Multiple Viewpoints Research Articles

A low-cost regularization strategy for the 3D reconstruction of wind turbines based on remote sensing images

ABSTRACT Unmanned aerial vehicle remote sensing images are easy to acquire and cost-effective. Their application provides a new approach for the maintenance of offshore wind farms. To obtain an accurate model of wind turbines, thereby improving detection efficiency and mitigating the risks associated with high-altitude workings, a low-cost method for wind turbine three-dimensional (3D) reconstruction is proposed. The main advantages of deep learning-based Multi-View Stereo Network (MVSNet) include high accuracy, fast processing speed, and ease of extension to multiple viewpoints. Most networks utilize multi-scale 3D Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) for regularization. However, when dealing with images that have high depth and resolution, CNN regularization strategy leads to a significant increase in memory usage. In this paper, the two-dimensional cost maps are regularized along the depth dimension sequentially using Stacked Convolutional Gated Recurrent Unit (Stacked Conv-GRU), instead of reducing the 3D cost volume all at once. Localized convolution operations replace undifferentiated fully connected operations, substantially reducing memory consumption and enabling high-resolution reconstruction. We conduct comparisons and model evaluations on the ”Nordtank” wind turbine remote sensing image dataset. Experimental results demonstrate that, compared to other 3D reconstruction methods, Stacked Conv-GRU regularized MVSNet reduces run time and hardware requirements while maintaining similar accuracy.

Impact of hydrogen metallurgy on the current iron and steel industry: A comprehensive material-exergy-emission flow analysis

The development of hydrogen metallurgy holds enormous significance in facilitating the low-carbon and environmentally sustainable transition of iron and steel industries. However, there is a lack of research on the impact of implementing hydrogen metallurgy on the downstream process and even the whole process. To fill this research gap, a model that considers specific internal reactions of steelmaking process was developed utilizing the bottom-up approach. Subsequently, by integrating the hydrogen metallurgy process with the traditional long process and short process, the energy intensity, exergy intensity and carbon emission intensity were quantitatively analyzed from multiple viewpoints. The results of the basic oxygen furnace (BOF) and electric arc furnace (EAF) exhibit a degree of similarity, with an increase in directly reduced iron (DRI) addition, resulting in an insufficient heat and an increase in process energy consumption, exergy loss, and carbon emissions. But there are also some subtle differences, such as oxygen consumption. Following the integration of hydrogen metallurgy, the energy intensity and exergy intensity of the BF-BOF process increase 11.984 kgce/t-CS and 3.083 × 102 MJ/t-CS, respectively. However, the carbon emission intensity decreased by 46.514 kg/t-CS. The integrated Chinese-style short process has the lowest carbon emission intensity of 879.664 kg/t-CS at 40% DRI and 60% scrap. Nevertheless, the energy intensity and exergy intensity have increased by 27.383 kgce/t-CS and 42.012 × 102 MJ/t-CS respectively compared to their initial values. It is noteworthy that the process of hydrogen production plays a significant role in mitigating the exergy intensity and carbon emission intensity.

Fiducial Objects: Custom Design and Evaluation.

Camera pose estimation is vital in fields like robotics, medical imaging, and augmented reality. Fiducial markers, specifically ArUco and Apriltag, are preferred for their efficiency. However, their accuracy and viewing angle are limited when used as single markers. Custom fiducial objects have been developed to address these limitations by attaching markers to 3D objects, enhancing visibility from multiple viewpoints and improving precision. Existing methods mainly use square markers on non-square object faces, leading to inefficient space use. This paper introduces a novel approach for creating fiducial objects with custom-shaped markers that optimize face coverage, enhancing space utilization and marker detectability at greater distances. Furthermore, we present a technique for the precise configuration estimation of these objects using multiviewpoint images. We provide the research community with our code, tutorials, and an application to facilitate the building and calibration of these objects. Our empirical analysis assesses the effectiveness of various fiducial objects for pose estimation across different conditions, such as noise levels, blur, and scale variations. The results suggest that our customized markers significantly outperform traditional square markers, marking a positive advancement in fiducial marker-based pose estimation methods.

Perspectives On International Political Economy: Labor and Environmental Standards Should Be in World Trade Organizations?

