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Let p be an odd prime and let ρ : ℤ / p → GL n ⁡ (ℤ) be an action of ℤ / p on a lattice and let Γ := ℤ n ⋊ ρ ℤ / p be the corresponding semidirect product. The torus bundle M := T ρ n × ℤ / p S ℓ over the lens space S ℓ / ℤ / p has fundamental group Γ. When ℤ / p fixes only the origin of ℤ n , Davis and Lück (2021) compute the L-groups L m 〈 j 〉 ⁢ (ℤ ⁢ [ Γ ]) and the structure set 풮 geo , s ⁢ (M) . In this paper, we extend these computations to all actions of ℤ / p on ℤ n . In particular, we compute L m 〈 j 〉 ⁢ (ℤ ⁢ [ Γ ]) and 풮 geo , s ⁢ (M) in a case where E ¯ ⁢ Γ has a non-discrete singular set. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electromagnetic Gaussian beams may be described by using a Davis scheme of approximations. It is demonstrated that this scheme also may be used, with minor changes, to manage the description of acoustical waves. The acoustical version of the Davis scheme afterward allows one to establish an efficient and accurate localized approximation to evaluate beam shape coefficients, which encode the structures of acoustical waves, similar to the localized approximation, which has been made famous when dealing with electromagnetic waves. The present paper is restricted to the case of on-axis beams. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The simultaneous generation, dissipation and redistribution of excess pore pressures within the layers of a soil deposit, due to a seismic event, can significantly modify the seismic response of the whole deposit. The reliable estimate of the excess pore pressure induced by shaking within the soil is important to predict the behaviour of the soil at a large scale, and consequently, earthquake effects on built environment. Recently, pore pressure energy-based models are developing. Despite several advantages, their calibration is generally complex. The paper aims to provide a simple calibration procedure of the pore pressure energy-based prediction model developed by Berrill and Davis (1985), in order to make easier and more common the use to practitioners. The energy-based model of Berrill and Davis (1985) has been calibrated in this study by means of a dataset of 46 undrained cyclic triaxial and simple shear tests carried out on different sandy soils. The best fitting procedure with the envelope of the experimental curves has been adopted. The experimental evidences show that the two parameters (α and β) on which the model depends, are linked and can be related to the results of CPT or SPT in situ tests. The paper introduces two relationships to compute the calibration parameters from the well-known equivalent cone tip resistance (qc1Ncs) or the corrected SPT blow count ((N1)60cs). The applicability of the proposed procedure at a large scale has been discussed interpreting the results of cyclic simple shear tests on undisturbed sandy specimens from an energetic perspective. The validity of the calibration procedure has been finally verified performing 1D non-linear site response analyses by means of DEEPSOIL code, reproducing two centrifuge tests and three case histories. The close matching between the simulations of the excess pore pressure time histories with the experimental data of the centrifuge tests, together with the simulated excess pore pressure profiles of three case histories compared with the results achieved by using another 1D non-linear code demonstrates the effectiveness of the simplified procedure to calibrate the pore pressure energy-based prediction model of Berrill and Davis (1985). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we study the family of one-dimensional piecewise smooth dynamical systems in which two classic theorems are still permanent. One of them is Birkhoff transitivity theorem and the other one is Banks, Brooks, Cairns, Davis, and Stacey theorem. Baker-like maps with N-branches (N ≥ 2) constitute an open subset of this family. We show that under certain conditions, a full chaos always occurs in the family of Baker-like maps. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the application of two machine learning methods to model precipitable water vapor (PWV) using observations of 23 GPS stations from the local GPS network of north-west of Iran in 2011. In a first step, the zenith tropospheric delay (ZTD) and zenith hydrostatic delay (ZHD) is calculated with the Bernese GNSS software and Saastamoinen model as revised by Davis, respectively. Then, by subtracting the ZHD from the ZTD, the zenith wet delay (ZWD) is obtained at each GPS station, for all times. In a second step, ZWD is modeled by two different machine learning methods, based on the latitude, longitude, DOY, time, relative humidity, temperature and pressure. After training a Support Vector Machine (SVM) and an Artificial Neural Network (ANN), ZWD temporal and spatial variations are estimated. Using the formula by Bevis, the ZWD can be converted to PWV at any time and space, for each machine learning method. The accuracy of the two new models is evaluated using control stations, exterior and radiosonde station, whose observations were not used in the training step. Also, all the results of the SVM and ANN are compared with a voxel-based tomography (VBT) model. In the control and exterior stations, ZWD estimated by the SVM (ZWD SVM) and ANN (ZWD ANN) is compared with the ZWD obtained from the GPS (ZWD GPS). Also, in the control and exterior stations, precise point positioning (PPP) is used to evaluate the accuracy of the new models. In the radiosonde station, the PWV of the new models (PWV SVM , PWV ANN) is compared with the radiosonde PWV (PWV radiosonde) and voxel-based PWV (PWV VBT). The averaged relative error of the SVM, ANN and VBT models in the control stations is 10.50%, 12.71% and 12.91%, respectively. For SVM, ANN and VBT models, the averaged RMSE at the control stations is 1.87 (mm), 2.22 (mm) and 2.29 (mm), respectively. Analysis of the results of PWV estimated by the SVM, ANN and VBT, as well as the surface precipitation obtained from meteorological stations, indicate the high accuracy of the SVM in comparison with the ANN and VBT model. In the results shown in this paper, the SVM has the best ability to accurately estimate ZWD and PWV, using local GPS network observations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses whether Texas Germans can be viewed through the lens of transnationalism. As a group, Texas Germans exhibit a rich linguistic and cultural heritage, both of which have significantly contributed to the formation of a strong sense of "Texas‐Germanness." My goal is to investigate this particular instance of "Germanness beyond Germany" (Maxwell and Davis, German Studies Review, 39, 1–15, 2016) and to determine if Texas Germans represent a previously unidentified form of linguistic transmigrant. The study utilizes a mixed‐methods approach, consulting both quantitative (surveys) and qualitative data (open‐ended interviews; semi‐structured phone interviews). The results indicate the presence of various transnational elements and confirm that both linguistic and cultural heritage are defining elements in the construction and maintenance of Texas German identity. Language, moreover, appears as an important connector and mediator between these concepts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper aims to illustrate female characters' efforts in subverting Pakistani nationalism that is gendered due to the patriarchal influences of religion and culture in Karachi, You're Killing Me! (2014) by Saba Imtiaz. The article uses qualitative cum descriptive approach for the textual analysis of the selected text. The concept of Islamization introduced by President Ziaul-Haq confined women to domestic spaces and silenced them in the national narratives. Similarly, the cultural model introduced by Yuval-Davis and Floya Anthias is quite applicable to the Pakistani context where women are reduced to the symbolic position of mothers of nation and cultural transmitters. The research is significant since it exposes how the cultural and religious influences contribute to the exclusion of women from the national narratives. However, the study contends that women resist the patriarchal notions of nationalism through technology in the novel Karachi, You're Killing Me! (2014) by Saba Imtiaz. The protagonist of the novel, Ayesha and her friend Zara use digital technologies and social media to define new social, political, and cultural space for women which subvert the dominant modes of gendered nationalism. Thus, the article proves that if given opportunities, women prove themselves an equal gender unlike the national narratives built by the patriarchy mentioning women as second gender. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inspired by classical feature descriptors in motion matching, this paper proposes a multimodal failure matching point collection method, which is defined as FMP. FMP is, in fact, a collection of unstable features with a low matching degree in the conventional matching task. Based on FMP, a novel model for the saliency detection of motion object is developed. Models are evaluated on the DAVIS and SegTrackv2 datasets and compared with recently advanced object detection algorithms. The comparison results demonstrate the availability and effectiveness of FMP in the detection of motion object saliency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Winograd Schema Challenge (WSC, proposed by Levesque, Davis & Morgenstern 2012) is considered to be the novel Turing Test to examine machine intelligence. Winograd schema questions require the resolution of anaphora with the help of world knowledge and commonsense reasoning. Anaphora resolution is itself an important and difficult issue in natural language processing, therefore, many other datasets have been created to address this issue. In this paper we look into the Winograd schemata and other Winograd-like datasets and the translations of the schemata to other languages, such as Chinese, French and Portuguese. We present the Hungarian translation of the original Winograd schemata and a parallel corpus of all the translations of the schemata currently available. We also adapted some other anaphora resolution datasets to Hungarian. We aim to discuss the challenges we faced during the translation/adaption process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

GRAND ROUNDS SCHEDULE  Pediatric Grand Rounds: Friday, October 27 Adult Grand Rounds: Friday, October 27 PAPER SESSIONS SCHEDULE  Paper Session: Assessment: Friday, October 27, 11:00am - 12:00pm Paper Session: Neurological/Neuropsychiatric: Friday, October 27, 11:00am - 12:00pm POSTER SESSIONS SCHEDULE  Poster Session A: Wednesday, October 25, 6:00pm - 7:00pm Poster Session B: Thursday, October 26, 6:00pm - 7:00pm AWARDS SCHEDULE  Student & Diversity Poster Awards: Wednesday, October 25, 1:15pm The abstracts published in this special edition are provided as a service to the membership of the National Academy of Neuropsychology, the conference attendees, and the field of clinical neuropsychology. Abstracts in this issue have been reviewed by the Poster Committee for the 43rd Annual Conference of the National Academy of Neuropsychology. They have not undergone the standard peer-reviewed process for papers published in Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology. The Conference Poster Chair and the Editor-in-Chief of Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology request that the following method be used in citing published abstracts based upon a poster presentation at the Annual Conference of the National Academy of Neuropsychology. Author 1 & Author 2 (2023) [Abstract published in Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology, vol, page number]. Abstract Title. Based upon poster presented at the 43rd Annual Conference of the National Academy of Neuropsychology, Philadelphia, PA. National Academy of Neuropsychology  Abstracts from the 43rd Annual Conference  October 25–28, 2023  Conference Abstracts Accepted under the Guest Editorship of Seth A. Margolis, Ph.D., Poster Chair. Members of the 2023 NAN Poster Program Review Committee:  Ashlee Loughan Brett Parmenter Brian Ivins Christian LoBue Cynthia Funes Dede O'Shea Douglas Cooper Geoffrey Tremont Jennifer Davis Jeremy Davis Justin Karr Karen Sullivan Katherine Kane Keenan Walker Kevin O'Brien Kristin Wilmoth Kyle Noll Mathew Thornton Noelle Carlozzi Rael Lange Sara Lippa Seth Margolis Stephen Woods Surabi Patwardhan Vanessa Williams Victor Del Bene Victoria Merritt [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the principles of embedding learning to tackle the challenging semi-supervised video object segmentation. Unlike previous practices that focus on exploring the embedding learning of foreground object (s), we consider background should be equally treated. Thus, we propose a Collaborative video object segmentation by Foreground-Background Integration (CFBI) approach. CFBI separates the feature embedding into the foreground object region and its corresponding background region, implicitly promoting them to be more contrastive and improving the segmentation results accordingly. Moreover, CFBI performs both pixel-level matching processes and instance-level attention mechanisms between the reference and the predicted sequence, making CFBI robust to various object scales. Based on CFBI, we introduce a multi-scale matching structure and propose an Atrous Matching strategy, resulting in a more robust and efficient framework, CFBI+. We conduct extensive experiments on two popular benchmarks, i.e., DAVIS and YouTube-VOS. Without applying any simulated data for pre-training, our CFBI+ achieves the performance ($\mathcal {J}$ J & $\mathcal {F}$ F ) of 82.9 and 82.8 percent, outperforming all the other state-of-the-art methods. Code: https://github.com/z-x-yang/CFBI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Drug–target interaction (DTI) prediction plays a crucial role in drug discovery. Although the advanced deep learning has shown promising results in predicting DTIs, it still needs improvements in two aspects: (1) encoding method, in which the existing encoding method, character encoding, overlooks chemical textual information of atoms with multiple characters and chemical functional groups; as well as (2) the architecture of deep model, which should focus on multiple chemical patterns in drug and target representations. Results: In this paper, we propose a multi-granularity multi-scaled self-attention (SAN) model by alleviating the above problems. Specifically, in process of encoding, we investigate a segmentation method for drug and protein sequences and then label the segmented groups as the multi-granularity representations. Moreover, in order to enhance the various local patterns in these multi-granularity representations, a multi-scaled SAN is built and exploited to generate deep representations of drugs and targets. Finally, our proposed model predicts DTIs based on the fusion of these deep representations. Our proposed model is evaluated on two benchmark datasets, KIBA and Davis. The experimental results reveal that our proposed model yields better prediction accuracy than strong baseline models. Conclusion: Our proposed multi-granularity encoding method and multi-scaled SAN model improve DTI prediction by encoding the chemical textual information of drugs and targets and extracting their various local patterns, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Event cameras such as DAVIS can simultaneously output high temporal resolution events and low frame-rate intensity images, which own great potential in capturing scene motion, such as optical flow estimation. Most of the existing optical flow estimation methods are based on two consecutive image frames and can only estimate discrete flow at a fixed time interval. Previous work has shown that continuous flow estimation can be achieved by changing the quantities or time intervals of events. However, they are difficult to estimate reliable dense flow, especially in the regions without any triggered events. In this paper, we propose a novel deep learning-based dense and continuous optical flow estimation framework from a single image with event streams, which facilitates the accurate perception of high-speed motion. Specifically, we first propose an event-image fusion and correlation module to effectively exploit the internal motion from two different modalities of data. Then we propose an iterative update network structure with bidirectional training for optical flow prediction. Therefore, our model can estimate reliable