatment plans for all patients. For some patients, the LRPM allowed large favourable gains in some treatment plan objectives at the cost of only small degradations for the others. Moreover, because of the applied single optimisation instead of multiple optimisations, the LRPM reduced the average computation time from 209.2 to 9.5 min, a speed-up factor of 22 relative to the 2pɛc method.

Image Tiling for Profiling Large Objects

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Venkataraman, Ajit; Schock, Harold; Mercer, Carolyn R.

1992-01-01

Three dimensional surface measurements of large objects arc required in a variety of industrial processes. The nature of these measurements is changing as optical instruments arc beginning to replace conventional contact probes scanned over the objects. A common characteristic of the optical surface profilers is the trade off between measurement accuracy and field of view. In order to measure a large object with high accuracy, multiple views arc required. An accurate transformation between the different views is needed to bring about their registration. In this paper, we demonstrate how the transformation parameters can be obtained precisely by choosing control points which lie in the overlapping regions of the images. A good starting point for the transformation parameters is obtained by having a knowledge of the scanner position. The selection of the control points arc independent of the object geometry. By successively recording multiple views and obtaining transformation with respect to a single coordinate system, a complete physical model of an object can be obtained. Since all data arc in the same coordinate system, it can thus be used for building automatic models for free form surfaces.

Key Stage 4 and GCSE: An Update from the Association's Key Stage 4 Working Group.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Davies, Peter

1991-01-01

Examines plans and proposals for the "Key Stage 4" portion of the United Kingdom's General Certificate for Secondary Education (GCSE) program. Explains the development of a 10-point assessment scale and plans for combined subject courses. Argues that, although economics instruction should be encouraged, it should not be the sole emphasis…

Facets : a Cloudcompare Plugin to Extract Geological Planes from Unstructured 3d Point Clouds

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Dewez, T. J. B.; Girardeau-Montaut, D.; Allanic, C.; Rohmer, J.

2016-06-01

Geological planar facets (stratification, fault, joint…) are key features to unravel the tectonic history of rock outcrop or appreciate the stability of a hazardous rock cliff. Measuring their spatial attitude (dip and strike) is generally performed by hand with a compass/clinometer, which is time consuming, requires some degree of censoring (i.e. refusing to measure some features judged unimportant at the time), is not always possible for fractures higher up on the outcrop and is somewhat hazardous. 3D virtual geological outcrop hold the potential to alleviate these issues. Efficiently segmenting massive 3D point clouds into individual planar facets, inside a convenient software environment was lacking. FACETS is a dedicated plugin within CloudCompare v2.6.2 (http://cloudcompare.org/ ) implemented to perform planar facet extraction, calculate their dip and dip direction (i.e. azimuth of steepest decent) and report the extracted data in interactive stereograms. Two algorithms perform the segmentation: Kd-Tree and Fast Marching. Both divide the point cloud into sub-cells, then compute elementary planar objects and aggregate them progressively according to a planeity threshold into polygons. The boundaries of the polygons are adjusted around segmented points with a tension parameter, and the facet polygons can be exported as 3D polygon shapefiles towards third party GIS software or simply as ASCII comma separated files. One of the great features of FACETS is the capability to explore planar objects but also 3D points with normals with the stereogram tool. Poles can be readily displayed, queried and manually segmented interactively. The plugin blends seamlessly into CloudCompare to leverage all its other 3D point cloud manipulation features. A demonstration of the tool is presented to illustrate these different features. While designed for geological applications, FACETS could be more widely applied to any planar

BILATERAL KEY COMPARISON SIM.T-K6.5 ON HUMIDITY STANDARDS IN THE DEW/FROST-POINT TEMPERATURE RANGE FROM −30 °C TO +20 °C

PubMed Central

Meyer, C.W.; Solano, A.

2016-01-01

A Regional Metrology Organization (RMO) Key Comparison of dew/frost point temperatures over the range −30 °C TO +20 °C was carried out by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST, USA) and the Laboratorio Costarricense de Metrología (LACOMET, Costa Rica), between February 2015 and August 2015. The results of this comparison are reported here, along with descriptions of the humidity laboratory standards for NIST and LACOMET and the uncertainty budget for these standards. This report also describes the protocol for the comparison and presents the data acquired. The results are analyzed, determining the degree of equivalence between the dew/frost-point standards of NIST and LACOMET. PMID:28066029

Automatic markerless registration of point clouds with semantic-keypoint-based 4-points congruent sets

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ge, Xuming

2017-08-01

The coarse registration of point clouds from urban building scenes has become a key topic in applications of terrestrial laser scanning technology. Sampling-based algorithms in the random sample consensus (RANSAC) model have emerged as mainstream solutions to address coarse registration problems. In this paper, we propose a novel combined solution to automatically align two markerless point clouds from building scenes. Firstly, the method segments non-ground points from ground points. Secondly, the proposed method detects feature points from each cross section and then obtains semantic keypoints by connecting feature points with specific rules. Finally, the detected semantic keypoints from two point clouds act as inputs to a modified 4PCS algorithm. Examples are presented and the results compared with those of K-4PCS to demonstrate the main contributions of the proposed method, which are the extension of the original 4PCS to handle heavy datasets and the use of semantic keypoints to improve K-4PCS in relation to registration accuracy and computational efficiency.

Point Cloud Based Approach to Stem Width Extraction of Sorghum

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Jin, Jihui; Zakhor, Avideh

A revolution in the field of genomics has produced vast amounts of data and furthered our understanding of the genotypephenotype map, but is currently constrained by manually intensive or limited phenotype data collection. We propose an algorithm to estimate stem width, a key characteristic used for biomass potential evaluation, from 3D point cloud data collected by a robot equipped with a depth sensor in a single pass in a standard field. The algorithm applies a two step alignment to register point clouds in different frames, a Frangi filter to identify stemlike objects in the point cloud and an orientation basedmore » filter to segment out and refine individual stems for width estimation. Individually, detected stems which are split due to occlusions are merged and then registered with previously found stems in previous camera frames in order to track temporally. We then refine the estimates to produce an accurate histogram of width estimates per plot. Since the plants in each plot are genetically identical, distributions of the stem width per plot can be useful in identifying genetically superior sorghum for biofuels.« less

Point Cloud Based Approach to Stem Width Extraction of Sorghum

DOE PAGES

Jin, Jihui; Zakhor, Avideh

2017-01-29

A revolution in the field of genomics has produced vast amounts of data and furthered our understanding of the genotypephenotype map, but is currently constrained by manually intensive or limited phenotype data collection. We propose an algorithm to estimate stem width, a key characteristic used for biomass potential evaluation, from 3D point cloud data collected by a robot equipped with a depth sensor in a single pass in a standard field. The algorithm applies a two step alignment to register point clouds in different frames, a Frangi filter to identify stemlike objects in the point cloud and an orientation basedmore » filter to segment out and refine individual stems for width estimation. Individually, detected stems which are split due to occlusions are merged and then registered with previously found stems in previous camera frames in order to track temporally. We then refine the estimates to produce an accurate histogram of width estimates per plot. Since the plants in each plot are genetically identical, distributions of the stem width per plot can be useful in identifying genetically superior sorghum for biofuels.« less

Systems and Methods for Imaging of Falling Objects

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Fallgatter, Cale (Inventor); Garrett, Tim (Inventor)

2014-01-01

Imaging of falling objects is described. Multiple images of a falling object can be captured substantially simultaneously using multiple cameras located at multiple angles around the falling object. An epipolar geometry of the captured images can be determined. The images can be rectified to parallelize epipolar lines of the epipolar geometry. Correspondence points between the images can be identified. At least a portion of the falling object can be digitally reconstructed using the identified correspondence points to create a digital reconstruction.

Field demonstration of a continuous-variable quantum key distribution network.

PubMed

Huang, Duan; Huang, Peng; Li, Huasheng; Wang, Tao; Zhou, Yingming; Zeng, Guihua

2016-08-01

We report on what we believe is the first field implementation of a continuous-variable quantum key distribution (CV-QKD) network with point-to-point configuration. Four QKD nodes are deployed on standard communication infrastructures connected with commercial telecom optical fiber. Reliable key exchange is achieved in the wavelength-division-multiplexing CV-QKD network. The impact of a complex and volatile field environment on the excess noise is investigated, since excess noise controlling and reduction is arguably the major issue pertaining to distance and the secure key rate. We confirm the applicability and verify the maturity of the CV-QKD network in a metropolitan area, thus paving the way for a next-generation global secure communication network.

Surface sampling techniques for 3D object inspection

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Shih, Chihhsiong S.; Gerhardt, Lester A.

1995-03-01

While the uniform sampling method is quite popular for pointwise measurement of manufactured parts, this paper proposes three novel sampling strategies which emphasize 3D non-uniform inspection capability. They are: (a) the adaptive sampling, (b) the local adjustment sampling, and (c) the finite element centroid sampling techniques. The adaptive sampling strategy is based on a recursive surface subdivision process. Two different approaches are described for this adaptive sampling strategy. One uses triangle patches while the other uses rectangle patches. Several real world objects were tested using these two algorithms. Preliminary results show that sample points are distributed more closely around edges, corners, and vertices as desired for many classes of objects. Adaptive sampling using triangle patches is shown to generally perform better than both uniform and adaptive sampling using rectangle patches. The local adjustment sampling strategy uses a set of predefined starting points and then finds the local optimum position of each nodal point. This method approximates the object by moving the points toward object edges and corners. In a hybrid approach, uniform points sets and non-uniform points sets, first preprocessed by the adaptive sampling algorithm on a real world object were then tested using the local adjustment sampling method. The results show that the initial point sets when preprocessed by adaptive sampling using triangle patches, are moved the least amount of distance by the subsequently applied local adjustment method, again showing the superiority of this method. The finite element sampling technique samples the centroids of the surface triangle meshes produced from the finite element method. The performance of this algorithm was compared to that of the adaptive sampling using triangular patches. The adaptive sampling with triangular patches was once again shown to be better on different classes of objects.

Point-of-care testing: applications of 3D printing.

PubMed

Chan, Ho Nam; Tan, Ming Jun Andrew; Wu, Hongkai

2017-08-08

Point-of-care testing (POCT) devices fulfil a critical need in the modern healthcare ecosystem, enabling the decentralized delivery of imperative clinical strategies in both developed and developing worlds. To achieve diagnostic utility and clinical impact, POCT technologies are immensely dependent on effective translation from academic laboratories out to real-world deployment. However, the current research and development pipeline is highly bottlenecked owing to multiple restraints in material, cost, and complexity of conventionally available fabrication techniques. Recently, 3D printing technology has emerged as a revolutionary, industry-compatible method enabling cost-effective, facile, and rapid manufacturing of objects. This has allowed iterative design-build-test cycles of various things, from microfluidic chips to smartphone interfaces, that are geared towards point-of-care applications. In this review, we focus on highlighting recent works that exploit 3D printing in developing POCT devices, underscoring its utility in all analytical steps. Moreover, we also discuss key advantages of adopting 3D printing in the device development pipeline and identify promising opportunities in 3D printing technology that can benefit global health applications.

Server-Controlled Identity-Based Authenticated Key Exchange

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Guo, Hua; Mu, Yi; Zhang, Xiyong; Li, Zhoujun

We present a threshold identity-based authenticated key exchange protocol that can be applied to an authenticated server-controlled gateway-user key exchange. The objective is to allow a user and a gateway to establish a shared session key with the permission of the back-end servers, while the back-end servers cannot obtain any information about the established session key. Our protocol has potential applications in strong access control of confidential resources. In particular, our protocol possesses the semantic security and demonstrates several highly-desirable security properties such as key privacy and transparency. We prove the security of the protocol based on the Bilinear Diffie-Hellman assumption in the random oracle model.

Digital Invasions: from Point Clouds to Historical Building Object Modeling H-Bom of a Unesco Whl Site

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chiabrando, F.; Lo Turco, M.; Santagati, C.

2017-02-01

The paper here presented shows the outcomes of a research/didactic activity carried out within a workshop titled "Digital Invasions. From point cloud to Heritage Building Information Modeling" held at Politecnico di Torino (29th September-5th October 2016). The term digital invasions refers to an Italian bottom up project born in the 2013 with the aim of promoting innovative digital ways for the enhancement of Cultural Heritage by the co-creation of cultural contents and its sharing through social media platforms. At this regard, we have worked with students of Architectural Master of Science degree, training them with a multidisciplinary teaching team (Architectural Representation, History of Architecture, Restoration, Digital Communication and Geomatics). The aim was also to test if our students could be involved in a sort of niche crowdsourcing for the creation of a library of H-BOMS (Historical-Building Object Modeling) of architectural elements.

A Probe into Key Points in the Planning and Design of Integrated Corridor at Large Civil Airports

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhao, Qing

2018-05-01

If we compare an airport to our human body, all sorts of specialized pipelines and wires are to an airport as the vascular system and nervous system etc. to the human body, where each functional zone connecting the airport serves each major system of airport and provides “throughput like the function of driving out the processed for the new” and “central control and transmission function”. Guided by the master plan and the concept of progressive development of airports, it is critical to map out a plan to link near-term and long-term development of supporting utilities. The role and effect of integrated corridor is of significance to the construction of multi-runway large-sized new airports or to the expansion of an airport costing tens of billions. In view of the features of the fast growing civil aviation sector in China, this thesis argues for the necessity to plan for and build integrated corridor at large airports, suggests doing research on integrated corridor at the project consulting stage by drawing upon available airport design experiences and case studies and combining the plan for public utilities (or special plan), and analyzes and outlines key points in integrated corridor design based on special requirements and industrial standards for civil airport management.

Astronomers Detect Powerful Bursting Radio Source Discovery Points to New Class of Astronomical Objects

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

2005-03-01

Astronomers at Sweet Briar College and the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) have detected a powerful new bursting radio source whose unique properties suggest the discovery of a new class of astronomical objects. The researchers have monitored the center of the Milky Way Galaxy for several years and reveal their findings in the March 3, 2005 edition of the journal, “Nature”. This radio image of the central region of the Milky Way Galaxy holds a new radio source, GCRT J1745-3009. The arrow points to an expanding ring of debris expelled by a supernova. CREDIT: N.E. Kassim et al., Naval Research Laboratory, NRAO/AUI/NSF Principal investigator, Dr. Scott Hyman, professor of physics at Sweet Briar College, said the discovery came after analyzing some additional observations from 2002 provided by researchers at Northwestern University. “"We hit the jackpot!” Hyman said referring to the observations. “An image of the Galactic center, made by collecting radio waves of about 1-meter in wavelength, revealed multiple bursts from the source during a seven-hour period from Sept. 30 to Oct. 1, 2002 — five bursts in fact, and repeating at remarkably constant intervals.” Hyman, four Sweet Briar students, and his NRL collaborators, Drs. Namir Kassim and Joseph Lazio, happened upon transient emission from two radio sources while studying the Galactic center in 1998. This prompted the team to propose an ongoing monitoring program using the National Science Foundation’s Very Large Array (VLA) radio telescope in New Mexico. The National Radio Astronomy Observatory, which operates the VLA, approved the program. The data collected, laid the groundwork for the detection of the new radio source. “Amazingly, even though the sky is known to be full of transient objects emitting at X- and gamma-ray wavelengths,” NRL astronomer Dr. Joseph Lazio pointed out, “very little has been done to look for radio bursts, which are often easier for astronomical objects to produce

Visible Wavelength Reflectance Spectra and Taxonomies of Near-Earth Objects from Apache Point Observatory

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hammergren, Mark; Brucker, Melissa J.; Nault, Kristie A.; Gyuk, Geza; Solontoi, Michael R.

2015-11-01

Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) are interesting to scientists and the general public for diverse reasons: their impacts pose a threat to life and property; they present important albeit biased records of the formation and evolution of the Solar System; and their materials may provide in situ resources for future space exploration and habitation.In January 2015 we began a program of NEO astrometric follow-up and physical characterization using a 17% share of time on the Astrophysical Research Consortium (ARC) 3.5-meter telescope at Apache Point Observatory (APO). Our 500 hours of annual observing time are split into frequent, short astrometric runs (see poster by K. A. Nault et. al), and half-night runs devoted to physical characterization (see poster by M. J. Brucker et. al for preliminary rotational lightcurve results). NEO surface compositions are investigated with 0.36-1.0 μm reflectance spectroscopy using the Dual Imaging Spectrograph (DIS) instrument. As of August 25, 2015, including testing runs during fourth quarter 2014, we have obtained reflectance spectra of 68 unique NEOs, ranging in diameter from approximately 5m to 8km.In addition to investigating the compositions of individual NEOs to inform impact hazard and space resource evaluations, we may examine the distribution of taxonomic types and potential trends with other physical and orbital properties. For example, the Yarkovsky effect, which is dependent on asteroid shape, mass, rotation, and thermal characteristics, is believed to dominate other dynamical effects in driving the delivery of small NEOs from the main asteroid belt. Studies of the taxonomic distribution of a large sample of NEOs of a wide range of sizes will test this hypothesis.We present a preliminary analysis of the reflectance spectra obtained in our survey to date, including taxonomic classifications and potential trends with size.Acknowledgements: Based on observations obtained with the Apache Point Observatory 3.5-meter telescope, which

Effect diffraction on a viewed object has on improvement of object optical image quality in a turbulent medium

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Banakh, Viktor A.; Sazanovich, Valentina M.; Tsvik, Ruvim S.

1997-09-01

The influence of diffraction on the object, coherently illuminated and viewed through a random medium from the same point, on the image quality betterment caused by the counter wave correlation is studied experimentally. The measurements were carried out with the use of setup modeling artificial convective turbulence. It is shown that in the case of spatially limited reflector with the Fresnel number of the reflector surface radius r ranging from 3 to 12 the contribution of the counter wave correlation into image intensity distribution is maximal as compared with the point objects (r objects of large size (r > U.

The quiet revolution: continuous glider monitoring at ocean 'choke' points as a key component of new cross-platform ocean observation systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Heslop, E. E.; Tintore, J.; Ruiz, S.; Allen, J.; López-Jurado, J. L.

2014-12-01

A quiet revolution is taking place in ocean observations; in the last decade new multi-platform, integrated ocean observatories have been progressively implemented by forward looking countries with ocean borders of economic and strategic importance. These systems are designed to fill significant gaps in our knowledge of the ocean state and ocean variability, through long-term, science and society-led, ocean monitoring. These ocean observatories are now delivering results, not the headline results of a single issue experiment, but carefully and systematically improving our knowledge of ocean variability, and thereby, increasing model forecast skill and our ability to link physical processes to ecosystem response. Here we present the results from a 3-year quasi-continuous glider monitoring of a key circulation 'choke' point in the Western Mediterranean, undertaken by SOCIB (Balearic Islands Coastal Ocean Observing and Forecasting System). For the first time data from the high frequency glider sampling show variations in the transport volumes of water over timescales of days to weeks, as large as those previously only identifiable as seasonal or eddy driven. Although previous surveys noted high cruise-to-cruise variability, they were insufficient to show that in fact water volumes exchanged through this narrow 'choke' point fluctuate on 'weather' timescales. Using the glider data to leverage an 18-year record of ship missions, we define new seasonal cycles for the exchange of watermasses, challenging generally held assumptions. The pattern of the exchange is further simplified through the characterisation of 5 circulation modes and the defining of a new seasonal cycle for the interplay between mesoscale and basin scale dynamics. Restricted 'choke points' between our ocean basins are critical locations to monitor water transport variability, as they constrain the inter-basin exchange of heat, salt and nutrients. At the Ibiza Channel 'choke' point, the exchange of

Analysis of counterfactual quantum key distribution using error-correcting theory

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Li, Yan-Bing

2014-10-01

Counterfactual quantum key distribution is an interesting direction in quantum cryptography and has been realized by some researchers. However, it has been pointed that its insecure in information theory when it is used over a high lossy channel. In this paper, we retry its security from a error-correcting theory point of view. The analysis indicates that the security flaw comes from the reason that the error rate in the users' raw key pair is as high as that under the Eve's attack when the loss rate exceeds 50 %.

A procedural, pragmatist account of ethical objectivity.

PubMed

Roth, Amanda

2013-06-01

This article offers a procedural, pragmatist account of objectivity in the domain of the good that is inspired by pragmatic and feminist critiques of objectivity in philosophy of science and epistemology. I begin by asking first what we want to capture--or ought to want to capture--with a notion of ethical objectivity and in answer to this question I identify four "points" to ethical objectivity: undergirding the possibility of mistakenness, making genuine disagreement possible, making sense of our appreciation of the ethical perspectives of others, and making possible a sense of ethical improvement or learning. I then lay out a process-based account of objectivity in ethics that makes good on the four points I have identified. Finally, I consider worries related to convergence, bias, and ontology and defend the procedural, pragmatist account in light of those potential objections.

A research protocol for developing a Point-Of-Care Key Evidence Tool 'POCKET': a checklist for multidimensional evidence reporting on point-of-care in vitro diagnostics.

PubMed

Huddy, Jeremy R; Ni, Melody; Mavroveli, Stella; Barlow, James; Williams, Doris-Ann; Hanna, George B

2015-07-10

Point-of-care in vitro diagnostics (POC-IVD) are increasingly becoming widespread as an acceptable means of providing rapid diagnostic results to facilitate decision-making in many clinical pathways. Evidence in utility, usability and cost-effectiveness is currently provided in a fragmented and detached manner that is fraught with methodological challenges given the disruptive nature these tests have on the clinical pathway. The Point-of-care Key Evidence Tool (POCKET) checklist aims to provide an integrated evidence-based framework that incorporates all required evidence to guide the evaluation of POC-IVD to meet the needs of policy and decisionmakers in the National Health Service (NHS). A multimethod approach will be applied in order to develop the POCKET. A thorough literature review has formed the basis of a robust Delphi process and validation study. Semistructured interviews are being undertaken with POC-IVD stakeholders, including industry, regulators, commissioners, clinicians and patients to understand what evidence is required to facilitate decision-making. Emergent themes will be translated into a series of statements to form a survey questionnaire that aims to reach a consensus in each stakeholder group to what needs to be included in the tool. Results will be presented to a workshop to discuss the statements brought forward and the optimal format for the tool. Once assembled, the tool will be field-tested through case studies to ensure validity and usability and inform refinement, if required. The final version will be published online with a call for comments. Limitations include unpredictable sample representation, development of compromise position rather than consensus, and absence of blinding in validation exercise. The Imperial College Joint Research Compliance Office and the Imperial College Hospitals NHS Trust R&D department have approved the protocol. The checklist tool will be disseminated through a PhD thesis, a website, peer

Objective assessment of the aesthetic outcomes of breast cancer treatment: toward automatic localization of fiducial points on digital photographs

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Udpa, Nitin; Sampat, Mehul P.; Kim, Min Soon; Reece, Gregory P.; Markey, Mia K.

2007-03-01

The contemporary goals of breast cancer treatment are not limited to cure but include maximizing quality of life. All breast cancer treatment can adversely affect breast appearance. Developing objective, quantifiable methods to assess breast appearance is important to understand the impact of deformity on patient quality of life, guide selection of current treatments, and make rational treatment advances. A few measures of aesthetic properties such as symmetry have been developed. They are computed from the distances between manually identified fiducial points on digital photographs. However, this is time-consuming and subject to intra- and inter-observer variability. The purpose of this study is to investigate methods for automatic localization of fiducial points on anterior-posterior digital photographs taken to document the outcomes of breast reconstruction. Particular emphasis is placed on automatic localization of the nipple complex since the most widely used aesthetic measure, the Breast Retraction Assessment, quantifies the symmetry of nipple locations. The nipple complexes are automatically localized using normalized cross-correlation with a template bank of variants of Gaussian and Laplacian of Gaussian filters. A probability map of likely nipple locations determined from the image database is used to reduce the number of false positive detections from the matched filter operation. The accuracy of the nipple detection was evaluated relative to markings made by three human observers. The impact of using the fiducial point locations as identified by the automatic method, as opposed to the manual method, on the calculation of the Breast Retraction Assessment was also evaluated.

[The key points of prevention for special surgical complications after radical operation of gastric cancer].

PubMed

Xu, Hao; Wang, Weizhi; Li, Panyuan; Zhang, Diancai; Yang, Li; Xu, Zekuan

2017-02-25

Incidence of gastric cancer is high in China and standard radical operation is currently the main treatment for gastric cancer. Postoperative complications, especially some special complications, can directly affect the prognosis of patients, even result in the increase of mortality. But the incidences of these special complications are low, so these complications are often misdiagnosed and delayed in treatment owing to insufficient recognition of medical staff. These special complications include (1) Peterson hernia: It is an abdominal hernia developed in the space between Roux loop and transverse colon mesentery after Roux-Y reconstruction of digestive tract. Peterson hernia is rare and can quickly result in gangrenous ileus. Because of low incidence and without specific clinical symptoms, this hernia does not attract enough attention in clinical practice, so the outcome will be very serious. Once the diagnosis is made, an emergent operation must be performed immediately. Peterson space should be closed routinely in order to avoid the development of hernia. (2) Lymphatic leakage: It is also called chyle leakage. Cisterna chylus is formed by gradual concentration of extensive lymphatic net to diaphragm angle within abdominal cavity. Lymphadenectomy during operation may easily damage lymphatic net and result in leakage. The use of ultrasonic scalpel can decrease the risk of lymphatic leakage in certain degree. If lymphatic leakage is found during operation, transfixion should be performed in time. Treatment includes total parenteral nutrition, maintenance of internal environment, supplement of protein, and observation by clamp as an attempt. (3)Duodenal stump leakage: It is one of serious complications affecting the recovery and leading to death after subtotal gastrectomy. Correct management of duodenal stump during operation is one of key points of the prevention of duodenal stump leakage. Routine purse embedding of duodenal stump is recommend during operation

Human action recognition based on spatial-temporal descriptors using key poses

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hu, Shuo; Chen, Yuxin; Wang, Huaibao; Zuo, Yaqing

2014-11-01

Human action recognition is an important area of pattern recognition today due to its direct application and need in various occasions like surveillance and virtual reality. In this paper, a simple and effective human action recognition method is presented based on the key poses of human silhouette and the spatio-temporal feature. Firstly, the contour points of human silhouette have been gotten, and the key poses are learned by means of K-means clustering based on the Euclidean distance between each contour point and the centre point of the human silhouette, and then the type of each action is labeled for further match. Secondly, we obtain the trajectories of centre point of each frame, and create a spatio-temporal feature value represented by W to describe the motion direction and speed of each action. The value W contains the information of location and temporal order of each point on the trajectories. Finally, the matching stage is performed by comparing the key poses and W between training sequences and test sequences, the nearest neighbor sequences is found and its label supplied the final result. Experiments on the public available Weizmann datasets show the proposed method can improve accuracy by distinguishing amphibious poses and increase suitability for real-time applications by reducing the computational cost.

Integrating Key Competences in School Physical Education Programmes

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lleixà, Teresa; González-Arévalo, Carles; Braz-Vieira, Marcelo

2016-01-01

In 2006, the European Union published its recommendations on competences for lifelong learning. Since then, key competences have been integrated into the official curriculum in Spain. The objectives of the present study are: a) to describe the strategies used most frequently by physical education teachers to incorporate key competences in their…

Infants' Use of Category Knowledge and Object Attributes when Segregating Objects at 8.5 Months of Age

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Needham, Amy; Cantlon, Jessica F.; Ormsbee Holley, Susan M.

2006-01-01

The current research investigates infants' perception of a novel object from a category that is familiar to young infants: key rings. We ask whether experiences obtained outside the lab would allow young infants to parse the visible portions of a partly occluded key ring display into one single unit, presumably as a result of having categorized it…

The Francis Scott Key School, Locust Point, Baltimore, Maryland. Bulletin, 1920, No. 41

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bennett, Charles A.

1921-01-01

Some time ago the Commissioner of Education was requested to offer advice in regard to the reorganization of the Francis Scott Key School, to meet more effectively the needs of its children and the adult population of that section, and to suggest plans for a building to be so constructed as to adapt it to the use of the school so reorganized. In…

Converting a carbon preform object to a silicon carbide object

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Levin, Harry (Inventor)

1990-01-01

A process for converting in depth a carbon or graphite preform object to a silicon carbide object, silicon carbide/silicon object, silicon carbide/carbon-core object, or a silicon carbide/silicon/carbon-core object, by contacting it with silicon liquid and vapor over various lengths of contact time in a reaction chamber. In the process, a stream comprised of a silicon-containing precursor material in gaseous phase below the decomposition temperature of said gas and a coreactant, carrier or diluent gas such as hydrogen is passed through a hole within a high emissivity, thin, insulating septum into the reaction chamber above the melting point of silicon. The thin septum has one face below the decomposition temperature of the gas and an opposite face exposed to the reaction chamber. Thus, the precursor gas is decomposed directly to silicon in the reaction chamber. Any stream of decomposition gas and any unreacted precursor gas from the reaction chamber is removed. A carbon or graphite preform object placed in the reaction chamber is contacted with the silicon. The carbon or graphite preform object is recovered from the reactor chamber after it has been converted to a desired silicon carbide, silicon and carbon composition.

Coherent one-way quantum key distribution

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Stucki, Damien; Fasel, Sylvain; Gisin, Nicolas; Thoma, Yann; Zbinden, Hugo

2007-05-01

Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) consists in the exchange of a secrete key between two distant points [1]. Even if quantum key distribution systems exist and commercial systems are reaching the market [2], there are still improvements to be made: simplify the construction of the system; increase the secret key rate. To this end, we present a new protocol for QKD tailored to work with weak coherent pulses and at high bit rates [3]. The advantages of this system are that the setup is experimentally simple and it is tolerant to reduced interference visibility and to photon number splitting attacks, thus resulting in a high efficiency in terms of distilled secret bits per qubit. After having successfully tested the feasibility of the system [3], we are currently developing a fully integrated and automated prototype within the SECOQC project [4]. We present the latest results using the prototype. We also discuss the issue of the photon detection, which still remains the bottleneck for QKD.

[Development of key indicators for nurses performance evaluation and estimation of their weights for management by objectives].

PubMed

Lee, Eun Hwa; Ahn, Sung Hee

2010-02-01

This methodological research was designed to develop performance evaluation key indicators (PEKIs) for management by objectives (MBO) and to estimate their weights for hospital nurses. The PEKIs were developed by selecting preliminary indicators from a literature review, examining content validity and identifying their level of importance. Data were collected from November 14, 2007 to February 18, 2008. Data set for importance of indicators was obtained from 464 nurses and weights of PEKIs domain was from 453 nurses, who worked for at least 2 yr in one of three hospitals. Data were analyzed using X(2)-test, factor analysis, and the Analytical Hierarchy Process. Based upon Content Validity Index of .8 or above, 61 indicators were selected from the 100 preliminary indicators. Finally, 40 PEKIs were developed from the 61 indicators, and categorized into 10 domains. The highest weight of the 10 domains was customer satisfaction, which was followed by patient education, direct nursing care, profit increase, safety management, improvement of nursing quality, completeness of nursing records, enhancing competence of nurses, indirect nursing care, and cost reduction, in that order. PEKIs and their weights can be utilized for impartial evaluation and MBO for hospital nurses. Further research to verify PEKIs would lead to successful implementation of MBO.

Analysis of Spatial Point Patterns in Nuclear Biology

PubMed Central

Weston, David J.; Adams, Niall M.; Russell, Richard A.; Stephens, David A.; Freemont, Paul S.

2012-01-01

There is considerable interest in cell biology in determining whether, and to what extent, the spatial arrangement of nuclear objects affects nuclear function. A common approach to address this issue involves analyzing a collection of images produced using some form of fluorescence microscopy. We assume that these images have been successfully pre-processed and a spatial point pattern representation of the objects of interest within the nuclear boundary is available. Typically in these scenarios, the number of objects per nucleus is low, which has consequences on the ability of standard analysis procedures to demonstrate the existence of spatial preference in the pattern. There are broadly two common approaches to look for structure in these spatial point patterns. First a spatial point pattern for each image is analyzed individually, or second a simple normalization is performed and the patterns are aggregated. In this paper we demonstrate using synthetic spatial point patterns drawn from predefined point processes how difficult it is to distinguish a pattern from complete spatial randomness using these techniques and hence how easy it is to miss interesting spatial preferences in the arrangement of nuclear objects. The impact of this problem is also illustrated on data related to the configuration of PML nuclear bodies in mammalian fibroblast cells. PMID:22615822

Detecting Near-Earth Objects Using Cross-Correlation with a Point Spread Function

DTIC Science & Technology

2009-03-01

greater than .001 seconds [Goodman, 2000]. Cross-Correlation Cross-Correlation measures the strength and direction of the linear relationship between...real(ifft2(fftshift(otf_long)))); %normalize point spread funtion 55 if (Corner == 1) psf_source = makeshift(psf*source_img(ccd_x/2,ccd_y/2

Very Luminous X-ray Point Sources in Starburst Galaxies

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Colbert, E.; Heckman, T.; Ptak, A.; Weaver, K. A.; Strickland, D.