The concept of sustainable development and environmental protection are among the main objectives of the World Trade Organization. For this purpose, the labor and environmental standards of the World Trade Organization are also included in the agreement. In 1994, the World Trade Organization Trade and Environment Committee was established in this context, and international organizations joined it. So, in this paper analyze that labor and environmental standards should be in a Trade Organization unbiased way. This study examines the complex rhetoric surrounding the incorporation of labor and environmental norms into the World Trade Organization (WTO) structure. The phenomenon of trade globalization has profoundly affected the interdependence of economies, prompting inquiries into the ethical aspects of international commerce. Incorporating labor and environmental norms into the World Trade Organization (WTO) has emerged as a central topic of controversy. Advocates contend that incorporating such measures is paramount in promoting sustainable growth, guaranteeing equitable labor standards, and addressing global environmental deterioration. However, integrating these standards could impose economic constraints, impede the free trade flow, and even result in the adoption of protectionist measures. This study explores multiple viewpoints, evaluates the possible consequences, and evaluates the practicality of integrating labor and environmental concerns within the World Trade Organization (WTO). This study makes a valuable contribution to the continuing discourse surrounding the development of a more inclusive and responsible international political economy by assessing its effects on economic growth, social justice, and environmental sustainability.

Learning design principles that cultivate future-oriented students

The use of technology-enhanced learning in higher education has increased significantly. While this has led to greater flexibility in delivery and enhanced engagement with students (), it has also placed additional demands on already time-poor educators. Despite the potential benefits, many educators struggle to engage with learning design in a meaningful way, leading to suboptimal student experiences. Despite the prevalence of technology, students are being made to engage with outdated learning strategies and content. This poster shares learning design strategies for time-poor educators to enact in online learning environments to support future-oriented thinking skills of students. Stack and Bound (2021) see future-orientedness as the ability for students to “face future unknowns and new challenges beyond the immediate course/training. The emphasis is on the ability to resolve unfamiliar or non-standard problems. To be able to do this, future-orientedness involves many of what are variously called 21st century skills, or the new ‘top 10 skills’, such as critical thinking, creativity, learning to learn”. Dondi et al. (2021) identified 56 essential skills they think all citizens will need in the future world of work. We will focus on the skills outlined in the cognitive category: critical thinking and mental flexibility. Abrami et al. (2014) in their study outlined two instructional interventions that foster critical thinking skills; the opportunity for dialogue and exposing students to authentic or situated problems particularly when applying problem solving and role-playing methods. Li et al. (2022) in their paper concluded the following: connecting students with resources and facilitating interaction, technology significantly impacts the fluency and flexibility dimensions of creativity. Flexible learning time, cumulative learning processes, and problem-based activities promote the ongoing development of creative behaviours, enhancing fluency, originality, and elaboration in different dimensions of creativity. We will use the 4 domains of the Technology Enhanced Learning Accreditation Standards (TELAS) (2023) framework to outline future-oriented learning design strategies taken from our experience in supporting learning and teaching: Online learning environment Using interactive elements, such as H5P (an open-source JavaScript content collaboration framework), provides multiple perspectives on single issues in an engaging way. Multiple viewpoints for a complex situation or case study can help students evaluate and compare perspectives and provides exposure to multiple points of view. Learner support Providing content in multiple modes and with compelling ‘teacher talk’ to explain what content is there, how they should engage with the content they’re provided and why. Explicitly calling out transferrable skills and capabilities covered in a subject or assessment. Learning and assessment tasks Authentic assessments, especially project briefs provided by industry, give students a chance to respond to authentic, complex, and integrated assessments relevant to their future profession. Providing wicked problems help students to be familiar with and confident in ambiguous settings and encourages lateral thinking. Learning resources Use of techniques such as Socratic and open-ended questioning to have students research some of their own learning. You don’t have to provide all of the answers! It is not about providing all of the knowledge to students, but in supporting their ability to think critically and ask the right questions to find the right information. This future-orients students to be able to problem solve and critically interrogate new and changing information.