dense flow as two-frame-based methods, as well as estimate temporal continuous flow as event-based methods. Extensive experimental results on both synthetic and real captured datasets demonstrate that our model outperforms existing event-based state-of-the-art methods and our designed baselines for accurate dense and continuous optical flow estimation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Video inpainting is a task of synthesizing spatio-temporal coherent content in missing regions of the given video sequence, which has recently drawn increasing attention. To utilize the temporal information across frames, most recent deep learning-based methods align reference frames to target frame firstly with explicit or implicit motion estimation and then integrate the information from the aligned frames. However, their performance relies heavily on the accuracy of frame-to-frame alignment. To alleviate the above problem, in this paper, a novel Temporal Group Fusion Network (TGF-Net) is proposed to effectively integrate temporal information through a two-stage fusion strategy. Specifically, the input frames are reorganized into different groups, where each group is followed by an intra-group fusion module to integrate information within the group. Different groups provide complementary information for the missing region. A temporal attention model is further designed to adaptively integrate the information across groups. Such a temporal information fusion way gets rid of the dependence on alignment operations, greatly improving the visual quality and temporal consistency of the inpainted results. In addition, a coarse alignment model is introduced at the beginning of the network to handle videos with large motion. Extensive experiments on DAVIS and Youtube-VOS datasets demonstrate the superiority of our proposed method in terms of PSNR/SSIM values, visual quality and temporal consistency, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2017, Davis, Nelson, Petersen, and Tenner (Davis et al. (2018) [1]) initiated the combinatorics of pinnacles in permutations. We provide a simple and efficient recursion to compute p n (S) , the number of permutations in S n with pinnacle set S , and a conjectural closed formula for the related numbers q n (S). This conjecture was proved between the first draft of this paper and its final version by Fang (2022) [4] and later by Minnich [7]. We also determine the lexicographically minimal elements of the orbits of the modified Foata-Strehl action, prove that these elements form a lower ideal of the left weak order and characterize and count the maximal elements of this ideal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Semantics and motion are two cues of essence for the success in video salient object detection. Most existing deep-learning based approaches extract semantic features by the use of only one fully convolutional network with simple stacked encoders. They simulate motion patterns of video objects with two consecutive frames being simultaneously fed into a convolutional LSTM network or a weights-sharing fully convolutional network. However, such approaches have the shortcomings of producing a coarse predicted saliency map or requiring significant computational overheads. In this paper, we present a novel approach with cascaded fully convolutional networks involving motion attention (abbreviated as CFCN-MA), to achieve real-time saliency detection in videos. Our key idea is to construct twofold fully convolutional networks in order to gain a saliency map from coarse to fine. We devise an optical flow-based motion attention mechanism to improve the prediction accuracy of the initial fully convolutional networks, using the popular FlowNet2-SD model that is efficient and effective for motion pattern recognition of distinctive objects in videos. This method can obtain a fine saliency map with a refined region of interest. Moreover, we propose a means for calculating attention-guided intersection-over-union loss (shortnamed as AIoU) to supervise the CFCN-MA model in learning a saliency map with both clear edge and complete structure. Our approach is evaluated on three popular benchmark datasets, namely DAVIS, ViSal and FBMS. Experimental results demonstrate that our method outperforms many state-of-the-art techniques while meeting the real-time demand at 27 fps. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we examine the behavior of ideal-adic separatedness and completeness under certain ring extensions using trace map. Then we prove that adic completeness of a base ring is hereditary to its ring extension under reasonable conditions. We aim to give many results on ascent and descent of certain ring theoretic properties under completion. As an application, we give conceptual details to the proof of the almost purity theorem for Witt-perfect rings by Davis and Kedlaya. Witt-perfect rings have the advantage that one does not need to assume that the rings are complete and separated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ectogestation involves the gestation of a fetus in an ex utero environment. The possibility of this technology raises a significant question for the abortion debate: Does a woman's right to end her pregnancy entail that she has a right to the death of the fetus when ectogestation is possible? Some have argued that it does not Mathison & Davis (Bioeth 31:313–320, 2017). Others claim that, while a woman alone does not possess an individual right to the death of the fetus, the genetic parents have a collective right to its death Räsänen (Bioeth 31:697–702, 2017). In this paper, I argue that the possibility of ectogestation will radically transform the problem of abortion. The argument that I defend purports to show that, even if it is not a person, there is no right to the death of a fetus that could be safely removed from a human womb and gestated in an artificial womb, because there are competent people who are willing to care for and raise the fetus as it grows into a person. Thus, given the possibility of ectogestation, the moral status of the fetus plays no substantial role in determining whether there is a right to its death. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We propose an end-to-end network for salient object detection by combining the asynchronous event data and the RGB image. • We utilize Long Short-Term Memory and multi-level feature interaction modules to complement the image and event data. • We build an Event-RGB SOD dataset (ERSOD), and make it available to the research community. Salient object detection (SOD) focuses on mimicking the attention mechanism in human vision system. Due to the limited information provided from the traditional image data, the image-based SOD advances are very challenging in some complex scenes. Inspired by the emerging event cameras that provide asynchronous measurements of local temporal contrast over a large dynamic range, we propose a new idea to extract more effective information from the combination of event flow and RGB images. In this paper, we construct an end-to-end joint network for salient object detection (ERSOD-Net), which simultaneously supervise the RGB image and the event data within the corresponding image exposure time. To fully exploit temporal information of event data, Long Short-Term Memory module is utilized to effectively process event and learn salient object event surfaces. Moreover, multi-level feature interaction is designed to fuse two complementary branches of image and event and to predict significance mapping. Finally, to demonstrate the effectiveness of our model, a real Event-RGB SOD dataset (ERSOD) is built by DAVIS camera. Experiments on both benchmark and ERSOD datasets show that the proposed event guided network greatly improves the SOD performance in different evaluation metrics. The code and datasets will be released later at https://github.com/jxr326/ERSOD-Net. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a modified shear strength reduction method (MSSR) and its optimization variant (OPT‐MSSR) are suggested. The idea of MSSR is to approximate the standard shear strength reduction to be more stable and rigorous from the numerical point of view. The MSSR method consists of a simplified associated elasto‐plastic model completed by the strength reduction depending on the dilatancy angle. Three Davis' modifications suggested by Tschuchnigg et al. (2015) are interpreted as special cases of MSSR and their factors of safety are compared. The OPT‐MSSR method is derived from MSSR on the basis of rigid plastic assumption, similarly as in limit analysis. Using the variational approach, the duality between the static and kinematic principles of OPT‐MSSR is shown. The numerical solution of OPT‐MSRR is obtained by performing a regularization method in combination with the finite element method, mesh adaptivity and a damped Newton method. In‐house codes (Matlab) are used for the implementation of this solution concept. Finally, two slope stability problems are considered, one of which follows from analysis of a real slope. The softwares packages Plaxis and Comsol Multiphysics are used for comparison of the results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fall armyworm (Spodoptera frugiperda, Lepidoptera: Noctuidae), which is native to the Americas, has recently invaded Africa and Asia. There, it has become a major pest of maize (Zea mays). The variety of methods used to assess feeding damage caused by its caterpillars makes it difficult to compare studies. In this paper, we aim at determining which leaf damage rating scales for fall armyworm are most consistently used for which purposes, might provide most possibilities for statistical analyses, and would be an acceptable compromise between detail and workload. We first conducted a literature review and then validated the most common scales under field and laboratory conditions. Common leaf damage scales are the nominal "yes-no damage scale" that only assesses damage incidence, as well as difficult-to-analyse ordinal scales which combine incidence and severity information such as the "Simple 1 to 5 whole plant damage scale", "Davis' 0 to 9 whorl & furl damage scale", or "Williams' 0 to 9 whole plant damage scale". These scales have been adapted many times, are sometimes used incorrectly, or were wrongly cited. We therefore propose simplifications of some of these scales as well as a novel "0.0 to 4.0 fall armyworm leaf damage index" which improves precision and possibilities for parametric data analyses. We argue that the choice of a scale to use should depend on the desired level of detail, type of data analyses envisioned, and manageable time investment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Panksepp's Affective Neuroscience Theory belongs to the most important emotion theories. • The present work provides a comprehensive review on studies using the Affective Neuroscience Personality Scales (ANPS). • The ANPS aims to assess individual differences in primary emotional systems. • The current review covers 17 years of ANPS-research after the first publication of the ANPS in 2003. • The ANPS 3.1 is presented in the Appendix of the paper. Jaak Panksepp's Affective Neuroscience Theory (ANT) belongs to the most prominent emotion theories in the psychological and psychiatric sciences. ANT proposes the existence of seven primary emotional systems deeply anchored in the mammalian brain. These emotional/motivational systems have been shaped by evolutionary processes and function as tools for survival in mammalian species. The systems are called SEEKING, LUST, CARE, and PLAY, as well as ANGER, FEAR, and SADNESS. Panksepp carved out these emotional systems via means of deep brain stimulation, brain lesion and pharmacological manipulation studies. Davis et al. (2003) designed the Affective Neuroscience Personality Scales (ANPS) against the background of findings from ANT. This self-report inventory is meant to enable researchers to assess individual differences in primary emotional systems. Seventeen years have passed since the first version of the ANPS has been published. Therefore, we now provide a comprehensive overview on studies using the ANPS including work from personality science, psychiatry and the neurosciences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Railways are a rather efficient transport mean, and yet there is increasing interest in reducing their energy consumption and making them more sustainable in the current context of climate change. Many studies try to model, analyse and optimise the energy consumed by railways, and there is a wide diversity of methods, techniques and approaches regarding how to formulate and solve this problem. This paper aims to provide insight into this topic by reviewing up to 52 papers related to railways energy consumption. Two main areas are analysed: modelling techniques used to simulate train(s) movement and energy consumption, and optimisation methods used to achieve more efficient train circulations in railway networks. The most used methods in each case are briefly described and the main trends found are analysed. Furthermore, a statistical study has been carried out to recognise relationships between methods and optimisation variables. It was found that deterministic models based on the Davis equation are by far (85% of the papers reviewed) the most common in terms of modelling. As for optimisation, meta-heuristic methods are the preferred choice (57.8%), particularly Genetic Algorithms. Highlights • Modelling and optimisation methods for railways energy efficiency are reviewed. • Modelling methods provide reliable simulations of the trains' energy consumption. • Optimisation methods help obtaining the most efficient solutions for train traffic. • Most used modelling methods are deterministic, based on Davis equation. • Most used optimisation methods are meta-heuristics, mainly genetic algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A semi-supervised, one-dimensional recurrent neural network (RNN) approach called RVS has been proposed in this paper for video salient object detection. The proposed RVS approach involves the processing of each frame independently without explicitly considering temporal information. The RNN is trained using one-dimensional superpixel features to classify the salient object regions into salient foreground and non-salient background superpixels. Deep learning algorithms generally exhibit heavy dependence on training data size and often take extremely long time for training. On the contrary, the proposed RVS approach involves the training of an RNN using a small data which results in significant reduction in training time. The RVS approach has been extensively evaluated and its results are compared with those of several state-of-the-art methods using the public-domain VideoSeg, SegTrack v1 and SegTrack v2 benchmark video datasets. Further, the RVS approach has been tested using the authors' own video dataset and the complex DAVIS and video object segmentation datasets to evaluate the impact of motion and blur on its performance. The RVS approach delivers results superior to those of several approaches that strongly rely upon spatio-temporal features in detecting the salient objects from the video sequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In his recent paper (2020 Eur. J. Phys. 41 045202), Davis makes the claim that potentials and fields are ill-defined in the conventional treatment of electromagnetism. He argues that 'the usual treatment is ambiguous, with that ambiguity being reflected in the gauge transformation equations'. He then proposes an approach based on two operational versions of Helmholtz's theorem and claims that his approach does not exhibit gauge freedom and allows a rigourous definition of electromagnetic potentials. Here I argue that Davis's approach does not provide a more rigours definition of potentials than that provided by the standard approach. Apparently, Davis does not realize that when applying an operational version of Helmholtz's theorem to Maxwell's equations, he is not avoiding gauge invariance but tacitly applying it by choosing the particular gauge-condition related to this version of the theorem. The application of the instantaneous Helmholtz's theorem to Maxwell's equations is equivalent to the choice of the Coulomb-gauge condition, and the application of the retarded Helmholtz's theorem to these equations is equivalent to the choice of the Lorentz-gauge condition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We reply to some comments made by Davis (2020 Eur. J. Phys. 40 018001) on our