Database Of Hundreds Research Articles

Manta Matcher: automated photographic identification of manta rays using keypoint features

For species which bear unique markings, such as natural spot patterning, field work has become increasingly more reliant on visual identification to recognize and catalog particular specimens or to monitor individuals within populations. While many species of interest exhibit characteristic markings that in principle allow individuals to be identified from photographs, scientists are often faced with the task of matching observations against databases of hundreds or thousands of images. We present a novel technique for automated identification of manta rays (Manta alfredi and Manta birostris) by means of a pattern-matching algorithm applied to images of their ventral surface area. Automated visual identification has recently been developed for several species. However, such methods are typically limited to animals that can be photographed above water, or whose markings exhibit high contrast and appear in regular constellations. While manta rays bear natural patterning across their ventral surface, these patterns vary greatly in their size, shape, contrast, and spatial distribution. Our method is the first to have proven successful at achieving high matching accuracies on a large corpus of manta ray images taken under challenging underwater conditions. Our method is based on automated extraction and matching of keypoint features using the Scale-Invariant Feature Transform (SIFT) algorithm. In order to cope with the considerable variation in quality of underwater photographs, we also incorporate preprocessing and image enhancement steps. Furthermore, we use a novel pattern-matching approach that results in better accuracy than the standard SIFT approach and other alternative methods. We present quantitative evaluation results on a data set of 720 images of manta rays taken under widely different conditions. We describe a novel automated pattern representation and matching method that can be used to identify individual manta rays from photographs. The method has been incorporated into a website (mantamatcher.org) which will serve as a global resource for ecological and conservation research. It will allow researchers to manage and track sightings data to establish important life-history parameters as well as determine other ecological data such as abundance, range, movement patterns, and structure of manta ray populations across the world.

Reliability Assessment of FRP-Strengthened Concrete Bridge Girders in Shear

AbstractThis paper presents the results from an investigation into the reliability of reinforced concrete bridge girders strengthened in shear using fiber-reinforced polymers (FRP). Two expressions for the shear design of FRP-strengthened girders were developed as part of a National Cooperative Highway Research Program project. The expressions were developed for two distinct cases, namely, bonded and anchored FRP reinforcement. Uncertainties inherent in the new design models were first assessed using an extensive database of hundreds of experimentally tested specimens. Variabilities in material, fabrication tolerances, dead and live loads, and distribution factors obtained from the literature were then included in a limit state function for the shear strength mode of failure. The reliability of a representative design space comprising 18 bridge girders that cover different span lengths, shear deficiency levels, and girder location (exterior versus interior) was calculated for both bonded and anchored stre...

A computational neurodegenerative disease progression score: Method and results with the Alzheimer's disease neuroimaging initiative cohort

While neurodegenerative diseases are characterized by steady degeneration over relatively long timelines, it is widely believed that the early stages are the most promising for therapeutic intervention, before irreversible neuronal loss occurs. Developing a therapeutic response requires a precise measure of disease progression. However, since the early stages are for the most part asymptomatic, obtaining accurate measures of disease progression is difficult. Longitudinal databases of hundreds of subjects observed during several years with tens of validated biomarkers are becoming available, allowing the use of computational methods. We propose a widely applicable statistical methodology for creating a disease progression score (DPS), using multiple biomarkers, for subjects with a neurodegenerative disease. The proposed methodology was evaluated for Alzheimer's disease (AD) using the publicly available AD Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) database, yielding an Alzheimer's DPS or ADPS score for each subject and each time-point in the database. In addition, a common description of biomarker changes was produced allowing for an ordering of the biomarkers. The Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test delayed recall was found to be the earliest biomarker to become abnormal. The group of biomarkers comprising the volume of the hippocampus and the protein concentration amyloid beta and Tau were next in the timeline, and these were followed by three cognitive biomarkers. The proposed methodology thus has potential to stage individuals according to their state of disease progression relative to a population and to deduce common behaviors of biomarkers in the disease itself.

Old Wine in New Bottles? Does Climate Policy Determine Bilateral Development Aid for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency?