An Ecofeminist Interpretation of As I Lay Dying

As I Lay Dying, published in 1930, one of William Faulkner’s best works, depicts Addie Bundren’s burial journey to Jefferson. Faulkner told a thought-provoking story of how Bundren suffered and endured trials of flood and fire. Critics have commented extensively on this novel, especially regarding its multiple points of view and stream of consciousness. Ecofeminism combines ecology and feminist literary criticism that originated in the 1970s, emphasizes biocentrism and biodiversity, and rejects the oppression of both women and nature. As I Lay Dying is rich in descriptions of patriarchy, nature, and women, so I adopt an ecofeminist approach to interpret the novel from these perspectives and explore the ecofeminist thought and consciousness embodied in the novel.

Communicative approaches to support desired organizational changes in quality of public services

The paper actualizes the issue of the use by the leaders of public organizations of communicative approaches to the implementation of organizational changes and overcoming resistance to improve the quality of public services. The aim of this paper is to investigate the development and promotion of communicative approaches to organizational changes aimed at improving the quality of public services and effectively countering resistance from public organization leaders to these changes To enhance public service quality and overcome organizational resistance to change, altering perspectives on change is essential. This means shifting how employees view their professional environment. There’s no one-size-fits-all approach; multiple viewpoints coexist regarding understanding a changing world. This explains why some leaders prefer a rational change approach while others opt for experimentation. The article introduces a communicative approach that stresses the importance of linking internal thought processes to external actions for implementing necessary changes. Thinking skills essential for change formulation are inseparable from social skills needed for execution. Through communication, individuals can change their external environment and their own thinking. This, in turn, can impact public organizations and improve service quality. The author substantiates that the use of these methods of working with personnel allows to increase in the level of readiness of heads of public organizations at the individual and group levels, to reduce resistance, and to increase the level of efficiency of implementation of organizational changes to improve the quality of public services.

DeepPatent2: A Large-Scale Benchmarking Corpus for Technical Drawing Understanding

Recent advances in computer vision (CV) and natural language processing have been driven by exploiting big data on practical applications. However, these research fields are still limited by the sheer volume, versatility, and diversity of the available datasets. CV tasks, such as image captioning, which has primarily been carried out on natural images, still struggle to produce accurate and meaningful captions on sketched images often included in scientific and technical documents. The advancement of other tasks such as 3D reconstruction from 2D images requires larger datasets with multiple viewpoints. We introduce DeepPatent2, a large-scale dataset, providing more than 2.7 million technical drawings with 132,890 object names and 22,394 viewpoints extracted from 14 years of US design patent documents. We demonstrate the usefulness of DeepPatent2 with conceptual captioning. We further provide the potential usefulness of our dataset to facilitate other research areas such as 3D image reconstruction and image retrieval.

The distance between the humanities and medicine: Building a critical thinking mindset by interdisciplinary dialogue through mind mapping

In this study, we investigate the gap between the humanities and medicine. We propose a methodology to bridge this gap by fostering critical thinking skills through interdisciplinary dialogue and mind mapping. A critical thinking mindset amongst students could be successfully developed through the use of interdisciplinary dialogue. Our objective is to equip students from diverse academic backgrounds with the ability to effectively evaluate medical and life science information.Our study employs Socratic questioning, interdisciplinary dialogue, and the implementation of structural and relational mind-mapping techniques. Through Socratic questioning, students engage in-depth discussions that challenge their existing knowledge and encourage them to explore different perspectives. This approach facilitates the integration of multiple viewpoints and enhances students' ability to think critically about medical concepts and their implications. To organize and visualize complex information, mind mapping techniques are employed. Structural and relational mind maps help students comprehend the relationships between various concepts and to identify patterns within the subject matter. By visually representing information, students gain a deeper understanding of medical and life science topics and can effectively analyse and synthesize information from a holistic perspective.The findings of the study reveal that the interdisciplinary dialogue approach, coupled with mind-mapping techniques, significantly contributed to the development of critical thinking skills amongst students. Through active participation in discussions and the application of Socratic questioning, students demonstrated improved comprehension of medical concepts and the ability to construct well-informed arguments. This teaching method emphasizes the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration in liberal education. Our findings demonstrate that involving students with different academic majors fosters a collaborative learning environment, where diverse perspectives are valued. This approach not only enhances knowledge exchange but also encourages creativity and innovation in the field of medicine.In conclusion, our study highlights the potential of interdisciplinary dialogue and mind mapping as effective tools to bridge the gap between humanities and medicine. The findings indicate that students who engage in interdisciplinary dialogue and utilize mind-mapping techniques develop a critical thinking mindset, enabling them to proficiently evaluate medical and life science information. By incorporating these approaches into liberal education, students are equipped with the necessary skills to navigate the complexities of the medical field and to contribute to the evolving healthcare challenges of our society.