Extranuclear X-ray point sources in external galaxies with luminosities above 1039.0 erg/s are quite common in elliptical, disk and dwarf galaxies, with an average of ~ 0.5 and dwarf galaxies, with an average of ~0.5 sources per galaxy. These objects may be a new class of object, perhaps accreting intermediate-mass black holes, or beamed stellar mass black hole binaries. Starburst galaxies tend to have a larger number of these intermediate-luminosity X-ray objects (IXOs), as well as a large number of lower-luminosity (1037 - 1039 erg/s) point sources. These point sources dominate the total hard X-ray emission in starburst galaxies. We present a review of both types of objects and discuss possible schemes for their formation.

Misidentifying a tennis racket as keys: object identification in people with age-related macular degeneration.

PubMed

Thibaut, Miguel; Tran, Thi Ha Chau; Delerue, Céline; Boucart, Muriel

2015-05-01

Previous studies showed that people with age-related macular degeneration (AMD) can categorise a pre-defined target object or scene with high accuracy (above 80%). In these studies participants were asked to detect the target (e.g. an animal) in serial visual presentation. People with AMD must rely on peripheral vision which is more adapted to the low resolution required for detection than for the higher resolution required to identify a specific exemplar. We investigated the ability of people with central vision loss to identify photographs of objects and scenes. Photographs of isolated objects, natural scenes and objects in scenes were centrally displayed for 2 s each. Participants were asked to name the stimuli. We measured accuracy and naming times in 20 patients with AMD, 15 age-matched and 12 young controls. Accuracy was lower (by about 30%) and naming times were longer (by about 300 ms) in people with AMD than in age-matched controls in the three categories of images. Correct identification occurred in 62-66% of the stimuli for patients. More than 20% of the misidentifications resulted from a structural and/or semantic similarity between the object and the name (e.g. spectacles for dog plates or dolphin for shark). Accuracy and naming times did not differ significantly between young and older normally sighted participants indicating that the deficits resulted from pathology rather than to normal ageing. These results show that, in contrast to performance for categorisation of a single pre-defined target, people with central vision loss are impaired at identifying various objects and scenes. The decrease in accuracy and the increase in response times in patients with AMD indicate that peripheral vision might be sufficient for object and scene categorisation but not for precise scene or object identification. © 2015 The Authors Ophthalmic & Physiological Optics © 2015 The College of Optometrists.

Distance Perception of Stereoscopically Presented Virtual Objects Optically Superimposed on Physical Objects by a Head-Mounted See-Through Display

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Ellis, Stephen R.; Bucher, Urs J.; Statler, Irving C. (Technical Monitor)

1994-01-01

The influence of physically presented background stimuli on the perceived depth of optically overlaid, stereoscopic virtual images has been studied using headmounted stereoscopic, virtual image displays. These displays allow presentation of physically unrealizable stimulus combinations. Positioning of an opaque physical object either at the initial perceived depth of the virtual image or at a position substantially in front of the virtual image, causes the virtual image to perceptually move closer to the observer. In the case of objects positioned substantially in front of the virtual image, subjects often perceive the opaque object to become transparent. Evidence is presented that the apparent change of position caused by interposition of the physical object is not due to occlusion cues. According, it may have an alternative cause such as variation in the binocular vengeance position of the eyes caused by introduction of the physical object. This effect may complicate design of overlaid virtual image displays for near objects and appears to be related to the relative conspicuousness of the overlaid virtual image and the background. Consequently, it may be related to earlier analyses of John Foley which modeled open-loop pointing errors to stereoscopically presented points of light in terms of errors in determination of a reference point for interpretation of observed retinal disparities. Implications for the design of see-through displays for manufacturing will be discussed.

Resolving key drivers of variability through an important circulation choke point in the western Mediterranean Sea; using gliders, models & satellite remote sensing

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Heslop, Emma; Aguiar, Eva; Mourre, Baptiste; Juza, Mélanie; Escudier, Romain; Tintoré, Joaquín

2017-04-01

The Ibiza Channel plays an important role in the circulation of the Western Mediterranean Sea, it governs the north/south exchange of different water masses that are known to affect regional ecosystems and is influenced by variability in the different drivers that affect sub-basins to the north (N) and south (S). A complex system. In this study we use a multi-platform approach to resolve the key drivers of this variability, and gain insight into the inter-connection between the N and S of the Western Mediterranean Sea through this choke point. The 6-year glider time series from the quasi-continuous glider endurance line monitoring of the Ibiza Channel, undertaken by SOCIB (Balearic Coastal Ocean observing and Forecasting System), is used as the base from which to identify key sub-seasonal to inter-annual patterns and shifts in water mass properties and transport volumes. The glider data indicates the following key components in the variability of the N/S flow of different water mass through the channel; regional winter mode water production, change in intermediate water mass properties, northward flows of a fresher water mass and the basin-scale circulation. To resolve the drivers of these components of variability, the strength of combining datasets from different sources, glider, modeling, altimetry and moorings, is harnessed. To the north atmospheric forcing in the Gulf of Lions is a dominant driver, while to the south the mesoscale circulation patterns of the Atlantic Jet and Alboran gyres dominate the variability but do not appear to influence the fresher inflows. Evidence of a connection between the northern and southern sub-basins is however indicated. The study highlights importance of sub-seasonal variability and the scale of rapid change possible in the Mediterranean, as well as the benefits of leveraging high resolution glider datasets within a multi-platform and modelling study.

Herschel Observations of Protostellar and Young Stellar Objects in Nearby Molecular Clouds: The DIGIT Open Time Key Project

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Green, Joel D.; DIGIT OTKP Team

2010-01-01

The DIGIT (Dust, Ice, and Gas In Time) Open Time Key Project utilizes the PACS spectrometer (57-210 um) onboard the Herschel Space Observatory to study the colder regions of young stellar objects and protostellar cores, complementary to recent observations from Spitzer and ground-based observatories. DIGIT focuses on 30 embedded sources and 64 disk sources, and includes supporting photometry from PACS and SPIRE, as well as spectroscopy from HIFI, selected from nearby molecular clouds. For the embedded sources, PACS spectroscopy will allow us to address the origin of [CI] and high-J CO lines observed with ISO-LWS. Our observations are sensitive to the presence of cold crystalline water ice, diopside, and carbonates. Additionally, PACS scans are 5x5 maps of the embedded sources and their outflows. Observations of more evolved disk sources will sample low and intermediate mass objects as well as a variety of spectral types from A to M. Many of these sources are extremely rich in mid-IR crystalline dust features, enabling us to test whether similar features can be detected at larger radii, via colder dust emission at longer wavelengths. If processed grains are present only in the inner disk (in the case of full disks) or from the emitting wall surface which marks the outer edge of the gap (in the case of transitional disks), there must be short timescales for dust processing; if processed grains are detected in the outer disk, radial transport must be rapid and efficient. Weak bands of forsterite and clino- and ortho-enstatite in the 60-75 um range provide information about the conditions under which these materials were formed. For the Science Demonstration Phase we are observing an embedded protostar (DK Cha) and a Herbig Ae/Be star (HD 100546), exemplars of the kind of science that DIGIT will achieve over the full program.

Mesoscale Circulation Variability from Five years of Quasi-continuous Glider Observations and Numerical Simulation at a Key Sub-basin 'Choke' Point.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Heslop, E. E.; Mourre, B.; Juza, M.; Troupin, C.; Escudier, R.; Torner, M.; Tintore, J.

2016-02-01

Quasi-continuous glider observations over 5 years have uniquely characterised a high frequency variability in the circulation through the Ibiza Channel, an important `choke' point in the Western Mediterranean Sea. This `choke' point governs the basin/sub-basin scale circulation and the north/south exchanges of different water masses. The resulting multi-scale variability impacts the regional shelf and open ocean ecosystems, including the spawning grounds of Atlantic bluefin tuna. Through the unique glider record we show the relevance of the weekly/mesoscale variability, which is of same order as the previously established seasonal and inter-annual variability. To understand the drivers of this variability we combine the glider data with numerical simulations (WMOP) and altimetry. Two key drivers are identified; extreme winter events, which cause the formation of a cold winter mode water (Winter Intermediate Water) in the shelf areas to the north of the Ibiza Channel, and mesoscale activity, which to the north produce channel `blocking' eddies and to the south intermittent and vigorous flows of fresher `Atlantic' waters through the Ibiza Channel. Results from the 2 km resolution WMOP are compared with the high-resolution (2 - 3 km.) glider data, giving insight into model validation across different scales, for both circulation and water masses. There is an emerging consensus that gliders can uniquely access critical time and length scales and in this study gliders complement existing satellite measurements and models, while opening up new capabilities for multidisciplinary, autonomous and high-resolution ocean observation.

a Threshold-Free Filtering Algorithm for Airborne LIDAR Point Clouds Based on Expectation-Maximization

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hui, Z.; Cheng, P.; Ziggah, Y. Y.; Nie, Y.

2018-04-01

Filtering is a key step for most applications of airborne LiDAR point clouds. Although lots of filtering algorithms have been put forward in recent years, most of them suffer from parameters setting or thresholds adjusting, which will be time-consuming and reduce the degree of automation of the algorithm. To overcome this problem, this paper proposed a threshold-free filtering algorithm based on expectation-maximization. The proposed algorithm is developed based on an assumption that point clouds are seen as a mixture of Gaussian models. The separation of ground points and non-ground points from point clouds can be replaced as a separation of a mixed Gaussian model. Expectation-maximization (EM) is applied for realizing the separation. EM is used to calculate maximum likelihood estimates of the mixture parameters. Using the estimated parameters, the likelihoods of each point belonging to ground or object can be computed. After several iterations, point clouds can be labelled as the component with a larger likelihood. Furthermore, intensity information was also utilized to optimize the filtering results acquired using the EM method. The proposed algorithm was tested using two different datasets used in practice. Experimental results showed that the proposed method can filter non-ground points effectively. To quantitatively evaluate the proposed method, this paper adopted the dataset provided by the ISPRS for the test. The proposed algorithm can obtain a 4.48 % total error which is much lower than most of the eight classical filtering algorithms reported by the ISPRS.

Three-dimensional cinematography with control object of unknown shape.

PubMed

Dapena, J; Harman, E A; Miller, J A

1982-01-01

A technique for reconstruction of three-dimensional (3D) motion which involves a simple filming procedure but allows the deduction of coordinates in large object volumes was developed. Internal camera parameters are calculated from measurements of the film images of two calibrated crosses while external camera parameters are calculated from the film images of points in a control object of unknown shape but at least one known length. The control object, which includes the volume in which the activity is to take place, is formed by a series of poles placed at unknown locations, each carrying two targets. From the internal and external camera parameters, and from locations of the images of point in the films of the two cameras, 3D coordinates of the point can be calculated. Root mean square errors of the three coordinates of points in a large object volume (5m x 5m x 1.5m) were 15 mm, 13 mm, 13 mm and 6 mm, and relative errors in lengths averaged 0.5%, 0.7% and 0.5%, respectively.

Object Detection and Classification by Decision-Level Fusion for Intelligent Vehicle Systems.

PubMed

Oh, Sang-Il; Kang, Hang-Bong

2017-01-22

To understand driving environments effectively, it is important to achieve accurate detection and classification of objects detected by sensor-based intelligent vehicle systems, which are significantly important tasks. Object detection is performed for the localization of objects, whereas object classification recognizes object classes from detected object regions. For accurate object detection and classification, fusing multiple sensor information into a key component of the representation and perception processes is necessary. In this paper, we propose a new object-detection and classification method using decision-level fusion. We fuse the classification outputs from independent unary classifiers, such as 3D point clouds and image data using a convolutional neural network (CNN). The unary classifiers for the two sensors are the CNN with five layers, which use more than two pre-trained convolutional layers to consider local to global features as data representation. To represent data using convolutional layers, we apply region of interest (ROI) pooling to the outputs of each layer on the object candidate regions generated using object proposal generation to realize color flattening and semantic grouping for charge-coupled device and Light Detection And Ranging (LiDAR) sensors. We evaluate our proposed method on a KITTI benchmark dataset to detect and classify three object classes: cars, pedestrians and cyclists. The evaluation results show that the proposed method achieves better performance than the previous methods. Our proposed method extracted approximately 500 proposals on a 1226 × 370 image, whereas the original selective search method extracted approximately 10 6 × n proposals. We obtained classification performance with 77.72% mean average precision over the entirety of the classes in the moderate detection level of the KITTI benchmark dataset.

Object Detection and Classification by Decision-Level Fusion for Intelligent Vehicle Systems

PubMed Central

Oh, Sang-Il; Kang, Hang-Bong

2017-01-01

To understand driving environments effectively, it is important to achieve accurate detection and classification of objects detected by sensor-based intelligent vehicle systems, which are significantly important tasks. Object detection is performed for the localization of objects, whereas object classification recognizes object classes from detected object regions. For accurate object detection and classification, fusing multiple sensor information into a key component of the representation and perception processes is necessary. In this paper, we propose a new object-detection and classification method using decision-level fusion. We fuse the classification outputs from independent unary classifiers, such as 3D point clouds and image data using a convolutional neural network (CNN). The unary classifiers for the two sensors are the CNN with five layers, which use more than two pre-trained convolutional layers to consider local to global features as data representation. To represent data using convolutional layers, we apply region of interest (ROI) pooling to the outputs of each layer on the object candidate regions generated using object proposal generation to realize color flattening and semantic grouping for charge-coupled device and Light Detection And Ranging (LiDAR) sensors. We evaluate our proposed method on a KITTI benchmark dataset to detect and classify three object classes: cars, pedestrians and cyclists. The evaluation results show that the proposed method achieves better performance than the previous methods. Our proposed method extracted approximately 500 proposals on a 1226×370 image, whereas the original selective search method extracted approximately 106×n proposals. We obtained classification performance with 77.72% mean average precision over the entirety of the classes in the moderate detection level of the KITTI benchmark dataset. PMID:28117742

Unidentified point sources in the IRAS minisurvey

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Houck, J. R.; Soifer, B. T.; Neugebauer, G.; Beichman, C. A.; Aumann, H. H.; Clegg, P. E.; Gillett, F. C.; Habing, H. J.; Hauser, M. G.; Low, F. J.

1984-01-01

Nine bright, point-like 60 micron sources have been selected from the sample of 8709 sources in the IRAS minisurvey. These sources have no counterparts in a variety of catalogs of nonstellar objects. Four objects have no visible counterparts, while five have faint stellar objects visible in the error ellipse. These sources do not resemble objects previously known to be bright infrared sources.

Naïve Point Estimation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lindskog, Marcus; Winman, Anders; Juslin, Peter

2013-01-01

The capacity of short-term memory is a key constraint when people make online judgments requiring them to rely on samples retrieved from memory (e.g., Dougherty & Hunter, 2003). In this article, the authors compare 2 accounts of how people use knowledge of statistical distributions to make point estimates: either by retrieving precomputed…

From shared care to disease management: key-influencing factors

PubMed Central

Eijkelberg, Irmgard M.J.G.; Spreeuwenberg, Cor; Mur-Veeman, Ingrid M.; Wolffenbuttel, Bruce H.R.

2001-01-01

Abstract Background In order to improve the quality of care of chronically ill patients the traditional boundaries between primary and secondary care are questioned. To demolish these boundaries so-called ‘shared care’ projects have been initiated in which different ways of substitution of care are applied. When these projects end, disease management may offer a solution to expand the achieved co-operation between primary and secondary care. Objective Answering the question: What key factors influence the development and implementation of shared care projects from a management perspective and how are they linked? Theory The theoretical framework is based on the concept of the learning organisation. Design Reference point is a multiple case study that finally becomes a single case study. Data are collected by means of triangulation. The studied cases concern two interrelated Dutch shared care projects for type 2 diabetic patients, that in the end proceed as one disease management project. Results In these cases the predominant key-influencing factors appear to be the project management, commitment and local context, respectively. The factor project management directly links the latter two, albeit managing both appear prerequisites to its success. In practice this implies managing the factors' interdependency by the application of change strategies and tactics in a committed and skilful way. Conclusion Project management, as the most important and active key factor, is advised to cope with the interrelationships of the influencing factors in a gradually more fundamental way by using strategies and tactics that enable learning processes. Then small-scale shared care projects may change into a disease management network at a large scale, which may yield the future blueprint to proceed. PMID:16896415

Physical key-protected one-time pad

PubMed Central

Horstmeyer, Roarke; Judkewitz, Benjamin; Vellekoop, Ivo M.; Assawaworrarit, Sid; Yang, Changhuei

2013-01-01

We describe an encrypted communication principle that forms a secure link between two parties without electronically saving either of their keys. Instead, random cryptographic bits are kept safe within the unique mesoscopic randomness of two volumetric scattering materials. We demonstrate how a shared set of patterned optical probes can generate 10 gigabits of statistically verified randomness between a pair of unique 2 mm3 scattering objects. This shared randomness is used to facilitate information-theoretically secure communication following a modified one-time pad protocol. Benefits of volumetric physical storage over electronic memory include the inability to probe, duplicate or selectively reset any bits without fundamentally altering the entire key space. Our ability to securely couple the randomness contained within two unique physical objects can extend to strengthen hardware required by a variety of cryptographic protocols, which is currently a critically weak link in the security pipeline of our increasingly mobile communication culture. PMID:24345925

Human Health Effects of Trichloroethylene: Key Findings and Scientific Issues

PubMed Central

Jinot, Jennifer; Scott, Cheryl Siegel; Makris, Susan L.; Cooper, Glinda S.; Dzubow, Rebecca C.; Bale, Ambuja S.; Evans, Marina V.; Guyton, Kathryn Z.; Keshava, Nagalakshmi; Lipscomb, John C.; Barone, Stanley; Fox, John F.; Gwinn, Maureen R.; Schaum, John; Caldwell, Jane C.

2012-01-01

Background: In support of the Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS), the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) completed a toxicological review of trichloroethylene (TCE) in September 2011, which was the result of an effort spanning > 20 years. Objectives: We summarized the key findings and scientific issues regarding the human health effects of TCE in the U.S. EPA’s toxicological review. Methods: In this assessment we synthesized and characterized thousands of epidemiologic, experimental animal, and mechanistic studies, and addressed several key scientific issues through modeling of TCE toxicokinetics, meta-analyses of epidemiologic studies, and analyses of mechanistic data. Discussion: Toxicokinetic modeling aided in characterizing the toxicological role of the complex metabolism and multiple metabolites of TCE. Meta-analyses of the epidemiologic data strongly supported the conclusions that TCE causes kidney cancer in humans and that TCE may also cause liver cancer and non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Mechanistic analyses support a key role for mutagenicity in TCE-induced kidney carcinogenicity. Recent evidence from studies in both humans and experimental animals point to the involvement of TCE exposure in autoimmune disease and hypersensitivity. Recent avian and in vitro mechanistic studies provided biological plausibility that TCE plays a role in developmental cardiac toxicity, the subject of substantial debate due to mixed results from epidemiologic and rodent studies. Conclusions: TCE is carcinogenic to humans by all routes of exposure and poses a potential human health hazard for noncancer toxicity to the central nervous system, kidney, liver, immune system, male reproductive system, and the developing embryo/fetus. PMID:23249866

The Response Scale for the Intellectual Disability Module of the WHOQOL: 5-Point or 3-Point?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fang, J.; Fleck, M. P.; Green, A.; McVilly, K.; Hao, Y.; Tan, W.; Fu, R.; Power, M.

2011-01-01

Objective: To deal with the question of whether a 5-point response Likert scale should be changed to a 3-point scale when used in the field testing of people with intellectual disabilities (IDs), which was raised after the pilot study of World Health Organization Quality of Life (WHOQOL)-DIS, a module being developed with the World Health…

On Writing Behavioral Objectives for English.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Maxwell, John, Ed.; Tovatt, Anthony, Ed.

This book presents the results of the examination, during 1969, of the behavioral objectives movement in English instruction by the NCTE Commission on the English Curriculum. It points out that, although some major benefits may eventually arise from the writing of English behavioral objectives, "the process bristles with problems in semantics,…

Quantum key distribution in a multi-user network at gigahertz clock rates

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fernandez, Veronica; Gordon, Karen J.; Collins, Robert J.; Townsend, Paul D.; Cova, Sergio D.; Rech, Ivan; Buller, Gerald S.

2005-07-01

In recent years quantum information research has lead to the discovery of a number of remarkable new paradigms for information processing and communication. These developments include quantum cryptography schemes that offer unconditionally secure information transport guaranteed by quantum-mechanical laws. Such potentially disruptive security technologies could be of high strategic and economic value in the future. Two major issues confronting researchers in this field are the transmission range (typically <100km) and the key exchange rate, which can be as low as a few bits per second at long optical fiber distances. This paper describes further research of an approach to significantly enhance the key exchange rate in an optical fiber system at distances in the range of 1-20km. We will present results on a number of application scenarios, including point-to-point links and multi-user networks. Quantum key distribution systems have been developed, which use standard telecommunications optical fiber, and which are capable of operating at clock rates of up to 2GHz. They implement a polarization-encoded version of the B92 protocol and employ vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers with emission wavelengths of 850 nm as weak coherent light sources, as well as silicon single-photon avalanche diodes as the single photon detectors. The point-to-point quantum key distribution system exhibited a quantum bit error rate of 1.4%, and an estimated net bit rate greater than 100,000 bits-1 for a 4.2 km transmission range.

Modeling the contribution of point sources and non-point sources to Thachin River water pollution.

PubMed

Schaffner, Monika; Bader, Hans-Peter; Scheidegger, Ruth

2009-08-15

Major rivers in developing and emerging countries suffer increasingly of severe degradation of water quality. The current study uses a mathematical Material Flow Analysis (MMFA) as a complementary approach to address the degradation of river water quality due to nutrient pollution in the Thachin River Basin in Central Thailand. This paper gives an overview of the origins and flow paths of the various point- and non-point pollution sources in the Thachin River Basin (in terms of nitrogen and phosphorus) and quantifies their relative importance within the system. The key parameters influencing the main nutrient flows are determined and possible mitigation measures discussed. The results show that aquaculture (as a point source) and rice farming (as a non-point source) are the key nutrient sources in the Thachin River Basin. Other point sources such as pig farms, households and industries, which were previously cited as the most relevant pollution sources in terms of organic pollution, play less significant roles in comparison. This order of importance shifts when considering the model results for the provincial level. Crosschecks with secondary data and field studies confirm the plausibility of our simulations. Specific nutrient loads for the pollution sources are derived; these can be used for a first broad quantification of nutrient pollution in comparable river basins. Based on an identification of the sensitive model parameters, possible mitigation scenarios are determined and their potential to reduce the nutrient load evaluated. A comparison of simulated nutrient loads with measured nutrient concentrations shows that nutrient retention in the river system may be significant. Sedimentation in the slow flowing surface water network as well as nitrogen emission to the air from the warm oxygen deficient waters are certainly partly responsible, but also wetlands along the river banks could play an important role as nutrient sinks.

Context-aware pattern discovery for moving object trajectories

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sharif, Mohammad; Asghar Alesheikh, Ali; Kaffash Charandabi, Neda

2018-05-01

Movement of point objects are highly sensitive to the underlying situations and conditions during the movement, which are known as contexts. Analyzing movement patterns, while accounting the contextual information, helps to better understand how point objects behave in various contexts and how contexts affect their trajectories. One potential solution for discovering moving objects patterns is analyzing the similarities of their trajectories. This article, therefore, contextualizes the similarity measure of trajectories by not only their spatial footprints but also a notion of internal and external contexts. The dynamic time warping (DTW) method is employed to assess the multi-dimensional similarities of trajectories. Then, the results of similarity searches are utilized in discovering the relative movement patterns of the moving point objects. Several experiments are conducted on real datasets that were obtained from commercial airplanes and the weather information during the flights. The results yielded the robustness of DTW method in quantifying the commonalities of trajectories and discovering movement patterns with 80 % accuracy. Moreover, the results revealed the importance of exploiting contextual information because it can enhance and restrict movements.

Parts, Cavities, and Object Representation in Infancy

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hayden, Angela; Bhatt, Ramesh S.; Kangas, Ashley; Zieber, Nicole

2011-01-01

Part representation is not only critical to object perception but also plays a key role in a number of basic visual cognition functions, such as figure-ground segregation, allocation of attention, and memory for shapes. Yet, virtually nothing is known about the development of part representation. If parts are fundamental components of object shape…

Keys and the crisis in taxonomy: extinction or reinvention?

PubMed

Walter, David Evans; Winterton, Shaun

2007-01-01

Dichotomous keys that follow a single pathway of character state choices to an end point have been the primary tools for the identification of unknown organisms for more than two centuries. However, a revolution in computer diagnostics is now under way that may result in the replacement of traditional keys by matrix-based computer interactive keys that have many paths to a correct identification and make extensive use of hypertext to link to images, glossaries, and other support material. Progress is also being made on replacing keys entirely by optical matching of specimens to digital databases and DNA sequences. These new tools may go some way toward alleviating the taxonomic impediment to biodiversity studies and other ecological and evolutionary research, especially with better coordination between those who produce keys and those who use them and by integrating interactive keys into larger biological Web sites.

Method and apparatus for determining the coordinates of an object

DOEpatents

Pedersen, Paul S.

2002-01-01

A simplified method and related apparatus are described for determining the location of points on the surface of an object by varying, in accordance with a unique sequence, the intensity of each illuminated pixel directed to the object surface, and detecting at known detector pixel locations the intensity sequence of reflected illumination from the surface of the object whereby the identity and location of the originating illuminated pixel can be determined. The coordinates of points on the surface of the object are then determined by conventional triangulation methods.

Real object-based 360-degree integral-floating display using multiple depth camera

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Erdenebat, Munkh-Uchral; Dashdavaa, Erkhembaatar; Kwon, Ki-Chul; Wu, Hui-Ying; Yoo, Kwan-Hee; Kim, Young-Seok; Kim, Nam

2015-03-01

A novel 360-degree integral-floating display based on the real object is proposed. The general procedure of the display system is similar with conventional 360-degree integral-floating displays. Unlike previously presented 360-degree displays, the proposed system displays the 3D image generated from the real object in 360-degree viewing zone. In order to display real object in 360-degree viewing zone, multiple depth camera have been utilized to acquire the depth information around the object. Then, the 3D point cloud representations of the real object are reconstructed according to the acquired depth information. By using a special point cloud registration method, the multiple virtual 3D point cloud representations captured by each depth camera are combined as single synthetic 3D point cloud model, and the elemental image arrays are generated for the newly synthesized 3D point cloud model from the given anamorphic optic system's angular step. The theory has been verified experimentally, and it shows that the proposed 360-degree integral-floating display can be an excellent way to display real object in the 360-degree viewing zone.

Exemplar Units of Work for English. Key Stage 3: National Strategy.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Department for Education and Skills, London (England).

These exemplar units of work for National Strategy Key Stage 3 English show how medium and short-term planning can be based on the Key Stage 3 Framework objectives and support the implementation of Curriculum 2000. The Key Stage 3 English strand introduces pupils to more specialist study of language and literature and supports the study of…

A shape-based segmentation method for mobile laser scanning point clouds

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yang, Bisheng; Dong, Zhen

2013-07-01

Segmentation of mobile laser point clouds of urban scenes into objects is an important step for post-processing (e.g., interpretation) of point clouds. Point clouds of urban scenes contain numerous objects with significant size variability, complex and incomplete structures, and holes or variable point densities, raising great challenges for the segmentation of mobile laser point clouds. This paper addresses these challenges by proposing a shape-based segmentation method. The proposed method first calculates the optimal neighborhood size of each point to derive the geometric features associated with it, and then classifies the point clouds according to geometric features using support vector machines (SVMs). Second, a set of rules are defined to segment the classified point clouds, and a similarity criterion for segments is proposed to overcome over-segmentation. Finally, the segmentation output is merged based on topological connectivity into a meaningful geometrical abstraction. The proposed method has been tested on point clouds of two urban scenes obtained by different mobile laser scanners. The results show that the proposed method segments large-scale mobile laser point clouds with good accuracy and computationally effective time cost, and that it segments pole-like objects particularly well.

Efficient Skeletonization of Volumetric Objects.

PubMed

Zhou, Yong; Toga, Arthur W

1999-07-01

Skeletonization promises to become a powerful tool for compact shape description, path planning, and other applications. However, current techniques can seldom efficiently process real, complicated 3D data sets, such as MRI and CT data of human organs. In this paper, we present an efficient voxel-coding based algorithm for Skeletonization of 3D voxelized objects. The skeletons are interpreted as connected centerlines. consisting of sequences of medial points of consecutive clusters. These centerlines are initially extracted as paths of voxels, followed by medial point replacement, refinement, smoothness, and connection operations. The voxel-coding techniques have been proposed for each of these operations in a uniform and systematic fashion. In addition to preserving basic connectivity and centeredness, the algorithm is characterized by straightforward computation, no sensitivity to object boundary complexity, explicit extraction of ready-to-parameterize and branch-controlled skeletons, and efficient object hole detection. These issues are rarely discussed in traditional methods. A range of 3D medical MRI and CT data sets were used for testing the algorithm, demonstrating its utility.

3D object retrieval using salient views

PubMed Central

Shapiro, Linda G.

2013-01-01

This paper presents a method for selecting salient 2D views to describe 3D objects for the purpose of retrieval. The views are obtained by first identifying salient points via a learning approach that uses shape characteristics of the 3D points (Atmosukarto and Shapiro in International workshop on structural, syntactic, and statistical pattern recognition, 2008; Atmosukarto and Shapiro in ACM multimedia information retrieval, 2008). The salient views are selected by choosing views with multiple salient points on the silhouette of the object. Silhouette-based similarity measures from Chen et al. (Comput Graph Forum 22(3):223–232, 2003) are then used to calculate the similarity between two 3D objects. Retrieval experiments were performed on three datasets: the Heads dataset, the SHREC2008 dataset, and the Princeton dataset. Experimental results show that the retrieval results using the salient views are comparable to the existing light field descriptor method (Chen et al. in Comput Graph Forum 22(3):223–232, 2003), and our method achieves a 15-fold speedup in the feature extraction computation time. PMID:23833704

Management Matters: A Leverage Point for Health Systems Strengthening in Global Health

PubMed Central

Bradley, Elizabeth H.; Taylor, Lauren A.; Cuellar, Carlos J.

2015-01-01

Despite a renewed focus in the field of global health on strengthening health systems, inadequate attention has been directed to a key ingredient of high-performing health systems: management. We aimed to develop the argument that management – defined here as the process of achieving predetermined objectives through human, financial, and technical resources – is a cross-cutting function necessary for success in all World Health Organization (WHO) building blocks of health systems strengthening. Management within health systems is particularly critical in low-income settings where the efficient use of scarce resources is paramount to attaining health goals. More generally, investments in management capacity may be viewed as a key leverage point in grand strategy, as strong management enables the achievement of large ends with limited means. We also sought to delineate a set of core competencies and identify key roles to be targeted for management capacity building efforts. Several effective examples of management interventions have been described in the research literature. Together, the existing evidence underscores the importance of country ownership of management capacity building efforts, which often challenge the status quo and thus need country leadership to sustain despite inevitable friction. The literature also recognizes that management capacity efforts, as a key ingredient of effective systems change, take time to embed, as new protocols and ways of working become habitual and integrated as standard operating procedures. Despite these challenges, the field of health management as part of global health system strengthening efforts holds promise as a fundamental leverage point for achieving health system performance goals with existing human, technical, and financial resources. The evidence base consistently supports the role of management in performance improvement but would benefit from additional research with improved methodological rigor and longer

Management Matters: A Leverage Point for Health Systems Strengthening in Global Health.