Published by Palgrave Macmillan Since the UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 bilateral and multilateral donors have stressed that development assistance has increasingly been oriented towards climate-friendly interventions. With respect to energy aid, this should lead to a substantial increase in projects related to renewable energy and energy efficiency. Given a new database of hundreds of thousands of bilateral development assistance projects, we can assess whether such a reorientation has indeed taken place. We find that, contrary to expectations, the share of bilaterally-funded renewable energy and energy efficiency projects did not increase over the period from 1980 to 2008. This share fluctuated greatly, following the price of oil, peaking with the second oil crisis of the early 1980s. The impacts of global climate policy treaties are minor or inexistent. ‘Traditional’ renewable energies such as hydro and geothermal declined, while “new” renewables showed two peaks in the early 1980s and late 1990s. Differences between donor countries are huge. Several countries, including climate sceptics such as the US and Australia, but also the UK and Switzerland, saw a consistent decline. The self-proclaimed climate pioneers such as Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden show peaks related to both the oil crises and international climate policy. Only in Austria, Denmark, Finland and Spain can ‘new’ climate mitigation development assistance be found.

Quantum search in a nonclassical database of trapped ions

We propose an implementation of the Grover's search algorithm in a nonclassical database using a linear chain of trapped ions. The database comprises all collective states with two ionic excitations; hence the number of database entries scales quadratically with the number of ions $N$. The system is initialized in an even superposition of all register states, i.e., in the symmetric Dicke state with $N$ ions sharing two excitations. The reflection-about-the-mean operator is produced merely by global addressing of the ion string by an off-resonant pulse with a suitable area, whereas the oracle operator is a control-phase gate. This simplification should allow a demonstration of quantum search in a database of hundreds of elements without needing to synthesize multiqubit quantum gates. The technique does not rely on coherent addition or subtraction of phonons, and hence the ion chain can be sympathetically cooled throughout the process.

Enhancing Human Face Detection by Resampling Examples Through Manifolds

As a large-scale database of hundreds of thousands of face images collected from the Internet and digital cameras becomes available, how to utilize it to train a well-performed face detector is a quite challenging problem. In this paper, we propose a method to resample a representative training set from a collected large-scale database to train a robust human face detector. First, in a high-dimensional space, we estimate geodesic distances between pairs of face samples/examples inside the collected face set by isometric feature mapping (Isomap) and then subsample the face set. After that, we embed the face set to a low-dimensional manifold space and obtain the low-dimensional embedding. Subsequently, in the embedding, we interweave the face set based on the weights computed by locally linear embedding (LLE). Furthermore, we resample nonfaces by Isomap and LLE likewise. Using the resulting face and nonface samples, we train an AdaBoost-based face detector and run it on a large database to collect false alarms. We then use the false detections to train a one-class support vector machine (SVM). Combining the AdaBoost and one-class SVM-based face detector, we obtain a stronger detector. The experimental results on the MIT + CMU frontal face test set demonstrated that the proposed method significantly outperforms the other state-of-the-art methods.

Fast reproducible identification and large-scale databasing of individual functional cognitive networks

BackgroundAlthough cognitive processes such as reading and calculation are associated with reproducible cerebral networks, inter-individual variability is considerable. Understanding the origins of this variability will require the elaboration of large multimodal databases compiling behavioral, anatomical, genetic and functional neuroimaging data over hundreds of subjects. With this goal in mind, we designed a simple and fast acquisition procedure based on a 5-minute functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) sequence that can be run as easily and as systematically as an anatomical scan, and is therefore used in every subject undergoing fMRI in our laboratory. This protocol captures the cerebral bases of auditory and visual perception, motor actions, reading, language comprehension and mental calculation at an individual level.Results81 subjects were successfully scanned. Before describing inter-individual variability, we demonstrated in the present study the reliability of individual functional data obtained with this short protocol. Considering the anatomical variability, we then needed to correctly describe individual functional networks in a voxel-free space. We applied then non-voxel based methods that automatically extract main features of individual patterns of activation: group analyses performed on these individual data not only converge to those reported with a more conventional voxel-based random effect analysis, but also keep information concerning variance in location and degrees of activation across subjects.ConclusionThis collection of individual fMRI data will help to describe the cerebral inter-subject variability of the correlates of some language, calculation and sensorimotor tasks. In association with demographic, anatomical, behavioral and genetic data, this protocol will serve as the cornerstone to establish a hybrid database of hundreds of subjects suitable to study the range and causes of variation in the cerebral bases of numerous mental processes.

Prediction of toxicity from chemical structure.

The basis for the prediction of toxicity from chemical structure is that the properties of a chemical are implicit in its molecular structure. Biological activity can be expressed as a function of partition and reactivity, that is, for a chemical to be able to express its toxicity, it must be transported from its site of administration to its site of action and then it must bind to or react with its receptor or target. This process may also involve metabolic transformation of the chemical. The application of these principles to the prediction of the toxicity of new or untested chemicals has been achieved in a number of different ways covering a wide range of complexity, from computer systems containing databases of hundreds of chemicals, to simple "reading across" between chemicals with similar chemical/toxicological functionality. The common feature of the approaches described in this article is that their starting point is a mechanistic hypothesis linking chemical structure and/or functionality with the toxicological endpoint of interest. The prediction of toxicity from chemical structure can make a valuable contribution to the reduction of animal usage in the screening out of potentially toxic chemicals at an early stage and in providing data for making positive classifications of toxicity.

