Ship Wake Detection in SAR Images via Sparse Regularization

In order to analyse synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images of the sea surface, ship wake detection is essential for extracting information on the wake generating vessels. One possibility is to assume a linear model for wakes, in which case detection approaches are based on transforms such as Radon and Hough. These express the bright (dark) lines as peak (trough) points in the transform domain. In this paper, ship wake detection is posed as an inverse problem, which the associated cost function including a sparsity enforcing penalty, i.e. the generalized minimax concave (GMC) function. Despite being a non-convex regularizer, the GMC penalty enforces the overall cost function to be convex. The proposed solution is based on a Bayesian formulation, whereby the point estimates are recovered using maximum a posteriori (MAP) estimation. To quantify the performance of the proposed method, various types of SAR images are used, corresponding to TerraSAR-X, COSMO-SkyMed, Sentinel-1, and ALOS2. The performance of various priors in solving the proposed inverse problem is first studied by investigating the GMC along with the L1, Lp, nuclear and total variation (TV) norms. We show that the GMC achieves the best results and we subsequently study the merits of the corresponding method in comparison to two state-of-the-art approaches for ship wake detection. The results show that our proposed technique offers the best performance by achieving 80% success rate.Comment: 18 page

Analysis of monotonicity properties of some rule interestingness measures

One of the crucial problems in the field of knowledge discovery is development of good interestingness measures for evaluation of the discovered patterns. In this paper, we consider quantitative, objective interestingness measures for "if..., then... " association rules. We focus on three popular interestingness measures, namely rule interest function of Piatetsky-Shapiro, gain measure of Fukuda et al., and dependency factor used by Pawlak. We verify whether they satisfy the valuable property M of monotonic dependency on the number of objects satisfying or not the premise or the conclusion of a rule, and property of hypothesis symmetry (HS). Moreover, analytically and through experiments we show an interesting relationship between those measures and two other commonly used measures of rule support and anti-support

Quantum Knowledge, Quantum Belief, Quantum Reality: Notes of a QBist Fellow Traveler

I consider the "Quantum Bayesian" view of quantum theory as expounded in a 2006 paper of Caves, Fuchs, and Schack. I argue that one can accept a generally personalist, decision-theoretic view of probability, including probability as manifested in quantum physics, while nevertheless accepting that in some situations, including some in quantum physics, probabilities may in a useful sense be thought of as objectively correct. This includes situations in which the ascription of a quantum state should be thought of as objectively correct. I argue that this does not cause any prima facie objectionable sort of action at a distance, though it may involve adopting the attitude that certain dispositional properties of things are not "localized" at those things. Whether this insouciant view of nonlocality and objectivity can survive more detailed analysis is a matter for further investigation.Comment: 13 page

The Significance of Non-Empirical Confirmation in Fundamental Physics

In the absence of empirical confirmation, scientists may judge a theory's chances of being viable based on a wide range of arguments. The paper argues that such arguments can differ substantially with regard to their structural similarly to empirical confirmation. Arguments that resemble empirical confirmation in a number of crucial respects provide a better basis for reliable judgement and can, in a Bayesian sense, amount to significant \textit{non-empirical} confirmation. It is shown that three kinds of non-empirical confirmation that have been specified in earlier work do satisfy those conditions

A probabilistic analysis of argument cogency

This paper offers a probabilistic treatment of the conditions for argument cogency as endorsed in informal logic: acceptability, relevance, and sufficiency. Treating a natural language argument as a reason-claim-complex, our analysis identifies content features of defeasible argument on which the RSA conditions depend, namely: change in the commitment to the reason, the reason’s sensitivity and selectivity to the claim, one’s prior commitment to the claim, and the contextually determined thresholds of acceptability for reasons and for claims. Results contrast with, and may indeed serve to correct, the informal understanding and applications of the RSA criteria concerning their conceptual dependence, their function as update-thresholds, and their status as obligatory rather than permissive norms, but also show how these formal and informal normative approachs can in fact align

Health Information Availability and the Consumption of Eggs: Are Consumers Bayesians?

We use a generalized Bayesian updating model to estimate the impact of health information appearing in the popular media on the consumption of eggs. Our model allows media publications with differing circulation numbers to have differing effects. Further, we explore the possible effects of several known psychological biases in learning.Marketing,

The Knotted Sky I: Planck constraints on the primordial power spectrum

Using the temperature data from Planck we search for departures from a power-law primordial power spectrum, employing Bayesian model-selection and posterior probabilities. We parametrize the spectrum with $n$ knots located at arbitrary values of $\log{k}$, with both linear and cubic splines. This formulation recovers both slow modulations and sharp transitions in the primordial spectrum. The power spectrum is well-fit by a featureless, power-law at wavenumbers $k>10^{-3} \, \mathrm{Mpc}^{-1}$. A modulated primordial spectrum yields a better fit relative to $\Lambda$CDM at large scales, but there is no strong evidence for a departure from a power-law spectrum. Moreover, using simulated maps we show that a local feature at $k \sim 10^{-3} \, \mathrm{Mpc}^{-1}$ can mimic the suppression of large-scale power. With multi-knot spectra we see only small changes in the posterior distributions for the other free parameters in the standard $\Lambda$CDM universe. Lastly, we investigate whether the hemispherical power asymmetry is explained by independent features in the primordial power spectrum in each ecliptic hemisphere, but find no significant differences between them.Comment: 24 pages, 9 figures, 4 tables, 1 appendix; v2: references added, discussion updated, matches published versio