PubMed

Bradley, Elizabeth H; Taylor, Lauren A; Cuellar, Carlos J

2015-05-20

Despite a renewed focus in the field of global health on strengthening health systems, inadequate attention has been directed to a key ingredient of high-performing health systems: management. We aimed to develop the argument that management - defined here as the process of achieving predetermined objectives through human, financial, and technical resources - is a cross-cutting function necessary for success in all World Health Organization (WHO) building blocks of health systems strengthening. Management within health systems is particularly critical in low-income settings where the efficient use of scarce resources is paramount to attaining health goals. More generally, investments in management capacity may be viewed as a key leverage point in grand strategy, as strong management enables the achievement of large ends with limited means. We also sought to delineate a set of core competencies and identify key roles to be targeted for management capacity building efforts. Several effective examples of management interventions have been described in the research literature. Together, the existing evidence underscores the importance of country ownership of management capacity building efforts, which often challenge the status quo and thus need country leadership to sustain despite inevitable friction. The literature also recognizes that management capacity efforts, as a key ingredient of effective systems change, take time to embed, as new protocols and ways of working become habitual and integrated as standard operating procedures. Despite these challenges, the field of health management as part of global health system strengthening efforts holds promise as a fundamental leverage point for achieving health system performance goals with existing human, technical, and financial resources. The evidence base consistently supports the role of management in performance improvement but would benefit from additional research with improved methodological rigor and longer

Quickly Approximating the Distance Between Two Objects

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Hammen, David

2009-01-01

A method of quickly approximating the distance between two objects (one smaller, regarded as a point; the other larger and complexly shaped) has been devised for use in computationally simulating motions of the objects for the purpose of planning the motions to prevent collisions.

Scientific independence: A key to credibility

Treesearch

Leonard F. Ruggiero

2007-01-01

Independence and objectivity are key ingredients of scientific credibility, especially in research organizations that are part of a natural resource management agency like the Forest Service. Credibility, in turn, is essential to the utility of scientific information in socio-political processes. In order to develop this thesis further, a basic understanding of Forest...

Objective structured practical examination (OSPE) in Forensic Medicine: students' point of view.

PubMed

Menezes, Ritesh G; Nayak, Vinod C; Binu, V S; Kanchan, Tanuj; Rao, P P Jagadish; Baral, Prakash; Lobo, Stany W

2011-11-01

The purpose of this study was to assess the attitudes of undergraduate medical students towards the objective structured practical examination (OSPE) in Forensic Medicine, in a medical college in Nepal. Participants included 59 undergraduate medical students of the 7th semester. Findings indicated that the OSPE was an acceptable tool considering the conduct of practical examination in Forensic Medicine at the undergraduate level. The overall mean attitude score was towards the favourable side. Students strongly agreed that the OSPE tested a wide range of skills. They also strongly agreed that it was a good form of examination as well as a learning experience. The introduction of the OSPE replacing the conventional method of practical examination in Forensic Medicine is a step in the right direction taken to objectively assess undergraduate medical students. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd and Faculty of Forensic and Legal Medicine. All rights reserved.

Interactive object recognition assistance: an approach to recognition starting from target objects

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Geisler, Juergen; Littfass, Michael

1999-07-01

Recognition of target objects in remotely sensed imagery required detailed knowledge about the target object domain as well as about mapping properties of the sensing system. The art of object recognition is to combine both worlds appropriately and to provide models of target appearance with respect to sensor characteristics. Common approaches to support interactive object recognition are either driven from the sensor point of view and address the problem of displaying images in a manner adequate to the sensing system. Or they focus on target objects and provide exhaustive encyclopedic information about this domain. Our paper discusses an approach to assist interactive object recognition based on knowledge about target objects and taking into account the significance of object features with respect to characteristics of the sensed imagery, e.g. spatial and spectral resolution. An `interactive recognition assistant' takes the image analyst through the interpretation process by indicating step-by-step the respectively most significant features of objects in an actual set of candidates. The significance of object features is expressed by pregenerated trees of significance, and by the dynamic computation of decision relevance for every feature at each step of the recognition process. In the context of this approach we discuss the question of modeling and storing the multisensorial/multispectral appearances of target objects and object classes as well as the problem of an adequate dynamic human-machine-interface that takes into account various mental models of human image interpretation.

A Taxonomy of Object-Oriented Measures Modeling the Object-Oriented Space

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Neal, Ralph D.; Weistroffer, H. Roland; Coppins, Richard J.

1997-01-01

In order to control the quality of software and the software development process, it is important to understand the measurement of software. A first step toward a better comprehension of software measurement is the categorization of software measures by some meaningful taxonomy. The most worthwhile taxonomy would capture the fundamental nature of the object-oriented (O-O) space. The principal characteristics of object-oriented software offer a starting point for such a categorization of measures. This paper introduces a taxonomy of measures based upon fourteen characteristics of object-oriented software gathered from the literature. This taxonomy allows us to easily see gaps or redundancies in the existing O-O measures. The taxonomy also clearly differentiates among taxa so that there is no ambiguity as to the taxon to which a measure belongs. The taxonomy has been populated with measures taken from the literature.

A Taxonomy of Object-Oriented Measures Modeling the Object Oriented Space

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Neal, Ralph D.; Weistroffer, H. Roland; Coppins, Richard J.

1997-01-01

In order to control the quality of software and the software development process, it is important to understand the measurement of software. A first step toward a better comprehension of software measurement is the categorization of software measures by some meaningful taxonomy. The most worthwhile taxonomy would capture the fundamental nature of the object-oriented (O-O) space. The principal characteristics of object-oriented software offer a starting point for such a categorization of measures. This paper introduces a taxonomy of measures based upon fourteen characteristics of object-oriented software gathered from the literature. This taxonomy allows us to easily see gaps or redundancies in the existing O-O measures. The taxonomy also clearly differentiates among taxa so that there is no ambiguity as to the taxon to which a measure belongs. The taxonomy has been populated with measures taken from the literature.

An objective isobaric/isentropic technique for upper air analysis

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Mancuso, R. L.; Endlich, R. M.; Ehernberger, L. J.

1981-01-01

An objective meteorological analysis technique is presented whereby both horizontal and vertical upper air analyses are performed. The process used to interpolate grid-point values from the upper-air station data is the same as for grid points on both an isobaric surface and a vertical cross-sectional plane. The nearby data surrounding each grid point are used in the interpolation by means of an anisotropic weighting scheme, which is described. The interpolation for a grid-point potential temperature is performed isobarically; whereas wind, mixing-ratio, and pressure height values are interpolated from data that lie on the isentropic surface that passes through the grid point. Two versions (A and B) of the technique are evaluated by qualitatively comparing computer analyses with subjective handdrawn analyses. The objective products of version A generally have fair correspondence with the subjective analyses and with the station data, and depicted the structure of the upper fronts, tropopauses, and jet streams fairly well. The version B objective products correspond more closely to the subjective analyses, and show the same strong gradients across the upper front with only minor smoothing.

Critical Issues and Key Points from the Survey to the Creation of the Historical Building Information Model: the Case of Santo Stefano Basilica

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Castagnetti, C.; Dubbini, M.; Ricci, P. C.; Rivola, R.; Giannini, M.; Capra, A.

2017-05-01

The new era of designing in architecture and civil engineering applications lies in the Building Information Modeling (BIM) approach, based on a 3D geometric model including a 3D database. This is easier for new constructions whereas, when dealing with existing buildings, the creation of the BIM is based on the accurate knowledge of the as-built construction. Such a condition is allowed by a 3D survey, often carried out with laser scanning technology or modern photogrammetry, which are able to guarantee an adequate points cloud in terms of resolution and completeness by balancing both time consuming and costs with respect to the request of final accuracy. The BIM approach for existing buildings and even more for historical buildings is not yet a well known and deeply discussed process. There are still several choices to be addressed in the process from the survey to the model and critical issues to be discussed in the modeling step, particularly when dealing with unconventional elements such as deformed geometries or historical elements. The paper describes a comprehensive workflow that goes through the survey and the modeling, allowing to focus on critical issues and key points to obtain a reliable BIM of an existing monument. The case study employed to illustrate the workflow is the Basilica of St. Stefano in Bologna (Italy), a large monumental complex with great religious, historical and architectural assets.

Youth Physical Fitness: Ten Key Concepts

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Corbin, Charles B.; Welk, Gregory J.; Richardson, Cheryl; Vowell, Catherine; Lambdin, Dolly; Wikgren, Scott

2014-01-01

The promotion of physical fitness has been a key objective of physical education for more than a century. During this period, physical education has evolved to accommodate changing views on fitness and health. The purpose of this article is to discuss issues with fitness assessment and fitness education central to the new Presidential Youth…

Give Me a Hand: Adult Involvement During Object Exploration Affects Object Individuation in Infancy

PubMed Central

Johnson, Kristin M.; Woods, Rebecca J.

2015-01-01

The development of object individuation, a fundamental ability that supports identification and discrimination of objects across discrete encounters, has been examined extensively by researchers. There are significant advancements in infants’ ability to individuate objects during the first year-and-a-half. Experimental work has established a timeline of object individuation abilities and revealed some mechanisms underlying this ability, however, the influence of adult assistance during object exploration has not yet been explored. The current study investigates the effect of adult involvement during object exploration on infants’ object individuation abilities. In Experiment 1a and 1b, we examined 9.5-month-old infants’ colour-based object individuation following adult-assisted multisensory object exploration. Two components of adult interaction were of particular interest: facilitation of object manipulation (grasping, rotating, and attention-getting behaviours) and social engagement (smiling, pointing, attention-getting verbalizations, and object-directed gaze). Experiment 2a and 2b assessed these components with 4.5-month-olds to examine their impact across development. The results showed that after adult-guided object exploration, both 9.5- and 4.5-month-old infants successfully individuated previously undifferentiated objects. Results of Experiments 1b and 2b provide implications for the mechanisms underlying the scaffolding influence of adult interaction during infant behaviours. PMID:28082834

Key management schemes using routing information frames in secure wireless sensor networks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kamaev, V. A.; Finogeev, A. G.; Finogeev, A. A.; Parygin, D. S.

2017-01-01

The article considers the problems and objectives of key management for data encryption in wireless sensor networks (WSN) of SCADA systems. The structure of the key information in the ZigBee network and methods of keys obtaining are discussed. The use of a hybrid key management schemes is most suitable for WSN. The session symmetric key is used to encrypt the sensor data, asymmetric keys are used to encrypt the session key transmitted from the routing information. Three algorithms of hybrid key management using routing information frames determined by routing methods and the WSN topology are presented.

Evaluation of sequential images for photogrammetrically point determination

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kowalczyk, M.

2011-12-01

Close range photogrammetry encounters many problems with reconstruction of objects three-dimensional shape. Relative orientation parameters of taken photos makes usually key role leading to right solution of this problem. Automation of technology process is hardly performed due to recorded scene complexity and configuration of camera positions. This configuration makes the process of joining photos into one set usually impossible automatically. Application of camcorder is the solution widely proposed in literature for support in 3D models creation. Main advantages of this tool are connected with large number of recorded images and camera positions. Exterior orientation changes barely between two neighboring frames. Those features of film sequence gives possibilities for creating models with basic algorithms, working faster and more robust, than with remotely taken photos. The first part of this paper presents results of experiments determining interior orientation parameters of some sets of frames, presenting three-dimensional test field. This section describes calibration repeatability of film frames taken from camcorder. It is important due to stability of interior camera geometric parameters. Parametric model of systematical errors was applied for correcting images. Afterwards a short film of the same test field had been taken for determination of check points group. This part has been done for controlling purposes of camera application in measurement tasks. Finally there are presented some results of experiments which compare determination of recorded object points in 3D space. In common digital photogrammetry, where separate photos are used, first levels of image pyramids are taken to connect with feature based matching. This complicated process creates a lot of emergencies, which can produce false detections of image similarities. In case of digital film camera, authors of publications avoid this dangerous step, going straightly to area based matching, aiming

Magnesium Object Manager Sandbox, A More Effective Sandbox Method for Windows 7

DTIC Science & Technology

2012-03-01

keys, synchronization primitives , etc.). The object body is specific to, and the same for, each object type; it contains information common to each...the Object Directory Specific Rights Synchronization Object (Event, Mutex, Semaphore , Timer) Synchronization objects allow multiple threads to... Synchronization Object Specific Rights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 2.5 File Object Specific Rights

Summary on several key techniques in 3D geological modeling.

PubMed

Mei, Gang

2014-01-01

Several key techniques in 3D geological modeling including planar mesh generation, spatial interpolation, and surface intersection are summarized in this paper. Note that these techniques are generic and widely used in various applications but play a key role in 3D geological modeling. There are two essential procedures in 3D geological modeling: the first is the simulation of geological interfaces using geometric surfaces and the second is the building of geological objects by means of various geometric computations such as the intersection of surfaces. Discrete geometric surfaces that represent geological interfaces can be generated by creating planar meshes first and then spatially interpolating; those surfaces intersect and then form volumes that represent three-dimensional geological objects such as rock bodies. In this paper, the most commonly used algorithms of the key techniques in 3D geological modeling are summarized.

Summary on Several Key Techniques in 3D Geological Modeling

PubMed Central

2014-01-01

Several key techniques in 3D geological modeling including planar mesh generation, spatial interpolation, and surface intersection are summarized in this paper. Note that these techniques are generic and widely used in various applications but play a key role in 3D geological modeling. There are two essential procedures in 3D geological modeling: the first is the simulation of geological interfaces using geometric surfaces and the second is the building of geological objects by means of various geometric computations such as the intersection of surfaces. Discrete geometric surfaces that represent geological interfaces can be generated by creating planar meshes first and then spatially interpolating; those surfaces intersect and then form volumes that represent three-dimensional geological objects such as rock bodies. In this paper, the most commonly used algorithms of the key techniques in 3D geological modeling are summarized. PMID:24772029

Cryptographic framework for document-objects resulting from multiparty collaborative transactions.

PubMed

Goh, A

2000-01-01

Multiparty transactional frameworks--i.e. Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) or Health Level (HL) 7--often result in composite documents which can be accurately modelled using hyperlinked document-objects. The structural complexity arising from multiauthor involvement and transaction-specific sequencing would be poorly handled by conventional digital signature schemes based on a single evaluation of a one-way hash function and asymmetric cryptography. In this paper we outline the generation of structure-specific authentication hash-trees for the the authentication of transactional document-objects, followed by asymmetric signature generation on the hash-tree value. Server-side multi-client signature verification would probably constitute the single most compute-intensive task, hence the motivation for our usage of the Rabin signature protocol which results in significantly reduced verification workloads compared to the more commonly applied Rivest-Shamir-Adleman (RSA) protocol. Data privacy is handled via symmetric encryption of message traffic using session-specific keys obtained through key-negotiation mechanisms based on discrete-logarithm cryptography. Individual client-to-server channels can be secured using a double key-pair variation of Diffie-Hellman (DH) key negotiation, usage of which also enables bidirectional node authentication. The reciprocal server-to-client multicast channel is secured through Burmester-Desmedt (BD) key-negotiation which enjoys significant advantages over the usual multiparty extensions to the DH protocol. The implementation of hash-tree signatures and bi/multidirectional key negotiation results in a comprehensive cryptographic framework for multiparty document-objects satisfying both authentication and data privacy requirements.

A Novel Real-Time Reference Key Frame Scan Matching Method

PubMed Central

Mohamed, Haytham; Moussa, Adel; Elhabiby, Mohamed; El-Sheimy, Naser; Sesay, Abu

2017-01-01

Unmanned aerial vehicles represent an effective technology for indoor search and rescue operations. Typically, most indoor missions’ environments would be unknown, unstructured, and/or dynamic. Navigation of UAVs in such environments is addressed by simultaneous localization and mapping approach using either local or global approaches. Both approaches suffer from accumulated errors and high processing time due to the iterative nature of the scan matching method. Moreover, point-to-point scan matching is prone to outlier association processes. This paper proposes a low-cost novel method for 2D real-time scan matching based on a reference key frame (RKF). RKF is a hybrid scan matching technique comprised of feature-to-feature and point-to-point approaches. This algorithm aims at mitigating errors accumulation using the key frame technique, which is inspired from video streaming broadcast process. The algorithm depends on the iterative closest point algorithm during the lack of linear features which is typically exhibited in unstructured environments. The algorithm switches back to the RKF once linear features are detected. To validate and evaluate the algorithm, the mapping performance and time consumption are compared with various algorithms in static and dynamic environments. The performance of the algorithm exhibits promising navigational, mapping results and very short computational time, that indicates the potential use of the new algorithm with real-time systems. PMID:28481285

A Novel Real-Time Reference Key Frame Scan Matching Method.

PubMed

Mohamed, Haytham; Moussa, Adel; Elhabiby, Mohamed; El-Sheimy, Naser; Sesay, Abu

2017-05-07

Unmanned aerial vehicles represent an effective technology for indoor search and rescue operations. Typically, most indoor missions' environments would be unknown, unstructured, and/or dynamic. Navigation of UAVs in such environments is addressed by simultaneous localization and mapping approach using either local or global approaches. Both approaches suffer from accumulated errors and high processing time due to the iterative nature of the scan matching method. Moreover, point-to-point scan matching is prone to outlier association processes. This paper proposes a low-cost novel method for 2D real-time scan matching based on a reference key frame (RKF). RKF is a hybrid scan matching technique comprised of feature-to-feature and point-to-point approaches. This algorithm aims at mitigating errors accumulation using the key frame technique, which is inspired from video streaming broadcast process. The algorithm depends on the iterative closest point algorithm during the lack of linear features which is typically exhibited in unstructured environments. The algorithm switches back to the RKF once linear features are detected. To validate and evaluate the algorithm, the mapping performance and time consumption are compared with various algorithms in static and dynamic environments. The performance of the algorithm exhibits promising navigational, mapping results and very short computational time, that indicates the potential use of the new algorithm with real-time systems.

The Effect of Grammatical Gender on Object Categorization

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cubelli, Roberto; Paolieri, Daniela; Lotto, Lorella; Job, Remo

2011-01-01

In 3 experiments, we investigated the effect of grammatical gender on object categorization. Participants were asked to judge whether 2 objects, whose names did or did not share grammatical gender, belonged to the same semantic category by pressing a key. Monolingual speakers of English (Experiment 1), Italian (Experiments 1 and 2), and Spanish…

Performance Objectives

DTIC Science & Technology

1978-12-01

students (Olson, 1971; Yelo- 6, Schmidt , 1971; Stedman, i970) adds nothing to our knowledge; thec- studies, too, are Plagued I...in a beha.ioral objective for a mathmatics class wtld be "... using only a calculator ...’ or 0... using only the protractor...’ The second are the...pliers, screwdriver and hammer i.1 0.1 3. To write x & y from memory 1.1 0.1 4. To lever press either x or y within two seconds 1.1 0.1 5. To point

Points of View: Stories of Psychopathology.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mitchell, James E.

This book is designed to provide students, at differing levels of experience and training, with examples that illustrate the problems individuals have with various psychopathologies. Stories are included to illustrate the key elements of psychopathology for these disorders, and are written from the point of view of both the individual who has the…

Multi-Agent System as a New Approach to Effective Chronic Heart Failure Management: Key Considerations

PubMed Central

Mohammadzadeh, Niloofar; Rahimi, Azin

2013-01-01

Objectives Given the importance of the follow-up of chronic heart failure (CHF) patients to reduce common causes of re-admission and deterioration of their status that lead to imposing spiritual and physical costs on patients and society, modern technology tools should be used to the best advantage. The aim of this article is to explain key points which should be considered in designing an appropriate multi-agent system to improve CHF management. Methods In this literature review articles were searched with keywords like multi-agent system, heart failure, chronic disease management in Science Direct, Google Scholar and PubMed databases without regard to the year of publications. Results Agents are an innovation in the field of artificial intelligence. Because agents are capable of solving complex and dynamic health problems, to take full advantage of e-Health, the healthcare system must take steps to make use of this technology. Key factors in CHF management through a multi-agent system approach must be considered such as organization, confidentiality in general aspects and design and architecture points in specific aspects. Conclusions Note that use of agent systems only with a technical view is associated with many problems. Hence, in delivering healthcare to CHF patients, considering social and human aspects is essential. It is obvious that identifying and resolving technical and non-technical challenges is vital in the successful implementation of this technology. PMID:24195010

Key Informants' Perspectives on Teacher Learning in Scotland

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kennedy, Aileen; Christie, Donald; Fraser, Christine; Reid, Lesley; McKinney, Stephen; Welsh, Mary; Wilson, Alastair; Griffiths, Morwenna

2008-01-01

This article outlines the policy context for teachers' learning and continuing professional development in Scotland and considers this in relation to the perspectives of key informants gained through interview. The analysis draws on a triple-lens conceptual framework and points to some interesting contradictions between the policy text and the…

Understanding Interdependencies between Heterogeneous Earth Observation Systems When Applied to Federal Objectives

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gallo, J.; Sylak-Glassman, E.

2017-12-01

We will present a method for assessing interdependencies between heterogeneous Earth observation (EO) systems when applied to key Federal objectives. Using data from the National Earth Observation Assessment (EOA), we present a case study that examines the frequency that measurements from each of the Landsat 8 sensors are used in conjunction with heterogeneous measurements from other Earth observation sensors to develop data and information products. This EOA data allows us to map the most frequent interactions between Landsat measurements and measurements from other sensors, identify high-impact data and information products where these interdependencies occur, and identify where these combined measurements contribute most to meeting a key Federal objective within one of the 13 Societal Benefit Areas used in the EOA study. Using a value-tree framework to trace the application of data from EO systems to weighted key Federal objectives within the EOA study, we are able to estimate relative contribution of individual EO systems to meeting those objectives, as well as the interdependencies between measurements from all EO systems within the EOA study. The analysis relies on a modified Delphi method to elicit relative levels of reliance on individual measurements from EO systems, including combinations of measurements, from subject matter experts. This results in the identification of a representative portfolio of all EO systems used to meet key Federal objectives. Understanding the interdependencies among a heterogeneous set of measurements that modify the impact of any one individual measurement on meeting a key Federal objective, especially if the measurements originate from multiple agencies or state/local/tribal, international, academic, and commercial sources, can impact agency decision-making regarding mission requirements and inform understanding of user needs.

Education techniques for lifelong learning: giving a PowerPoint presentation: the art of communicating effectively.

PubMed

Collins, Jannette

2004-01-01

Effectiveness of an oral presentation depends on the ability of the speaker to communicate with the audience. An important part of this communication is focusing on two to five key points and emphasizing those points during the presentation. Every aspect of the presentation should be purposeful and directed at facilitating learners' achievement of the objectives. This necessitates that the speaker has carefully developed the objectives and built the presentation around attainment of the objectives. The best presentations are rehearsed, not so that the speaker memorizes exactly what he or she will say, but to facilitate the speaker's ability to interact with the audience and portray a relaxed, professional, and confident demeanor. Rehearsal also helps alleviate stage fright. The most useful method of controlling nervousness is to visualize success. When showing images, it is important to orient the audience with an adequate description, point out the relevant findings, and allow enough time for the audience to assimilate the information before moving on. This can be facilitated with appropriate use of a laser pointer, cursor, or use of builds and transitioning. A presentation should be designed to include as much audience participation as possible, no matter the size of the audience. Techniques to encourage audience participation include questioning, brainstorming, small-group activities, role-playing, case-based examples, and directed listening. It is first necessary to motivate and gain attention of the learner for learning to take place. This can be accomplished through appropriate use of humor, anecdotes, and quotations. Attention should be given to posture, body movement, eye contact, and voice when speaking, as how one appears to the audience will have an impact on their reaction to what is presented. Copyright RSNA, 2004

Exploring emerging learning needs: a UK-wide consultation on environmental sustainability learning objectives for medical education.

PubMed

Walpole, Sarah C; Mortimer, Frances; Inman, Alice; Braithwaite, Isobel; Thompson, Trevor

2015-12-24

This study aimed to engage wide-ranging stakeholders and develop consensus learning objectives for undergraduate and postgraduate medical education. A UK-wide consultation garnered opinions of healthcare students, healthcare educators and other key stakeholders about environmental sustainability in medical education. The policy Delphi approach informed this study. Draft learning objectives were revised iteratively during three rounds of consultation: online questionnaire or telephone interview, face-to-face seminar and email consultation. Twelve draft learning objectives were developed based on review of relevant literature. In round one, 64 participants' median ratings of the learning objectives were 3.5 for relevance and 3.0 for feasibility on a Likert scale of one to four. Revisions were proposed, e.g. to highlight relevance to public health and professionalism. Thirty three participants attended round two. Conflicting opinions were explored. Added content areas included health benefits of sustainable behaviours. To enhance usability, restructuring provided three overarching learning objectives, each with subsidiary points. All participants from rounds one and two were contacted in round three, and no further edits were required. This is the first attempt to define consensus learning objectives for medical students about environmental sustainability. Allowing a wide range of stakeholders to comment on multiple iterations of the document stimulated their engagement with the issues raised and ownership of the resulting learning objectives.

Substrate specificities and intracellular distributions of three N-glycan processing enzymes functioning at a key branch point in the insect N-glycosylation pathway.

PubMed

Geisler, Christoph; Jarvis, Donald L

2012-03-02

Man(α1-6)[GlcNAc(β1-2)Man(α1-3)]ManGlcNAc(2) is a key branch point intermediate in the insect N-glycosylation pathway because it can be either trimmed by a processing β-N-acetylglucosaminidase (FDL) to produce paucimannosidic N-glycans or elongated by N-acetylglucosaminyltransferase II (GNT-II) to produce complex N-glycans. N-acetylglucosaminyltransferase I (GNT-I) contributes to branch point intermediate production and can potentially reverse the FDL trimming reaction. However, there has been no concerted effort to evaluate the relationships among these three enzymes in any single insect system. Hence, we extended our previous studies on Spodoptera frugiperda (Sf) FDL to include GNT-I and -II. Sf-GNT-I and -II cDNAs were isolated, the predicted protein sequences were analyzed, and both gene products were expressed and their acceptor substrate specificities and intracellular localizations were determined. Sf-GNT-I transferred N-acetylglucosamine to Man(5)GlcNAc(2), Man(3)GlcNAc(2), and GlcNAc(β1-2)Man(α1-6)[Man(α1-3)]ManGlcNAc(2), demonstrating its role in branch point intermediate production and its ability to reverse FDL trimming. Sf-GNT-II only transferred N-acetylglucosamine to Man(α1-6)[GlcNAc(β1-2)Man(α1-3)]ManGlcNAc(2), demonstrating that it initiates complex N-glycan production, but cannot use Man(3)GlcNAc(2) to produce hybrid or complex structures. Fluorescently tagged Sf-GNT-I and -II co-localized with an endogenous Sf Golgi marker and Sf-FDL co-localized with Sf-GNT-I and -II, indicating that all three enzymes are Golgi resident proteins. Unexpectedly, fluorescently tagged Drosophila melanogaster FDL also co-localized with Sf-GNT-I and an endogenous Drosophila Golgi marker, indicating that it is a Golgi resident enzyme in insect cells. Thus, the substrate specificities and physical juxtapositioning of GNT-I, GNT-II, and FDL support the idea that these enzymes function at the N-glycan processing branch point and are major factors determining the

Vehicle Localization by LIDAR Point Correlation Improved by Change Detection

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Schlichting, A.; Brenner, C.

2016-06-01

LiDAR sensors are proven sensors for accurate vehicle localization. Instead of detecting and matching features in the LiDAR data, we want to use the entire information provided by the scanners. As dynamic objects, like cars, pedestrians or even construction sites could lead to wrong localization results, we use a change detection algorithm to detect these objects in the reference data. If an object occurs in a certain number of measurements at the same position, we mark it and every containing point as static. In the next step, we merge the data of the single measurement epochs to one reference dataset, whereby we only use static points. Further, we also use a classification algorithm to detect trees. For the online localization of the vehicle, we use simulated data of a vertical aligned automotive LiDAR sensor. As we only want to use static objects in this case as well, we use a random forest classifier to detect dynamic scan points online. Since the automotive data is derived from the LiDAR Mobile Mapping System, we are able to use the labelled objects from the reference data generation step to create the training data and further to detect dynamic objects online. The localization then can be done by a point to image correlation method using only static objects. We achieved a localization standard deviation of about 5 cm (position) and 0.06° (heading), and were able to successfully localize the vehicle in about 93 % of the cases along a trajectory of 13 km in Hannover, Germany.

Kinematics of prehension and pointing movements in C6 quadriplegic patients.

PubMed

Laffont, I; Briand, E; Dizien, O; Combeaud, M; Bussel, B; Revol, M; Roby-Brami, A

2000-06-01

C6 quadriplegic patients lack voluntary control of their triceps muscle but can still perform reaching movements to grasp objects or point to targets. The present study documents the kinematic properties of reaching in these patients. We investigated the kinematics of prehension and pointing movements in four quadriplegic patients and five control subjects. Prehension and pointing movements were recorded for each subject using various object positions (ie different directions and distances from the subject). The 3D motion was analyzed with Fastrack Polhemus sensors. During prehension tasks the velocity profile of control subjects showed two peaks (go and return); the first velocity peak was scaled to the distance of the object. In quadriplegic patients there was a third intermediary peak corresponding to the grasping of the object. The amplitude of the first peak was slightly smaller than in control subjects. Velocity was scaled to the distance of the object, but with a greater dispersion than in control subjects. Total movement time was longer in quadriplegics because of the prolonged grasping phase. There were few differences in the pointing movements of normal and quadriplegic subjects. The scapula contributed more to the reaching phase of both movements in quadriplegic patients. In spite of some quantitative differences, the kinematics of the hand during reaching and pointing in quadriplegic patients are surprisingly similar to those of control subjects. Spinal Cord (2000) 38, 354 - 362.

Point prevalence of neurosis in the Lundby Study 1947-1997.

PubMed

Nilsson, Erik; Bogren, Mats; Mattisson, Cecilia; Nettelbladt, Per

2007-01-01

The objective of this article is to report and discuss the changing point prevalence rate of neurosis 1947-1997 in the Lundby cohort. The Lundby Study is a prospective longitudinal study of a geographically defined total population in the south of Sweden. Field investigations were performed in 1947, 1957, 1972 and in 1997, with psychiatrists interviewing the probands in a semi-structured way. Additional information was gathered from registers, case notes and key informants. Throughout the period of 50 years, the Lundby Study used its own diagnostic system with neurosis referring to non-psychotic mental illness in the absence of an organic brain disease. After 1957, no newcomers were included, and therefore only probands 40 years of age or older at the cross-sectional surveys are included in the present paper. For men aged 40-59 and 60 years or older, respectively, the age-specific point prevalence of neurosis increased from 2.5% and 0.5% in 1947, to 8.3% and 8.4% in 1972. The corresponding figures for women were 8.0% and 1.3% in 1947, and 24.2% and 20.1% in 1972. The increase could be seen in all degrees of impairment, but it was most pronounced in the mild and medium impairment groups. Except for a slight decrease in point prevalence in the female group 40-59 years of age, there were no significant changes from 1972 to 1997. A large increase in the point prevalence rate of neurosis could be seen 1947-1972, but not 1972-1997. Because of the many biases inherent in longitudinal psychiatric studies, our results must be interpreted with caution.

A multiple objective optimization approach to quality control

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Seaman, Christopher Michael

1991-01-01

The use of product quality as the performance criteria for manufacturing system control is explored. The goal in manufacturing, for economic reasons, is to optimize product quality. The problem is that since quality is a rather nebulous product characteristic, there is seldom an analytic function that can be used as a measure. Therefore standard control approaches, such as optimal control, cannot readily be applied. A second problem with optimizing product quality is that it is typically measured along many dimensions: there are many apsects of quality which must be optimized simultaneously. Very often these different aspects are incommensurate and competing. The concept of optimality must now include accepting tradeoffs among the different quality characteristics. These problems are addressed using multiple objective optimization. It is shown that the quality control problem can be defined as a multiple objective optimization problem. A controller structure is defined using this as the basis. Then, an algorithm is presented which can be used by an operator to interactively find the best operating point. Essentially, the algorithm uses process data to provide the operator with two pieces of information: (1) if it is possible to simultaneously improve all quality criteria, then determine what changes to the process input or controller parameters should be made to do this; and (2) if it is not possible to improve all criteria, and the current operating point is not a desirable one, select a criteria in which a tradeoff should be made, and make input changes to improve all other criteria. The process is not operating at an optimal point in any sense if no tradeoff has to be made to move to a new operating point. This algorithm ensures that operating points are optimal in some sense and provides the operator with information about tradeoffs when seeking the best operating point. The multiobjective algorithm was implemented in two different injection molding scenarios

Inclusive Assessment at Point-of-Design

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Keating, Neil; Zybutz, Tanya; Rouse, Karl

2012-01-01

Recognising assessment as a driver for learning and a key part of the student learning experience, this case study considers the impact of opening the assessment process to active student engagement as well as placing inclusivity at the heart of the assessment task at point-of-design. This case study presents an approach to assessment that both…

Feature-fused SSD: fast detection for small objects

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cao, Guimei; Xie, Xuemei; Yang, Wenzhe; Liao, Quan; Shi, Guangming; Wu, Jinjian

2018-04-01

Small objects detection is a challenging task in computer vision due to its limited resolution and information. In order to solve this problem, the majority of existing methods sacrifice speed for improvement in accuracy. In this paper, we aim to detect small objects at a fast speed, using the best object detector Single Shot Multibox Detector (SSD) with respect to accuracy-vs-speed trade-off as base architecture. We propose a multi-level feature fusion method for introducing contextual information in SSD, in order to improve the accuracy for small objects. In detailed fusion operation, we design two feature fusion modules, concatenation module and element-sum module, different in the way of adding contextual information. Experimental results show that these two fusion modules obtain higher mAP on PASCAL VOC2007 than baseline SSD by 1.6 and 1.7 points respectively, especially with 2-3 points improvement on some small objects categories. The testing speed of them is 43 and 40 FPS respectively, superior to the state of the art Deconvolutional single shot detector (DSSD) by 29.4 and 26.4 FPS.