Quasi-orthogonal basis sets of molecular graph descriptors as a chemical diversity measure

In the pharmaceutical industry, the virtual screening of combinatorial libraries is used to rationally select compounds for biological testing from databases of hundreds of thousands of compounds. In addition to structural descriptors, such as fingerprints and pharmacophores, the application of relatively simple structural descriptors traditionally used in quantitative structure-activity studies offers speed and efficiency for rapidly measuring the molecular diversity of such collections. We explore new topological indices computed from the molecular graph as potential structural descriptors for the characterization of molecular diversity. A database of 2000 compounds randomly selected from the National Cancer Institute AIDS database was used to measure the intercorrelation of the descriptors. The initial collection of 240 structural descriptors was reduced to several quasi-orthogonal sets of up to 9 descriptors, using different thresholds for the maximum intercorrelation coefficient.

Molecular Diversity and Representativity in Chemical Databases

It is now common practice in the pharmaceutical industry to use molecular diversity selection methods. With the advent of high throughput screening and combinatorial chemistry, compounds must be rationally selected from databases of hundreds of thousands of compounds to be tested for several biological activities. We explore the differences between diversity and representativity. Validation runs were made for different diversity selection methods (such as the MaxMin function), several representativity techniques (selection of compounds closest to centroids of clusters, Kohonen neural networks, nonlinear scaling of descriptor values), and various types of descriptors (topological and 3D fingerprints) including some validated whole-molecule numerical descriptors that were chosen for their correlation with biological activities. We find that only clustering based on fingerprints or on whole-molecule descriptors gives results consistently superior to random selection in extracting a diverse set of activities ...

Micro-scale Synthesis and In-Situ Spectroscopic Characterization of Some Chemical Weapons Related Organophosphonate Compounds

Inspection protocols for the Chemical Weapons Treaty, which went into effect on April 29, 1997 require on-site analytical procedures which include a comprehensive mass spectral database of hundreds of scheduled compounds. A number of these compounds were prepared on a nanogram scale via a micro-scale synthetic approach using GC-IRD/MSD analytical instrumentation to purify and identify the resulting products. The collected electron impact mass spectra will be made available for use in relevant databases.

Deducing droplet concentration and supersaturation in marine boundary layer clouds from surface aerosol measurements

Air parcels in the marine boundary layer (MBL) are mixed up through nonprecipitating clouds at the top of the MBL many times (on average) before they can be removed by precipitation scavenging. The equivalent dry size of the particles (cloud condensation nuclei, CCN) upon which droplets are formed increases because of liquid phase oxidation of soluble trace gases during the cloud processing. The observed separation of the submicron size distribution into an interstitial mode and cloud droplet residue mode makes it possible to infer the effective MBL cloud supersaturation and cloud droplet concentrations from surface measurements of the aerosol size distribution during periods when nonprecipitating MBL clouds are present in the back trajectory and the MBL is well mixed. The effect of particle composition on the accuracy of the inferred cloud supersaturations is evaluated. A large database of hundreds of size distributions taken on an Atlantic and a Pacific cruise and an airship flight off the Oregon coast are used to calculate the range of effective MBL cloud supersaturations and droplet concentrations encountered during these expeditions. The inferred droplet concentrations on the Pacific cruise were mostly in the 25 to 150 cm−3 range, whereas they were mostly in the 50 to 500 cm−3 range for the Atlantic cruise. The inferred effective supersaturation in the tropical MBL clouds was typically in the 0.15% to 0.25% range. Recent work of Tang and Munkelwitz [1994] would indicate that particles consisting of mixtures of ammonium sulfate and sulfuric acid would not have recrystalized in the differential mobility analyzer (DMA) within the range of relative humidities (45% to 60%) at which the DMA was operated. At these humidities the hydrated size can be as much as 20% greater than the dry size. Corrections for the hydrated size within the DMA at the time of measurement are included and are also used to correct previous measurements of the relationship between dry size and critical supersaturation made using the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) DMA and NRL thermal gradient CCN counters.

