Symbol Grounding Research Articles

Semi‐analytical solutions for the consolidation of unsaturated composite ground with floating permeable columns under equal strain condition

AbstractThis study focuses on the mathematical interpretation and consolidation behavior of unsaturated composite ground with floating permeable columns (FPC). By combining the axisymmetric consolidation model with the equal strain assumption, the consolidation problem of unsaturated composite ground with FPC is transformed into a one‐dimensional consolidation problem of an equivalent double‐layer ground. The consolidation governing equations of the reinforced zone and the underlying stratum are derived respectively. The Laplace transformation and Gauss elimination method are used to obtain solutions for the average excess pore pressure and settlement in the Laplace transform domain. The semi‐analytical solutions for the consolidation of composite ground in the time domain are obtained by implementing the Crump numerical method for the inverse Laplace transformation. A comparison with the existing literature and numerical simulation results from Finite Element Methods (FEM) confirms the correctness of the proposed semi‐analytical solutions. Based on these solutions, the consolidation behavior of an unsaturated composite ground with FPC under instantaneous loading is investigated. The results indicate that the penetration ratio of the permeable column is the most significant factor affecting the consolidation of composite ground. Furthermore, the consolidation rate and settlement of the composite ground also highly depend on the unsaturated soil in the underlying stratum.

PoiseNet: Dealing With Data Imbalance in DensePose

Data imbalance, a foundational problem in machine learning, has received little attention in DensePose and has become one of the main obstacles in front of existing methods. We reveal two imbalances in DensePose: inter-surface imbalance and intra-surface imbalance. First, the human body parts can be of various sizes, making 3D surfaces contain different numbers of annotations. Classifiers trained on such unbalanced data suffer a decline on surfaces with fewer annotations. Second, annotations within each surface are not uniformly distributed. Regressors trained on such uneven data suffer a decline in 3D surface areas with sparse annotations. To solve these imbalances, we propose PoiseNet which integrates adaptive equalization loss (AEQL) and block balanced localization (BBL). Specifically, to address the inter-surface imbalance, AEQL adaptively reweights surfaces based on the number of annotations and the classification scores. BBL alleviates the intra-surface imbalance by unevenly blocking each surface according to annotation distribution. Experimental results on the DensePose-COCO dataset show that our PoiseNet surpasses baselines by up to 1.4 AP.

PiGLET: Pixel-Level Grounding of Language Expressions With Transformers.

This paper proposes Panoptic Narrative Grounding, a spatially fine and general formulation of the natural language visual grounding problem. We establish an experimental framework for the study of this new task, including new ground truth and metrics. We propose PiGLET, a novel multi-modal Transformer architecture to tackle the Panoptic Narrative Grounding task, and to serve as a stepping stone for future work. We exploit the intrinsic semantic richness in an image by including panoptic categories, and we approach visual grounding at a fine-grained level using segmentations. In terms of ground truth, we propose an algorithm to automatically transfer Localized Narratives annotations to specific regions in the panoptic segmentations of the MS COCO dataset. PiGLET achieves a performance of 63.2 absolute Average Recall points. By leveraging the rich language information on the Panoptic Narrative Grounding benchmark on MS COCO, PiGLET obtains an improvement of 0.4 Panoptic Quality points over its base method on the panoptic segmentation task. Finally, we demonstrate the generalizability of our method to other natural language visual grounding problems such as Referring Expression Segmentation. PiGLET is competitive with previous state-of-the-art in RefCOCO, RefCOCO+ and RefCOCOg.

Pile foundations problems in the Belarus geotechnical practice

Some problems arising in the design, construction and testing of piles in the geotechnical practice of Belarus are presented, and the possibilities of their solution are outlined. Recommendations are given to improve the efficiency of pile foundations.

Model Counting Meets Distinct Elements

Constraint satisfaction problems (CSPs) and data stream models are two powerful abstractions to capture a wide variety of problems arising in different domains of computer science. Developments in the two communities have mostly occurred independently and with little interaction between them. In this work, we seek to investigate whether bridging the seeming communication gap between the two communities may pave the way to richer fundamental insights. To this end, we focus on two foundational problems: model counting for CSPs and the computation of the number of distinct elements in a data stream, also known as the zeroth frequency moment ( F 0 ) of a data stream. Our investigations lead us to observe striking similarity in the core techniques employed in the algorithmic frameworks that have evolved separately for model counting and distinct elements computation. We design a recipe for the translation of algorithms developed for distinct elements estimation to that of model counting, resulting in new algorithms for model counting. We then observe that algorithms in the context of distributed streaming can be transformed into distributed algorithms for model counting. We next turn our attention to viewing streaming from the lens of counting and show that framing distinct elements estimation as a special case of #DNF counting allows us to obtain a general recipe for a rich class of streaming problems, which had been subjected to case-specific analysis in prior works.