Label‐Free Imaging Flow Cytometry for Cell Classification Based on Multiple Interferometric Projections Using Deep Learning

A new label‐free imaging flow cytometry method for noninvasive and automated biological cell classification is presented. Each cell is rolled during flow, and its off‐axis holograms from multiple viewpoints are acquired. Using the reconstructed quantitative phase profiles of the cell projections, highly discriminating features, enabling cell detection, classification, and differentiation, are extracted via a modified ResNet‐18 deep convolutional neural network architecture. The model is first validated by classifying metastatic breast carcinoma cells (MCF‐7) and normal human mammary epithelial cells (MCF‐10A). An increase in classification accuracy by 1% is achieved when processing five interferometric projections versus processing a single interferometric projection. This model is further tested on four types of white blood cells and exhibits an accuracy increase of 5% when processing 12 interferometric projections versus processing a single interferometric projection. This approach is shown to be superior to that of using conventional 2D‐rotation augmentation, and can be used to decrease substantially the number of cell examples needed for training the classification model without impairing the results. This novel concept has great potential to be incorporated into label‐free imaging flow cytometry and improve cell classification, and be used to detect various types of medical conditions and diseases.

Neural Projection Mapping Using Reflectance Fields.

We introduce a high resolution spatially adaptive light source, or a projector, into a neural reflectance field that allows to both calibrate the projector and photo realistic light editing. The projected texture is fully differentiable with respect to all scene parameters, and can be optimized to yield a desired appearance suitable for applications in augmented reality and projection mapping. Our neural field consists of three neural networks, estimating geometry, material, and transmittance. Using an analytical BRDF model and carefully selected projection patterns, our acquisition process is simple and intuitive, featuring a fixed uncalibrated projected and a handheld camera with a co-located light source. As we demonstrate, the virtual projector incorporated into the pipeline improves scene understanding and enables various projection mapping applications, alleviating the need for time consuming calibration steps performed in a traditional setting per view or projector location. In addition to enabling novel viewpoint synthesis, we demonstrate state-of-the-art performance projector compensation for novel viewpoints, improvement over the baselines in material and scene reconstruction, and three simply implemented scenarios where projection image optimization is performed, including the use of a 2D generative model to consistently dictate scene appearance from multiple viewpoints. We believe that neural projection mapping opens up the door to novel and exciting downstream tasks, through the joint optimization of the scene and projection images.

From the other side of the GP's desk: a patient perspective on the Fuller report

As the recommendations of the Fuller Review are implemented and the new system of integrated care boards becomes established, it has never been more important to involve the voices of patients and communities as we shape the future of general practice. Here, a patient offers a perspective on how we can harness multiple viewpoints and apply the principles of human-centred design to bring solutions to the challenges of access and prevention that are grounded in local communities.

An integrated hybrid MCDM approach to evaluate countries’ COVID-19 risks

To enable planning and early reaction efforts, it is important to identify the nations most at risk from COVID-19's health and humanitarian effects, which could exceed present national response capabilities. INFORM COVID-19 Risk Index developed by European Commission is one of the initiatives to meet the aforementioned need. However, the Index has 40 conflicting and comprehensive indicators (e.g., health system capacity, hygiene, vulnerability) and different countries that lead to a need for multicriteria decision-making (MCDM) approaches. This paper offers an integrated MCDM approach with two phases to re-assess the countries' COVID-19 risks based on INFORM COVID-19 Risk Index. In the first phase, the 40 indicators are prioritized using the Entropy-based multi-choice best-worst method (MC-BWM) to provide multiple viewpoints for the preferences values. In the second phase, 29 countries from different geographical regions are ranked using the COPRAS (Complex Proportional Assessment) method. Applying these three methods together on the COVID-19 risk assessment of countries is the most significant novelty for the relevant literature. The proposed approach has undergone a thorough comparative evaluation with the released INFORM COVID-19 Risk Index, and recommendations are provided based on different scenario analyses.