paper (2020 Eur. J. Phys. 41 035202), by arguing that Davis's assertions are unsupported in some cases and are unsatisfactory in other cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Theory is a kind of condensed human knowledge. This paper is to examine the mechanism of interdisciplinary diffusion of theoretical knowledge by tracing the diffusion of a representative theory, the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). Design/methodology/approach: Based on the full-scale dataset of Web of Science (WoS), the citations of Davis's original work about TAM were analysed and the interdisciplinary diffusion paths of TAM were delineated, a supervised machine learning method was used to extract theory incidents, and a content analysis was used to categorize the patterns of theory evolution. Findings: It is found that the diffusion of a theory is intertwined with its evolution. In the process, the role that a participating discipline play is related to its knowledge distance from the original disciplines of TAM. With the distance increases, the capacity to support theory development and innovation weakens, while that to assume analytical tools for practical problems increases. During the diffusion, a theory evolves into new extensions in four theoretical construction patterns, elaboration, proliferation, competition and integration. Research limitations/implications: The study does not only deepen the understanding of the trajectory of a theory but also enriches the research of knowledge diffusion and innovation. Originality/value: The study elaborates the relationship between theory diffusion and theory development, reveals the roles of the participating disciplines played in theory diffusion and vice versa, interprets four patterns of theory evolution and uses text mining technique to extract theory incidents, which makes up for the shortcomings of citation analysis and content analysis used in previous studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1977, Colville, Davis, and Keimel [Positive derivations on f-rings, J. Aust. Math. Soc. Ser. A 23 1977, 3, 371–375] proved that a positive derivation on an Archimedean f-algebra A has its range in the set of nilpotent elements of A. The main objective of this paper is to obtain a generalization of the above Colville, Davis and Keimel result to general derivations. Moreover, we give a new version of the Singer–Wermer conjecture for the class of second-order derivations acting on uniformly complete almost f-algebras. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A major drawback of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems is their high peak-to-mean envelope power ratio (PMEPR). The PMEPR problem can be solved by adopting large codebooks consisting of complementary sequences with low PMEPR. In this paper, we present a new construction of polyphase complementary sets (CSs) using generalized Boolean functions (GBFs), which generalizes Schmidt’s construction in 2007, Paterson’s construction in 2000 and Golay complementary pairs (GCPs) given by Davis and Jedwab in 1999. Compared with Schmidt’s approach, our proposed CSs lead to lower PMEPR with higher code-rate for sequences constructed from higher-order (≥ 3) GBFs. We obtain polyphase complementary sequences with maximum PMEPR of $2^{k+1}$ and $2^{k+2}-2M$ where $k,M$ are non-negative integers that can be easily derived from the GBF associated with the CS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Utility-indifference approach is a useful approach to be adopted for pricing financial derivatives in an incomplete market and is an ongoing hot research topic in quantitative finance. One interesting question associated with this approach is whether or not it renders to the same option prices, degenerately, when the market becomes infinitesimally close to a complete market. The answer for such a question has been provided for European-style options as there is a well-documented theoretical proof in Davis et al. (1993). However, a theoretical proof for the case of pricing American-style options is unavailable at this stage and the answer for this question must be at least numerically confirmed before it can be comfortably used to price American-style options in incomplete markets. The contribution of this paper is to provide such a numerical verification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although an infrequent cause of small penile size in adult men, acquired penile shortening represents a particular reconstructive challenge due to preexisting penile anatomic deformities. With numerous techniques being performed, the purpose of our study is to assess available literature on length enhancement procedures used for acquired penile shortening deformities. A systematic review was performed using the guidelines outlined in the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-analyses. Medline/PubMed, Scopus, and Cochrane Databases were used to identify papers on augmentation Phalloplasty in non-transgender males with acquired penile shortening from 1990 to 2018. Outcomes, complications, and patient-reported satisfaction were analyzed. 12 articles, involving 931 patients and 8 primary procedures, met our inclusion criteria. The majority of articles had level of evidence of 4 (83%) and Newcastle Ottawa Scale score of 6 (92%, moderate risk of bias). All studies reported mean penile length gain; however, inconsistent methodology was used when measuring penile dimensions. Mean length gain ranged from 0.6 to 6.4 cm. Overall, the mean complication rate for all techniques ranged from 0% to 50%. Post-operative satisfaction was reported in 10 (83%) studies, 7 of which used a validated scale. Patients were generally satisfied, with reported satisfaction rates ranging from 77% to 100%. While numerous procedures have been described, the significant limitations in the available data preclude identifying a single superior procedure. The significant heterogeneity in the reported literature is a limitation of this study and highlights the need for standardized reporting. However, this study is the first to analyze augmentation phalloplasty literature in the setting of acquired penile shortening. Augmentation phalloplasty techniques for acquired penile shortening are evolving and are continuously being modified; best-practice guidelines are crucial to achieve safe and satisfactory outcomes in this population. Abu-Ghname A, Banuelos J, Davis MJ, et al. Augmentation Phalloplasty for Acquired Penile Shortening: A Systematic Review of Techniques, Outcomes, Patient Satisfaction, and Limitations. J Sex Med 2020;17:331–341. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper sheds light on the formulation of a new equilibrium local scour depth equation around a pier. The total bed materials removed from the scour hole due to the force exerted by the flowing fluid after colliding with the pier in the flow field are estimated. At the equilibrium condition, the shape of the scour hole around the pier may take any form, viz. linear, circular, parabolic, triangular, or combination of different shapes. To consider that, two functions are assumed at the stoss and the lee sides of the pier. The total volume of bed materials removed from the scour hole of an arbitrary shape at the stoss and the lee sides of the pier is obtained by integrating the two functions. The equilibrium scour depth is formed by applying the energy balance theorem. An example problem is illustrated and the results are compared with the equations presented by Melville and Coleman (Bridge scour. Water Resources Publication, Colorado, 2000) and HEC-18 (Richardson and Davis in Evaluating scour at bridges, HEC-18. Technical report no. FHWA NHI, 2001). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fine and coarse particulate matter (PM), as measured, for example, in regulatory air pollution monitoring networks, contains biological entities such as fungal spores, pollen, animal dander, leaf wax, and human skin cells, to mention but a few types. Although these bioaerosols come in a wide range of particle size, of 14 common types nine fall into the 0– 10 µm range and four are in the 0– 2.5 µm range. These bioaerosols contribute to the concentrations of particulates determined by both filter-based and continuous instruments. This paper reviews bioaerosol research conducted worldwide in the last twenty years. Such studies have been conducted in Toronto, Canada, central Germany, Phoenix, Arizona, Davis, California, Dallas, Texas, and at many other sites worldwide. Notwithstanding the wide variety of climates, ecological systems, and urban and rural environments in which these measurements have been made, a reasonable, first-order estimate of the overall bioaerosol contribution to particles 2.5 microns and smaller (PM2.5) is 16.5% and to particles 10 microns and smaller (PM10) is 16.3%. A percentage contribution of this magnitude from unregulated emissions means that achieving PM standards will require greater reductions in the better understood anthropogenic and natural emissions of geological and combustion particles. In one such case the emission reductions necessary to achieve the standard increase from 25% (with bioaerosols ignored) to 36% (with bioaerosols accounted for). Although to the uninitiated this difference may not appear to be substantial, it can only be considered vast and nearly regulatorily impossible to those policy makers and regulators responsible for enacting emission-reduction regulations. Emissions of airborne biological materials are unregulated. Ignoring this natural component in attempting to achieve national ambient air quality standards for particulates can lead to overly optimistic predictions of attainment. Implications: For those officials still striving to meet federal air quality standards for particulate matter, either PM10 or PM2.5, it would be prudent to acknowledge the presence of unregulated bioaerosols. Ignoring this portion of PM may lead to over-optimistic projections of attainment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Quasitoric manifolds, introduced by Davis and Januskiewicz in their seminal paper in 1991, are topological generalizations of smooth complex projective spaces. In 1992, Banchoff and K¨uhnel constructed a 10-vertex equilibrium triangulations of CP2. We generalize this construction for quasitoric manifolds providing an algorithm and construct equilibrium triangulation of several quasitoric manifolds. In some cases our construction give vertex minimal equilibrium triangulations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper evaluates Davis's analysis of the potential transformational change of current orthodoxy and his main proposition of the potential benefits that will arise from the involvement of traditional heterodoxy with the new research programmes of mainstream pluralism based on a thematic and methodological division of labour between them. It is proposed that there is an all-pervasive structural dualism that tends to augment and complicate differences on intellectual, sociological and real-world external terms beyond the limits envisaged by Davis. This broader conception of dualism is situated in a socio-evolutionary context, which prevents the convergence of mainstream pluralism and traditional heterodoxy into a transformational orthodoxy. Contrary to sequential processes, change in economics is governed by a socio-evolutionary process in which the selection of reproductive traits is variable over time. A simple socio-evolutionary framework is presented to suggest the most likely outcomes regarding the transformation of current orthodoxy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a stability study on the collapse mechanisms of a plane-strain tunnel face in c - ϕ soils using the upper bound finite element method with rigid translatory moving elements (UBFELA-RTME) and nonlinear programming technique. Practical considerations are given to the unlined length influence behind the tunnel face. An advanced mesh adaptive updating strategy is adopted, aiming to improve the computational efficiency, the accuracy of upper-bound solutions, as well as the produced collapse mechanisms. The unlined length influence on the face stability and collapse mechanism of the tunnel face are determined with various combinations of tunnel depth ratios, soil friction angles, and dilatancy angles. Using the UBFELA-RTME with the Davis's approach and a mesh adapting strategy, the non-associated plasticity flow rule can be well approximated. The developed technique was validated against different numerical methods, and it is concluded that the tunnel face stability can be improved by increasing soil friction and dilatancy angles, and yet weakens as the unlined length increases where a mesh-liked collapse zone gradually appears on the tunnel vault top. It gradually evolves to a global collapse failure till the ground surface. The findings contribute to a better understanding of the ground surface failure under the unlined support length influence in tunnel construction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Schemes of approximations to Gaussian beams beyond the paraxial approximation are reviewed. • The classical Davis scheme is found to be divergent. • The standard schemes are found to be divergent as well. • Localized approximations are trivially convergent. • Infinities produced by the observed divergences are reminiscent of similar divergences in QED. EM Gaussian beams are the most celebrated and used kind of laser beams. Their description beyond paraxial regimes has a long and venerable history, culminating may be with the building of a scheme of approximations which can be named the Davis scheme of approximations whose convergence has been considered as granted. Strange as it may be, a paper by Wang and Webb demonstrated that, actually, the Davis scheme is divergent. This quite unexpected result has been dramatically overlooked. This is the motivation for the present paper which reviews diverging and converging schemes of approximations to describe fundamental EM Gaussian beams. One of the new results obtained in the present framework is that a scheme of approximations known as the improved standard scheme, introduced more than two decades ago, is diverging as well. These divergences are the result of the behavior of asymptotic series similar to the ones encountered in quantum electrodynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A related paper [Hazan, Tuomainen, Tu, Kim, Davis, Brungart, and Sheffield. (2018b). Hear. Res. 369, 33–41] showed that, for young adult listeners, speech produced by older adults was less intelligible than the speech of young adults but both talker groups improved the intelligibility of their speech via clear speech modifications. Here, this study was extended to include older listeners with/without presbycusis. The results showed that for older listeners, speech produced by older adults was less intelligible than the speech of young adults and scores improved in the clear speech condition. The best predictor of intelligibility was the amount of energy in the mid-frequency range of the spectrum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is known that operator splitting methods based on forward–backward splitting, Douglas–Rachford splitting, and Davis–Yin splitting decompose difficult optimization problems into simpler subproblems under proper convexity and smoothness assumptions. In this paper, we identify an envelope (an objective function), whose gradient descent iteration under a variable metric coincides with Davis–Yin splitting iteration. This result generalizes the Moreau envelope for proximal-point iteration and the envelopes for forward–backward splitting and Douglas–Rachford splitting iterations identified by Patrinos, Stella, and Themelis. Based on the new envelope and the stable–center manifold theorem, we further show that, when forward–backward splitting or Douglas–Rachford splitting iterations start from random points, they avoid all strict saddle points with probability one. This result extends the similar results by Lee et al. from gradient descent to splitting methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new technique is proposed for estimating turbulent diffusion coefficients (in the present paper turbulence is assumed to be homogeneous) which is based upon wavelet decomposition which separates the mean and oscillatory (random) parts of Lagrangian trajectories. A one-dimensional discrete Daubechies wavelet transform is applied to decompose Lagrangian trajectories into components, each of which corresponds to a specific time scale