Detection and Classification of Pole-Like Objects from Mobile Mapping Data

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fukano, K.; Masuda, H.

2015-08-01

Laser scanners on a vehicle-based mobile mapping system can capture 3D point-clouds of roads and roadside objects. Since roadside objects have to be maintained periodically, their 3D models are useful for planning maintenance tasks. In our previous work, we proposed a method for detecting cylindrical poles and planar plates in a point-cloud. However, it is often required to further classify pole-like objects into utility poles, streetlights, traffic signals and signs, which are managed by different organizations. In addition, our previous method may fail to extract low pole-like objects, which are often observed in urban residential areas. In this paper, we propose new methods for extracting and classifying pole-like objects. In our method, we robustly extract a wide variety of poles by converting point-clouds into wireframe models and calculating cross-sections between wireframe models and horizontal cutting planes. For classifying pole-like objects, we subdivide a pole-like object into five subsets by extracting poles and planes, and calculate feature values of each subset. Then we apply a supervised machine learning method using feature variables of subsets. In our experiments, our method could achieve excellent results for detection and classification of pole-like objects.

Prism adaptation does not alter object-based attention in healthy participants.

PubMed

Bultitude, Janet H; List, Alexandra; Aimola Davies, Anne M

2013-01-01

Hemispatial neglect ('neglect') is a disabling condition that can follow damage to the right side of the brain, in which patients show difficulty in responding to or orienting towards objects and events that occur on the left side of space. Symptoms of neglect can manifest in both space- and object-based frames of reference. Although patients can show a combination of these two forms of neglect, they are considered separable and have distinct neurological bases. In recent years considerable evidence has emerged to demonstrate that spatial symptoms of neglect can be reduced by an intervention called prism adaptation. Patients point towards objects viewed through prismatic lenses that shift the visual image to the right. Approximately five minutes of repeated pointing results in a leftward recalibration of pointing and improved performance on standard clinical tests for neglect. The understanding of prism adaptation has also been advanced through studies of healthy participants, in whom adaptation to leftward prismatic shifts results in temporary neglect-like performance. Here we examined the effect of prism adaptation on the performance of healthy participants who completed a computerised test of space- and object-based attention. Participants underwent adaptation to leftward- or rightward-shifting prisms, or performed neutral pointing according to a between-groups design. Significant pointing after-effects were found for both prism groups, indicating successful adaptation. In addition, the results of the computerised test revealed larger reaction-time costs associated with shifts of attention between two objects compared to shifts of attention within the same object, replicating previous work. However there were no differences in the performance of the three groups, indicating that prism adaptation did not influence space- or object-based attention for this task. When combined with existing literature, the results are consistent with the proposal that prism

Prism adaptation does not alter object-based attention in healthy participants

PubMed Central

Bultitude, Janet H.

2013-01-01

Hemispatial neglect (‘neglect’) is a disabling condition that can follow damage to the right side of the brain, in which patients show difficulty in responding to or orienting towards objects and events that occur on the left side of space. Symptoms of neglect can manifest in both space- and object-based frames of reference. Although patients can show a combination of these two forms of neglect, they are considered separable and have distinct neurological bases. In recent years considerable evidence has emerged to demonstrate that spatial symptoms of neglect can be reduced by an intervention called prism adaptation. Patients point towards objects viewed through prismatic lenses that shift the visual image to the right. Approximately five minutes of repeated pointing results in a leftward recalibration of pointing and improved performance on standard clinical tests for neglect. The understanding of prism adaptation has also been advanced through studies of healthy participants, in whom adaptation to leftward prismatic shifts results in temporary neglect-like performance. Here we examined the effect of prism adaptation on the performance of healthy participants who completed a computerised test of space- and object-based attention. Participants underwent adaptation to leftward- or rightward-shifting prisms, or performed neutral pointing according to a between-groups design. Significant pointing after-effects were found for both prism groups, indicating successful adaptation. In addition, the results of the computerised test revealed larger reaction-time costs associated with shifts of attention between two objects compared to shifts of attention within the same object, replicating previous work. However there were no differences in the performance of the three groups, indicating that prism adaptation did not influence space- or object-based attention for this task. When combined with existing literature, the results are consistent with the proposal that prism

An Emprical Point Error Model for Tls Derived Point Clouds

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ozendi, Mustafa; Akca, Devrim; Topan, Hüseyin

2016-06-01

The random error pattern of point clouds has significant effect on the quality of final 3D model. The magnitude and distribution of random errors should be modelled numerically. This work aims at developing such an anisotropic point error model, specifically for the terrestrial laser scanner (TLS) acquired 3D point clouds. A priori precisions of basic TLS observations, which are the range, horizontal angle and vertical angle, are determined by predefined and practical measurement configurations, performed at real-world test environments. A priori precision of horizontal (𝜎𝜃) and vertical (𝜎𝛼) angles are constant for each point of a data set, and can directly be determined through the repetitive scanning of the same environment. In our practical tests, precisions of the horizontal and vertical angles were found as 𝜎𝜃=±36.6𝑐𝑐 and 𝜎𝛼=±17.8𝑐𝑐, respectively. On the other hand, a priori precision of the range observation (𝜎𝜌) is assumed to be a function of range, incidence angle of the incoming laser ray, and reflectivity of object surface. Hence, it is a variable, and computed for each point individually by employing an empirically developed formula varying as 𝜎𝜌=±2-12 𝑚𝑚 for a FARO Focus X330 laser scanner. This procedure was followed by the computation of error ellipsoids of each point using the law of variance-covariance propagation. The direction and size of the error ellipsoids were computed by the principal components transformation. The usability and feasibility of the model was investigated in real world scenarios. These investigations validated the suitability and practicality of the proposed method.

Robust iterative closest point algorithm based on global reference point for rotation invariant registration.

PubMed

Du, Shaoyi; Xu, Yiting; Wan, Teng; Hu, Huaizhong; Zhang, Sirui; Xu, Guanglin; Zhang, Xuetao

2017-01-01

The iterative closest point (ICP) algorithm is efficient and accurate for rigid registration but it needs the good initial parameters. It is easily failed when the rotation angle between two point sets is large. To deal with this problem, a new objective function is proposed by introducing a rotation invariant feature based on the Euclidean distance between each point and a global reference point, where the global reference point is a rotation invariant. After that, this optimization problem is solved by a variant of ICP algorithm, which is an iterative method. Firstly, the accurate correspondence is established by using the weighted rotation invariant feature distance and position distance together. Secondly, the rigid transformation is solved by the singular value decomposition method. Thirdly, the weight is adjusted to control the relative contribution of the positions and features. Finally this new algorithm accomplishes the registration by a coarse-to-fine way whatever the initial rotation angle is, which is demonstrated to converge monotonically. The experimental results validate that the proposed algorithm is more accurate and robust compared with the original ICP algorithm.

Robust iterative closest point algorithm based on global reference point for rotation invariant registration

PubMed Central

Du, Shaoyi; Xu, Yiting; Wan, Teng; Zhang, Sirui; Xu, Guanglin; Zhang, Xuetao

2017-01-01

The iterative closest point (ICP) algorithm is efficient and accurate for rigid registration but it needs the good initial parameters. It is easily failed when the rotation angle between two point sets is large. To deal with this problem, a new objective function is proposed by introducing a rotation invariant feature based on the Euclidean distance between each point and a global reference point, where the global reference point is a rotation invariant. After that, this optimization problem is solved by a variant of ICP algorithm, which is an iterative method. Firstly, the accurate correspondence is established by using the weighted rotation invariant feature distance and position distance together. Secondly, the rigid transformation is solved by the singular value decomposition method. Thirdly, the weight is adjusted to control the relative contribution of the positions and features. Finally this new algorithm accomplishes the registration by a coarse-to-fine way whatever the initial rotation angle is, which is demonstrated to converge monotonically. The experimental results validate that the proposed algorithm is more accurate and robust compared with the original ICP algorithm. PMID:29176780

The Key Roles in the Informal Organization: A Network Analysis Perspective

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

de Toni, Alberto F.; Nonino, Fabio

2010-01-01

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to identify the key roles embedded in the informal organizational structure (informal networks) and to outline their contribution in the companies' performance. A major objective of the research is to find and characterize a new key informal role that synthesises problem solving, expertise, and accessibility…

MoKey: A versatile exergame creator for everyday usage.

PubMed

Eckert, Martina; López, Marcos; Lázaro, Carlos; Meneses, Juan

2017-11-27

Currently, virtual applications for physical exercises are highly appreciated as rehabilitation instruments. This article presents a middleware called "MoKey" (Motion Keyboard), which converts standard off-the-shelf software into exergames (exercise games). A configurable set of gestures, captured by a motion capture camera, is translated into the key strokes required by the chosen software. The present study assesses the tool regarding usability and viability on a heterogeneous group of 11 participants, aged 5 to 51, with moderate to severe disabilities, and mostly bound to a wheelchair. In comparison with FAAST (The Flexible Action and Articulated Skeleton Toolkit), MoKey achieved better results in terms of ease of use and computational load. The viability as an exergame creator tool was proven with help of four applications (PowerPoint®, e-book reader, Skype®, and Tetris). Success rates of up to 91% have been achieved, subjective perception was rated with 4.5 points (from 0-5). The middleware provides increased motivation due to the use of favorite software and the advantage of exploiting it for exercise. Used together with communication software or online games, social inclusion can be stimulated. The therapists can employ the tool to monitor the correctness and progress of the exercises.

A Real-Time Method to Estimate Speed of Object Based on Object Detection and Optical Flow Calculation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Liu, Kaizhan; Ye, Yunming; Li, Xutao; Li, Yan

2018-04-01

In recent years Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) has been widely used in computer vision field and makes great progress in lots of contents like object detection and classification. Even so, combining Convolutional Neural Network, which means making multiple CNN frameworks working synchronously and sharing their output information, could figure out useful message that each of them cannot provide singly. Here we introduce a method to real-time estimate speed of object by combining two CNN: YOLOv2 and FlowNet. In every frame, YOLOv2 provides object size; object location and object type while FlowNet providing the optical flow of whole image. On one hand, object size and object location help to select out the object part of optical flow image thus calculating out the average optical flow of every object. On the other hand, object type and object size help to figure out the relationship between optical flow and true speed by means of optics theory and priori knowledge. Therefore, with these two key information, speed of object can be estimated. This method manages to estimate multiple objects at real-time speed by only using a normal camera even in moving status, whose error is acceptable in most application fields like manless driving or robot vision.

Objects of Desire: Power and Passion in Collaborative Activity

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nardi, Bonnie A.

2005-01-01

This article uses activity theory to analyze the conduct of collaborative scientific research, showing how the conceptualization of object is critical to understanding key aspects of scientific collaboration. I argue that the passions and desires behind objects of scientific research are missing in most accounts. I suggest refinements to the…

Reflective and refractive objects for mixed reality.

PubMed

Knecht, Martin; Traxler, Christoph; Winklhofer, Christoph; Wimmer, Michael

2013-04-01

In this paper, we present a novel rendering method which integrates reflective or refractive objects into a differential instant radiosity (DIR) framework usable for mixed-reality (MR) applications. This kind of objects are very special from the light interaction point of view, as they reflect and refract incident rays. Therefore they may cause high-frequency lighting effects known as caustics. Using instant-radiosity (IR) methods to approximate these high-frequency lighting effects would require a large amount of virtual point lights (VPLs) and is therefore not desirable due to real-time constraints. Instead, our approach combines differential instant radiosity with three other methods. One method handles more accurate reflections compared to simple cubemaps by using impostors. Another method is able to calculate two refractions in real-time, and the third method uses small quads to create caustic effects. Our proposed method replaces parts in light paths that belong to reflective or refractive objects using these three methods and thus tightly integrates into DIR. In contrast to previous methods which introduce reflective or refractive objects into MR scenarios, our method produces caustics that also emit additional indirect light. The method runs at real-time frame rates, and the results show that reflective and refractive objects with caustics improve the overall impression for MR scenarios.

Zero curvature-surface driven small objects

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Dou, Xiaoxiao; Li, Shanpeng; Liu, Jianlin

2017-08-01

In this study, we investigate the spontaneous migration of small objects driven by surface tension on a catenoid, formed by a layer of soap constrained by two rings. Although the average curvature of the catenoid is zero at each point, the small objects always migrate to the position near the ring. The force and energy analyses have been performed to uncover the mechanism, and it is found that the small objects distort the local shape of the liquid film, thus making the whole system energetically favorable. These findings provide some inspiration to design microfluidics, aquatic robotics, and miniature boats.

Key Decision Points in the Careers of Geoscientists: The Role of the YES Network in Facilitating Successful Career Transitions for Early Career Geoscientists (Invited)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Venus, J. H.; Gonzales, L. M.; Yes Network

2010-12-01

The external influences on the decisions that geoscientists make pertaining to their careers are often assumed but not quantified. The YES Network is conducting an international study to determine the Key Decision points in the career pathways of early career geoscientists. The study aims to identify factors contributing to individual career decisions and to monitor these over a ten year period. The Initial phase of the study is now underway enabling preliminary conclusions to be drawn and will identify a group of individuals that will be tracked over the 10 year programme. The Survey will highlight reoccurring areas where Early Career Geoscientists are experiencing progression difficulties and, importantly, provide respondents with an opportunity to suggest solutions whilst also allowing general resource needs to be identified from the results as a whole. Early results show an overwhelming majority expressing job satisfaction most or all of the time (only 2 candidates reporting none). Respondents rate job satisfaction and respect highly, returning more responses than good salaries. A general frustration with administration, paper work and bureaucracy is particularly evident in those employed by government organisations. Early Career geoscientists express a frustration concerning a lack of involvement in decision making processes; interestingly several later career respondents also acknowledge a need to properly train, nurture and encourage new recruits to retain good graduates who may otherwise become disillusioned and leave the profession. The role of family in career choices has been highlighted both in survey and general feedback responses particularly by female geoscientists and those working in jobs with high levels of fieldwork; we aim to determine, to some extent, to what point these decisions are controlled by family as opposed to normal career progression. Flexible working conditions and agreed time away from field duty have been independently suggested

FPFH-based graph matching for 3D point cloud registration

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhao, Jiapeng; Li, Chen; Tian, Lihua; Zhu, Jihua

2018-04-01

Correspondence detection is a vital step in point cloud registration and it can help getting a reliable initial alignment. In this paper, we put forward an advanced point feature-based graph matching algorithm to solve the initial alignment problem of rigid 3D point cloud registration with partial overlap. Specifically, Fast Point Feature Histograms are used to determine the initial possible correspondences firstly. Next, a new objective function is provided to make the graph matching more suitable for partially overlapping point cloud. The objective function is optimized by the simulated annealing algorithm for final group of correct correspondences. Finally, we present a novel set partitioning method which can transform the NP-hard optimization problem into a O(n3)-solvable one. Experiments on the Stanford and UWA public data sets indicates that our method can obtain better result in terms of both accuracy and time cost compared with other point cloud registration methods.

Application of two procedures for dual-point design of transonic airfoils

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Mineck, Raymond E.; Campbell, Richard L.; Allison, Dennis O.

1994-01-01

Two dual-point design procedures were developed to reduce the objective function of a baseline airfoil at two design points. The first procedure to develop a redesigned airfoil used a weighted average of the shapes of two intermediate airfoils redesigned at each of the two design points. The second procedure used a weighted average of two pressure distributions obtained from an intermediate airfoil redesigned at each of the two design points. Each procedure was used to design a new airfoil with reduced wave drag at the cruise condition without increasing the wave drag or pitching moment at the climb condition. Two cycles of the airfoil shape-averaging procedure successfully designed a new airfoil that reduced the objective function and satisfied the constraints. One cycle of the target (desired) pressure-averaging procedure was used to design two new airfoils that reduced the objective function and came close to satisfying the constraints.

Modeling, Simulation and Analysis of Public Key Infrastructure

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Liu, Yuan-Kwei; Tuey, Richard; Ma, Paul (Technical Monitor)

1998-01-01

Security is an essential part of network communication. The advances in cryptography have provided solutions to many of the network security requirements. Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) is the foundation of the cryptography applications. The main objective of this research is to design a model to simulate a reliable, scalable, manageable, and high-performance public key infrastructure. We build a model to simulate the NASA public key infrastructure by using SimProcess and MatLab Software. The simulation is from top level all the way down to the computation needed for encryption, decryption, digital signature, and secure web server. The application of secure web server could be utilized in wireless communications. The results of the simulation are analyzed and confirmed by using queueing theory.

A theory of phase singularities for image representation and its applications to object tracking and image matching.

PubMed

Qiao, Yu; Wang, Wei; Minematsu, Nobuaki; Liu, Jianzhuang; Takeda, Mitsuo; Tang, Xiaoou

2009-10-01

This paper studies phase singularities (PSs) for image representation. We show that PSs calculated with Laguerre-Gauss filters contain important information and provide a useful tool for image analysis. PSs are invariant to image translation and rotation. We introduce several invariant features to characterize the core structures around PSs and analyze the stability of PSs to noise addition and scale change. We also study the characteristics of PSs in a scale space, which lead to a method to select key scales along phase singularity curves. We demonstrate two applications of PSs: object tracking and image matching. In object tracking, we use the iterative closest point algorithm to determine the correspondences of PSs between two adjacent frames. The use of PSs allows us to precisely determine the motions of tracked objects. In image matching, we combine PSs and scale-invariant feature transform (SIFT) descriptor to deal with the variations between two images and examine the proposed method on a benchmark database. The results indicate that our method can find more correct matching pairs with higher repeatability rates than some well-known methods.

Estimation of object motion parameters from noisy images.

PubMed

Broida, T J; Chellappa, R

1986-01-01

An approach is presented for the estimation of object motion parameters based on a sequence of noisy images. The problem considered is that of a rigid body undergoing unknown rotational and translational motion. The measurement data consists of a sequence of noisy image coordinates of two or more object correspondence points. By modeling the object dynamics as a function of time, estimates of the model parameters (including motion parameters) can be extracted from the data using recursive and/or batch techniques. This permits a desired degree of smoothing to be achieved through the use of an arbitrarily large number of images. Some assumptions regarding object structure are presently made. Results are presented for a recursive estimation procedure: the case considered here is that of a sequence of one dimensional images of a two dimensional object. Thus, the object moves in one transverse dimension, and in depth, preserving the fundamental ambiguity of the central projection image model (loss of depth information). An iterated extended Kalman filter is used for the recursive solution. Noise levels of 5-10 percent of the object image size are used. Approximate Cramer-Rao lower bounds are derived for the model parameter estimates as a function of object trajectory and noise level. This approach may be of use in situations where it is difficult to resolve large numbers of object match points, but relatively long sequences of images (10 to 20 or more) are available.

Subsequent bilateral comparison to CCT-K3, CIPM key comparison CCT-K3.1: Comparison of standard platinum resistance thermometers at the triple point of water (T = 273.16 K) and at the melting point of gallium (T = 302.9146 K)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Picard, S.; Nonis, M.; Solve, S.; Allisy-Roberts, P. J.; Renaot, E.; Martin, C.

2011-01-01

A comparison of standard platinum resistance thermometers (SPRTs) has been carried out between the BIPM and the Laboratoire commun de métrologie LNE-CNAM using the melting point of gallium and the triple point of water. The temperature difference at Ga between the BIPM and the LNE-CNAM was determined as 108 µK with an associated combined standard uncertainty of 223 µK. This outcome indicates a present temperature difference of the BIPM of -65 µK with respect to an Average Reference Value from an earlier comparison, with an associated uncertainty of uc = 262 µK. It should be noted that the present BIPM scale is not independent, but traceable to cells used in KC7. The comparison results validate the re-establishment of thermometer calibrations at the BIPM for internal use. Main text. To reach the main text of this paper, click on Final Report. Note that this text is that which appears in Appendix B of the BIPM key comparison database kcdb.bipm.org/. The final report has been peer-reviewed and approved for publication by the CCT, according to the provisions of the CIPM Mutual Recognition Arrangement (MRA).

D Land Cover Classification Based on Multispectral LIDAR Point Clouds

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zou, Xiaoliang; Zhao, Guihua; Li, Jonathan; Yang, Yuanxi; Fang, Yong

2016-06-01

Multispectral Lidar System can emit simultaneous laser pulses at the different wavelengths. The reflected multispectral energy is captured through a receiver of the sensor, and the return signal together with the position and orientation information of sensor is recorded. These recorded data are solved with GNSS/IMU data for further post-processing, forming high density multispectral 3D point clouds. As the first commercial multispectral airborne Lidar sensor, Optech Titan system is capable of collecting point clouds data from all three channels at 532nm visible (Green), at 1064 nm near infrared (NIR) and at 1550nm intermediate infrared (IR). It has become a new source of data for 3D land cover classification. The paper presents an Object Based Image Analysis (OBIA) approach to only use multispectral Lidar point clouds datasets for 3D land cover classification. The approach consists of three steps. Firstly, multispectral intensity images are segmented into image objects on the basis of multi-resolution segmentation integrating different scale parameters. Secondly, intensity objects are classified into nine categories by using the customized features of classification indexes and a combination the multispectral reflectance with the vertical distribution of object features. Finally, accuracy assessment is conducted via comparing random reference samples points from google imagery tiles with the classification results. The classification results show higher overall accuracy for most of the land cover types. Over 90% of overall accuracy is achieved via using multispectral Lidar point clouds for 3D land cover classification.

Inferring Models of Bacterial Dynamics toward Point Sources

PubMed Central

Jashnsaz, Hossein; Nguyen, Tyler; Petrache, Horia I.; Pressé, Steve

2015-01-01

Experiments have shown that bacteria can be sensitive to small variations in chemoattractant (CA) concentrations. Motivated by these findings, our focus here is on a regime rarely studied in experiments: bacteria tracking point CA sources (such as food patches or even prey). In tracking point sources, the CA detected by bacteria may show very large spatiotemporal fluctuations which vary with distance from the source. We present a general statistical model to describe how bacteria locate point sources of food on the basis of stochastic event detection, rather than CA gradient information. We show how all model parameters can be directly inferred from single cell tracking data even in the limit of high detection noise. Once parameterized, our model recapitulates bacterial behavior around point sources such as the “volcano effect”. In addition, while the search by bacteria for point sources such as prey may appear random, our model identifies key statistical signatures of a targeted search for a point source given any arbitrary source configuration. PMID:26466373

Discovering Symmetry in Everyday Environments: A Creative Approach to Teaching Symmetry and Point Groups

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fuchigami, Kei; Schrandt, Matthew; Miessler, Gary L.

2016-01-01

A hands-on symmetry project is proposed as an innovative way of teaching point groups to undergraduate chemistry students. Traditionally, courses teaching symmetry require students to identify the point group of a given object. This project asks the reverse: students are instructed to identify an object that matches each point group. Doing so…

Tag Content Access Control with Identity-based Key Exchange

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yan, Liang; Rong, Chunming

2010-09-01

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology that used to identify objects and users has been applied to many applications such retail and supply chain recently. How to prevent tag content from unauthorized readout is a core problem of RFID privacy issues. Hash-lock access control protocol can make tag to release its content only to reader who knows the secret key shared between them. However, in order to get this shared secret key required by this protocol, reader needs to communicate with a back end database. In this paper, we propose to use identity-based secret key exchange approach to generate the secret key required for hash-lock access control protocol. With this approach, not only back end database connection is not needed anymore, but also tag cloning problem can be eliminated at the same time.

Fine Resolution Imaging of Space Objects.

DTIC Science & Technology

1982-02-01

Figur einschliesst," J. reine agnew. Math. 123, 241 (1901). 5. J. Christou, "Imaging of Star Clusters from Speckle Inter- ferometry," Opt. Commun...Also, at any point x, by definition g.+,(x) is the near- est value to gMx ) that satisfies the object-domain constraints. Therefore, at all...the point gk(x) rather than from g^(x) since presumably gMx ) is closer to the solution than gk(x). After using Eq. (40), one would employ Eq. (35

Application of a single-objective, hybrid genetic algorithm approach to pharmacokinetic model building.

PubMed

Sherer, Eric A; Sale, Mark E; Pollock, Bruce G; Belani, Chandra P; Egorin, Merrill J; Ivy, Percy S; Lieberman, Jeffrey A; Manuck, Stephen B; Marder, Stephen R; Muldoon, Matthew F; Scher, Howard I; Solit, David B; Bies, Robert R

2012-08-01

A limitation in traditional stepwise population pharmacokinetic model building is the difficulty in handling interactions between model components. To address this issue, a method was previously introduced which couples NONMEM parameter estimation and model fitness evaluation to a single-objective, hybrid genetic algorithm for global optimization of the model structure. In this study, the generalizability of this approach for pharmacokinetic model building is evaluated by comparing (1) correct and spurious covariate relationships in a simulated dataset resulting from automated stepwise covariate modeling, Lasso methods, and single-objective hybrid genetic algorithm approaches to covariate identification and (2) information criteria values, model structures, convergence, and model parameter values resulting from manual stepwise versus single-objective, hybrid genetic algorithm approaches to model building for seven compounds. Both manual stepwise and single-objective, hybrid genetic algorithm approaches to model building were applied, blinded to the results of the other approach, for selection of the compartment structure as well as inclusion and model form of inter-individual and inter-occasion variability, residual error, and covariates from a common set of model options. For the simulated dataset, stepwise covariate modeling identified three of four true covariates and two spurious covariates; Lasso identified two of four true and 0 spurious covariates; and the single-objective, hybrid genetic algorithm identified three of four true covariates and one spurious covariate. For the clinical datasets, the Akaike information criterion was a median of 22.3 points lower (range of 470.5 point decrease to 0.1 point decrease) for the best single-objective hybrid genetic-algorithm candidate model versus the final manual stepwise model: the Akaike information criterion was lower by greater than 10 points for four compounds and differed by less than 10 points for three

Detection and Purging of Specular Reflective and Transparent Object Influences in 3d Range Measurements

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Koch, R.; May, S.; Nüchter, A.

2017-02-01

3D laser scanners are favoured sensors for mapping in mobile service robotics at indoor and outdoor applications, since they deliver precise measurements at a wide scanning range. The resulting maps are detailed since they have a high resolution. Based on these maps robots navigate through rough terrain, fulfil advanced manipulation, and inspection tasks. In case of specular reflective and transparent objects, e.g., mirrors, windows, shiny metals, the laser measurements get corrupted. Based on the type of object and the incident angle of the incoming laser beam there are three results possible: a measurement point on the object plane, a measurement behind the object plane, and a measurement of a reflected object. It is important to detect such situations to be able to handle these corrupted points. This paper describes why it is difficult to distinguish between specular reflective and transparent surfaces. It presents a 3DReflection- Pre-Filter Approach to identify specular reflective and transparent objects in point clouds of a multi-echo laser scanner. Furthermore, it filters point clouds from influences of such objects and extract the object properties for further investigations. Based on an Iterative-Closest-Point-algorithm reflective objects are identified. Object surfaces and points behind surfaces are masked according to their location. Finally, the processed point cloud is forwarded to a mapping module. Furthermore, the object surface corners and the type of the surface is broadcasted. Four experiments demonstrate the usability of the 3D-Reflection-Pre-Filter. The first experiment was made in a empty room containing a mirror, the second experiment was made in a stairway containing a glass door, the third experiment was made in a empty room containing two mirrors, the fourth experiment was made in an office room containing a mirror. This paper demonstrate that for single scans the detection of specular reflective and transparent objects in 3D is possible. It

Vision System for Coarsely Estimating Motion Parameters for Unknown Fast Moving Objects in Space

PubMed Central

Chen, Min; Hashimoto, Koichi

2017-01-01

Motivated by biological interests in analyzing navigation behaviors of flying animals, we attempt to build a system measuring their motion states. To do this, in this paper, we build a vision system to detect unknown fast moving objects within a given space, calculating their motion parameters represented by positions and poses. We proposed a novel method to detect reliable interest points from images of moving objects, which can be hardly detected by general purpose interest point detectors. 3D points reconstructed using these interest points are then grouped and maintained for detected objects, according to a careful schedule, considering appearance and perspective changes. In the estimation step, a method is introduced to adapt the robust estimation procedure used for dense point set to the case for sparse set, reducing the potential risk of greatly biased estimation. Experiments are conducted against real scenes, showing the capability of the system of detecting multiple unknown moving objects and estimating their positions and poses. PMID:29206189

Determination of end point of primary drying in freeze-drying process control.

PubMed

Patel, Sajal M; Doen, Takayuki; Pikal, Michael J

2010-03-01

Freeze-drying is a relatively expensive process requiring long processing time, and hence one of the key objectives during freeze-drying process development is to minimize the primary drying time, which is the longest of the three steps in freeze-drying. However, increasing the shelf temperature into secondary drying before all of the ice is removed from the product will likely cause collapse or eutectic melt. Thus, from product quality as well as process economics standpoint, it is very critical to detect the end of primary drying. Experiments were conducted with 5% mannitol and 5% sucrose as model systems. The apparent end point of primary drying was determined by comparative pressure measurement (i.e., Pirani vs. MKS Baratron), dew point, Lyotrack (gas plasma spectroscopy), water concentration from tunable diode laser absorption spectroscopy, condenser pressure, pressure rise test (manometric temperature measurement or variations of this method), and product thermocouples. Vials were pulled out from the drying chamber using a sample thief during late primary and early secondary drying to determine percent residual moisture either gravimetrically or by Karl Fischer, and the cake structure was determined visually for melt-back, collapse, and retention of cake structure at the apparent end point of primary drying (i.e., onset, midpoint, and offset). By far, the Pirani is the best choice of the methods tested for evaluation of the end point of primary drying. Also, it is a batch technique, which is cheap, steam sterilizable, and easy to install without requiring any modification to the existing dryer.

Evaluation of the MyWellness Key accelerometer.

PubMed

Herrmann, S D; Hart, T L; Lee, C D; Ainsworth, B E

2011-02-01

to examine the concurrent validity of the Technogym MyWellness Key accelerometer against objective and subjective physical activity (PA) measures. randomised, cross-sectional design with two phases. The laboratory phase compared the MyWellness Key with the ActiGraph GT1M and the Yamax SW200 Digiwalker pedometer during graded treadmill walking, increasing speed each minute. The free-living phase compared the MyWellness Key with the ActiGraph, Digiwalker, Bouchard Activity cord (BAR) and Global Physical Activity Questionnaire (GPAQ) for seven continuous days. Data were analysed using Spearman rank-order correlation coefficients for all comparisons. laboratory and free-living phases. sixteen participants randomly stratified from 41 eligible respondents by sex (n=8 men; n=8 women) and PA levels (n=4 low, n=8 middle and n=4 high active). there was a strong association between the MyWellness Key and the ActiGraph accelerometer during controlled graded treadmill walking (r=0.91, p<0.01) and in free-living settings (r=0.73-0.76 for light to vigorous PA, respectively, p<0.01). No associations were observed between the MyWellness Key and the BAR and GPAQ (p>0.05). the MyWellness Key has a high concurrent validity with the ActiGraph accelerometer to detect PA in both controlled laboratory and free-living settings.

An Efficient Authenticated Key Transfer Scheme in Client-Server Networks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Shi, Runhua; Zhang, Shun

2017-10-01

In this paper, we presented a novel authenticated key transfer scheme in client-server networks, which can achieve two secure goals of remote user authentication and the session key establishment between the remote user and the server. Especially, the proposed scheme can subtly provide two fully different authentications: identity-base authentication and anonymous authentication, while the remote user only holds a private key. Furthermore, our scheme only needs to transmit 1-round messages from the remote user to the server, thus it is very efficient in communication complexity. In addition, the most time-consuming computation in our scheme is elliptic curve scalar point multiplication, so it is also feasible even for mobile devices.

Development of an Objective High Spatial Resolution Soil Moisture Index

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zavodsky, B.; Case, J.; White, K.; Bell, J. R.