Glimpse and focus: Global and local-scale graph convolution network for skeleton-based action recognition

In the 3D skeleton-based action recognition task, learning rich spatial and temporal motion patterns from body joints are two foundational yet under-explored problems. In this paper, we propose two methods for improving these problems: (I) a novel glimpse-focus action recognition strategy that captures multi-range pose features from the whole body and key body parts jointly; (II) a powerful temporal feature extractor JD-TC that enriches trajectory features by inferring different inter-frame correlations for different joints. By coupling these two proposals, we develop a powerful skeleton-based action recognition system that extracts rich pose and trajectory features from a skeleton sequence and outperforms previous state-of-the-art methods on three large-scale datasets.

TO THE QUESTION OF HUMAN EXISTENCE IN THE ERA OF CATASTROPHES

The problem of the human existence foundations in a crisis world has been and remains an urgent philosophical problem. The current situation in the world is not just a crisis, but catastrophic, which aff ects the life and activities of a person in the most destructive way. What are the grounds and conditions for a truly human existence under these circumstances? The article attempts to provide some answers to these diffi cult questions. In particular, it is argued, that refl ection, self-determination, communication and self-activity, associated with large trans-historical programs of development of philosophy, science, engineering, education, art, etc., in all likelihood, are necessary conditions for human existence in an era of catastrophes.

Model Counting Meets F 0 Estimation

Constraint satisfaction problems (CSPs) and data stream models are two powerful abstractions to capture a wide variety of problems arising in different domains of computer science. Developments in the two communities have mostly occurred independently and with little interaction between them. In this work, we seek to investigate whether bridging the seeming communication gap between the two communities may pave the way to richer fundamental insights. To this end, we focus on two foundational problems: model counting for CSP’s and computation of zeroth frequency moments ( F 0 ) for data streams. Our investigations lead us to observe a striking similarity in the core techniques employed in the algorithmic frameworks that have evolved separately for model counting and F 0 computation. We design a recipe for translating algorithms developed for F 0 estimation to model counting, resulting in new algorithms for model counting. We also provide a recipe for transforming sampling algorithm over streams to constraint sampling algorithms. We then observe that algorithms in the context of distributed streaming can be transformed into distributed algorithms for model counting. We next turn our attention to viewing streaming from the lens of counting and show that framing F 0 estimation as a special case of #DNF counting allows us to obtain a general recipe for a rich class of streaming problems, which had been subjected to case-specific analysis in prior works. In particular, our view yields an algorithm for multidimensional range efficient F 0 estimation with a simpler analysis.

Understanding Social Robots: Attribution of Intentional Agency to Artificial and Biological Bodies.

Much research in robotic artificial intelligence (AI) and Artificial Life has focused on autonomous agents as an embodied and situated approach to AI. Such systems are commonly viewed as overcoming many of the philosophical problems associated with traditional computationalist AI and cognitive science, such as the grounding problem (Harnad) or the lack of intentionality (Searle), because they have the physical and sensorimotor grounding that traditional AI was argued to lack. Robot lawn mowers and self-driving cars, for example, more or less reliably avoid obstacles, approach charging stations, and so on-and therefore might be considered to have some form of artificial intentionality or intentional directedness. It should be noted, though, that the fact that robots share physical environments with people does not necessarily mean that they are situated in the same perceptual and social world as humans. For people encountering socially interactive systems, such as social robots or automated vehicles, this poses the nontrivial challenge to interpret them as intentional agents to understand and anticipate their behavior but also to keep in mind that the intentionality of artificial bodies is fundamentally different from their natural counterparts. This requires, on one hand, a "suspension of disbelief " but, on the other hand, also a capacity for the "suspension of belief." This dual nature of (attributed) artificial intentionality has been addressed only rather superficially in embodied AI and social robotics research. It is therefore argued that Bourgine and Varela's notion of Artificial Life as the practice of autonomous systems needs to be complemented with a practice of socially interactive autonomous systems, guided by a better understanding of the differences between artificial and biological bodies and their implications in the context of social interactions between people and technology.