Molecular Carbons: How Far Can We Go?

The creation and development of carbon nanomaterials promoted material science significantly. Bottom-up synthesis has emerged as an efficient strategy to synthesize atomically precise carbon nanomaterials, namely, molecular carbons, with various sizes and topologies. Different from the properties of the feasibly obtained mixture of carbon nanomaterials, numerous properties of single-component molecular carbons have been discovered owing to their well-defined structures as well as potential applications in various fields. This Perspective introduces recent advances in molecular carbons derived from fullerene, graphene, carbon nanotube, carbyne, graphyne, and Schwarzite carbon acquired with different synthesis strategies. By selecting a variety of representative examples, we elaborate on the relationship between molecular carbons and carbon nanomaterials. We hope these multiple points of view presented may facilitate further advancement in this field.

Teacher appraisal system and professional learning. Insights from Italian school principals’ and teachers’ views on multiple sources of data and indicators

ABSTRACTThis paper explores school principals’ and teachers’ views of the Italian teachers’ appraisal system and related indicators. In particular, the research aimed at examining the opinions of school principals and teachers regarding the domains to be considered for teacher appraisal purposes. An investigation involving 37 school principals and 868 in service teachers, from three Italian regions, is presented. The data was collected through a questionnaire and statistically analysed. Findings suggest operationalising new data sources – specifically students and parent, - is beneficial to evaluate teacher quality as a construct in data-based professional learning communities. They show different positioning: teachers seem to be really inclined to be evaluated, especially by students and parents, while school principals still seem very cautious in entrusting the teachers’ appraisal to an external point of view. This paper adds to the existing research showing the perspective of a new teachers’ appraisal, inspired by multi-faceted models based on multiple points of view (students, parents, not only principals) and not reduced to simplistic solutions of an accounting type. Furthermore, the study answers the call for research into teachers’ appraisal as part of the professional learning actions and in view of more integrated professional leadership.

The Method of Multi-Angle Remote Sensing Observation Based on Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and the Validation of BRDF

The measurement of bidirectional reflectivity for ground-based objects is a highly intricate task, with significant limitations in the capabilities of both ground-based and satellite-based observations from multiple viewpoints. In recent years, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have emerged as a novel remote sensing method, offering convenience and cost-effectiveness while enabling multi-view observations. This study devised a polygonal flight path along the hemisphere to achieve bidirectional reflectance distribution function (BRDF) measurements for large zenith angles and all azimuth angles. By employing photogrammetry’s principle of aerial triangulation, accurate observation angles were restored, and the geometric structure of “sun-object-view” was constructed. Furthermore, three BRDF models (M_Walthall, RPV, RTLSR) were compared and evaluated at the UAV scale in terms of fitting quality, shape structure, and reflectance errors to assess their inversion performance. The results demonstrated that the RPV model exhibited superior inversion performance followed, by M_Walthall; however, RTLST performed comparatively poorly. Notably, the M_Walthall model excelled in capturing smooth terrain object characteristics while RPV proved applicable to various types of rough terrain objects with multi-scale applicability for both UAVs and satellites. These methods and findings are crucial for an extensive exploration into the bidirectional reflectivity properties of ground-based objects, and provide an essential technical procedure for studying various ground-based objects’ in-plane reflection properties.

Multi-view graph convolution network for the recognition of human action with spatial and temporal occlusion problems

Human action recognition holds great significance in the field of social security. However, the challenges posed by occlusion and changes in viewpoint create specific obstacles in achieving accurate recognition. In this study, we propose a multi-view graph convolution fusion method to effectively address this issue. Specifically, considering the limited availability of public human action datasets that include occlusion, we introduce an adaptive multi-view spatial–temporal occlusion generation method. It allows us to generate occlusion skeleton data from multiple viewpoints, ensuring a close resemblance to real-life scenarios with minimal modifications to existing public datasets. Additionally, we present a plug-and-play multi-view information fusion module, briefed as MGL, which aims to solve the occlusion problem. The MGL combines the capabilities of Graph Convolutional network (GCN) and Long Short-Term Memory network (LSTM), in which GCN is employed to reconstruct human skeleton information using multi-view spatial occlusion data, and LSTM captures the long-term dependencies within the temporal sequences of the multi-view data. Moreover, an attention mask mechanism is introduced to highlight key joint features. Experiment results illustrate the excellent performance of our method on the NTU RGB+D 60 and NTU RGB+D 120 datasets.