Tracking New Products: A Practitioner's Guide

Generation and development of are primary missions for most R&D organizations, and an effective product tracking system can provide some of the clearest measures of R&D results. For example, the percentage of sales due to can indicate the renewal rate of the corporation. More importantly, product measures reflect a key growth mechanism for most companies, providing important insights for improving innovation processes. Air Products has tracked product sales since 1984 and now maintains a database of hundreds of produced from 1980 to the present. We focus our data collection on the source and type of product and the sales per year. Our annual reporting of product trends and implications provides meaningful input for senior management decisions. We are able to quantify the impact of on the corporation's growth, as well as trends, product life cycles, and returns from our product investments. This article describes our most successful formats and communication tools. Defining a Product We use three criteria to define the to track: 1. A threshold sales level of $100,000/year to start the tracking period. 2. Products are new for five years. 3. product sales result from one or more of the following: * Internal development substantially due to R&D. * Acquisitions of product lines. * applications developed by R&D, especially gas applications. * Access to markets arising from significant R&D-developed process changes, especially gas production technologies. * Business and technical service product extensions that are linked to product parents, especially for chemical blends and formulations. This definition evolved during the early years of our efforts as we sought criteria that would be: * Stable over time. * Relevant to our current and envisioned businesses. * Comparable with similar companies for benchmarking. The first requirement is essential for monitoring long-term performance. The second is critical to developing company-wide commitment, and requires significant attention and communication to successfully establish the tracking process. The third requirement facilitates meaningful comparisons with academic studies and with the many companies that have publicized product sales and goals (see Table, next page). (Table omitted) The five-year life starts with the first fiscal year in which sales reach $100,000. This eliminates much of the noise from experimental that are either rapidly eliminated or modified quickly into improved versions. We no longer track these and have found little consequence to their absence. However, additional analyses of the failure rates and causes would certainly be illuminating. New products are those within the first five-year period. However, sales are tracked beyond this period to determine product growth curves and life cycles. The requirement for relevance to our businesses drove most of the modifications of the definition. Air Products is heavily involved in the production and application of gases, predominantly atmospheric gases, but gases are not invented very frequently. Therefore, the appropriate measure of renewal for some of our businesses is applications of gases. Other gas businesses are driven by price and low-cost production. If an R&D development makes a significant change to a process that permits our gas to compete in a market, then sales resulting from that development are considered to be product sales. An example of this circumstance is the process technology that allows air separation units to operate on offshore drilling platforms. Significant process R&D was required to modify the process, and the substantial operational and cost improvements opened a market in which we did not previously participate. …

Reservoir-Fluid Property Correlations—State of the Art

Summary This paper presents correlations to determine reservoir-fluid properties from field data. The best available correlations were selected by comparison with a data base of hundreds of reservoir-fluid studies of samples representing all areas of the free world involved in active petroleum exploitation from 1980 to 1986. Also, correlations of formation-water properties are given.

HyperCOSTOC: a comprehensive computer-based teaching support system

We propose the main architectural features of HyperCOSTOC, a new computer based teaching support system, a number of aspects of which are currently being implemented. We call it HyperCOSTOC because it is based on a database of lessons called COSTOC and has facilities which have a hypermedia flavor (i.e. navigation, browsing, cross-window communication, and others). However, unlike hypertext and other electronic information systems (e.g. database management systems), HyperCOSTOC is an advanced CAI system which can retrieve and process, in a non-linear fashion, structured molecules of instructional or information material networked together. HyperCOSTOC uses a mixture of presentation-type-CAI, object-oriented programming and query language techniques for university teaching and research. It provides a user interface which includes selection mechanisms, feedback mechanisms and input-output devices. HyperCOSTOC aims at a practical and viable approach within a university setting. It comprises tools for the creation, distribution, and usage of a variety of courseware or information in a fashion which is modular, technology independent, easy to maintain, and which includes drill, self-test, exam and other modules. Hypertext largely depends on the power of the computer to traverse complex networks of information and to support advanced word processing while freely linking ideas on-line. HyperCOSTOC is supposed to be as hardware-independent as possible and geared towards easy integration with a variety of instructional environments: as a support system to traditional lecturestyle instruction as well as for the development of exploratory research environments. The COSTOC system (a simple minded precursor of HyperCOSTOC) is currently being used in about 20 educational institutions. COSTOC includes a database of hundreds of one-hour lessons, with over 250 on computer science topics. Starting from this courseware basis, HyperCOSTOC is supposed to add many new facilities, including better navigation, browsing, window cross-talk as well as aspects of student modeling. It should be emphasized, however, that the first implementation of HyperCOSTOC will put little emphasis on intelligent-CAI (ICAI) techniques (e.g. intelligent tutoring, intelligent student modeling) because we believe that further developments are necessary before ICAI will become as broadly applicable as other aspects of CAI.