2015-12-01

Drought detection, analysis, and mitigation has become a key challenge for a diverse set of decision makers, including but not limited to operational weather forecasters, climatologists, agricultural interests, and water resource management. One tool that is heavily used is the United States Drought Monitor (USDM), which is derived from a complex blend of objective data and subjective analysis on a state-by-state basis using a variety of modeled and observed precipitation, soil moisture, hydrologic, and vegetation and crop health data. The NASA Short-term Prediction Research and Transition (SPoRT) Center currently runs a real-time configuration of the Noah land surface model (LSM) within the NASA Land Information System (LIS) framework. The LIS-Noah is run at 3-km resolution for local numerical weather prediction (NWP) and situational awareness applications at select NOAA/National Weather Service (NWS) forecast offices over the Continental U.S. (CONUS). To enhance the practicality of the LIS-Noah output for drought monitoring and assessing flood potential, a 30+-year soil moisture climatology has been developed in an attempt to place near real-time soil moisture values in historical context at county- and/or watershed-scale resolutions. This LIS-Noah soil moisture climatology and accompanying anomalies is intended to complement the current suite of operational products, such as the North American Land Data Assimilation System phase 2 (NLDAS-2), which are generated on a coarser-resolution grid that may not capture localized, yet important soil moisture features. Daily soil moisture histograms are used to identify the real-time soil moisture percentiles at each grid point according to the county or watershed in which the grid point resides. Spatial plots are then produced that map the percentiles as proxies to the different USDM categories. This presentation will highlight recent developments of this gridded, objective soil moisture index, comparison to subjective

Exceptional Solar-System Objects

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zellner, Benjamin

1990-12-01

This is a target-of-opportunity proposal for HST observations to be executed if a previously unknown, truly exceptional solar-system object or phenomenon is discovered either in the normal course of HST work or by anyone, anywhere. Trails due to unknown moving objects will often appear on HST images made for other purposes. A short trail seen near the opposition point or at high ecliptic latitude could represent a major addition to our knowledge of the solar system. Thus we further propose that all short trials seen on HST images taken in favorable regions of the sky be given a quick analysis in the Observation Support System for their possible significance. If an unusual object is found we propose to: (1) Seek from the owner of data rights permission to proceed as may be appropriate; (2) Contact the Minor Planet Center for an evaluation of the significance of the discovery; and (3) For an object that appears to be of great significance where effective groundbased followup appears unlikely, request the HST schedule be replanned for followup images and physical studies using HST.

Tactile recognition and localization using object models: the case of polyhedra on a plane.

PubMed

Gaston, P C; Lozano-Perez, T

1984-03-01

This paper discusses how data from multiple tactile sensors may be used to identify and locate one object, from among a set of known objects. We use only local information from sensors: 1) the position of contact points and 2) ranges of surface normals at the contact points. The recognition and localization process is structured as the development and pruning of a tree of consistent hypotheses about pairings between contact points and object surfaces. In this paper, we deal with polyhedral objects constrained to lie on a known plane, i.e., having three degrees of positioning freedom relative to the sensors. We illustrate the performance of the algorithm by simulation.

Characterization and Design of Digital Pointing Subsystem for Optical Communication Demonstrator

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Racho, C.; Portillo, A.

1998-01-01

The Optical Communications Demonstrator (OCD) is a laboratory-based lasercom demonstration terminal designed to validate several key technologies, including beacon acquisition, high bandwidth tracking, precision bearn pointing, and point-ahead compensation functions. It has been under active development over the past few years. The instrument uses a CCD array detector for both spatial acquisition and high-bandwidth tracking, and a fiber coupled laser transmitter. The array detector tracking concept provides wide field-of-view acquisition and permits effective platform jitter compensation and point-ahead control using only one steering mirror. This paper describes the detailed design and characterization of the digital control loop system which includes the Fast Steering Mirror (FSM), the CCD image tracker, and the associated electronics. The objective is to improve the overall system performance using laboratory measured data. The. design of the digital control loop is based on a linear time invariant open loop model. The closed loop performance is predicted using the theoretical model. With the digital filter programmed into the OCD control software, data is collected to verify the predictions. This paper presents the results of the, system modeling and performance analysis. It has been shown that measurement data closely matches theoretical predictions. An important part of the laser communication experiment is the ability of FSM to track the laser beacon within the. required tolerances. The pointing must be maintained to an accuracy that is much smaller than the transmit signal beamwidth. For an earth orbit distance, the system must be able to track the receiving station to within a few microradians. The failure. to do so will result in a severely degraded system performance.

Low-cost manufacturing of the point focus concentrating module and its key component, the Fresnel lens. Final subcontract report, 31 January 1991--6 May 1991

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Saifee, T.; Konnerth, A. III

1991-11-01

Solar Kinetics, Inc. (SKI) has been developing point-focus concentrating PV modules since 1986. SKI is currently in position to manufacture between 200 to 600 kilowatts annually of the current design by a combination of manual and semi-automated methods. This report reviews the current status of module manufacture and specifies the required approach to achieve a high-volume manufacturing capability and low cost. The approach taken will include process development concurrent with module design for automated manufacturing. The current effort reviews the major manufacturing costs and identifies components and processes whose improvements would produce the greatest effect on manufacturability and cost reduction.more » The Fresnel lens is one such key component. Investigating specific alternative manufacturing methods and sources has substantially reduced the lens costs and has exceeded the DOE cost-reduction goals. 15 refs.« less

Autoshaping and automaintenance of a key-press response in squirrel monkeys.

PubMed

Gamzu, E; Schwam, E

1974-03-01

Following exposure for a minimum of 500 to 600 trials, three of four naive squirrel monkeys eventually pressed a response key, illumination of which always preceded delivery of a food pellet. Three other naive monkeys did not press the key when the pellets were delivered randomly with respect to key illumination. Despite some similarities to autoshaping using pigeons, the data indicate many points of difference when squirrel monkeys are used as subjects. Although key-food pairings were shown to be important in the acquisition of the key-press response, they were ineffective in maintaining the response when either a negative response-reinforcer dependency was introduced, or when there was no scheduled response-reinforcer dependency (fixed trial). Not all demonstrations of autoshaping can be considered to be under the control of those processes that are primarily responsible for the phenomena obtained in pigeons.

Application of Multi-Objective Human Learning Optimization Method to Solve AC/DC Multi-Objective Optimal Power Flow Problem

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cao, Jia; Yan, Zheng; He, Guangyu

2016-06-01

This paper introduces an efficient algorithm, multi-objective human learning optimization method (MOHLO), to solve AC/DC multi-objective optimal power flow problem (MOPF). Firstly, the model of AC/DC MOPF including wind farms is constructed, where includes three objective functions, operating cost, power loss, and pollutant emission. Combining the non-dominated sorting technique and the crowding distance index, the MOHLO method can be derived, which involves individual learning operator, social learning operator, random exploration learning operator and adaptive strategies. Both the proposed MOHLO method and non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm II (NSGAII) are tested on an improved IEEE 30-bus AC/DC hybrid system. Simulation results show that MOHLO method has excellent search efficiency and the powerful ability of searching optimal. Above all, MOHLO method can obtain more complete pareto front than that by NSGAII method. However, how to choose the optimal solution from pareto front depends mainly on the decision makers who stand from the economic point of view or from the energy saving and emission reduction point of view.

2D virtual texture on 3D real object with coded structured light

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Molinier, Thierry; Fofi, David; Salvi, Joaquim; Gorria, Patrick

2008-02-01

Augmented reality is used to improve color segmentation on human body or on precious no touch artifacts. We propose a technique to project a synthesized texture on real object without contact. Our technique can be used in medical or archaeological application. By projecting a suitable set of light patterns onto the surface of a 3D real object and by capturing images with a camera, a large number of correspondences can be found and the 3D points can be reconstructed. We aim to determine these points of correspondence between cameras and projector from a scene without explicit points and normals. We then project an adjusted texture onto the real object surface. We propose a global and automatic method to virtually texture a 3D real object.

Point- and line-based transformation models for high resolution satellite image rectification

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Abd Elrahman, Ahmed Mohamed Shaker

Rigorous mathematical models with the aid of satellite ephemeris data can present the relationship between the satellite image space and the object space. With government funded satellites, access to calibration and ephemeris data has allowed the development and use of these models. However, for commercial high-resolution satellites, which have been recently launched, these data are withheld from users, and therefore alternative empirical models should be used. In general, the existing empirical models are based on the use of control points and involve linking points in the image space and the corresponding points in the object space. But the lack of control points in some remote areas and the questionable accuracy of the identified discrete conjugate points provide a catalyst for the development of algorithms based on features other than control points. This research, concerned with image rectification and 3D geo-positioning determination using High-Resolution Satellite Imagery (HRSI), has two major objectives. First, the effects of satellite sensor characteristics, number of ground control points (GCPs), and terrain elevation variations on the performance of several point based empirical models are studied. Second, a new mathematical model, using only linear features as control features, or linear features with a minimum number of GCPs, is developed. To meet the first objective, several experiments for different satellites such as Ikonos, QuickBird, and IRS-1D have been conducted using different point based empirical models. Various data sets covering different terrain types are presented and results from representative sets of the experiments are shown and analyzed. The results demonstrate the effectiveness and the superiority of these models under certain conditions. From the results obtained, several alternatives to circumvent the effects of the satellite sensor characteristics, the number of GCPs, and the terrain elevation variations are introduced. To meet

Joint classification and contour extraction of large 3D point clouds

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hackel, Timo; Wegner, Jan D.; Schindler, Konrad

2017-08-01

We present an effective and efficient method for point-wise semantic classification and extraction of object contours of large-scale 3D point clouds. What makes point cloud interpretation challenging is the sheer size of several millions of points per scan and the non-grid, sparse, and uneven distribution of points. Standard image processing tools like texture filters, for example, cannot handle such data efficiently, which calls for dedicated point cloud labeling methods. It turns out that one of the major drivers for efficient computation and handling of strong variations in point density, is a careful formulation of per-point neighborhoods at multiple scales. This allows, both, to define an expressive feature set and to extract topologically meaningful object contours. Semantic classification and contour extraction are interlaced problems. Point-wise semantic classification enables extracting a meaningful candidate set of contour points while contours help generating a rich feature representation that benefits point-wise classification. These methods are tailored to have fast run time and small memory footprint for processing large-scale, unstructured, and inhomogeneous point clouds, while still achieving high classification accuracy. We evaluate our methods on the semantic3d.net benchmark for terrestrial laser scans with >109 points.

Congruence analysis of point clouds from unstable stereo image sequences

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jepping, C.; Bethmann, F.; Luhmann, T.

2014-06-01

This paper deals with the correction of exterior orientation parameters of stereo image sequences over deformed free-form surfaces without control points. Such imaging situation can occur, for example, during photogrammetric car crash test recordings where onboard high-speed stereo cameras are used to measure 3D surfaces. As a result of such measurements 3D point clouds of deformed surfaces are generated for a complete stereo sequence. The first objective of this research focusses on the development and investigation of methods for the detection of corresponding spatial and temporal tie points within the stereo image sequences (by stereo image matching and 3D point tracking) that are robust enough for a reliable handling of occlusions and other disturbances that may occur. The second objective of this research is the analysis of object deformations in order to detect stable areas (congruence analysis). For this purpose a RANSAC-based method for congruence analysis has been developed. This process is based on the sequential transformation of randomly selected point groups from one epoch to another by using a 3D similarity transformation. The paper gives a detailed description of the congruence analysis. The approach has been tested successfully on synthetic and real image data.

Representational Momentum and Children's Sensori-Motor Representations of Objects

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Perry, Lynn K.; Smith, Linda B.; Hockema, Stephen A.

2008-01-01

Recent research has shown that 2-year-olds fail at a task that ostensibly only requires the ability to understand that solid objects cannot pass through other solid objects. Two experiments were conducted in which 2- and 3-year-olds judged the stopping point of an object as it moved at varying speeds along a path and behind an occluder, stopping…

Education as a key objective of the interdisciplinary volcanic risk mitigation strategy VESUVIUS PENTALOGUE for developing resilient and sustainable areas around Vesuvius

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Dobran, F.; Imperatrice, A.

2017-12-01

VESUVIUS PENTALOGUE requires the achievement of 5 key objectives for Summa-Vesuvius area: (1) Development of temporary settlements for the inhabitants close to their native homeland until the volcanic crisis subsides; (2) Division of the danger zone into an exclusion nucleus that prohibits all future human settlements and discourages the existing ones, a resilience belt that houses most of the current populations, and a sustainable area beyond the resilience belt that allows for sustainable practices and temporary resettlements of resilience belt citizens following the volcanic crises; (3) Development of built environment construction codes for the population of the danger zone by utilizing plinian eruption scenarios, scenario-based seismic hazard assessment and zonation, global volcanic simulator, and dynamic structural analysis; (4) Implementation of volcanic risk information and education campaigns for different risk areas surrounding the volcano; and (5) Production of a memorandum of understanding between the authorities and scientific communities, and production of periodic progress reports for keeping the populations informed on the developments leading to the realization of the above objectives.For the past 20 years we have devoted considerable efforts towards the achievement of educational objectives. We worked with local volunteers and social and cultural organizations and with our colleagues delivered over 200 public and school seminars in 15 communities around Vesuvius, organized 2 international scientific meetings for allowing the public and high school children to interact directly with the scientists working on this volcano, and established numerous contacts with school teachers for helping them engage their students on Vesuvius from the scientific, artistic, social, and cultural perspectives. Every year GVES has been the promoter of Vesuvius area manifestations where the school children have the opportunities to expose their works on this volcano and

Point sources from dissipative dark matter

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Agrawal, Prateek; Randall, Lisa

2017-12-01

If a component of dark matter has dissipative interactions, it can cool to form compact astrophysical objects with higher density than that of conventional cold dark matter (sub)haloes. Dark matter annihilations might then appear as point sources, leading to novel morphology for indirect detection. We explore dissipative models where interaction with the Standard Model might provide visible signals, and show how such objects might give rise to the observed excess in gamma rays arising from the galactic center.

3D Reconstruction of Space Objects from Multi-Views by a Visible Sensor

PubMed Central

Zhang, Haopeng; Wei, Quanmao; Jiang, Zhiguo

2017-01-01

In this paper, a novel 3D reconstruction framework is proposed to recover the 3D structural model of a space object from its multi-view images captured by a visible sensor. Given an image sequence, this framework first estimates the relative camera poses and recovers the depths of the surface points by the structure from motion (SFM) method, then the patch-based multi-view stereo (PMVS) algorithm is utilized to generate a dense 3D point cloud. To resolve the wrong matches arising from the symmetric structure and repeated textures of space objects, a new strategy is introduced, in which images are added to SFM in imaging order. Meanwhile, a refining process exploiting the structural prior knowledge that most sub-components of artificial space objects are composed of basic geometric shapes is proposed and applied to the recovered point cloud. The proposed reconstruction framework is tested on both simulated image datasets and real image datasets. Experimental results illustrate that the recovered point cloud models of space objects are accurate and have a complete coverage of the surface. Moreover, outliers and points with severe noise are effectively filtered out by the refinement, resulting in an distinct improvement of the structure and visualization of the recovered points. PMID:28737675

Selecting a Persistent Data Support Environment for Object-Oriented Applications

DTIC Science & Technology

1998-03-01

key features of most object DBMS products is contained in the <DWAS 9{eeds Assessment for Objects from Barry and Associates. The developer should...data structure and behavior in a self- contained module enhances maintainability of the system and promotes reuse of modules for similar domains...considered together, represent a survey of commercial object-oriented database management systems. These references contain detailed information needed

Fundamental quantitative security in quantum key generation

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Yuen, Horace P.

2010-12-15

We analyze the fundamental security significance of the quantitative criteria on the final generated key K in quantum key generation including the quantum criterion d, the attacker's mutual information on K, and the statistical distance between her distribution on K and the uniform distribution. For operational significance a criterion has to produce a guarantee on the attacker's probability of correctly estimating some portions of K from her measurement, in particular her maximum probability of identifying the whole K. We distinguish between the raw security of K when the attacker just gets at K before it is used in a cryptographicmore » context and its composition security when the attacker may gain further information during its actual use to help get at K. We compare both of these securities of K to those obtainable from conventional key expansion with a symmetric key cipher. It is pointed out that a common belief in the superior security of a quantum generated K is based on an incorrect interpretation of d which cannot be true, and the security significance of d is uncertain. Generally, the quantum key distribution key K has no composition security guarantee and its raw security guarantee from concrete protocols is worse than that of conventional ciphers. Furthermore, for both raw and composition security there is an exponential catch-up problem that would make it difficult to quantitatively improve the security of K in a realistic protocol. Some possible ways to deal with the situation are suggested.« less

Low-complexity object detection with deep convolutional neural network for embedded systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tripathi, Subarna; Kang, Byeongkeun; Dane, Gokce; Nguyen, Truong

2017-09-01

We investigate low-complexity convolutional neural networks (CNNs) for object detection for embedded vision applications. It is well-known that consolidation of an embedded system for CNN-based object detection is more challenging due to computation and memory requirement comparing with problems like image classification. To achieve these requirements, we design and develop an end-to-end TensorFlow (TF)-based fully-convolutional deep neural network for generic object detection task inspired by one of the fastest framework, YOLO.1 The proposed network predicts the localization of every object by regressing the coordinates of the corresponding bounding box as in YOLO. Hence, the network is able to detect any objects without any limitations in the size of the objects. However, unlike YOLO, all the layers in the proposed network is fully-convolutional. Thus, it is able to take input images of any size. We pick face detection as an use case. We evaluate the proposed model for face detection on FDDB dataset and Widerface dataset. As another use case of generic object detection, we evaluate its performance on PASCAL VOC dataset. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed network can predict object instances of different sizes and poses in a single frame. Moreover, the results show that the proposed method achieves comparative accuracy comparing with the state-of-the-art CNN-based object detection methods while reducing the model size by 3× and memory-BW by 3 - 4× comparing with one of the best real-time CNN-based object detectors, YOLO. Our 8-bit fixed-point TF-model provides additional 4× memory reduction while keeping the accuracy nearly as good as the floating-point model. Moreover, the fixed- point model is capable of achieving 20× faster inference speed comparing with the floating-point model. Thus, the proposed method is promising for embedded implementations.

Visual object recognition for mobile tourist information systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Paletta, Lucas; Fritz, Gerald; Seifert, Christin; Luley, Patrick; Almer, Alexander

2005-03-01

We describe a mobile vision system that is capable of automated object identification using images captured from a PDA or a camera phone. We present a solution for the enabling technology of outdoors vision based object recognition that will extend state-of-the-art location and context aware services towards object based awareness in urban environments. In the proposed application scenario, tourist pedestrians are equipped with GPS, W-LAN and a camera attached to a PDA or a camera phone. They are interested whether their field of view contains tourist sights that would point to more detailed information. Multimedia type data about related history, the architecture, or other related cultural context of historic or artistic relevance might be explored by a mobile user who is intending to learn within the urban environment. Learning from ambient cues is in this way achieved by pointing the device towards the urban sight, capturing an image, and consequently getting information about the object on site and within the focus of attention, i.e., the users current field of view.

Object recognition and pose estimation of planar objects from range data

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Pendleton, Thomas W.; Chien, Chiun Hong; Littlefield, Mark L.; Magee, Michael

1994-01-01

The Extravehicular Activity Helper/Retriever (EVAHR) is a robotic device currently under development at the NASA Johnson Space Center that is designed to fetch objects or to assist in retrieving an astronaut who may have become inadvertently de-tethered. The EVAHR will be required to exhibit a high degree of intelligent autonomous operation and will base much of its reasoning upon information obtained from one or more three-dimensional sensors that it will carry and control. At the highest level of visual cognition and reasoning, the EVAHR will be required to detect objects, recognize them, and estimate their spatial orientation and location. The recognition phase and estimation of spatial pose will depend on the ability of the vision system to reliably extract geometric features of the objects such as whether the surface topologies observed are planar or curved and the spatial relationships between the component surfaces. In order to achieve these tasks, three-dimensional sensing of the operational environment and objects in the environment will therefore be essential. One of the sensors being considered to provide image data for object recognition and pose estimation is a phase-shift laser scanner. The characteristics of the data provided by this scanner have been studied and algorithms have been developed for segmenting range images into planar surfaces, extracting basic features such as surface area, and recognizing the object based on the characteristics of extracted features. Also, an approach has been developed for estimating the spatial orientation and location of the recognized object based on orientations of extracted planes and their intersection points. This paper presents some of the algorithms that have been developed for the purpose of recognizing and estimating the pose of objects as viewed by the laser scanner, and characterizes the desirability and utility of these algorithms within the context of the scanner itself, considering data quality and

Teaching Point-Group Symmetry with Three-Dimensional Models

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Flint, Edward B.

2011-01-01

Three tools for teaching symmetry in the context of an upper-level undergraduate or introductory graduate course on the chemical applications of group theory are presented. The first is a collection of objects that have the symmetries of all the low-symmetry and high-symmetry point groups and the point groups with rotational symmetries from 2-fold…

Large-scale urban point cloud labeling and reconstruction

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhang, Liqiang; Li, Zhuqiang; Li, Anjian; Liu, Fangyu

2018-04-01

The large number of object categories and many overlapping or closely neighboring objects in large-scale urban scenes pose great challenges in point cloud classification. In this paper, a novel framework is proposed for classification and reconstruction of airborne laser scanning point cloud data. To label point clouds, we present a rectified linear units neural network named ReLu-NN where the rectified linear units (ReLu) instead of the traditional sigmoid are taken as the activation function in order to speed up the convergence. Since the features of the point cloud are sparse, we reduce the number of neurons by the dropout to avoid over-fitting of the training process. The set of feature descriptors for each 3D point is encoded through self-taught learning, and forms a discriminative feature representation which is taken as the input of the ReLu-NN. The segmented building points are consolidated through an edge-aware point set resampling algorithm, and then they are reconstructed into 3D lightweight models using the 2.5D contouring method (Zhou and Neumann, 2010). Compared with deep learning approaches, the ReLu-NN introduced can easily classify unorganized point clouds without rasterizing the data, and it does not need a large number of training samples. Most of the parameters in the network are learned, and thus the intensive parameter tuning cost is significantly reduced. Experimental results on various datasets demonstrate that the proposed framework achieves better performance than other related algorithms in terms of classification accuracy and reconstruction quality.

Beaconless Pointing for Deep-Space Optical Communication

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Swank, Aaron J.; Aretskin-Hariton, Eliot; Le, Dzu K.; Sands, Obed S.; Wroblewski, Adam

2016-01-01

Free space optical communication is of interest to NASA as a complement to existing radio frequency communication methods. The potential for an increase in science data return capability over current radio-frequency communications is the primary objective. Deep space optical communication requires laser beam pointing accuracy on the order of a few microradians. The laser beam pointing approach discussed here operates without the aid of a terrestrial uplink beacon. Precision pointing is obtained from an on-board star tracker in combination with inertial rate sensors and an outgoing beam reference vector. The beaconless optical pointing system presented in this work is the current approach for the Integrated Radio and Optical Communication (iROC) project.

Pointing Sets the Stage for Learning Language--and Creating Language

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Goldin-Meadow, Susan

2007-01-01

Tomasello, Carpenter, and Liszkowski (2007) have argued that pointing gestures do much more than single out objects in the world. Pointing gestures function as part of a system of shared intentionality even at early stages of development. As such, pointing gestures form the platform on which linguistic communication rests, paving the way for later…

The Timing of Visual Object Categorization

PubMed Central

Mack, Michael L.; Palmeri, Thomas J.

2011-01-01

An object can be categorized at different levels of abstraction: as natural or man-made, animal or plant, bird or dog, or as a Northern Cardinal or Pyrrhuloxia. There has been growing interest in understanding how quickly categorizations at different levels are made and how the timing of those perceptual decisions changes with experience. We specifically contrast two perspectives on the timing of object categorization at different levels of abstraction. By one account, the relative timing implies a relative timing of stages of visual processing that are tied to particular levels of object categorization: Fast categorizations are fast because they precede other categorizations within the visual processing hierarchy. By another account, the relative timing reflects when perceptual features are available over time and the quality of perceptual evidence used to drive a perceptual decision process: Fast simply means fast, it does not mean first. Understanding the short-term and long-term temporal dynamics of object categorizations is key to developing computational models of visual object recognition. We briefly review a number of models of object categorization and outline how they explain the timing of visual object categorization at different levels of abstraction. PMID:21811480

Pointing control for the International Comet Mission

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Leblanc, D. R.; Schumacher, L. L.

1980-01-01

The design of the pointing control system for the proposed International Comet Mission, intended to fly by Comet Halley and rendezvous with Comet Tempel-2 is presented. Following a review of mission objectives and the spacecraft configuration, design constraints on the pointing control system controlling the two-axis gimballed scan platform supporting the science instruments are discussed in relation to the scientific requirements of the mission. The primary design options considered for the pointing control system design for the baseline spacecraft are summarized, and the design selected, which employs a target-referenced, inertially stabilized control system, is described in detail. The four basic modes of operation of the pointing control subsystem (target acquisition, inertial hold, target track and slew) are discussed as they relate to operations at Halley and Tempel-2. It is pointed that the pointing control system design represents a significant advance in the state of the art of pointing controls for planetary missions.

Key-value store with internal key-value storage interface

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Bent, John M.; Faibish, Sorin; Ting, Dennis P. J.

A key-value store is provided having one or more key-value storage interfaces. A key-value store on at least one compute node comprises a memory for storing a plurality of key-value pairs; and an abstract storage interface comprising a software interface module that communicates with at least one persistent storage device providing a key-value interface for persistent storage of one or more of the plurality of key-value pairs, wherein the software interface module provides the one or more key-value pairs to the at least one persistent storage device in a key-value format. The abstract storage interface optionally processes one or moremore » batch operations on the plurality of key-value pairs. A distributed embodiment for a partitioned key-value store is also provided.« less

Key Characteristics of Carcinogens as a Basis for Organizing Data on Mechanisms of Carcinogenesis

PubMed Central

Smith, Martyn T.; Guyton, Kathryn Z.; Gibbons, Catherine F.; Fritz, Jason M.; Portier, Christopher J.; Rusyn, Ivan; DeMarini, David M.; Caldwell, Jane C.; Kavlock, Robert J.; Lambert, Paul F.; Hecht, Stephen S.; Bucher, John R.; Stewart, Bernard W.; Baan, Robert A.; Cogliano, Vincent J.; Straif, Kurt

2015-01-01

Background: A recent review by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) updated the assessments of the > 100 agents classified as Group 1, carcinogenic to humans (IARC Monographs Volume 100, parts A–F). This exercise was complicated by the absence of a broadly accepted, systematic method for evaluating mechanistic data to support conclusions regarding human hazard from exposure to carcinogens. Objectives and Methods: IARC therefore convened two workshops in which an international Working Group of experts identified 10 key characteristics, one or more of which are commonly exhibited by established human carcinogens. Discussion: These characteristics provide the basis for an objective approach to identifying and organizing results from pertinent mechanistic studies. The 10 characteristics are the abilities of an agent to 1) act as an electrophile either directly or after metabolic activation; 2) be genotoxic; 3) alter DNA repair or cause genomic instability; 4) induce epigenetic alterations; 5) induce oxidative stress; 6) induce chronic inflammation; 7) be immunosuppressive; 8) modulate receptor-mediated effects; 9) cause immortalization; and 10) alter cell proliferation, cell death, or nutrient supply. Conclusion: We describe the use of the 10 key characteristics to conduct a systematic literature search focused on relevant end points and construct a graphical representation of the identified mechanistic information. Next, we use benzene and polychlorinated biphenyls as examples to illustrate how this approach may work in practice. The approach described is similar in many respects to those currently being implemented by the U.S. EPA’s Integrated Risk Information System Program and the U.S. National Toxicology Program. Citation: Smith MT, Guyton KZ, Gibbons CF, Fritz JM, Portier CJ, Rusyn I, DeMarini DM, Caldwell JC, Kavlock RJ, Lambert P, Hecht SS, Bucher JR, Stewart BW, Baan R, Cogliano VJ, Straif K. 2016. Key characteristics of carcinogens as a

Hiding Techniques for Dynamic Encryption Text based on Corner Point

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Abdullatif, Firas A.; Abdullatif, Alaa A.; al-Saffar, Amna

2018-05-01

Hiding technique for dynamic encryption text using encoding table and symmetric encryption method (AES algorithm) is presented in this paper. The encoding table is generated dynamically from MSB of the cover image points that used as the first phase of encryption. The Harris corner point algorithm is applied on cover image to generate the corner points which are used to generate dynamic AES key to second phase of text encryption. The embedded process in the LSB for the image pixels except the Harris corner points for more robust. Experimental results have demonstrated that the proposed scheme have embedding quality, error-free text recovery, and high value in PSNR.

Metonymy and Reference-Point Errors in Novice Programming

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Miller, Craig S.

2014-01-01

When learning to program, students often mistakenly refer to an element that is structurally related to the element that they intend to reference. For example, they may indicate the attribute of an object when their intention is to reference the whole object. This paper examines these reference-point errors through the context of metonymy.…

A Verification System for Distributed Objects with Asynchronous Method Calls

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ahrendt, Wolfgang; Dylla, Maximilian

We present a verification system for Creol, an object-oriented modeling language for concurrent distributed applications. The system is an instance of KeY, a framework for object-oriented software verification, which has so far been applied foremost to sequential Java. Building on KeY characteristic concepts, like dynamic logic, sequent calculus, explicit substitutions, and the taclet rule language, the system presented in this paper addresses functional correctness of Creol models featuring local cooperative thread parallelism and global communication via asynchronous method calls. The calculus heavily operates on communication histories which describe the interfaces of Creol units. Two example scenarios demonstrate the usage of the system.

Dynamic Pointing Triggers Shifts of Visual Attention in Young Infants

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rohlfing, Katharina J.; Longo, Matthew R.; Bertenthal, Bennett I.

2012-01-01

Pointing, like eye gaze, is a deictic gesture that can be used to orient the attention of another person towards an object or an event. Previous research suggests that infants first begin to follow a pointing gesture between 10 and 13 months of age. We investigated whether sensitivity to pointing could be seen at younger ages employing a technique…

Autoshaping and automaintenance of a key-press response in squirrel monkeys

PubMed Central

Gamzu, Elkan; Schwam, Elias

1974-01-01

Following exposure for a minimum of 500 to 600 trials, three of four naive squirrel monkeys eventually pressed a response key, illumination of which always preceded delivery of a food pellet. Three other naive monkeys did not press the key when the pellets were delivered randomly with respect to key illumination. Despite some similarities to autoshaping using pigeons, the data indicate many points of difference when squirrel monkeys are used as subjects. Although key-food pairings were shown to be important in the acquisition of the key-press response, they were ineffective in maintaining the response when either a negative response-reinforcer dependency was introduced, or when there was no scheduled response-reinforcer dependency (fixed trial). Not all demonstrations of autoshaping can be considered to be under the control of those processes that are primarily responsible for the phenomena obtained in pigeons. PMID:16811749

Graphene Dirac point tuned by ferroelectric polarization field

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wang, Xudong; Chen, Yan; Wu, Guangjian; Wang, Jianlu; Tian, Bobo; Sun, Shuo; Shen, Hong; Lin, Tie; Hu, Weida; Kang, Tingting; Tang, Minghua; Xiao, Yongguang; Sun, Jinglan; Meng, Xiangjian; Chu, Junhao

2018-04-01

Graphene has received numerous attention for future nanoelectronics and optoelectronics. The Dirac point is a key parameter of graphene that provides information about its carrier properties. There are lots of methods to tune the Dirac point of graphene, such as chemical doping, impurities, defects, and disorder. In this study, we report a different approach to tune the Dirac point of graphene using a ferroelectric polarization field. The Dirac point can be adjusted to near the ferroelectric coercive voltage regardless its original position. We have ensured this phenomenon by temperature-dependent experiments, and analyzed its mechanism with the theory of impurity correlation in graphene. Additionally, with the modulation of ferroelectric polymer, the current on/off ratio and mobility of graphene transistor both have been improved. This work provides an effective method to tune the Dirac point of graphene, which can be readily used to configure functional devices such as p-n junctions and inverters.

Future scientific drilling in the Arctic Ocean: Key objectives, areas, and strategies

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Stein, R.; Coakley, B.; Mikkelsen, N.; O'Regan, M.; Ruppel, C.