Lens array-based holographic 3D display with an expanded field of view and eyebox.

Conventional spatial light modulator (SLM)-based holographic 3D display faces limited field of view (FOV) and eyebox, due to its limited pixel number. In this paper, a lens array is used to expand the FOV and eyebox of an SLM-based holographic display. The hologram is calculated to reconstruct a 3D sub-image array, each sub-image corresponding to a specific perspective of the 3D object. Then, the 3D sub-image array is imaged and magnified by the lens array to integrate to the original 3D image. The FOV is expanded due to the large numerical aperture of the lens, and the eyebox is expanded because the lens array generates multiple viewpoints with a large pitch. The optical experiment realizes a 17.6° FOV and 50 mm eyebox, which contains 4 × 4 viewpoints. Apparent motion parallax is observed through the viewpoint array, which is usually hard to observe in a conventional SLM-based holographic display. The proposed method provides a novel, to the best of our knowledge, way to expand the FOV and eyebox of holographic 3D display without increasing the total pixel number of the SLM.

Multi-view dreaming: multi-view world model with contrastive learning

In this paper, we propose Multi-View Dreaming, a novel reinforcement learning agent for integrated recognition and control from multi-view observations by extending Dreaming. Most current reinforcement learning method assumes a single-view observation space, and this imposes limitations on the observed data, such as lack of spatial information and occlusions. This makes obtaining ideal observational information from the environment difficult and is a bottleneck for real-world robotics applications. In this paper, we use contrastive learning to train a shared latent space between different viewpoints and show how the Products of Experts approach can be used to integrate and control the probability distributions of latent states for multiple viewpoints. We also propose Multi-View DreamingV2, a variant of Multi-View Dreaming that uses a categorical distribution to model the latent state instead of the Gaussian distribution. Experiments show that the proposed method outperforms simple extensions of existing methods in a realistic robot control task.

Three-dimensional relation between coronal dimming, filament eruption, and CME

Context.Coronal dimmings are localized regions of reduced emission in the extreme-ultraviolet (EUV) and soft X-rays formed as a result of the expansion and mass loss by coronal mass ejections (CMEs) low in the corona. Distinct relations have been established between coronal dimmings (intensity, area, magnetic flux) and key characteristics of the associated CMEs (mass and speed) by combining coronal and coronagraphic observations from different viewpoints in the heliosphere.Aims.We investigate the relation between the spatiotemporal evolution of the dimming region and both the dominant direction of the filament eruption and CME propagation for the 28 October 2021 X1.0 flare/CME event observed from multiple viewpoints in the heliosphere by Solar Orbiter, STEREO-A, SDO, and SOHO.Methods.We present a method for estimating the dominant direction of the dimming development based on the evolution of the dimming area, taking into account the importance of correcting the dimming area estimation by calculating the surface area of a sphere for each pixel. To determine the propagation direction of the flux rope during early CME evolution, we performed 3D reconstructions of the white-light CME by graduated cylindrical shell modeling (GCS) and 3D tie-pointing of the eruptive filament.Results.The dimming evolution starts with a radial expansion and later propagates more to the southeast. The orthogonal projections of the reconstructed height evolution of the prominent leg of the erupting filament onto the solar surface are located in the sector of the dominant dimming growth, while the orthogonal projections of the inner part of the GCS reconstruction align with the total dimming area. The filament reaches a maximum speed of ≈250 km s−1at a height of about ≈180 Mm before it can no longer be reliably followed in the EUV images. Its direction of motion is strongly inclined from the radial direction (64° to the east, 32° to the south). The 3D direction of the CME and the motion of the filament leg differ by 50°. This angle roughly aligns with the CME half-width obtained from the CME reconstruction, suggesting a relation between the reconstructed filament and the associated leg of the CME body.Conclusions.The dominant propagation of the dimming growth reflects the direction of the erupting magnetic structure (filament) low in the solar atmosphere, though the filament evolution is not directly related to the direction of the global CME expansion. At the same time, the overall dimming morphology closely resembles the inner part of the CME reconstruction, validating the use of dimming observations to obtain insight into the CME direction.