Numerical simulations of towing a jacket foundation with triple buckets

Offshore wind energy is developing fast as a promising renewable energy resource that can be helpful in achieving the global net-zero emissions goal. In recent years, offshore wind turbine projects have gradually moved towards far-offshore sea areas, where massive jacket foundations with suction buckets are suitable options. To reduce transportation costs, the wet-towing method is usually favourable since the required buoyancy of the foundation can be provided by the air cushions in the suction buckets. This engineering background brings us a research topic that involves towing and air cushions in waves. This study considers the towing problem of a jacket foundation with triple suction buckets. First, numerical analysis in the frequency domain is conducted using WAMIT®. In particular, the NEWMODES subroutine is extended to consider three separate motion modes in the buckets. Numerical predictions of the natural period show satisfactory agreement with the available experimental data in the literature. Moreover, a time-domain numerical model is developed to simulate towing of the jacket foundation in regular waves based on the potential flow theory. The time-domain model numerically solves the towing force in regular waves, the body motions and the air pressures in the buckets. The simulation results generally agree well with the published experimental data. Besides, the present simulation results suggest that the transit towing force and the forward speed of towed triple-bucket jacket may be considerable in the initial towing stage.

Packed Piles in Rolled Wells on the Loess of Southern Kazakhstan

The features of the structure of loess soils, widespread on the territory of southern Kazakhstan, are considered, which must be taken into account when preparing foundations and laying foundations in this region. The assessment of the possibility of using promising foundations from piles in rolled wells in local conditions based on the algorithm of their implementation in other regions is given. The experience of the device of these structures in Shymkent and the factors constraining their widespread implementation are given. In the south of Kazakhstan, in particular, in Shymkent, the problem of building reliable foundations is very acute. This is due to complex geological conditions, namely, the spread of loess subsidence soils. Loess rocks are found on all continents, but they are most widely distributed in Europe, Asia and America. According to experts, with an average loess capacity of 10 m, the total area occupied by loess rocks on the globe is 19 million km2 [1]. Loess soils, from the point of view of builders, have an insidious property – to change their condition when they are soaked. Therefore, a review of the origin of loess bases can clarify the essence of the physical phenomena occurring in its thickness during the construction and operation of buildings and structures

DQ-DETR: Dual Query Detection Transformer for Phrase Extraction and Grounding

In this paper, we study the problem of visual grounding by considering both phrase extraction and grounding (PEG). In contrast to the previous phrase-known-at-test setting, PEG requires a model to extract phrases from text and locate objects from image simultaneously, which is a more practical setting in real applications. As phrase extraction can be regarded as a 1D text segmentation problem, we formulate PEG as a dual detection problem and propose a novel DQ-DETR model, which introduces dual queries to probe different features from image and text for object prediction and phrase mask prediction. Each pair of dual queries are designed to have shared positional parts but different content parts. Such a design effectively alleviates the difficulty of modality alignment between image and text (in contrast to a single query design) and empowers Transformer decoder to leverage phrase mask-guided attention to improve the performance. To evaluate the performance of PEG, we also propose a new metric CMAP (cross-modal average precision), analogous to the AP metric in object detection. The new metric overcomes the ambiguity of Recall@1 in many-box-to-one-phrase cases in phrase grounding. As a result, our PEG pre-trained DQ-DETR establishes new state-of-the-art results on all visual grounding benchmarks with a ResNet-101 backbone. For example, it achieves 91.04% and 83.51% in terms of recall rate on RefCOCO testA and testB with a ResNet-101 backbone.

Human Sciences: Another Experience of Substantiating Socio-Humanitarian Knowledge

Introduction. The article raises the problem of methodological foundations of sociohumanitarian knowledge. The opinion that has been established since the constitution of the social and humanitarian sciences that there are fundamental differences in the methodology of natural science and socio-humanitarian knowledge has become perceived as an axiom. This situation did not contribute to the creation of an adequate theory capable of sufficiently implementing the explanatory and predictive functions of science in this area.Methodology and sources. Obstacles to the creation of an adequate methodology for the study of human existence are misunderstood thesis about the specifics of socio-humanitarian knowledge and inadequate understanding of the nature of the object of socio-humanitarian knowledge. The unity of criteria and standards of scientific research in the natural sciences and socio-humanitarian sciences is achieved on the basis of the post-non-classical model of science. The concept of scientific paradigms developed by V.S. Stepin can serve as a source of a new approach to the formation of the methodology of socio-humanitarian knowledge.Results and discussion. The classical model of scientific research posited the opposite of the method of natural and socio-humanitarian sciences on the basis of the opposite of the methods of mastering the objects of research: sensory means and intelligible. In this way, indeed, it is impossible to combine the criteria and standards of science in relation to natural science and socio-humanitarian research.Conclusion. The post-non-classical model of science is based on the understanding of the research object from the point of view of its structure, which allows us to consider the phenomena of human existence as having a single nature with the object of natural science, since in both cases, objects have a complex, systemic nature and belong to self-developing objects.