τ. Diagonal diffusion coefficients are calculated from equations obtained from a combination of classical mixing length theory and general ideas from a theory of turbulent diffusion. Non-diagonal diffusion coefficients are found using the classical theory of the first passage boundary. The technique is illustrated through the analysis of twelve trajectories of RAFOS floats along the California-Oregon coast, twenty surface drifters deployed in the California Current System, and forty-five surface drifters deployed in the Black Sea in 2000–2002. The approach is compared with the well-known Davis (1991) approach in applications to the Black Sea drifters and single float trajectories along the California-Oregon coast. • A real Lagrangian trajectory can be decomposed into mean and oscillatory parts via a discrete wavelet. • A special criterion allows for distinguishing a mean trajectory from a random trajectory. • A tensor of diffusion coefficients can be estimated using wavelet decomposition and the first passage boundary approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High biotechnology potential of marine microorganisms as producers of enzymes has been driving extensive research of their diversity and biological features in recent years, including the active screening of glycosidases of marine bacteria for commercial applications. The aim of this paper was to study the ability of bacteria isolated from the bottom sediments of the Black Sea to produce glycosidases of various specificities, as well as to investigate the possibility of using coordination compounds of germanium to increase the enzymatic activity of bacteria of the genus Bacillus. Methods. The cultivation of bacteria was carried out in submerged conditions; maltose and rhamnose were used as carbon sources. Glycosidases activities were determined by the Romero and Davis method, protein - by the Lowry method. Coordination compounds of germanium were used as effectors of biosynthesis and activity of α-L-rhamnosidase in concentrations of 0.1 and 0.01%. Results. Based on the screening of 12 glycosidases activities (β-D-galactosidase, β-D-glucuronidase, α-D-mannosidase, α-D-xylosidase, α-D-fucosidase, β-D-xylosidase, β-D-glucosidase, N-acetyl-β-D-glucosaminidase, N-acetyl-α-D-glucosaminidase, N-acetyl-β-D-galactosaminidase, α-D-glucosidase, α-L-rhamnosidase) among 10 cultures of Bacillus, α-L-rhamnosidase activity (0.03-0.18 U/mg protein) was detected in 8 strains. Culture of Bacillus sp. 19 was the most active. Decrease in α-L-rhamnosidase activity of a Bacillus sp. 19 was observed after introduction of germanium complexes (0.1 and 0.01%) into the growth medium. We showed that bis (bipyridine) chloromodynam (II) bis (citrato) germanate (IV) octahydrate and tris (bipyridine) nickel (II) bis (citrato) germanate(IV) monohydrate can be used to increase α-L-rhamnosidase activity of Bacillus sp. 19. Conclusions. α-L-Rhamnosidase activity of marine strains belonging to the species of Bacillus licheniformis, Bacillus atrophaus, Bacillus subtiliswas shown for the first time. Activation of α-L-rhamnosidase from Bacillus sp. 19 by coordination compounds of germanium was observed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On the domain of cooperative games with transferable utility, we introduce path monotonicity, a property closely related to fairness (van den Brink, in Int J Game Theory 30:309–319, 2001). The principle of fairness states that if a game changes by adding another game in which two players are symmetric, then their payoffs change by the same amount. Under efficiency, path monotonicity is a relaxation of fairness that guarantees that when the worth of the grand coalition varies, the players' payoffs change according to some monotone path. In this paper, together with the standard properties of projection consistency (Funaki, in Dual axiomatizations of solutions of cooperative games. Mimeo, New York, 1998) and covariance, we show that path monotonicity characterizes the weighted surplus division solutions. Interestingly, replacing projection consistency by either self consistency (Hart and Mas-Colell, in Econometrica 57:589–614, 1989) or max consistency (Davis and Maschler, in Nav Res Logist Q 12:223–259, 1965) we obtain new axiomatic characterizations of the weighted Shapley values and the prenucleolus, respectively. Finally, by the duality approach we provide a new axiomatization of the weighted egalitarian non-separable contribution solutions using complement consistency (Moulin, in J Econ Theory 36:120–148, 1985). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • Analytical 1D radiative transfer model developed for EPIC/DSCOVR's in-band/continuum radiance ratios in O 2 A- and B-bands. • We quantify the impact of random measurement error on the retrieved cloud top height (CTH). • We quantify the systematic bias in retrieved CTH when in-cloud light penetration is ignored in the forward model. • Confirm with a different approach a previous assessment of EPIC's cloud profiling capability: only one piece of information. • A remarkable invariance of mean pathlength in arbitrarily-shaped non-absorbing media is verified for plane-parallel slabs. Abstract In a companion paper [Davis et al., JQSRT 216, 6–16 (2018)], we used a numerical 1D radiative transfer (RT) model and the statistical formalism of optimal estimation to quantify cloud information content in the O 2 A- and B-band channels of the Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC) on the Deep Space Climate ObserVatoRy (DSCOVR) platform that images the Earth's sunlit hemisphere from the vantage of the Lagrange-1 point. These two pairs of "in-band" and nearby "reference" radiances are combined into differential optical absorption spectroscopic (DOAS) ratios for both A- and B-bands, from which one can derive, in principle, both cloud top height (CTH) and cloud geometric thickness (CGT). However, Davis et al. show that under most circumstances, there is much redundancy between the two DOAS ratios and, in practice, only CTH can be reliably and accurately retrieved. Here, we derive a simplified analytical 1D RT model for the DOAS ratios to gain physical insights as well as quantify both the CTH retrieval bias from neglecting in-cloud absorption and the impact of measurement error on CTH and CGT retrievals. Using this alternative approach, we again show that only CTH can be inferred reliably when unavoidable measurement error is factored in. Finally, our new theoretical developments are related to a recently uncovered invariance property of the mean path cumulated by light in arbitrarily-shaped optical media of arbitrary opacity with arbitrary scattering properties, as long as it is conservative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of pinnacle sets has been a recent area of interest in combinatorics. Given a permutation, its pinnacle set is the set of all values larger than the values on either side of it. Largely inspired by conjectures posed by Davis, Nelson, Petersen, and Tenner and also results proven recently by Fang, this paper aims to add to our understanding of pinnacle sets by giving a simpler and more combinatorial proof of a weighted sum formula previously proven by Fang. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Crop models can be combined with optimization algorithms in order to develop management tools. However, such model-based tools are inherently affected by the imperfectness of the model on which they are based. In this paper we describe a procedure in which data assimilation and partial re-parametrization of the model embedded in the optimization procedure used to determine irrigation scheduling are performed before each optimization run. Furthermore, sensitivity analysis is performed before performing data assimilation, which ensures that only influential parameters are adjusted. The procedure was tested via simulation with DSSAT-CROPGRO for a hypothetical processing tomato crop in Davis, CA, in 2010–2019. Several scenarios that differed in terms of the measurements assumed to be available for assimilation (leaf area index, biomass and/or soil water content) were simulated. The results were compared to a benchmark scenario involving a perfect model, as well as a scenario in which data assimilation was not performed. The analysis focused on the overall performance of the irrigation schedule (yield vs. irrigation amount) derived using the model rather on the accuracy of the estimated model parameters. Assimilating weekly measurements of leaf area index led to overall performance that was within 3% of the benchmark performance. Adding weekly measurements of biomass or daily measurements of soil water content did not improve the performance. On the other hand, assimilating only daily soil water content measurements led to poorer results (5% decrease compared to benchmark) and also affected the repeatability of the results. Defining dynamically the subset of parameters for calibration via sensitivity analysis rather than calibrating a fixed subset of parameters or all parameters was beneficial, both in terms of overall performance and repeatability of the results. Overall, concurrent data assimilation and model-based optimization has potential to enhance irrigation scheduling decision making, particularly in water limited environments. • A framework combining data assimilation and model-based optimization was developed. • Sensitivity analysis was performed before each data assimilation. • Ten seasons of a processing tomato crop were simulated with DSSAT-CROPGRO. • Assimilation of Leaf Area Index, biomass and soil water content was tested. • Assimilating LAI only was sufficient to achieve close-to-optimal irrigation decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The abstracts published in this special edition are provided as a service to the membership of the National Academy of Neuropsychology, the conference attendees, and the field of clinical neuropsychology. Abstracts in this issue have been reviewed by the Poster Committee for the 41st Annual Conference of the National Academy of Neuropsychology. They have not undergone the standard peer-reviewed process for papers published in Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology. The Conference Poster Chair and the Editor-in-Chief of Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology request that the following method be used in citing published abstracts based upon a poster presentation at the Annual Conference of the National Academy of Neuropsychology. Author 1 & Author 2 (2021) [Abstract published in Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology, vol, page number]. Abstract Title. Based upon poster presented at the 41st Annual Conference of the National Academy of Neuropsychology. National Academy of Neuropsychology Abstracts from the 41st Annual Conference November 10–13, 2021. Conference Abstracts Accepted under the Guest Editorship of Victoria C. Merritt, Ph.D. Poster Chair. Members of the 2021 NAN Poster Program Review Committee: Ana Arenivas Patrick Armistead-Jehle Jacques Arrieux John Bernstein Veronica Burton Noelle Carlozzi Wesley Cole Nathan Cook Douglas Cooper Jeremy Davis Mark Ettenhofer Laura Grande Mirjana Ivanisevic Brian Ivins Colleen Jackson Mi-Yeoung Jo Katherine Kane Justin Karr Sahra Kim Sara Lippa Ashlee Loughan Roy Martin Victoria Merritt Audrina Mullane Kevin O′ Brien Brett Parmenter Surabhi Patwardhan Russell Pella Summer Rolin Karen Sullivan Matthew Thornton Amery Treble-Barna Geoffrey Tremont Dede Ukueberuwa Michael Williams Vanessa Williams Kristin Wilmoth Steven Woods [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Video object segmentation (VOS) has been a research hot-spot these years. However, evaluating the performance of different VOS methods requires labor-intensive and time-consuming manually labeled mask annotations, making it hard to validate the algorithm quality in field tests. In this paper, we tackle the problem of automatically measuring the mask quality for video object segmentation tasks without accessing manual annotations. We propose that with an elaborately designed network structure, we can extract quality-sensitive features to predict mask quality scores without ground-truth labels. To achieve this, we train an end-to-end convolutional neural network to capture the quality-sensitive features with both spatial reference and temporal reference. In the proposed Video Object Segmentation Evaluation Network, the VOSE-Net , the corresponding video frame and motion amplitude information are used for spatial and temporal references respectively. Instead of directly concatenating features for mask and references, we extract spatial quality cues with feature correlation, which is more rational and effective in this specific task. Taking in the segmented mask, its corresponding frame image and optical flow map, the VOSE-Net can provide an accurate quality estimation without the need for human intervention. To train and verify the proposed network, we construct a new dataset by using the DAVIS video segmentation benchmark and results from many public video object segmentation algorithms. We also demonstrate the robustness and usefulness of the proposed method on several applications, i.e. proposal selection, parameter optimization, arbitrary video mask evaluation. The experimental results and analysis show that the VOSE-Net is fast, effective and of practical use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the effect of sparse array geometry on the co-array signal subspace estimation error for Direction-of-Arrival (DOA) estimation. The second largest singular value of the signal covariance matrix plays an important role in controlling the distance between the true subspace and its estimate. For a special case of two closely-spaced sources impinging on the array, we explicitly compute the second largest singular value of the signal covariance matrix and show that it can be significantly larger for a nested array when compared against a uniform linear array with same number of sensors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Davis and Jedwab (1997) established a great construction theory unifying many previously known constructions of difference sets, relative difference sets and divisible difference sets. They introduced the concept of building blocks, which played an important role in the theory. On the other hand, Polhill (2010) gave a construction of Paley type partial difference sets (conference graphs) based on a special system of building blocks, called a covering extended building set, and proved that there exists a Paley type partial difference set in an abelian group of order 9 i v 4 for any odd positive integer v > 1 and any i = 0 , 1. His result covers all orders of abelian non p -groups in which Paley type partial difference sets exist. In this paper, we give new constructions of strongly regular Cayley graphs on abelian groups by extending the theory of building blocks. The constructions are large generalizations of Polhill's construction. In particular, we show that for a positive integer m and elementary abelian groups G i , i = 1 , 2 , ... , s , of order q i 4 such that 2 m | q i + 1 , there exists a decomposition of the complete graph on the abelian group G = G 1 × G 2 × ⋯ × G s by strongly regular Cayley graphs with negative Latin square type parameters (u 2 , c (u + 1) , − u + c 2 + 3 c , c 2 + c) , where u = q 1 2 q 2 2 ⋯ q s 2 and c = (u − 1) / m. Such strongly regular decompositions were previously known only when m = 2 or G is a p -group. Moreover, we find one more new infinite family of decompositions of the complete graphs by Latin square type strongly regular Cayley graphs. Thus, we obtain many strongly regular graphs with new parameters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Collapse (suddenly falling down) was a dance/theater/ media production that brought together a diverse group of artists and scientists to explore the varied ways that social and natural systems collapse and the responses of human societies. This paper focuses on the nature of the collaboration, the unique products it produced and the lessons learned. Three art-science collaboration themes emerged: (1) implementation of a large-scale stereo display for 3D data; (2) exploration from a visual design perspective of digital scans of natural hazard sites normally used for scientific research; and (3) integration of optical tracking for interaction between performers and visualizations. Each theme is explored in detail and each member of the team reflects on lessons learned from the process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]