2012-04-01

Past, Present and Future Changes in Arctic Terrestrial and Marine Systems" (Kananaskis, Alberta/Canada, February 2012). During these workshops, key areas and key scientific themes as well as drilling and site-survey strategies were discussed. Major scientific themes for future Arctic drilling will include: - The Arctic Ocean during the transition from greenhouse to icehouse conditions and millennial scale climate changes; - Physical and chemical changes of the evolving Polar Ocean and Arctic gateways; - Impact of Pleistocene/Holocene warming and sea-level rise on upper continental slope and shelf gas hydrates and on shelf permafrost; - Land-ocean interactions; - Tectonic evolution and birth of the Arctic Ocean basin: Arctic ridges, sea floor spreading and global lithosphere processes. When thinking about future Arctic drilling, it should be clearly emphasized that for the precise planning of future Arctic Ocean drilling campaigns, including site selection, evaluation of proposed drill sites for safety and environmental protection, etc., comprehensive site survey data are needed first. This means that the development of a detailed site survey strategy is a major challenge for the coming years. Here, an overview of perspectives and plans for future Arctic Ocean drilling will be presented.

Imaging Young Stellar Objects with VLTi/PIONIER

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kluska, J.; Malbet, F.; Berger, J.-P.; Benisty, M.; Lazareff, B.; Le Bouquin, J.-B.; Baron, F.; Dominik, C.; Isella, A.; Juhasz, A.; Kraus, S.; Lachaume, R.; Ménard, F.; Millan-Gabet, R.; Monnier, J.; Pinte, C.; Soulez, F.; Tallon, M.; Thi, W.-F.; Thiébaut, É.; Zins, G.

2014-04-01

Optical interferometry imaging is designed to help us to reveal complex astronomical sources without a prior model. Among these complex objects are the young stars and their environments, which have a typical morphology with a point-like source, surrounded by circumstellar material with unknown morphology. To image them, we have developed a numerical method that removes completely the stellar point source and reconstructs the rest of the image, using the differences in the spectral behavior between the star and its circumstellar material. We aim to reveal the first Astronomical Units of these objects where many physical phenomena could interplay: the dust sublimation causing a puffed-up inner rim, a dusty halo, a dusty wind or an inner gaseous component. To investigate more deeply these regions, we carried out the first Large Program survey of HAeBe stars with two main goals: statistics on the geometry of these objects at the first astronomical unit scale and imaging their very close environment. The images reveal the environment, which is not polluted by the star and allows us to derive the best fit for the flux ratio and the spectral slope. We present the first images from this survey and the application of the imaging method on other astronomical objects.

Terrestrial laser scanning in monitoring of anthropogenic objects

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zaczek-Peplinska, Janina; Kowalska, Maria

2017-12-01

The registered xyz coordinates in the form of a point cloud captured by terrestrial laser scanner and the intensity values (I) assigned to them make it possible to perform geometric and spectral analyses. Comparison of point clouds registered in different time periods requires conversion of the data to a common coordinate system and proper data selection is necessary. Factors like point distribution dependant on the distance between the scanner and the surveyed surface, angle of incidence, tasked scan's density and intensity value have to be taken into consideration. A prerequisite for running a correct analysis of the obtained point clouds registered during periodic measurements using a laser scanner is the ability to determine the quality and accuracy of the analysed data. The article presents a concept of spectral data adjustment based on geometric analysis of a surface as well as examples of geometric analyses integrating geometric and physical data in one cloud of points: cloud point coordinates, recorded intensity values, and thermal images of an object. The experiments described here show multiple possibilities of usage of terrestrial laser scanning data and display the necessity of using multi-aspect and multi-source analyses in anthropogenic object monitoring. The article presents examples of multisource data analyses with regard to Intensity value correction due to the beam's incidence angle. The measurements were performed using a Leica Nova MS50 scanning total station, Z+F Imager 5010 scanner and the integrated Z+F T-Cam thermal camera.

Groups of adjacent contour segments for object detection.

PubMed

Ferrari, V; Fevrier, L; Jurie, F; Schmid, C

2008-01-01

We present a family of scale-invariant local shape features formed by chains of k connected, roughly straight contour segments (kAS), and their use for object class detection. kAS are able to cleanly encode pure fragments of an object boundary, without including nearby clutter. Moreover, they offer an attractive compromise between information content and repeatability, and encompass a wide variety of local shape structures. We also define a translation and scale invariant descriptor encoding the geometric configuration of the segments within a kAS, making kAS easy to reuse in other frameworks, for example as a replacement or addition to interest points. Software for detecting and describing kAS is released on lear.inrialpes.fr/software. We demonstrate the high performance of kAS within a simple but powerful sliding-window object detection scheme. Through extensive evaluations, involving eight diverse object classes and more than 1400 images, we 1) study the evolution of performance as the degree of feature complexity k varies and determine the best degree; 2) show that kAS substantially outperform interest points for detecting shape-based classes; 3) compare our object detector to the recent, state-of-the-art system by Dalal and Triggs [4].

Nonverbal communicative signals modulate attention to object properties.

PubMed

Marno, Hanna; Davelaar, Eddy J; Csibra, Gergely

2014-04-01

We investigated whether the social context in which an object is experienced influences the encoding of its various properties. We hypothesized that when an object is observed in a communicative context, its intrinsic features (such as its shape) would be preferentially encoded at the expense of its extrinsic properties (such as its location). In 3 experiments, participants were presented with brief movies, in which an actor either performed a noncommunicative action toward 1 of 5 different meaningless objects, or communicatively pointed at 1 of them. A subsequent static image, in which either the location or the identity of an object changed, tested participants' attention to these 2 kinds of information. Throughout the 3 experiments we found that communicative cues tended to facilitate identity change detection and to impede location change detection, whereas in the noncommunicative contexts we did not find such a bidirectional effect of cueing. The results also revealed that the effect of the communicative context was a result the presence of ostensive-communicative signals before the object-directed action, and not to the pointing gesture per se. We propose that such an attentional bias forms an inherent part of human communication, and function to facilitate social learning by communication.

Consolidated Development Objectives Document (CDOD) For MB-60

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Greene, William D.

2013-01-01

This document defines the objectives related to liquid rocket engine system development to be undertaken by JAXA in support of the Space Launch System (SLS) Program managed out of the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC). These objectives include furnishing the necessary management, labor, facilities, tools, equipment, and materials required to execute the specified activities. 1.1 Project Scope: The scope of this effort is to develop a rocket engine and associated products per the objectives and technical requirements established in this document. This engine, minus the engine controller, designated here as MB ]60, is to be developed through to a prequalification point of maturity. It is assumed that should JCNE ]1 development proceed beyond this maturity point towards actual flight qualification, the engine controller will be supplied and integrated by NASA. 1.2 Document Structure: The structure of this Consolidated Development Objectives Document (CDOD) includes a traditional description of objectives in a SOO, plus the associated Data Products Document (DPD) in an attached appendix, and then Engine Requirements Document (ERD) as another attached appendix. It is the intent that this document, in conjunction with the cited applicable documents, should constitute a complete programmatic and technical description of the development effort to be pursued.

Florida Keys

NASA Image and Video Library

2002-12-13

The Florida Keys are a chain of islands, islets and reefs extending from Virginia Key to the Dry Tortugas for about 309 kilometers (192 miles). The keys are chiefly limestone and coral formations. The larger islands of the group are Key West (with its airport), Key Largo, Sugarloaf Key, and Boca Chica Key. A causeway extends from the mainland to Key West. This image was acquired on October 28, 2001, by the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) on NASA's Terra satellite. With its 14 spectral bands from the visible to the thermal infrared wavelength region, and its high spatial resolution of 15 to 90 meters (about 50 to 300 feet), ASTER images Earth to map and monitor the changing surface of our planet. http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA03890

EOS-AM precision pointing verification

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Throckmorton, A.; Braknis, E.; Bolek, J.

1993-01-01

The Earth Observing System (EOS) AM mission requires tight pointing knowledge to meet scientific objectives, in a spacecraft with low frequency flexible appendage modes. As the spacecraft controller reacts to various disturbance sources and as the inherent appendage modes are excited by this control action, verification of precision pointing knowledge becomes particularly challenging for the EOS-AM mission. As presently conceived, this verification includes a complementary set of multi-disciplinary analyses, hardware tests and real-time computer in the loop simulations, followed by collection and analysis of hardware test and flight data and supported by a comprehensive data base repository for validated program values.

Grid point extraction and coding for structured light system

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Song, Zhan; Chung, Ronald

2011-09-01

A structured light system simplifies three-dimensional reconstruction by illuminating a specially designed pattern to the target object, thereby generating a distinct texture on it for imaging and further processing. Success of the system hinges upon what features are to be coded in the projected pattern, extracted in the captured image, and matched between the projector's display panel and the camera's image plane. The codes have to be such that they are largely preserved in the image data upon illumination from the projector, reflection from the target object, and projective distortion in the imaging process. The features also need to be reliably extracted in the image domain. In this article, a two-dimensional pseudorandom pattern consisting of rhombic color elements is proposed, and the grid points between the pattern elements are chosen as the feature points. We describe how a type classification of the grid points plus the pseudorandomness of the projected pattern can equip each grid point with a unique label that is preserved in the captured image. We also present a grid point detector that extracts the grid points without the need of segmenting the pattern elements, and that localizes the grid points in subpixel accuracy. Extensive experiments are presented to illustrate that, with the proposed pattern feature definition and feature detector, more features points in higher accuracy can be reconstructed in comparison with the existing pseudorandomly encoded structured light systems.

Fast grasping of unknown objects using principal component analysis

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lei, Qujiang; Chen, Guangming; Wisse, Martijn

2017-09-01

Fast grasping of unknown objects has crucial impact on the efficiency of robot manipulation especially subjected to unfamiliar environments. In order to accelerate grasping speed of unknown objects, principal component analysis is utilized to direct the grasping process. In particular, a single-view partial point cloud is constructed and grasp candidates are allocated along the principal axis. Force balance optimization is employed to analyze possible graspable areas. The obtained graspable area with the minimal resultant force is the best zone for the final grasping execution. It is shown that an unknown object can be more quickly grasped provided that the component analysis principle axis is determined using single-view partial point cloud. To cope with the grasp uncertainty, robot motion is assisted to obtain a new viewpoint. Virtual exploration and experimental tests are carried out to verify this fast gasping algorithm. Both simulation and experimental tests demonstrated excellent performances based on the results of grasping a series of unknown objects. To minimize the grasping uncertainty, the merits of the robot hardware with two 3D cameras can be utilized to suffice the partial point cloud. As a result of utilizing the robot hardware, the grasping reliance is highly enhanced. Therefore, this research demonstrates practical significance for increasing grasping speed and thus increasing robot efficiency under unpredictable environments.

Saliency-Guided Detection of Unknown Objects in RGB-D Indoor Scenes.

PubMed

Bao, Jiatong; Jia, Yunyi; Cheng, Yu; Xi, Ning

2015-08-27

This paper studies the problem of detecting unknown objects within indoor environments in an active and natural manner. The visual saliency scheme utilizing both color and depth cues is proposed to arouse the interests of the machine system for detecting unknown objects at salient positions in a 3D scene. The 3D points at the salient positions are selected as seed points for generating object hypotheses using the 3D shape. We perform multi-class labeling on a Markov random field (MRF) over the voxels of the 3D scene, combining cues from object hypotheses and 3D shape. The results from MRF are further refined by merging the labeled objects, which are spatially connected and have high correlation between color histograms. Quantitative and qualitative evaluations on two benchmark RGB-D datasets illustrate the advantages of the proposed method. The experiments of object detection and manipulation performed on a mobile manipulator validate its effectiveness and practicability in robotic applications.

Saliency-Guided Detection of Unknown Objects in RGB-D Indoor Scenes

PubMed Central

Bao, Jiatong; Jia, Yunyi; Cheng, Yu; Xi, Ning

2015-01-01

This paper studies the problem of detecting unknown objects within indoor environments in an active and natural manner. The visual saliency scheme utilizing both color and depth cues is proposed to arouse the interests of the machine system for detecting unknown objects at salient positions in a 3D scene. The 3D points at the salient positions are selected as seed points for generating object hypotheses using the 3D shape. We perform multi-class labeling on a Markov random field (MRF) over the voxels of the 3D scene, combining cues from object hypotheses and 3D shape. The results from MRF are further refined by merging the labeled objects, which are spatially connected and have high correlation between color histograms. Quantitative and qualitative evaluations on two benchmark RGB-D datasets illustrate the advantages of the proposed method. The experiments of object detection and manipulation performed on a mobile manipulator validate its effectiveness and practicability in robotic applications. PMID:26343656

Chromium picolinate does not improve key features of metabolic syndrome in obese nondiabetic adults.

PubMed

Iqbal, Nayyar; Cardillo, Serena; Volger, Sheri; Bloedon, LeAnne T; Anderson, Richard A; Boston, Raymond; Szapary, Philippe O

2009-04-01

The use of chromium-containing dietary supplements is widespread among patients with type 2 diabetes. Chromium's effects in patients at high risk for developing diabetes, especially those with metabolic syndrome, is unknown. The objective of this study was to determine the effects of chromium picolinate (CrPic) on glucose metabolism in patients with metabolic syndrome. A double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized trial was conducted at a U.S. academic medical center. Sixty three patients with National Cholesterol Education Program (NCEP) Adult Treatment Panel III (ATP III)-defined metabolic syndrome were included. The primary end point was a change in the insulin sensitivity index derived from a frequently sampled intravenous glucose tolerance test. Prespecified secondary end points included changes in other measurements of glucose metabolism, oxidative stress, fasting serum lipids, and high sensitivity C-reactive protein. After 16 weeks of CrPic treatment, there was no significant change in insulin sensitivity index between groups (P = 0.14). However, CrPic increased acute insulin response to glucose (P 0.02). CrPic had no significant effect on other measures of glucose metabolism, body weight, serum lipids, or measures of inflammation and oxidative stress. CrPic at 1000 microg/day does not improve key features of the metabolic syndrome in obese nondiabetic patients.

Chapter 2. Selecting Key Habitat Attributes for Monitoring

Treesearch

Gregory D. Hayward; Lowell H. Suring

2013-01-01

The success of habitat monitoring programs depends, to a large extent, on carefully selecting key habitat attributes to monitor. The challenge of choosing a limited but sufficient set of attributes will differ depending on the objectives of the monitoring program. In some circumstances, such as managing National Forest System lands for threatened and endangered species...

Post-Structural Methodology at the Quilting Point: Intercultural Encounters.

PubMed

Gillett, Grant

Lacan's quilting point connects a network of signifiers with the lived world as a place of voices, memory, and adaptation "seen in" the mirror of language. Crossing cultures can obscure the ways we make sense of the world. Some planes of signification, in aiming to be universal in their knowledge (such as the natural sciences), try to track objects and events independent of our thoughts about them and the ways that signifiers may slide past each other. However, cross-structural comparison and the analysis of cross cultural encounters cannot treat its objects of interest that way. Thus we need a theory and methodology that effectively connects the multilayered discourses of subjectivities from diverse cultures and allows triangulation between them in relation to points of shared experience. At such points we need a critical attitude to our own framework and an openness to the uneasy reflective equilibrium that uncovers assumptions and modes of thinking that will hamper us. Quilting points are such points where different discourses converge on a single event or set of events so as to mark "vertical" connections allowing tentative alignments between ways of meaning so that we can begin to build real cross-cultural understanding.

A New Three Dimensional Based Key Generation Technique in AVK

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Banerjee, Subhasish; Dutta, Manash Pratim; Bhunia, Chandan Tilak

2017-08-01

In modern era, ensuring high order security becomes one and only objective of computer networks. From the last few decades, many researchers have given their contributions to achieve the secrecy over the communication channel. In achieving perfect security, Shannon had done the pioneer work on perfect secret theorem and illustrated that secrecy of the shared information can be maintained if the key becomes variable in nature instead of static one. In this regard, a key generation technique has been proposed where the key can be changed every time whenever a new block of data needs to be exchanged. In our scheme, the keys not only vary in bit sequences but also in size. The experimental study is also included in this article to prove the correctness and effectiveness of our proposed technique.

a Low-Cost and Portable System for 3d Reconstruction of Texture-Less Objects

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hosseininaveh, A.; Yazdan, R.; Karami, A.; Moradi, M.; Ghorbani, F.

2015-12-01

The optical methods for 3D modelling of objects can be classified into two categories including image-based and range-based methods. Structure from Motion is one of the image-based methods implemented in commercial software. In this paper, a low-cost and portable system for 3D modelling of texture-less objects is proposed. This system includes a rotating table designed and developed by using a stepper motor and a very light rotation plate. The system also has eight laser light sources with very dense and strong beams which provide a relatively appropriate pattern on texture-less objects. In this system, regarding to the step of stepper motor, images are semi automatically taken by a camera. The images can be used in structure from motion procedures implemented in Agisoft software.To evaluate the performance of the system, two dark objects were used. The point clouds of these objects were obtained by spraying a light powders on the objects and exploiting a GOM laser scanner. Then these objects were placed on the proposed turntable. Several convergent images were taken from each object while the laser light sources were projecting the pattern on the objects. Afterward, the images were imported in VisualSFM as a fully automatic software package for generating an accurate and complete point cloud. Finally, the obtained point clouds were compared to the point clouds generated by the GOM laser scanner. The results showed the ability of the proposed system to produce a complete 3D model from texture-less objects.

Multi-Object Spectroscopy with MUSE

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kelz, A.; Kamann, S.; Urrutia, T.; Weilbacher, P.; Bacon, R.

2016-10-01

Since 2014, MUSE, the Multi-Unit Spectroscopic Explorer, is in operation at the ESO-VLT. It combines a superb spatial sampling with a large wavelength coverage. By design, MUSE is an integral-field instrument, but its field-of-view and large multiplex make it a powerful tool for multi-object spectroscopy too. Every data-cube consists of 90,000 image-sliced spectra and 3700 monochromatic images. In autumn 2014, the observing programs with MUSE have commenced, with targets ranging from distant galaxies in the Hubble Deep Field to local stellar populations, star formation regions and globular clusters. This paper provides a brief summary of the key features of the MUSE instrument and its complex data reduction software. Some selected examples are given, how multi-object spectroscopy for hundreds of continuum and emission-line objects can be obtained in wide, deep and crowded fields with MUSE, without the classical need for any target pre-selection.

Improvement of "Novel Multiparty Quantum Key Agreement Protocol with GHZ States"

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gu, Jun; Hwang, Tzonelih

2017-10-01

Quantum key agreement (QKA) protocol is a method for negotiating a fair and secure key among mutually untrusted participants. Recently, Xu et al. (Quantum Inf. Process. 13:2587-2594, 2014) proposed a multi-party QKA protocol based on Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) states. However, this study points out that Xu et al.'s protocol cannot provide the fairness property. That is, the last involved participant in the protocol can manipulate the final shared secret key without being detected by the other participants. Moreover, according to Yu et al.'s research (2015), Xu et al.'s protocol cannot avoid the public discussion attack too. To avoid these weaknesses, an improved QKA protocol is proposed.

KeyWare: an open wireless distributed computing environment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Shpantzer, Isaac; Schoenfeld, Larry; Grindahl, Merv; Kelman, Vladimir

1995-12-01

Deployment of distributed applications in the wireless domain lack equivalent tools, methodologies, architectures, and network management that exist in LAN based applications. A wireless distributed computing environment (KeyWareTM) based on intelligent agents within a multiple client multiple server scheme was developed to resolve this problem. KeyWare renders concurrent application services to wireline and wireless client nodes encapsulated in multiple paradigms such as message delivery, database access, e-mail, and file transfer. These services and paradigms are optimized to cope with temporal and spatial radio coverage, high latency, limited throughput and transmission costs. A unified network management paradigm for both wireless and wireline facilitates seamless extensions of LAN- based management tools to include wireless nodes. A set of object oriented tools and methodologies enables direct asynchronous invocation of agent-based services supplemented by tool-sets matched to supported KeyWare paradigms. The open architecture embodiment of KeyWare enables a wide selection of client node computing platforms, operating systems, transport protocols, radio modems and infrastructures while maintaining application portability.

Astronomical telescope with holographic primary objective

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ditto, Thomas D.; Friedman, Jeffrey F.; Content, David A.

2011-09-01

A dual dispersion telescope with a plane grating primary objective was previously disclosed that can overcome intrinsic chromatic aberration of dispersive optics while allowing for unprecedented features such as million object spectroscopy, extraordinary étendue, flat primary objective with a relaxed figure tolerance, gossamer membrane substrate stowable as an unsegmented roll inside a delivery vehicle, and extensibility past 100 meter aperture at optical wavelengths. The novel design meets many criteria for space deployment. Other embodiments are suitable for airborne platforms as well as terrestrial and lunar sites. One problem with this novel telescope is that the grazing exodus configuration necessary to achieve a large aperture is traded for throughput efficiency. Now we show how the hologram of a point source used in place of the primary objective plane grating can improve efficiency by lowering the diffraction angle below grazing exodus. An intermediate refractive element is used to compensate for wavelength dependent focal lengths of the holographic primary objective.

Objective assessment of subjective tinnitus through contralateral suppression of otoacoustic emissions by white noise; suggested cut-off points.

PubMed

Riga, M; Komis, A; Maragkoudakis, P; Korres, G; Danielides, V

2016-12-01

Normative otoacoustic emission (OAE) suppression values are currently lacking and the role of cochlear efferent innervation in tinnitus is controversial. The aim of this study was to investigate the association between tinnitus and medial olivocochlear bundle (MOCB) malfunction. Potential suppression amplitude cut-off criteria that could differentiate participants with tinnitus from those without were sought. Mean suppression amplitudes of transient evoked OAEs and distortion product OAEs by contralateral white noise (50 dBSL) were recorded. Six mean suppression amplitudes criteria were validated as possible cut-off points. The population consisted of normal hearing (n = 78) or presbycusic adults (n = 19) with tinnitus or without (n = 28 and 13, respectively) chronic tinnitus (in total, n = 138 78 females/60males, aged 49 ± 14 years). Participants with mean suppression values lower than 0.5-1 dBSPL seem to present a high probability to report tinnitus (specificity 88-97%). On the other hand, participants with mean suppression values larger than 2-2.5dBSPL seem to present a high probability of the absence of tinnitus (sensitivity 87-99%). Correlations were stronger among participants with bilateral presence or absence of tinnitus. This study seem to confirm an association between tinnitus and low suppression amplitudes (<1 dBSPL), which might evolve into an objective examination tool, supplementary to conventional audiological testing.

Tele-Autonomous control involving contact. Final Report Thesis; [object localization

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Shao, Lejun; Volz, Richard A.; Conway, Lynn; Walker, Michael W.

1990-01-01

Object localization and its application in tele-autonomous systems are studied. Two object localization algorithms are presented together with the methods of extracting several important types of object features. The first algorithm is based on line-segment to line-segment matching. Line range sensors are used to extract line-segment features from an object. The extracted features are matched to corresponding model features to compute the location of the object. The inputs of the second algorithm are not limited only to the line features. Featured points (point to point matching) and featured unit direction vectors (vector to vector matching) can also be used as the inputs of the algorithm, and there is no upper limit on the number of the features inputed. The algorithm will allow the use of redundant features to find a better solution. The algorithm uses dual number quaternions to represent the position and orientation of an object and uses the least squares optimization method to find an optimal solution for the object's location. The advantage of using this representation is that the method solves for the location estimation by minimizing a single cost function associated with the sum of the orientation and position errors and thus has a better performance on the estimation, both in accuracy and speed, than that of other similar algorithms. The difficulties when the operator is controlling a remote robot to perform manipulation tasks are also discussed. The main problems facing the operator are time delays on the signal transmission and the uncertainties of the remote environment. How object localization techniques can be used together with other techniques such as predictor display and time desynchronization to help to overcome these difficulties are then discussed.

A revised and updated catalog of quasi-stellar objects

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Hewitt, A.; Burbidge, G.

1993-01-01

The paper contains a catalog of all known quasi-stellar objects (QSOs) with measured emission redshifts, and BL Lac objects, complete to 1992 December 31. The catalog contains 7315 objects, nearly all QSOs including about 90 BL Lac objects. The catalog and references contain extensive information on names, positions, magnitudes, colors, emission-line redshifts, absorption, variability, polarization, and X-ray, radio, and infrared data. A key in the form of subsidiary tables enables the reader to relate the name of a given object to its coordinate name, which is used throughout the compilation. Plots of the Hubble diagram, the apparent magnitude distribution, the emission redshift distribution, and the distribution of the QSOs on the sky are also given.

Multiview 3D sensing and analysis for high quality point cloud reconstruction

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Satnik, Andrej; Izquierdo, Ebroul; Orjesek, Richard

2018-04-01

Multiview 3D reconstruction techniques enable digital reconstruction of 3D objects from the real world by fusing different viewpoints of the same object into a single 3D representation. This process is by no means trivial and the acquisition of high quality point cloud representations of dynamic 3D objects is still an open problem. In this paper, an approach for high fidelity 3D point cloud generation using low cost 3D sensing hardware is presented. The proposed approach runs in an efficient low-cost hardware setting based on several Kinect v2 scanners connected to a single PC. It performs autocalibration and runs in real-time exploiting an efficient composition of several filtering methods including Radius Outlier Removal (ROR), Weighted Median filter (WM) and Weighted Inter-Frame Average filtering (WIFA). The performance of the proposed method has been demonstrated through efficient acquisition of dense 3D point clouds of moving objects.

Primary Objective Grating Astronomical Telescope

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Ditto, Thomas D.

2007-01-01

It has been 370 years since a seventeenth century French mathematician, Mersenne, presciently sketched out an astronomical telescope based on dual parabolic reflectors. Since that time the concept of the primary objective has been virtually unchanged. Now a new class of astronomical telescope with a primary objective grating (POG) has been studied as an alternative. The POG competes with mirrors, in part, because diffraction gratings provide the very chromatic dispersion that mirrors defeat. The resulting telescope deals effectively with long-standing restrictions on multiple object spectroscopy (MOS). Other potential benefits include unprecedented apertures and collection areas. The new design also favors space deployment as a gossamer membrane. The inventor, Tom Ditto, first discovered that higher-order diffraction images contain hidden depth cues, for which he was granted a seminal range finding patent in 1987. Subsequently, he invented and patented 3D localizers, profilometers and microscopes using POGs. The POG telescope was placed in the public domain to expedite research. The function of a telescopes primary objective is to collect flux and to deliver images. Both functions dictate that size matters, and bigger is better. For that reason, there has been a steady push over the past century to ramp up the size of the primary mirror. However, for every doubling of mirror diameter, the elapsed time between initial effort and first light has also doubled. Meanwhile, costs escalated beyond the mirror alone, because larger instruments required larger enclosures and better pointing mechanisms. One key catalog of observation, spectrographic data, is far more difficult to amass than two-dimensional imagery. While the number of observable objects has increased with mirror size, the capacity to take spectra has not increased proportionately. In the best of circumstances, spectrograms are available for one per cent of the all objects surveyed. Spectroscopy was a

Object Recognition and Localization: The Role of Tactile Sensors

PubMed Central

Aggarwal, Achint; Kirchner, Frank

2014-01-01

Tactile sensors, because of their intrinsic insensitivity to lighting conditions and water turbidity, provide promising opportunities for augmenting the capabilities of vision sensors in applications involving object recognition and localization. This paper presents two approaches for haptic object recognition and localization for ground and underwater environments. The first approach called Batch Ransac and Iterative Closest Point augmented Particle Filter (BRICPPF) is based on an innovative combination of particle filters, Iterative-Closest-Point algorithm, and a feature-based Random Sampling and Consensus (RANSAC) algorithm for database matching. It can handle a large database of 3D-objects of complex shapes and performs a complete six-degree-of-freedom localization of static objects. The algorithms are validated by experimentation in ground and underwater environments using real hardware. To our knowledge this is the first instance of haptic object recognition and localization in underwater environments. The second approach is biologically inspired, and provides a close integration between exploration and recognition. An edge following exploration strategy is developed that receives feedback from the current state of recognition. A recognition by parts approach is developed which uses the BRICPPF for object sub-part recognition. Object exploration is either directed to explore a part until it is successfully recognized, or is directed towards new parts to endorse the current recognition belief. This approach is validated by simulation experiments. PMID:24553087

Implementation of control point form of algebraic grid-generation technique

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Choo, Yung K.; Miller, David P.; Reno, Charles J.

1991-01-01

The control point form (CPF) provides explicit control of physical grid shape and grid spacing through the movement of the control points. The control point array, called a control net, is a space grid type arrangement of locations in physical space with an index for each direction. As an algebraic method CPF is efficient and works well with interactive computer graphics. A family of menu-driven, interactive grid-generation computer codes (TURBO) is being developed by using CPF. Key features of TurboI (a TURBO member) are discussed and typical results are presented. TurboI runs on any IRIS 4D series workstation.

Function key and shortcut key use in airway facilities.

DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

2003-02-01

This document provides information on the function keys and shortcut keys used by systems in the Federal Aviation Administration : Airway Facilities (AF) work environment. It includes a catalog of the function keys and shortcut keys used by each syst...

Automatic Method for Building Indoor Boundary Models from Dense Point Clouds Collected by Laser Scanners

PubMed Central

Valero, Enrique; Adán, Antonio; Cerrada, Carlos

2012-01-01

In this paper we present a method that automatically yields Boundary Representation Models (B-rep) for indoors after processing dense point clouds collected by laser scanners from key locations through an existing facility. Our objective is particularly focused on providing single models which contain the shape, location and relationship of primitive structural elements of inhabited scenarios such as walls, ceilings and floors. We propose a discretization of the space in order to accurately segment the 3D data and generate complete B-rep models of indoors in which faces, edges and vertices are coherently connected. The approach has been tested in real scenarios with data coming from laser scanners yielding promising results. We have deeply evaluated the results by analyzing how reliably these elements can be detected and how accurately they are modeled. PMID:23443369

Energy-Efficient Implementation of ECDH Key Exchange for Wireless Sensor Networks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lederer, Christian; Mader, Roland; Koschuch, Manuel; Großschädl, Johann; Szekely, Alexander; Tillich, Stefan

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are playing a vital role in an ever-growing number of applications ranging from environmental surveillance over medical monitoring to home automation. Since WSNs are often deployed in unattended or even hostile environments, they can be subject to various malicious attacks, including the manipulation and capture of nodes. The establishment of a shared secret key between two or more individual nodes is one of the most important security services needed to guarantee the proper functioning of a sensor network. Despite some recent advances in this field, the efficient implementation of cryptographic key establishment for WSNs remains a challenge due to the resource constraints of small sensor nodes such as the MICAz mote. In this paper we present a lightweight implementation of the elliptic curve Diffie-Hellman (ECDH) key exchange for ZigBee-compliant sensor nodes equipped with an ATmega128 processor running the TinyOS operating system. Our implementation uses a 192-bit prime field specified by the NIST as underlying algebraic structure and requires only 5.20 ·106 clock cycles to compute a scalar multiplication if the base point is fixed and known a priori. A scalar multiplication using a random base point takes about 12.33 ·106 cycles. Our results show that a full ECDH key exchange between two MICAz motes consumes an energy of 57.33 mJ (including radio communication), which is significantly better than most previously reported ECDH implementations on comparable platforms.

Conscientious objection: a call to nursing leadership.

PubMed

Ford, Natalie J; Fraser, Kimberly D; Marck, Patricia B

2010-09-01

In this paper we argue that nurse leaders need to work actively to create morally supportive environments for nurses in Canada that provide adequate room to exercise conscientious objection. Morally supportive environments engender a safe atmosphere to engage in open dialogue and action regarding conflict of conscience. The CNA's 2008 Code of Ethics for Registered Nurses has recognized the importance of conscientious objection in nursing and has created key guidelines for the registered nurse to follow when a conflict in conscience is being considered or declared. Nurse leaders need to further develop the understanding of conflicts of conscience through education, well-written guidelines for conscientious objection in workplaces and engagement in research to uncover underlying barriers to the enactment of conscientious objections. With advancements in technology, changing healthcare policies and increasing scope of practice, both reflection and dialogue on conscientious objection are critical for the continuing moral development of nurses in Canada.

Detecting multiple moving objects in crowded environments with coherent motion regions

DOEpatents

Cheriyadat, Anil M.; Radke, Richard J.

2013-06-11

Coherent motion regions extend in time as well as space, enforcing consistency in detected objects over long time periods and making the algorithm robust to noisy or short point tracks. As a result of enforcing the constraint that selected coherent motion regions contain disjoint sets of tracks defined in a three-dimensional space including a time dimension. An algorithm operates directly on raw, unconditioned low-level feature point tracks, and minimizes a global measure of the coherent motion regions. At least one discrete moving object is identified in a time series of video images based on the trajectory similarity factors, which is a measure of a maximum distance between a pair of feature point tracks.