The Iconicity Ring Hypothesis Bridges the Gap Between Symbol Grounding and Linguistic Relativity.

Kemmerer captured the drastic change in theories of word meaning representations, contrasting the view that word meaning representations are amodal and universal, with the view that they are grounded and language-specific. However, he does not address how language can be simultaneously grounded and language-specific. Here, we approach this question from the perspective of language acquisition and evolution. We argue that adding a new element-iconicity-is critically beneficial and offer the iconicity ring hypothesis, which explains how language-specific, secondary iconicity might emerge from biologically grounded and universally shared iconicity in the course of language acquisition and evolution.

Особенности трактовок государственной идеологии в научном дискурсе современной России

Within the framework of this article, the main problems associated with the actualization in domestic social science of scientific research on various aspects of the functioning of political ideologies in modern Russia are considered. The author states that for the last year in the subject field of researchers there have been widely discussed such issues as problems of theoretical and methodological foundations for the analysis of ideologies and their role in shaping the worldview of various age groups, constitutional context of functionality of ideologies in Russian politics, imperial tendencies in the ideological and worldview space of Russia, significance of ideologies in socio-political communications, and a number of other important aspects. The author pays main attention to analysis of the changes that have occurred recently in domestic scientific discourse in the interpretation of state ideology, discussions about the expediency and possibility of its adoption, about its value core, about its applied significance in the process of political socialization, and other aspects. Based on the analysis, it was concluded that the majority of supporters of development and normative consolidation of the state ideology underestimate the fact that in modern Russia there are no legal, political, socioeconomic, and socio-cultural prerequisites for this. Nevertheless, in the context of a hybrid war between the United States and its allies against Russia, the public’s awareness of a very real deadly external danger to the country becomes crucial. In author’s opinion, there is not only an objective need, but also the possibility of reaching a consensus on this issue of all the leading political forces in Russia, res ponsible for its fate to future generations. Such public consent of the leading Russian political parties does not require a radical revision of the current Constitution of the Russian Federation and can be adopted in the form of a memorandum, declaration, or any other form that does not claim to be a state ideology.

Strengthening and underpinning of a sinking two storey building in Lagos State Nigeria

Many existing foundations, particularly those that are old and dilapidated, are no longer strong enough to support the pressures they bear or support new loads applied to them. In order to boost the load bearing capacity, a unique underpinning technique is required. Underpinning technique provides secure, efficient, and reliable solutions to foundation and geotechnical problems affecting the foundations of buildings. However, the practice of underpinning is not common in Nigeria. This paper presents a case study on the settlement failure of a two-storey residential building in Lagos, Nigeria. The residential building encountered excessive differential settlement due to the variation in the soil strata in in 06°26′12″N Long: 3°30′44″E area of Lagos state. Some portion of the building was laid on weak and loose clayey sand which showed signs of foundation distress and led to the eventual choice of an underpinning technique adopted to extend the foundation depth to a stable stratum, to salvage the failed areas of the foundation in order to strengthen the bearing capacity and to minimize settlement. Underpinning was done because the original raft foundation was inadequate for vertical and lateral loads. The procedure used for underpinning was summarized. The measured settlement points of the underpinned foundations after six-year service life were less than 0.333 mm. This result meant that every point (from points 1–10) measurements were below the settlement limit which guaranteed the bearing resistance of the building. The result showed that the underpinning technique salvaged the areas that initially settled and showed distress signs.

Biologically Inspired Self-Organizing Computational Model to Mimic Infant Learning

Recent technological advancements have fostered human–robot coexistence in work and residential environments. The assistive robot must exhibit humane behavior and consistent care to become an integral part of the human habitat. Furthermore, the robot requires an adaptive unsupervised learning model to explore unfamiliar conditions and collaborate seamlessly. This paper introduces variants of the growing hierarchical self-organizing map (GHSOM)-based computational models for assistive robots, which constructs knowledge from unsupervised exploration-based learning. Traditional self-organizing map (SOM) algorithms have shortcomings, including finite neuron structure, user-defined parameters, and non-hierarchical adaptive architecture. The proposed models overcome these limitations and dynamically grow to form problem-dependent hierarchical feature clusters, thereby allowing associative learning and symbol grounding. Infants can learn from their surroundings through exploration and experience, developing new neuronal connections as they learn. They can also apply their prior knowledge to solve unfamiliar problems. With infant-like emergent behavior, the presented models can operate on different problems without modifications, producing new patterns not present in the input vectors and allowing interactive result visualization. The proposed models are applied to the color, handwritten digits clustering, finger identification, and image classification problems to evaluate their adaptiveness and infant-like knowledge building. The results show that the proposed models are the preferred generalized models for assistive robots.