Educational Evaluation: Key Characteristics. ACER Research Series No. 102.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Maling-Keepes, Jillian

A set of 13 key characteristics is presented as a framework for educational evaluation studies: (1) program's stage of development when evaluator is appointed; (2) program's openness to revision; (3) program uniformity from site to site; (4) specificity of program objectives; (5) evaluator's independence; (6) evaluator's orientation to value…

Complex Pupil Masks for Aberrated Imaging of Closely Spaced Objects

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Reddy, A. N. K.; Sagar, D. K.; Khonina, S. N.

2017-12-01

Current approach demonstrates the suppression of optical side-lobes and the contraction of the main lobe in the composite image of two object points of the optical system under the influence of defocusing effect when an asymmetric phase edges are imposed over the apodized circular aperture. The resolution of two point sources having different intensity ratio is discussed in terms of the modified Sparrow criterion, functions of the degree of coherence of the illumination, the intensity difference and the degree of asymmetric phase masking. Here we have introduced and explored the effects of focus aberration (defect-of-focus) on the two-point resolution of the optical systems. Results on the aberrated composite image of closely spaced objects with amplitude mask and asymmetric phase masks forms a significant contribution in astronomical and microscopic observations.

Creative display of museum objects within their cultural context

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wang, Shuo; Osanlou, Ardieshir; Excell, Peter

2014-02-01

Most existing holographic display methods concentrate on real object reconstruction, but there is a lack of research on object stories (revealing and presenting histories). To address this challenge, we propose a method, called 4 `ER' (leader, manager, implementer, presenter) to experience and respond objects in a special immersive environment. The key innovation of the 4'ER' method is to introduce the stories (political, historical, etc.) into hard copy holography, so as to synergy art and science for museum objects display. The hologram of an imitation of a blue and white porcelain jar from The Palace Museum, Beijing, China has been made, showing good performance and reflecting different pathway to knowledge.

Keep away from danger: dangerous objects in dynamic and static situations.

PubMed

Anelli, Filomena; Nicoletti, Roberto; Bolzani, Roberto; Borghi, Anna M

2013-01-01

Behavioral and neuroscience studies have shown that objects observation evokes specific affordances (i.e., action possibilities) and motor responses. Recent findings provide evidence that even dangerous objects can modulate the motor system evoking aversive affordances. This sounds intriguing since so far the majority of behavioral, brain imaging, and transcranial magnetic stimulation studies with painful and dangerous stimuli strictly concerned the domain of pain, with the exception of evidence suggesting sensitivity to objects' affordances when neutral objects are located in participants' peripersonal space. This study investigates whether the observation of a neutral or dangerous object in a static or dynamic situation differently influences motor responses, and the time-course of the dangerous objects' processing. In three experiments we manipulated: object dangerousness (neutral vs. dangerous); object category (artifact vs. natural); manual response typology (press vs. release a key); object presentation (Experiment 1: dynamic, Experiments 2 and 3: static); object movement direction (Experiment 1: away vs. toward the participant) or size (Experiments 2 and 3: big vs. normal vs. small). The task required participants to decide whether the object was an artifact or a natural object, by pressing or releasing one key. Results showed a facilitation for neutral over dangerous objects in the static situation, probably due to an affordance effect. Instead, in the dynamic condition responses were modulated by the object movement direction, with a dynamic affordance effect elicited by neutral objects and an escape-avoidance effect provoked by dangerous objects (neutral objects were processed faster when they moved toward-approached the participant, whereas dangerous objects were processed faster when they moved away from the participant). Moreover, static stimuli influenced the manual response typology. These data indicate the emergence of dynamic affordance and

Circular common-path point diffraction interferometer.

PubMed

Du, Yongzhao; Feng, Guoying; Li, Hongru; Vargas, J; Zhou, Shouhuan

2012-10-01

A simple and compact point-diffraction interferometer with circular common-path geometry configuration is developed. The interferometer is constructed by a beam-splitter, two reflection mirrors, and a telescope system composed by two lenses. The signal and reference waves travel along the same path. Furthermore, an opaque mask containing a reference pinhole and a test object holder or test window is positioned in the common focal plane of the telescope system. The object wave is divided into two beams that take opposite paths along the interferometer. The reference wave is filtered by the reference pinhole, while the signal wave is transmitted through the object holder. The reference and signal waves are combined again in the beam-splitter and their interference is imaged in the CCD. The new design is compact, vibration insensitive, and suitable for the measurement of moving objects or dynamic processes.

Automatic Classification of Trees from Laser Scanning Point Clouds

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sirmacek, B.; Lindenbergh, R.

2015-08-01

Development of laser scanning technologies has promoted tree monitoring studies to a new level, as the laser scanning point clouds enable accurate 3D measurements in a fast and environmental friendly manner. In this paper, we introduce a probability matrix computation based algorithm for automatically classifying laser scanning point clouds into 'tree' and 'non-tree' classes. Our method uses the 3D coordinates of the laser scanning points as input and generates a new point cloud which holds a label for each point indicating if it belongs to the 'tree' or 'non-tree' class. To do so, a grid surface is assigned to the lowest height level of the point cloud. The grids are filled with probability values which are calculated by checking the point density above the grid. Since the tree trunk locations appear with very high values in the probability matrix, selecting the local maxima of the grid surface help to detect the tree trunks. Further points are assigned to tree trunks if they appear in the close proximity of trunks. Since heavy mathematical computations (such as point cloud organization, detailed shape 3D detection methods, graph network generation) are not required, the proposed algorithm works very fast compared to the existing methods. The tree classification results are found reliable even on point clouds of cities containing many different objects. As the most significant weakness, false detection of light poles, traffic signs and other objects close to trees cannot be prevented. Nevertheless, the experimental results on mobile and airborne laser scanning point clouds indicate the possible usage of the algorithm as an important step for tree growth observation, tree counting and similar applications. While the laser scanning point cloud is giving opportunity to classify even very small trees, accuracy of the results is reduced in the low point density areas further away than the scanning location. These advantages and disadvantages of two laser scanning point

Phase object imaging inside the airy disc

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tychinsky, Vladimir P.

1991-03-01

The possibility of phase objects superresoluton imaging is theoretically justifieth The measurements with CPM " AIRYSCAN" showed the reality of O structures observations when the Airy disc di ameter i s 0 86 j. . m SUMMARY It has been known that the amount of information contained in the image of any object is mostly determined by the number of points measured i ndependentl y or by spati al resol uti on of the system. From the classic theory of the optical systems it follows that for noncoherent sources the -spatial resolution is limited by the aperture dd 6LX/N. A. ( Rayleigh criterion where X is wave length NA numerical aperture. ) The use of this criterion is equivalent tO the statement that any object inside the Airy disc of radius d that is the difraction image of a point is practical ly unresolved. However at the coherent illumination the intensity distribution in the image plane depends also upon the phase iq (r) of the wave scattered by the object and this is the basis of the Zernike method of phasecontrast microscopy differential interference contrast (DIC) and computer phase microscopy ( CPM ). In theoretical foundation of these methods there was no doubt in the correctness of Rayleigh criterion since the phase information is derived out of intensity distribution and as we know there were no experiments that disproved this

Interventions and assessment tools addressing key concepts people need to know to appraise claims about treatment effects: a systematic mapping review.

PubMed

Austvoll-Dahlgren, Astrid; Nsangi, Allen; Semakula, Daniel

2016-12-29

People's ability to appraise claims about treatment effects is crucial for informed decision-making. Our objective was to systematically map this area of research in order to (a) provide an overview of interventions targeting key concepts that people need to understand to assess treatment claims and (b) to identify assessment tools used to evaluate people's understanding of these concepts. The findings of this review provide a starting point for decisions about which key concepts to address when developing new interventions, and which assessment tools should be considered. We conducted a systematic mapping review of interventions and assessment tools addressing key concepts important for people to be able to assess treatment claims. A systematic literature search was done by a reserach librarian in relevant databases. Judgement about inclusion of studies and data collection was done by at least two researchers. We included all quantitative study designs targeting one or more of the key concepts, and targeting patients, healthy members of the public, and health professionals. The studies were divided into four categories: risk communication and decision aids, evidence-based medicine and critical appraisal, understanding of controlled trials, and science education. Findings were summarised descriptively. We included 415 studies, of which the interventions and assessment tools we identified included only a handful of the key concepts. The most common key concepts in interventions were "Treatments usually have beneficial and harmful effects," "Treatment comparisons should be fair," "Compare like with like," and "Single studies can be misleading." A variety of assessment tools were identified, but only four assessment tools included 10 or more key concepts. There is great potential for developing learning and assessment tools targeting key concepts that people need to understand to assess claims about treatment effects. There is currently no instrument covering

Tactile Recognition and Localization Using Object Models: The Case of Polyhedra on a Plane.

DTIC Science & Technology

1983-03-01

poor force resolution, but high spatial resolution. We feel that the viability of this recognition approach has important implications on the design of...of the touched object: 1. Surface point - On the basis of sensor readings, some points on the sensor can be identified as being in contact with...the sensor’s shape and location in space are known, one can determine the position of some point on the touched object, to within some uncertainty

Point-cloud-to-point-cloud technique on tool calibration for dental implant surgical path tracking

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lorsakul, Auranuch; Suthakorn, Jackrit; Sinthanayothin, Chanjira

2008-03-01

Dental implant is one of the most popular methods of tooth root replacement used in prosthetic dentistry. Computerize navigation system on a pre-surgical plan is offered to minimize potential risk of damage to critical anatomic structures of patients. Dental tool tip calibrating is basically an important procedure of intraoperative surgery to determine the relation between the hand-piece tool tip and hand-piece's markers. With the transferring coordinates from preoperative CT data to reality, this parameter is a part of components in typical registration problem. It is a part of navigation system which will be developed for further integration. A high accuracy is required, and this relation is arranged by point-cloud-to-point-cloud rigid transformations and singular value decomposition (SVD) for minimizing rigid registration errors. In earlier studies, commercial surgical navigation systems from, such as, BrainLAB and Materialize, have flexibility problem on tool tip calibration. Their systems either require a special tool tip calibration device or are unable to change the different tool. The proposed procedure is to use the pointing device or hand-piece to touch on the pivot and the transformation matrix. This matrix is calculated every time when it moves to the new position while the tool tip stays at the same point. The experiment acquired on the information of tracking device, image acquisition and image processing algorithms. The key success is that point-to-point-cloud requires only 3 post images of tool to be able to converge to the minimum errors 0.77%, and the obtained result is correct in using the tool holder to track the path simulation line displayed in graphic animation.

An Assistant for Loading Learning Object Metadata: An Ontology Based Approach

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Casali, Ana; Deco, Claudia; Romano, Agustín; Tomé, Guillermo

2013-01-01

In the last years, the development of different Repositories of Learning Objects has been increased. Users can retrieve these resources for reuse and personalization through searches in web repositories. The importance of high quality metadata is key for a successful retrieval. Learning Objects are described with metadata usually in the standard…

The engineering of a scalable multi-site communications system utilizing quantum key distribution (QKD)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tysowski, Piotr K.; Ling, Xinhua; Lütkenhaus, Norbert; Mosca, Michele

2018-04-01

Quantum key distribution (QKD) is a means of generating keys between a pair of computing hosts that is theoretically secure against cryptanalysis, even by a quantum computer. Although there is much active research into improving the QKD technology itself, there is still significant work to be done to apply engineering methodology and determine how it can be practically built to scale within an enterprise IT environment. Significant challenges exist in building a practical key management service (KMS) for use in a metropolitan network. QKD is generally a point-to-point technique only and is subject to steep performance constraints. The integration of QKD into enterprise-level computing has been researched, to enable quantum-safe communication. A novel method for constructing a KMS is presented that allows arbitrary computing hosts on one site to establish multiple secure communication sessions with the hosts of another site. A key exchange protocol is proposed where symmetric private keys are granted to hosts while satisfying the scalability needs of an enterprise population of users. The KMS operates within a layered architectural style that is able to interoperate with various underlying QKD implementations. Variable levels of security for the host population are enforced through a policy engine. A network layer provides key generation across a network of nodes connected by quantum links. Scheduling and routing functionality allows quantum key material to be relayed across trusted nodes. Optimizations are performed to match the real-time host demand for key material with the capacity afforded by the infrastructure. The result is a flexible and scalable architecture that is suitable for enterprise use and independent of any specific QKD technology.

Fast computation of hologram patterns of a 3D object using run-length encoding and novel look-up table methods.

PubMed

Kim, Seung-Cheol; Kim, Eun-Soo

2009-02-20

In this paper we propose a new approach for fast generation of computer-generated holograms (CGHs) of a 3D object by using the run-length encoding (RLE) and the novel look-up table (N-LUT) methods. With the RLE method, spatially redundant data of a 3D object are extracted and regrouped into the N-point redundancy map according to the number of the adjacent object points having the same 3D value. Based on this redundancy map, N-point principle fringe patterns (PFPs) are newly calculated by using the 1-point PFP of the N-LUT, and the CGH pattern for the 3D object is generated with these N-point PFPs. In this approach, object points to be involved in calculation of the CGH pattern can be dramatically reduced and, as a result, an increase of computational speed can be obtained. Some experiments with a test 3D object are carried out and the results are compared to those of the conventional methods.

Extraction of Extended Small-Scale Objects in Digital Images

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Volkov, V. Y.

2015-05-01

Detection and localization problem of extended small-scale objects with different shapes appears in radio observation systems which use SAR, infra-red, lidar and television camera. Intensive non-stationary background is the main difficulty for processing. Other challenge is low quality of images, blobs, blurred boundaries; in addition SAR images suffer from a serious intrinsic speckle noise. Statistics of background is not normal, it has evident skewness and heavy tails in probability density, so it is hard to identify it. The problem of extraction small-scale objects is solved here on the basis of directional filtering, adaptive thresholding and morthological analysis. New kind of masks is used which are open-ended at one side so it is possible to extract ends of line segments with unknown length. An advanced method of dynamical adaptive threshold setting is investigated which is based on isolated fragments extraction after thresholding. Hierarchy of isolated fragments on binary image is proposed for the analysis of segmentation results. It includes small-scale objects with different shape, size and orientation. The method uses extraction of isolated fragments in binary image and counting points in these fragments. Number of points in extracted fragments is normalized to the total number of points for given threshold and is used as effectiveness of extraction for these fragments. New method for adaptive threshold setting and control maximises effectiveness of extraction. It has optimality properties for objects extraction in normal noise field and shows effective results for real SAR images.

Classification of Aerial Photogrammetric 3d Point Clouds

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Becker, C.; Häni, N.; Rosinskaya, E.; d'Angelo, E.; Strecha, C.

2017-05-01

We present a powerful method to extract per-point semantic class labels from aerial photogrammetry data. Labelling this kind of data is important for tasks such as environmental modelling, object classification and scene understanding. Unlike previous point cloud classification methods that rely exclusively on geometric features, we show that incorporating color information yields a significant increase in accuracy in detecting semantic classes. We test our classification method on three real-world photogrammetry datasets that were generated with Pix4Dmapper Pro, and with varying point densities. We show that off-the-shelf machine learning techniques coupled with our new features allow us to train highly accurate classifiers that generalize well to unseen data, processing point clouds containing 10 million points in less than 3 minutes on a desktop computer.

Keep Away from Danger: Dangerous Objects in Dynamic and Static Situations

PubMed Central

Anelli, Filomena; Nicoletti, Roberto; Bolzani, Roberto; Borghi, Anna M.

2013-01-01

Behavioral and neuroscience studies have shown that objects observation evokes specific affordances (i.e., action possibilities) and motor responses. Recent findings provide evidence that even dangerous objects can modulate the motor system evoking aversive affordances. This sounds intriguing since so far the majority of behavioral, brain imaging, and transcranial magnetic stimulation studies with painful and dangerous stimuli strictly concerned the domain of pain, with the exception of evidence suggesting sensitivity to objects’ affordances when neutral objects are located in participants’ peripersonal space. This study investigates whether the observation of a neutral or dangerous object in a static or dynamic situation differently influences motor responses, and the time-course of the dangerous objects’ processing. In three experiments we manipulated: object dangerousness (neutral vs. dangerous); object category (artifact vs. natural); manual response typology (press vs. release a key); object presentation (Experiment 1: dynamic, Experiments 2 and 3: static); object movement direction (Experiment 1: away vs. toward the participant) or size (Experiments 2 and 3: big vs. normal vs. small). The task required participants to decide whether the object was an artifact or a natural object, by pressing or releasing one key. Results showed a facilitation for neutral over dangerous objects in the static situation, probably due to an affordance effect. Instead, in the dynamic condition responses were modulated by the object movement direction, with a dynamic affordance effect elicited by neutral objects and an escape-avoidance effect provoked by dangerous objects (neutral objects were processed faster when they moved toward-approached the participant, whereas dangerous objects were processed faster when they moved away from the participant). Moreover, static stimuli influenced the manual response typology. These data indicate the emergence of dynamic affordance and

The Introduction of Key Skills in Schools: Core or Casualty?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Glover, Derek; Gleeson, Denis; Johnson, Mike; Spencer, Pat; Watson, Ray

2000-01-01

Study of the introduction of generic Key Skills in two local education authorities in Britain found limited implementation. Results suggested the need for strategic district- and school-level management, clear aims and objectives, ownership by school staff, and cross-curricular application. (SK)

COGNITION, ACTION, AND OBJECT MANIPULATION

PubMed Central

Rosenbaum, David A.; Chapman, Kate M.; Weigelt, Matthias; Weiss, Daniel J.; van der Wel, Robrecht

2012-01-01

Although psychology is the science of mental life and behavior, it has paid little attention to the means by which mental life is translated into behavior. One domain where links between cognition and action have been explored is the manipulation of objects. This article reviews psychological research on this topic, with special emphasis on the tendency to grasp objects differently depending on what one plans to do with the objects. Such differential grasping has been demonstrated in a wide range of object manipulation tasks, including grasping an object in a way that reveals anticipation of the object's future orientation, height, and required placement precision. Differential grasping has also been demonstrated in a wide range of behaviors, including one-hand grasps, two-hand grasps, walking, and transferring objects from place to place as well as from person to person. The populations in whom the tendency has been shown are also diverse, including nonhuman primates as well as human adults, children, and babies. Meanwhile, the tendency is compromised in a variety of clinical populations and in children of a surprisingly advanced age. Verbal working memory is compromised as well if words are memorized while object manipulation tasks are performed; the recency portion of the serial position curve is reduced in this circumstance. In general, the research reviewed here points to rich connections between cognition and action as revealed through the study of object manipulation. Other implications concern affordances, Donders' Law, and naturalistic observation and the teaching of psychology. PMID:22448912

Simple Web-based interactive key development software (WEBiKEY) and an example key for Kuruna (Poaceae: Bambusoideae).

PubMed

Attigala, Lakshmi; De Silva, Nuwan I; Clark, Lynn G

2016-04-01

Programs that are user-friendly and freely available for developing Web-based interactive keys are scarce and most of the well-structured applications are relatively expensive. WEBiKEY was developed to enable researchers to easily develop their own Web-based interactive keys with fewer resources. A Web-based multiaccess identification tool (WEBiKEY) was developed that uses freely available Microsoft ASP.NET technologies and an SQL Server database for Windows-based hosting environments. WEBiKEY was tested for its usability with a sample data set, the temperate woody bamboo genus Kuruna (Poaceae). WEBiKEY is freely available to the public and can be used to develop Web-based interactive keys for any group of species. The interactive key we developed for Kuruna using WEBiKEY enables users to visually inspect characteristics of Kuruna and identify an unknown specimen as one of seven possible species in the genus.

Building Change Detection from Bi-Temporal Dense-Matching Point Clouds and Aerial Images.

PubMed

Pang, Shiyan; Hu, Xiangyun; Cai, Zhongliang; Gong, Jinqi; Zhang, Mi

2018-03-24

In this work, a novel building change detection method from bi-temporal dense-matching point clouds and aerial images is proposed to address two major problems, namely, the robust acquisition of the changed objects above ground and the automatic classification of changed objects into buildings or non-buildings. For the acquisition of changed objects above ground, the change detection problem is converted into a binary classification, in which the changed area above ground is regarded as the foreground and the other area as the background. For the gridded points of each period, the graph cuts algorithm is adopted to classify the points into foreground and background, followed by the region-growing algorithm to form candidate changed building objects. A novel structural feature that was extracted from aerial images is constructed to classify the candidate changed building objects into buildings and non-buildings. The changed building objects are further classified as "newly built", "taller", "demolished", and "lower" by combining the classification and the digital surface models of two periods. Finally, three typical areas from a large dataset are used to validate the proposed method. Numerous experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.

The Lambda Point Experiment in Microgravity

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Lipa, J. A.; Swanson, D. R.; Nissen, J. A.; Chui, T. C. P.

1993-01-01

In October 1992 a low temperature experiment was flown on the Space Shuttle in low earth orbit, using the JPL low temperature research facility. The objective of the mission was to measure the heat capacity and thermal relaxation of helium very close to the lambda point with the smearing effect of gravity removed.

Feature point based 3D tracking of multiple fish from multi-view images

PubMed Central

Qian, Zhi-Ming

2017-01-01

A feature point based method is proposed for tracking multiple fish in 3D space. First, a simplified representation of the object is realized through construction of two feature point models based on its appearance characteristics. After feature points are classified into occluded and non-occluded types, matching and association are performed, respectively. Finally, the object's motion trajectory in 3D space is obtained through integrating multi-view tracking results. Experimental results show that the proposed method can simultaneously track 3D motion trajectories for up to 10 fish accurately and robustly. PMID:28665966

Feature point based 3D tracking of multiple fish from multi-view images.

PubMed

Qian, Zhi-Ming; Chen, Yan Qiu

2017-01-01

A feature point based method is proposed for tracking multiple fish in 3D space. First, a simplified representation of the object is realized through construction of two feature point models based on its appearance characteristics. After feature points are classified into occluded and non-occluded types, matching and association are performed, respectively. Finally, the object's motion trajectory in 3D space is obtained through integrating multi-view tracking results. Experimental results show that the proposed method can simultaneously track 3D motion trajectories for up to 10 fish accurately and robustly.

Cosmological surveys with multi-object spectrographs

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Colless, Matthew

2016-08-01

Multi-object spectroscopy has been a key technique contributing to the current era of `precision cosmology.' From the first exploratory surveys of the large-scale structure and evolution of the universe to the current generation of superbly detailed maps spanning a wide range of redshifts, multi-object spectroscopy has been a fundamentally important tool for mapping the rich structure of the cosmic web and extracting cosmological information of increasing variety and precision. This will continue to be true for the foreseeable future, as we seek to map the evolving geometry and structure of the universe over the full extent of cosmic history in order to obtain the most precise and comprehensive measurements of cosmological parameters. Here I briefly summarize the contributions that multi-object spectroscopy has made to cosmology so far, then review the major surveys and instruments currently in play and their prospects for pushing back the cosmological frontier. Finally, I examine some of the next generation of instruments and surveys to explore how the field will develop in coming years, with a particular focus on specialised multi-object spectrographs for cosmology and the capabilities of multi-object spectrographs on the new generation of extremely large telescopes.

Estimating US federal wildland fire managers' preferences toward competing strategic suppression objectives

Treesearch

David E. Calkin; Tyron Venn; Matthew Wibbenmeyer; Matthew P. Thompson

2012-01-01

Wildfire management involves significant complexity and uncertainty, requiring simultaneous consideration of multiple, non-commensurate objectives. This paper investigates the tradeoffs fire managers are willing to make among these objectives using a choice experiment methodology that provides three key advancements relative to previous stated-preference studies...

The Web-based Module of Changes in Objects

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Triayomi, R.

2017-09-01

To understand the changes of substances contained in such a kind of substance and substance characteristics then need a deep study of the concept. In this concept is expected to understand the changes of objects such as substance type and substance characteristics. Types of substances and characteristics of substances through physical changes and chemical changes and means of separation consisting of two or more substances. The principle of separation of the mixture is based on differences in physical properties of its constituents, such as substances, particle size, melting point, boiling point, magnetic properties, solubility, and so forth. This study aims to produce a web-based module of changes in objects that are valid, practical, and have effectiveness of student learning outcomes and activities on natural science learning. The experiment was conducted on 30 children in South Sumatera. The case of the development of the learning module of change of the object is influenced by the child’s understanding of the concept. Expected to be adapted by world teachers.

A semi-automatic 2D-to-3D video conversion with adaptive key-frame selection

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ju, Kuanyu; Xiong, Hongkai

2014-11-01

To compensate the deficit of 3D content, 2D to 3D video conversion (2D-to-3D) has recently attracted more attention from both industrial and academic communities. The semi-automatic 2D-to-3D conversion which estimates corresponding depth of non-key-frames through key-frames is more desirable owing to its advantage of balancing labor cost and 3D effects. The location of key-frames plays a role on quality of depth propagation. This paper proposes a semi-automatic 2D-to-3D scheme with adaptive key-frame selection to keep temporal continuity more reliable and reduce the depth propagation errors caused by occlusion. The potential key-frames would be localized in terms of clustered color variation and motion intensity. The distance of key-frame interval is also taken into account to keep the accumulated propagation errors under control and guarantee minimal user interaction. Once their depth maps are aligned with user interaction, the non-key-frames depth maps would be automatically propagated by shifted bilateral filtering. Considering that depth of objects may change due to the objects motion or camera zoom in/out effect, a bi-directional depth propagation scheme is adopted where a non-key frame is interpolated from two adjacent key frames. The experimental results show that the proposed scheme has better performance than existing 2D-to-3D scheme with fixed key-frame interval.

Key frame extraction based on spatiotemporal motion trajectory

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhang, Yunzuo; Tao, Ran; Zhang, Feng

2015-05-01

Spatiotemporal motion trajectory can accurately reflect the changes of motion state. Motivated by this observation, this letter proposes a method for key frame extraction based on motion trajectory on the spatiotemporal slice. Different from the well-known motion related methods, the proposed method utilizes the inflexions of the motion trajectory on the spatiotemporal slice of all the moving objects. Experimental results show that although a similar performance is achieved in the single-objective screen, by comparing the proposed method to that achieved with the state-of-the-art methods based on motion energy or acceleration, the proposed method shows a better performance in a multiobjective video.

A Minimum Path Algorithm Among 3D-Polyhedral Objects

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yeltekin, Aysin

1989-03-01

In this work we introduce a minimum path theorem for 3D case. We also develop an algorithm based on the theorem we prove. The algorithm will be implemented on the software package we develop using C language. The theorem we introduce states that; "Given the initial point I, final point F and S be the set of finite number of static obstacles then an optimal path P from I to F, such that PA S = 0 is composed of straight line segments which are perpendicular to the edge segments of the objects." We prove the theorem as well as we develop the following algorithm depending on the theorem to find the minimum path among 3D-polyhedral objects. The algorithm generates the point Qi on edge ei such that at Qi one can find the line which is perpendicular to the edge and the IF line. The algorithm iteratively provides a new set of initial points from Qi and exploits all possible paths. Then the algorithm chooses the minimum path among the possible ones. The flowchart of the program as well as the examination of its numerical properties are included.

Interactive Reference Point Procedure Based on the Conic Scalarizing Function

PubMed Central

2014-01-01

In multiobjective optimization methods, multiple conflicting objectives are typically converted into a single objective optimization problem with the help of scalarizing functions. The conic scalarizing function is a general characterization of Benson proper efficient solutions of non-convex multiobjective problems in terms of saddle points of scalar Lagrangian functions. This approach preserves convexity. The conic scalarizing function, as a part of a posteriori or a priori methods, has successfully been applied to several real-life problems. In this paper, we propose a conic scalarizing function based interactive reference point procedure where the decision maker actively takes part in the solution process and directs the search according to her or his preferences. An algorithmic framework for the interactive solution of multiple objective optimization problems is presented and is utilized for solving some illustrative examples. PMID:24723795

SPOT 5/HRS: A Key Source for Navigation Database

DTIC Science & Technology

2003-09-02

SUBTITLE SPOT 5 / HRS: A Key Source for Navigation Database 5a. CONTRACT NUMBER 5b. GRANT NUMBER 5c. PROGRAM ELEMENT NUMBER 6. AUTHOR(S) 5d. PROJECT ......strategic objective. Nice data ….. What after ?? Filière SPOT Marc BERNARD Page 15 Producing from HRS u Partnership with IGN ( French

Teaching Structure-Property Relationships: Investigating Molecular Structure and Boiling Point

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Murphy, Peter M.

2007-01-01

A concise, well-organized table of the boiling points of 392 organic compounds has facilitated inquiry-based instruction in multiple scientific principles. Many individual or group learning activities can be derived from the tabulated data of molecular structure and boiling point based on the instructor's education objectives and the students'…

Analysis on Key Points of Construction and Management of Municipal Landscape Engineering

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Liang, Mingxia; Fei, Cheng

2018-02-01

At present, China has made great efforts to promote the construction of ecological civilization and promote the development of ecological protection and environmental construction. It has important practical significance to maintain the ecological balance and environmental quality of our country. Especially with the gradual improvement in people’s awareness of environmental protection, so that the green of the city also put forward higher requirements at the same time with the rising of the level of urbanization. In the process of urban landscape construction, the rational planning of urban landscaping involves a lot of subject knowledge. In the green process, we should fully consider the system of urban development and construction in China, based on the design of urban development and long-term planning of the landscaping project. In addition, we must also consider the traditional layout of the city area and the physical and geographical situation and so on, to enhance the objective and scientific nature of urban landscape. Therefore, it is of great practical significance to ensure the quality of landscaping in the effective management of municipal landscape engineering.

Ares Knowledge Capture: Summary and Key Themes Presentation

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Coates, Ralph H.

2011-01-01

This report has been developed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate (HEOMD) Risk Management team in close coordination with the MSFC Chief Engineers Office. This document provides a point-in-time, cumulative, summary of actionable key lessons learned derived from the design project. Lessons learned invariably address challenges and risks and the way in which these areas have been addressed. Accordingly the risk management thread is woven throughout the document.

Non-Verbal Communicative Signals Modulate Attention to Object Properties

PubMed Central

Marno, Hanna; Davelaar, Eddy J.; Csibra, Gergely

2015-01-01

We investigated whether the social context in which an object is experienced influences the encoding of its various properties. We hypothesized that when an object is observed in a communicative context, its intrinsic features (such as its shape) would be preferentially encoded at the expense of its extrinsic properties (such as its location). In the three experiments, participants were presented with brief movies, in which an actor either performed a non-communicative action towards one of five different meaningless objects, or communicatively pointed at one of them. A subsequent static image, in which either the location or the identity of an object changed, tested participants’ attention to these two kinds of information. Throughout the three experiments we found that communicative cues tended to facilitate identity change detection and to impede location change detection, while in the non-communicative contexts we did not find such a bidirectional effect of cueing. The results also revealed that the effect of the communicative context was due to the presence of ostensive-communicative signals before the object-directed action, and not to the pointing gesture per se. We propose that such an attentional bias forms an inherent part of human communication, and function to facilitate social learning by communication. PMID:24294871

Distributed Factorization Computation on Multiple Volunteered Mobile Resource to Break RSA Key

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jaya, I.; Hardi, S. M.; Tarigan, J. T.; Zamzami, E. M.; Sihombing, P.

2017-01-01

Similar to common asymmeric encryption, RSA can be cracked by usmg a series mathematical calculation. The private key used to decrypt the massage can be computed using the public key. However, finding the private key may require a massive amount of calculation. In this paper, we propose a method to perform a distributed computing to calculate RSA’s private key. The proposed method uses multiple volunteered mobile devices to contribute during the calculation process. Our objective is to demonstrate how the use of volunteered computing on mobile devices may be a feasible option to reduce the time required to break a weak RSA encryption and observe the behavior and running time of the application on mobile devices.

A Well-Clear Volume Based on Time to Entry Point

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Narkawicz, Anthony J.; Munoz, Cesar A.; Upchurch, Jason M.; Chamberlain, James P.; Consiglio, Maria C.

2014-01-01

A well-clear volume is a key component of NASA's Separation Assurance concept for the integration of UAS in the NAS. This paper proposes a mathematical definition of the well-clear volume that uses, in addition to distance thresholds, a time threshold based on time to entry point (TEP). The mathematical model that results from this definition is more conservative than other candidate definitions of the wellclear volume that are based on range over closure rate and time to closest point of approach.

A Secure and Robust Object-Based Video Authentication System

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

He, Dajun; Sun, Qibin; Tian, Qi

2004-12-01

An object-based video authentication system, which combines watermarking, error correction coding (ECC), and digital signature techniques, is presented for protecting the authenticity between video objects and their associated backgrounds. In this system, a set of angular radial transformation (ART) coefficients is selected as the feature to represent the video object and the background, respectively. ECC and cryptographic hashing are applied to those selected coefficients to generate the robust authentication watermark. This content-based, semifragile watermark is then embedded into the objects frame by frame before MPEG4 coding. In watermark embedding and extraction, groups of discrete Fourier transform (DFT) coefficients are randomly selected, and their energy relationships are employed to hide and extract the watermark. The experimental results demonstrate that our system is robust to MPEG4 compression, object segmentation errors, and some common object-based video processing such as object translation, rotation, and scaling while securely preventing malicious object modifications. The proposed solution can be further incorporated into public key infrastructure (PKI).