성서 히브리어 발음 교육을 위한 제언 — 자음 명칭을 중심으로 —

Students of Biblical Hebrew often complain about how difficult it is to learn the language. Of course, the first and foundational problem lies in mastering the Hebrew alphabet (or aleph-bet), particularly the pronunciation of each letter. The problem of the Masoretic reading system’s notorious difficulty is only next. Overcoming the barrier of properly pronouncing consonants is no doubt the primary matter.BR Beginners of the language have to confront unexpected obstacles when learning Biblical Hebrew consonants. Unlike most other languages, Biblical Hebrew’s original sounds are lost, and its modern pronunciations are diversified because of the complex history of the Jewish diaspora. Moreover, there is no unified method to transliterate Biblical Hebrew into the Korean writing system, which is essential for beginners to understand the pronunciation of Biblical Hebrew. Such circumstances eventually led Hebrew Bible scholars in Korea to produce introductory grammar books that render the sound of each letter differently in many cases. This eventually made learning the consonants of Biblical Hebrew, which is supposed to be the simplest and clearest subject in learning foreign languages, quite complex and unclear. As many students cannot take the first step, they cannot go any further but give up on learning Biblical Hebrew.BR Instructors’ understanding of the current situation regarding Biblical Hebrew consonant teaching is pivotal. In this paper, I endeavored to provide instructors with key features to consider in teaching Biblical Hebrew consonants. For example, I introduce a comparison of the three main traditions of Hebrew pronunciation, that is, Sephardic, Ashkenazi, and Yemenite. Then I offer an analysis of seventeen different introductory grammar books that are used in Biblical Hebrew grammar classes in Korea, focusing on consonants in general; their ways of dealing with the name and pronunciation of each letter in particular. Finally, I add my evaluation on the current situation of Biblical Hebrew consonant education based on the textbooks I analyzed, hoping to foster better Biblical Hebrew education.

Optimal Neutral Grounding in Bipolar DC Networks with Asymmetric Loading: A Recursive Mixed-Integer Quadratic Formulation

This paper presents a novel approach to tackle the problem of optimal neutral wire grounding in bipolar DC networks including asymmetric loading, which naturally involves mixed-integer nonlinear programming (MINLP) and is challenging to solve. This MINLP model is transformed into a recursive mixed-integer quadratic (MIQ) model by linearizing the hyperbolic relation between voltage and powers in constant power terminals. A recursive algorithm is implemented to eliminate the possible errors generated by linearization. The proposed recursive MIQ model is assessed in two bipolar DC systems and compared against three solvers of the GAMS software. The results obtained validate the performance of the proposed MIQ model, which finds the global optimum of the model while reducing power losses for bipolar DC systems with 21, 33, and 85 buses by 4.08%, 2.75%, and 7.40%, respectively, when three nodes connected to the ground are considered. Furthermore, the model exhibits a superior performance when compared to the GAMS solvers. The impact of grounding the neutral wire in bipolar DC networks is also studied by varying the number of available nodes to be grounded. The results show that the reduction in power losses is imperceptible after grounding the third node for the three bipolar DC systems under study.

Experimental test and simulation calculation of fatigue properties of aluminum–titanium-steel explosive welded connector under tension-compression cyclic loading

The three-layer clad plate (aluminum alloy layer/commercial pure titanium layer/CCSB steel layer) was prepared by explosive welding as marine transition connector. The fatigue properties of clad plate were studied by experiment and finite element simulation. The fatigue limit and S–N curve were obtained by axial high-cycle fatigue test under tension-compression loading. The up-and-down method and group method were used respectively. Combining Static Structural module and DesignLife module based on the ANSYS Workbench Platform, the stress distribution, safety factor and fatigue life of clad plate under different loads were calculated. The results show that fatigue limit of Al–Ti-steel clad plate is 55 MPa, and the fatigue fracture mainly occurs in the 104∼106 cycles period in the stress range of 65 MPa∼100 MPa. The maximum relative error of fatigue life is 7.05%, and the relative error of fatigue limit is 0.45% between model and test fitting values. The results of finite element simulation have good agreement with the results of experimental method, which proves the feasibility and reliability of finite element simulation to analyze and forecast fatigue property of explosive welded clad plate. The position of the stress concentration is at the connection part between steel and pure titanium, while fatigue fracture occurs in the 3003 aluminum alloy layer because of the low tensile strength. Improving the tensile strength of Al-steel joint material is a key measure for solving the fracture problem of hull foundation.