The OCO-3 Mission: Science Objectives and Instrument Performance

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Eldering, A.; Basilio, R. R.; Bennett, M. W.

2017-12-01

The Orbiting Carbon Observatory 3 (OCO-3) will continue global CO2 and solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF) using the flight spare instrument from OCO-2. The instrument is currently being tested, and will be packaged for installation on the International Space Station (ISS) (launch readiness in early 2018.) This talk will focus on the science objectives, updated simulations of the science data products, and the outcome of recent instrument performance tests. The low-inclination ISS orbit lets OCO-3 sample the tropics and sub-tropics across the full range of daylight hours with dense observations at northern and southern mid-latitudes (+/- 52º). The combination of these dense CO2 and SIF measurements provides continuity of data for global flux estimates as well as a unique opportunity to address key deficiencies in our understanding of the global carbon cycle. The instrument utilizes an agile, 2-axis pointing mechanism (PMA), providing the capability to look towards the bright reflection from the ocean and validation targets. The PMA also allows for a snapshot mapping mode to collect dense datasets over 100km by 100km areas. Measurements over urban centers could aid in making estimates of fossil fuel CO2 emissions. Similarly, the snapshot mapping mode can be used to sample regions of interest for the terrestrial carbon cycle. In addition, there is potential to utilize data from ISS instruments ECOSTRESS (ECOsystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station) and GEDI (Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation), which measure other key variables of the control of carbon uptake by plants, to complement OCO-3 data in science analysis. In 2017, the OCO-2 instrument was transformed into the ISS-ready OCO-3 payload. The transformed instrument was thoroughly tested and characterized. Key characteristics, such as instrument ILS, spectral resolution, and radiometric performance will be described. Analysis of direct sun measurements taken during testing

Objective responses in relapsed T-cell lymphomas with single-agent brentuximab vedotin

PubMed Central

Advani, Ranjana H.; Bartlett, Nancy L.; Jacobsen, Eric D.; Sharman, Jeff P.; O’Connor, Owen A.; Siddiqi, Tanya; Kennedy, Dana A.; Oki, Yasuhiro

2014-01-01

This phase 2, open-label, multicenter study evaluated the efficacy and safety of brentuximab vedotin, a CD30-directed antibody-drug conjugate, in relapsed/refractory CD30+ non-Hodgkin lymphomas. The primary end point was objective response rate (ORR). Key secondary end points included safety, correlation of CD30 expression with response, response duration, and progression-free survival (PFS). Brentuximab vedotin 1.8 mg/kg was administered every 3 weeks until progression or unacceptable toxicity. This planned subset analysis included patients with peripheral T-cell lymphomas (PTCLs; n = 35), specifically angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma (AITL; n = 13) and PTCL not otherwise specified (n = 22). Median age was 64 years; 63% were refractory to most recent therapy. Of 34 evaluable patients, ORR was 41% (8 complete remissions [CRs], 6 partial remissions [PRs]), and ORR was 54% in AITL (5 CRs, 2 PRs) with median PFS of 6.7 months thus far. No correlation between CD30 expression per central review and response was observed. Safety data were consistent with the known profile of brentuximab vedotin, and included at least grade 3 events of neutropenia (14%), peripheral sensory neuropathy, and hyperkalemia (9% each). In summary, brentuximab vedotin showed antitumor activity in patients with relapsed PTCL particularly AITL. This trial was registered at www.clinicaltrials.gov as #NCT01421667. PMID:24652992

Unsupervised Detection of Planetary Craters by a Marked Point Process

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Troglio, G.; Benediktsson, J. A.; Le Moigne, J.; Moser, G.; Serpico, S. B.

2011-01-01

With the launch of several planetary missions in the last decade, a large amount of planetary images is being acquired. Preferably, automatic and robust processing techniques need to be used for data analysis because of the huge amount of the acquired data. Here, the aim is to achieve a robust and general methodology for crater detection. A novel technique based on a marked point process is proposed. First, the contours in the image are extracted. The object boundaries are modeled as a configuration of an unknown number of random ellipses, i.e., the contour image is considered as a realization of a marked point process. Then, an energy function is defined, containing both an a priori energy and a likelihood term. The global minimum of this function is estimated by using reversible jump Monte-Carlo Markov chain dynamics and a simulated annealing scheme. The main idea behind marked point processes is to model objects within a stochastic framework: Marked point processes represent a very promising current approach in the stochastic image modeling and provide a powerful and methodologically rigorous framework to efficiently map and detect objects and structures in an image with an excellent robustness to noise. The proposed method for crater detection has several feasible applications. One such application area is image registration by matching the extracted features.

Use of point-of-sale data to assess food and nutrient quality in remote stores.

PubMed

Brimblecombe, Julie; Liddle, Robyn; O'Dea, Kerin

2013-07-01

To examine the feasibility of using point-of-sale data to assess dietary quality of food sales in remote stores. A multi-site cross-sectional assessment of food and nutrient composition of food sales. Point-of-sale data were linked to Australian Food and Nutrient Data and compared across study sites and with nutrient requirements. Remote Aboriginal Australia. Six stores. Point-of-sale data were readily available and provided a low-cost, efficient and objective assessment of food and nutrient sales. Similar patterns in macronutrient distribution, food expenditure and key food sources of nutrients were observed across stores. In all stores, beverages, cereal and cereal products, and meat and meat products comprised approximately half of food sales (range 49–57 %). Fruit and vegetable sales comprised 10.4 (SD 1.9) % on average. Carbohydrate contributed 54.4 (SD 3.0) % to energy; protein 13.5 (SD 1.1) %; total sugars 28.9 (SD 4.3) %; and the contribution of total saturated fat to energy ranged from 11.0 to 14.4% across stores. Mg, Ca, K and fibre were limiting nutrients, and Na was four to five times higher than the midpoint of the average intake range. Relatively few foods were major sources of nutrients. Point-of-sale data enabled an assessment of dietary quality within stores and across stores with no burden on communities and at no cost, other than time required for analysis and reporting. Similar food spending patterns and nutrient profiles were observed across the six stores. This suggests potential in using point-of-sale data to monitor and evaluate dietary quality in remote Australian communities.

Interest point detection for hyperspectral imagery

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Dorado-Muñoz, Leidy P.; Vélez-Reyes, Miguel; Roysam, Badrinath; Mukherjee, Amit

2009-05-01

This paper presents an algorithm for automated extraction of interest points (IPs)in multispectral and hyperspectral images. Interest points are features of the image that capture information from its neighbours and they are distinctive and stable under transformations such as translation and rotation. Interest-point operators for monochromatic images were proposed more than a decade ago and have since been studied extensively. IPs have been applied to diverse problems in computer vision, including image matching, recognition, registration, 3D reconstruction, change detection, and content-based image retrieval. Interest points are helpful in data reduction, and reduce the computational burden of various algorithms (like registration, object detection, 3D reconstruction etc) by replacing an exhaustive search over the entire image domain by a probe into a concise set of highly informative points. An interest operator seeks out points in an image that are structurally distinct, invariant to imaging conditions, stable under geometric transformation, and interpretable which are good candidates for interest points. Our approach extends ideas from Lowe's keypoint operator that uses local extrema of Difference of Gaussian (DoG) operator at multiple scales to detect interest point in gray level images. The proposed approach extends Lowe's method by direct conversion of scalar operations such as scale-space generation, and extreme point detection into operations that take the vector nature of the image into consideration. Experimental results with RGB and hyperspectral images which demonstrate the potential of the method for this application and the potential improvements of a fully vectorial approach over band-by-band approaches described in the literature.

The SECOQC quantum key distribution network in Vienna

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Peev, M.; Pacher, C.; Alléaume, R.; Barreiro, C.; Bouda, J.; Boxleitner, W.; Debuisschert, T.; Diamanti, E.; Dianati, M.; Dynes, J. F.; Fasel, S.; Fossier, S.; Fürst, M.; Gautier, J.-D.; Gay, O.; Gisin, N.; Grangier, P.; Happe, A.; Hasani, Y.; Hentschel, M.; Hübel, H.; Humer, G.; Länger, T.; Legré, M.; Lieger, R.; Lodewyck, J.; Lorünser, T.; Lütkenhaus, N.; Marhold, A.; Matyus, T.; Maurhart, O.; Monat, L.; Nauerth, S.; Page, J.-B.; Poppe, A.; Querasser, E.; Ribordy, G.; Robyr, S.; Salvail, L.; Sharpe, A. W.; Shields, A. J.; Stucki, D.; Suda, M.; Tamas, C.; Themel, T.; Thew, R. T.; Thoma, Y.; Treiber, A.; Trinkler, P.; Tualle-Brouri, R.; Vannel, F.; Walenta, N.; Weier, H.; Weinfurter, H.; Wimberger, I.; Yuan, Z. L.; Zbinden, H.; Zeilinger, A.

2009-07-01

In this paper, we present the quantum key distribution (QKD) network designed and implemented by the European project SEcure COmmunication based on Quantum Cryptography (SECOQC) (2004-2008), unifying the efforts of 41 research and industrial organizations. The paper summarizes the SECOQC approach to QKD networks with a focus on the trusted repeater paradigm. It discusses the architecture and functionality of the SECOQC trusted repeater prototype, which has been put into operation in Vienna in 2008 and publicly demonstrated in the framework of a SECOQC QKD conference held from October 8 to 10, 2008. The demonstration involved one-time pad encrypted telephone communication, a secure (AES encryption protected) video-conference with all deployed nodes and a number of rerouting experiments, highlighting basic mechanisms of the SECOQC network functionality. The paper gives an overview of the eight point-to-point network links in the prototype and their underlying technology: three plug and play systems by id Quantique, a one way weak pulse system from Toshiba Research in the UK, a coherent one-way system by GAP Optique with the participation of id Quantique and the AIT Austrian Institute of Technology (formerly ARCAustrian Research Centers GmbH—ARC is now operating under the new name AIT Austrian Institute of Technology GmbH following a restructuring initiative.), an entangled photons system by the University of Vienna and the AIT, a continuous-variables system by Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) and THALES Research and Technology with the participation of Université Libre de Bruxelles, and a free space link by the Ludwig Maximillians University in Munich connecting two nodes situated in adjacent buildings (line of sight 80 m). The average link length is between 20 and 30 km, the longest link being 83 km. The paper presents the architecture and functionality of the principal networking agent—the SECOQC node module, which enables the authentic

Graduate Entrepreneurship Incubation Environments: A Framework of Key Success Factors

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Al-Dajani, Haya; Dedoussis, Evangelos; Watson, Erika; Tzokas, Nikalaos

2014-01-01

The benchmarking framework developed in this study is specifically designed for higher education institutions to consider when developing environments to encourage entrepreneurship among their students, graduates and staff. The objective of the study was to identify key success factors of Graduate Entrepreneurship Incubator Environments (GEIEs)…

Design of virtual simulation experiment based on key events

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhong, Zheng; Zhou, Dongbo; Song, Lingxiu

2018-06-01

Considering complex content and lacking of guidance in virtual simulation experiments, the key event technology in VR narrative theory was introduced for virtual simulation experiment to enhance fidelity and vividness process. Based on the VR narrative technology, an event transition structure was designed to meet the need of experimental operation process, and an interactive event processing model was used to generate key events in interactive scene. The experiment of" margin value of bees foraging" based on Biologic morphology was taken as an example, many objects, behaviors and other contents were reorganized. The result shows that this method can enhance the user's experience and ensure experimental process complete and effectively.

Chromium Picolinate Does Not Improve Key Features of Metabolic Syndrome in Obese Nondiabetic Adults

PubMed Central

Iqbal, Nayyar; Cardillo, Serena; Volger, Sheri; Bloedon, LeAnne T.; Anderson, Richard A.; Boston, Raymond

2009-01-01

Abstract Background The use of chromium-containing dietary supplements is widespread among patients with type 2 diabetes. Chromium's effects in patients at high risk for developing diabetes, especially those with metabolic syndrome, is unknown. The objective of this study was to determine the effects of chromium picolinate (CrPic) on glucose metabolism in patients with metabolic syndrome. Method A double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized trial was conducted at a U.S. academic medical center. Sixty three patients with National Cholesterol Education Program (NCEP) Adult Treatment Panel III (ATP III)-defined metabolic syndrome were included. The primary end point was a change in the insulin sensitivity index derived from a frequently sampled intravenous glucose tolerance test. Prespecified secondary end points included changes in other measurements of glucose metabolism, oxidative stress, fasting serum lipids, and high sensitivity C-reactive protein. Results After 16 weeks of CrPic treatment, there was no significant change in insulin sensitivity index between groups (P = 0.14). However, CrPic increased acute insulin response to glucose (P = 0.02). CrPic had no significant effect on other measures of glucose metabolism, body weight, serum lipids, or measures of inflammation and oxidative stress. Conclusion CrPic at 1000 μg/day does not improve key features of the metabolic syndrome in obese nondiabetic patients. PMID:19422140

SOP: parallel surrogate global optimization with Pareto center selection for computationally expensive single objective problems

DOE PAGES

Krityakierne, Tipaluck; Akhtar, Taimoor; Shoemaker, Christine A.

2016-02-02

This paper presents a parallel surrogate-based global optimization method for computationally expensive objective functions that is more effective for larger numbers of processors. To reach this goal, we integrated concepts from multi-objective optimization and tabu search into, single objective, surrogate optimization. Our proposed derivative-free algorithm, called SOP, uses non-dominated sorting of points for which the expensive function has been previously evaluated. The two objectives are the expensive function value of the point and the minimum distance of the point to previously evaluated points. Based on the results of non-dominated sorting, P points from the sorted fronts are selected as centersmore » from which many candidate points are generated by random perturbations. Based on surrogate approximation, the best candidate point is subsequently selected for expensive evaluation for each of the P centers, with simultaneous computation on P processors. Centers that previously did not generate good solutions are tabu with a given tenure. We show almost sure convergence of this algorithm under some conditions. The performance of SOP is compared with two RBF based methods. The test results show that SOP is an efficient method that can reduce time required to find a good near optimal solution. In a number of cases the efficiency of SOP is so good that SOP with 8 processors found an accurate answer in less wall-clock time than the other algorithms did with 32 processors.« less

Controlling Continuous-Variable Quantum Key Distribution with Entanglement in the Middle Using Tunable Linear Optics Cloning Machines

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wu, Xiao Dong; Chen, Feng; Wu, Xiang Hua; Guo, Ying

2017-02-01

Continuous-variable quantum key distribution (CVQKD) can provide detection efficiency, as compared to discrete-variable quantum key distribution (DVQKD). In this paper, we demonstrate a controllable CVQKD with the entangled source in the middle, contrast to the traditional point-to-point CVQKD where the entanglement source is usually created by one honest party and the Gaussian noise added on the reference partner of the reconciliation is uncontrollable. In order to harmonize the additive noise that originates in the middle to resist the effect of malicious eavesdropper, we propose a controllable CVQKD protocol by performing a tunable linear optics cloning machine (LOCM) at one participant's side, say Alice. Simulation results show that we can achieve the optimal secret key rates by selecting the parameters of the tuned LOCM in the derived regions.

Exceptional points enhance sensing in an optical microcavity

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chen, Weijian; Kaya Özdemir, Şahin; Zhao, Guangming; Wiersig, Jan; Yang, Lan

2017-08-01

Sensors play an important part in many aspects of daily life such as infrared sensors in home security systems, particle sensors for environmental monitoring and motion sensors in mobile phones. High-quality optical microcavities are prime candidates for sensing applications because of their ability to enhance light-matter interactions in a very confined volume. Examples of such devices include mechanical transducers, magnetometers, single-particle absorption spectrometers, and microcavity sensors for sizing single particles and detecting nanometre-scale objects such as single nanoparticles and atomic ions. Traditionally, a very small perturbation near an optical microcavity introduces either a change in the linewidth or a frequency shift or splitting of a resonance that is proportional to the strength of the perturbation. Here we demonstrate an alternative sensing scheme, by which the sensitivity of microcavities can be enhanced when operated at non-Hermitian spectral degeneracies known as exceptional points. In our experiments, we use two nanoscale scatterers to tune a whispering-gallery-mode micro-toroid cavity, in which light propagates along a concave surface by continuous total internal reflection, in a precise and controlled manner to exceptional points. A target nanoscale object that subsequently enters the evanescent field of the cavity perturbs the system from its exceptional point, leading to frequency splitting. Owing to the complex-square-root topology near an exceptional point, this frequency splitting scales as the square root of the perturbation strength and is therefore larger (for sufficiently small perturbations) than the splitting observed in traditional non-exceptional-point sensing schemes. Our demonstration of exceptional-point-enhanced sensitivity paves the way for sensors with unprecedented sensitivity.

Navigable points estimation for mobile robots using binary image skeletonization

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Martinez S., Fernando; Jacinto G., Edwar; Montiel A., Holman

2017-02-01

This paper describes the use of image skeletonization for the estimation of all the navigable points, inside a scene of mobile robots navigation. Those points are used for computing a valid navigation path, using standard methods. The main idea is to find the middle and the extreme points of the obstacles in the scene, taking into account the robot size, and create a map of navigable points, in order to reduce the amount of information for the planning algorithm. Those points are located by means of the skeletonization of a binary image of the obstacles and the scene background, along with some other digital image processing algorithms. The proposed algorithm automatically gives a variable number of navigable points per obstacle, depending on the complexity of its shape. As well as, the way how the algorithm can change some of their parameters in order to change the final number of the resultant key points is shown. The results shown here were obtained applying different kinds of digital image processing algorithms on static scenes.

Objective measurement of tissue tension in myofascial trigger point areas before and during the administration of anesthesia with complete blocking of neuromuscular transmission.

PubMed

Buchmann, Johannes; Neustadt, Beate; Buchmann-Barthel, Katharina; Rudolph, Soeren; Klauer, Thomas; Reis, Olaf; Smolenski, Ulrich; Buchmann, Hella; Wagner, Klaus F; Haessler, Frank

2014-03-01

Myofascial trigger points (MTPs) are extremely frequent in the human musculoskeletal system. Despite this, little is known about their etiology. Increased muscular tension in the trigger point area could be a major factor for the development of MTPs. To investigate the impact of muscular tension in the taut band with an MTP and thereby, the spinal excitability of associated segmental neurons, we objectively measured the tissue tension in MTPs before and during the administration of anesthesia using a transducer. Three target muscles (m. temporalis, upper part of m. trapezius, and m. extensor carpi radialis longus) with an MTP and 1 control muscle without an MTP were examined in 62 patients scheduled for an operation. We found significant 2-way interactions (ANOVA, P<0.05) between the analyzed regions of the target muscles dependent on the time of measurement, that is, before and during a complete blocking of neuromuscular transmission. These effects could be demonstrated for each target muscle separately. An increased muscle tension in MTPs, and not a primary local inflammation with enhanced viscoelasticity, was the main result of our investigation. We interpret this increased muscular tension in the taut band with an MTP as increased spinal segmental excitability. In line with this, we assume a predominant, but not unique, impact of increased spinal excitability resulting in an augmented tension of segmental-associated muscle fibers for the etiology of MTP. Consequently, postisometric relaxation might be a promising therapeutic option for MTPs.

Digest of Key Science and Engineering Indicators, 2008. NSB-08-2

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

National Science Foundation, 2008

2008-01-01

This digest of key science and engineering indicators draws primarily from the National Science Board's two-volume "Science and Engineering Indicators, 2008" report. The digest serves two purposes: (1) to draw attention to important trends and data points from across the chapters and volumes of "Science and Engineering Indicators, 2008," and (2)…

The application of the pilot points in groundwater numerical inversion model

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hu, Bin; Teng, Yanguo; Cheng, Lirong

2015-04-01

zones. And add range of disturbance values to inversion targets to calculate the value of hydraulic conductivity. Third, after inversion calculation (PEST), the interpolated field will minimize an objective function measuring the misfit between calculated and measured data. It's an optimization problem to find the optimum value of parameters. After the inversion modeling, the following major conclusion can be found out: (1) In a field structure formation is heterogeneity, the results of pilot point method is more real: better fitting result of parameters, more stable calculation of numerical simulation (stable residual distribution). Compared to zones, it is better of reflecting the heterogeneity of study field. (2) Pilot point method ensures that each parameter is sensitive and not entirely dependent on other parameters. Thus it guarantees the relative independence and authenticity of parameters evaluation results. However, it costs more time to calculate than zones. Key words: groundwater; pilot point; inverse model; heterogeneity; hydraulic conductivity

Do reference surfaces influence exocentric pointing?

PubMed

Doumen, M J A; Kappers, A M L; Koenderink, J J

2008-06-01

All elements of the visual field are known to influence the perception of the egocentric distances of objects. Not only the ground surface of a scene, but also the surface at the back or other objects in the scene can affect an observer's egocentric distance estimation of an object. We tested whether this is also true for exocentric direction estimations. We used an exocentric pointing task to test whether the presence of poster-boards in the visual scene would influence the perception of the exocentric direction between two test-objects. In this task the observer has to direct a pointer, with a remote control, to a target. We placed the poster-boards at various positions in the visual field to test whether these boards would affect the settings of the observer. We found that they only affected the settings when they directly served as a reference for orienting the pointer to the target.

Development of Fixed-Point Cells at the SMU

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ďuriš, S.; Ranostaj, J.; Palenčár, R.

2008-06-01

One of the research programs realized at the thermometry laboratory of the Slovak Institute of Metrology (SMU) in recent years has focused on the development of fixed-point cells. In the frame of this research, several primary cells for realization of the International Temperature Scale of 1990 (ITS-90) and several secondary cells for industrial thermometer calibrations were built and studied. This article discusses primary cells for the gallium and mercury fixed points and miniature cells for the zinc point that were developed at the SMU. Information about the cell designs is provided, the materials that were used are specified, and the procedures for their manufacture are described. Briefly, the realization of the fixed points of mercury, gallium, and zinc by using these cells is also described. Many experiments were carried out to study the characteristics of these cells. One of the gallium cells was compared with the circulating transfer cell during the key comparison CCT-K3, and it and the mercury cell were used for the EUROMET Project No. 552. The results of the experiments together with the results of the comparisons show the high quality of these cells. Secondary zinc-point cells were compared against SMU primary zinc-point cells. The comparison shows agreement within 0.12 mK.

Reduction of Subjective and Objective System Complexity

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Watson, Michael D.

2015-01-01

Occam's razor is often used in science to define the minimum criteria to establish a physical or philosophical idea or relationship. Albert Einstein is attributed the saying "everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler". These heuristic ideas are based on a belief that there is a minimum state or set of states for a given system or phenomena. In looking at system complexity, these heuristics point us to an idea that complexity can be reduced to a minimum. How then, do we approach a reduction in complexity? Complexity has been described as a subjective concept and an objective measure of a system. Subjective complexity is based on human cognitive comprehension of the functions and inter relationships of a system. Subjective complexity is defined by the ability to fully comprehend the system. Simplifying complexity, in a subjective sense, is thus gaining a deeper understanding of the system. As Apple's Jonathon Ive has stated," It's not just minimalism or the absence of clutter. It involves digging through the depth of complexity. To be truly simple, you have to go really deep". Simplicity is not the absence of complexity but a deeper understanding of complexity. Subjective complexity, based on this human comprehension, cannot then be discerned from the sociological concept of ignorance. The inability to comprehend a system can be either a lack of knowledge, an inability to understand the intricacies of a system, or both. Reduction in this sense is based purely on a cognitive ability to understand the system and no system then may be truly complex. From this view, education and experience seem to be the keys to reduction or eliminating complexity. Objective complexity, is the measure of the systems functions and interrelationships which exist independent of human comprehension. Jonathon Ive's statement does not say that complexity is removed, only that the complexity is understood. From this standpoint, reduction of complexity can be approached

Point spread function and depth-invariant focal sweep point spread function for plenoptic camera 2.0.

PubMed

Jin, Xin; Liu, Li; Chen, Yanqin; Dai, Qionghai

2017-05-01

This paper derives a mathematical point spread function (PSF) and a depth-invariant focal sweep point spread function (FSPSF) for plenoptic camera 2.0. Derivation of PSF is based on the Fresnel diffraction equation and image formation analysis of a self-built imaging system which is divided into two sub-systems to reflect the relay imaging properties of plenoptic camera 2.0. The variations in PSF, which are caused by changes of object's depth and sensor position variation, are analyzed. A mathematical model of FSPSF is further derived, which is verified to be depth-invariant. Experiments on the real imaging systems demonstrate the consistency between the proposed PSF and the actual imaging results.

On marginally resolved objects in optical interferometry

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lachaume, R.

2003-03-01

With the present and soon-to-be breakthrough of optical interferometry, countless objects shall be within reach of interferometers; yet, most of them are expected to remain only marginally resolved with hectometric baselines. In this paper, we tackle the problem of deriving the properties of a marginally resolved object from its optical visibilities. We show that they depend on the moments of flux distribution of the object: centre, mean angular size, asymmetry, and curtosis. We also point out that the visibility amplitude is a second-order phenomenon, whereas the phase is a combination of a first-order term, giving the location of the photocentre, and a third-order term, more difficult to detect than the visibility amplitude, giving an asymmetry coefficient of the object. We then demonstrate that optical visibilities are not a good model constraint while the object stays marginally resolved, unless observations are carried out at different wavelengths. Finally, we show an application of this formalism to circumstellar discs.

The Near-Earth Object Camera

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mainzer, Amy K.; NEOCam Science Team

2017-10-01

The Near-Earth Object Camera (NEOCam) is a NASA mission in formulation designed to find, track, and provide basic physical characterization of asteroids and comets that make close approaches to Earth. Its goal is to reduce the risk of impacts from undetected near-Earth objects (NEOs) capable of causing global and regional disasters. NEOCam consists of a 50 cm telescope operating at two channels dominated by NEO thermal emission, 4.2-5.0um and 6-10um, in order to better constrain the objects' temperatures and diameters. Orbiting the Sun-Earth L1 Lagrange point, the mission would find hundreds of thousands of NEOs and would make significant progress toward the Congressional objective of discovering more than 90% of NEOs larger than 140 m during its five-year lifetime. The mission uses novel 2048x2048 HgCdTe detectors that extend the wavelength cutoff beyond 10um at an operating temperature of 40K (Dorn et al. 2016). Both the optical system and the detectors are cooled passively using radiators and thermal shields to enable long mission life and to avoid the complexity of cryocoolers or cryogens. NEOCam is currently in an extended Phase A.

Contour-based object orientation estimation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Alpatov, Boris; Babayan, Pavel

2016-04-01

Real-time object orientation estimation is an actual problem of computer vision nowadays. In this paper we propose an approach to estimate an orientation of objects lacking axial symmetry. Proposed algorithm is intended to estimate orientation of a specific known 3D object, so 3D model is required for learning. The proposed orientation estimation algorithm consists of 2 stages: learning and estimation. Learning stage is devoted to the exploring of studied object. Using 3D model we can gather set of training images by capturing 3D model from viewpoints evenly distributed on a sphere. Sphere points distribution is made by the geosphere principle. It minimizes the training image set. Gathered training image set is used for calculating descriptors, which will be used in the estimation stage of the algorithm. The estimation stage is focusing on matching process between an observed image descriptor and the training image descriptors. The experimental research was performed using a set of images of Airbus A380. The proposed orientation estimation algorithm showed good accuracy (mean error value less than 6°) in all case studies. The real-time performance of the algorithm was also demonstrated.

3-D Object Pose Determination Using Complex EGI

DTIC Science & Technology

1990-10-01

the length of edges of the polyhedron from the EGI. Dane and Bajcsy [4] make use of the Gaussian Image to spatially segment a group of range points...involving real range data of two smooth objects were conducted. The two smooth objects are the torus and ellipsoid, whose databases have been created...in the simulations earlier. 5.0.1 Implementational Issues The torus and ellipsoid were crafted out of clay to resemble the models whose databases were

Freeform object design and simultaneous manufacturing

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhang, Wei; Zhang, Weihan; Lin, Heng; Leu, Ming C.

2003-04-01

Today's product design, especially the consuming product design, focuses more and more on individuation, originality, and the time to market. One way to meet these challenges is using the interactive and creationary product design methods and rapid prototyping/rapid tooling. This paper presents a novel Freeform Object Design and Simultaneous Manufacturing (FODSM) method that combines the natural interaction feature in the design phase and simultaneous manufacturing feature in the prototyping phase. The natural interactive three-dimensional design environment is achieved by adopting virtual reality technology. The geometry of the designed object is defined through the process of "virtual sculpting" during which the designer can touch and visualize the designed object and can hear the virtual manufacturing environment noise. During the designing process, the computer records the sculpting trajectories and automatically translates them into NC codes so as to simultaneously machine the designed part. The paper introduced the principle, implementation process, and key techniques of the new method, and compared it with other popular rapid prototyping methods.

Simple Web-based interactive key development software (WEBiKEY) and an example key for Kuruna (Poaceae: Bambusoideae)1

PubMed Central

Attigala, Lakshmi; De Silva, Nuwan I.; Clark, Lynn G.

2016-01-01

Premise of the study: Programs that are user-friendly and freely available for developing Web-based interactive keys are scarce and most of the well-structured applications are relatively expensive. WEBiKEY was developed to enable researchers to easily develop their own Web-based interactive keys with fewer resources. Methods and Results: A Web-based multiaccess identification tool (WEBiKEY) was developed that uses freely available Microsoft ASP.NET technologies and an SQL Server database for Windows-based hosting environments. WEBiKEY was tested for its usability with a sample data set, the temperate woody bamboo genus Kuruna (Poaceae). Conclusions: WEBiKEY is freely available to the public and can be used to develop Web-based interactive keys for any group of species. The interactive key we developed for Kuruna using WEBiKEY enables users to visually inspect characteristics of Kuruna and identify an unknown specimen as one of seven possible species in the genus. PMID:27144109

[Process and key points of clinical literature evaluation of post-marketing traditional Chinese medicine].

PubMed

Liu, Huan; Xie, Yanming

2011-10-01

The clinical literature evaluation of the post-marketing traditional Chinese medicine is a comprehensive evaluation by the comprehensive gain, analysis of the drug, literature of drug efficacy, safety, economy, based on the literature evidence and is part of the evaluation of evidence-based medicine. The literature evaluation in the post-marketing Chinese medicine clinical evaluation is in the foundation and the key position. Through the literature evaluation, it can fully grasp the information, grasp listed drug variety of traditional Chinese medicines second development orientation, make clear further clinical indications, perfect the medicines, etc. This paper discusses the main steps and emphasis of the clinical literature evaluation. Emphasizing security literature evaluation should attach importance to the security of a comprehensive collection drug information. Safety assessment should notice traditional Chinese medicine validity evaluation in improving syndrome, improveing the living quality of patients with special advantage. The economics literature evaluation should pay attention to reliability, sensitivity and practicability of the conclusion.

Key Performance Indicators in the Evaluation of the Quality of Radiation Safety Programs.

PubMed

Schultz, Cheryl Culver; Shaffer, Sheila; Fink-Bennett, Darlene; Winokur, Kay

2016-08-01

Beaumont is a multiple hospital health care system with a centralized radiation safety department. The health system operates under a broad scope Nuclear Regulatory Commission license but also maintains several other limited use NRC licenses in off-site facilities and clinics. The hospital-based program is expansive including diagnostic radiology and nuclear medicine (molecular imaging), interventional radiology, a comprehensive cardiovascular program, multiple forms of radiation therapy (low dose rate brachytherapy, high dose rate brachytherapy, external beam radiotherapy, and gamma knife), and the Research Institute (including basic bench top, human and animal). Each year, in the annual report, data is analyzed and then tracked and trended. While any summary report will, by nature, include items such as the number of pieces of equipment, inspections performed, staff monitored and educated and other similar parameters, not all include an objective review of the quality and effectiveness of the program. Through objective numerical data Beaumont adopted seven key performance indicators. The assertion made is that key performance indicators can be used to establish benchmarks for evaluation and comparison of the effectiveness and quality of radiation safety programs. Based on over a decade of data collection, and adoption of key performance indicators, this paper demonstrates one way to establish objective benchmarking for radiation safety programs in the health care environment.

Fast Semantic Segmentation of 3d Point Clouds with Strongly Varying Density

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hackel, Timo; Wegner, Jan D.; Schindler, Konrad

2016-06-01