WPU-Net: Boundary Learning by Using Weighted Propagation in Convolution Network

Deep learning has driven a great progress in natural and biological image processing. However, in material science and engineering, there are often some flaws and indistinctions in material microscopic images induced from complex sample preparation, even due to the material itself, hindering the detection of target objects. In this work, we propose WPU-net that redesigns the architecture and weighted loss of U-Net, which forces the network to integrate information from adjacent slices and pays more attention to the topology in boundary detection task. Then, the WPU-net is applied into a typical material example, i.e., the grain boundary detection of polycrystalline material. Experiments demonstrate that the proposed method achieves promising performance and outperforms state-of-the-art methods. Besides, we propose a new method for object tracking between adjacent slices, which can effectively reconstruct 3D structure of the whole material. Finally, we present a material microscopic image dataset with the goal of advancing the state-of-the-art in image processing for material science.Comment: technical repor

COLLABORATIVE KNOWLEDGE MAKING AND SHARING ACROSS SITES: THE ROLE OF BOUNDARY OBJECTS

A number of researchers on Science and Technology Studies (STS) have criticized the western view treating knowledge as objective and universal, with the argument that all knowledges are locally situated. In this article we draw on this view of decentring of scientific knowledge and on the concept of boundary objects to discuss an empirical case of a ‘global’ collaborative network called Health Information System Programme (HISP) involving a number of countries in a process of knowledge creation and sharing. The network consists of knowledge objects with seemingly universal characteristics shareable across sites. The paper discuss the ‘localness’ of the knowledge produced by looking at its originality and how it is made mobile, thereby giving it the seemingly universal characteristics. The article further, discuss how the involved multiple social worlds characterized by different knowledge practices, cultures and visions, participate through boundary objects shareable across the network and thereby contribute new knowledge in the network. The collective boundary objects created and shared within the network play a significant role in creating synergies which in turn sustains the involved countries’ local initiatives

Living Boundary Objects to Support Agile Inter-Team Coordination at Scale

Context: In the last decades, large-scale agile development has received increasing attention, as also organizations with many stakeholders and large systems aim for higher development speed and focus on customer value. A recognized research challenge in large-scale agile development relates to inter-team coordination. To coordinate effectively, organizations need to identify what knowledge is required across team borders and how it can be managed over time. Knowledge is potentially manifested in boundary objects – artifacts that create a shared understanding between teams (e.g., requirements or architecture descriptions). Traceability between artifacts is a key necessity to manage change in agile contexts. Moreover, agile practitioners aim to reduce the documentation effort to absolutely crucial artifacts and trace links.Objective: This thesis aims to improve how practitioners can manage knowledge for inter-team coordination in large-scale agile development. We focus especially on how knowledge can be made explicit in artifacts and trace links that are evolved over time. Method: We empirically investigated problems and developed solutions using a research approach that was inspired by design science. Case studies, an in-depth design science study, a mixed methods study, and surveys were performed. Using this mix of research methods, we leveraged both qualitative and quantitative data. Results: We coined the concept of living boundary objects to manage knowledge for inter-team coordination. Living boundary objects are boundary objects that are traced to other artifacts, kept up to date, and serve for inter-team coordination. They should be established early in the lifecycle to create a common understanding of the product to be developed. We scrutinized architecture descriptions, interfaces, and requirements and traceability information models as examples of concrete boundary objects. We recommend establishing alignment using a common high-level structure, but also supporting diverse knowledge management practices to fulfill the individual needs of agile teams. Conclusions: Our contributions help to establish knowledge management practices that are considered beneficial by practitioners and focus on the crucial aspects to align agile teams on. We suggest concepts and requirements for knowledge management tools that take the distinct role of living boundary objects into consideration and can be adjusted as organizations\u27 needs evolve

Actions speak louder than words: designing transdisciplinary approaches to enact solutions

Sustainability science uses a transdisciplinary research process in which academic and non-academic partners collaborate to identify a common problem and co-produce knowledge to develop more sustainable solutions. Sustainability scientists have advanced the theory and practice of facilitating collaborative efforts such that the knowledge created is usable. There has been less emphasis, however, on the last step of the transdisciplinary process: enacting solutions. We analyzed a case study of a transdisciplinary research effort in which co-produced policy simulation information shaped the creation of a new policy mechanism. More specifically, by studying the development of a mechanism for conserving vernal pool ecosystems, we found that four factors helped overcome common challenges to acting upon new information: creating a culture of learning, co-producing policy simulations that acted as boundary objects, integrating research into solution development, and employing an adaptive management approach. With an increased focus on these four factors that enable action, we can better develop the same level of nuanced theoretical concepts currently characterizing the earlier phases of transdisciplinary research, and the practical advice for deliberately designing these efforts

Boundary Objects as Dialogical Learning Accelerators for Social Change in Design for Health:Systematic Review

BACKGROUND: Boundary objects can add value for innovative design and implementation research in health care through their organizational focus and the dynamic structure between ill-structured and tailored use. However, when innovation is approached as a boundary object, more attention will need to be paid to the preimplementation phase. Research and design thinking pay attention to the preimplementation stage but do not have a social or organizational focus per se. The integration of boundary objects in design methodologies can provide a more social and organizational focus in innovative design projects by mapping out the mechanisms that occur at boundaries during design. Four dialogical learning mechanisms that can be triggered at boundaries have been described in the literature: identification, coordination, reflection, and transformation. These mechanisms seem suitable for integration in innovative design research on health. OBJECTIVE: Focusing on innovation in health, this study aims to find out whether the different learning mechanisms can be linked to studies on health innovation that mention boundary objects as a concept and assess whether the related mechanisms provide insight into the stage of the design and implementation or change process. METHODS: The following 6 databases were searched for relevant abstracts: PubMed, Scopus, Education Resources Information Center, PsycINFO, Information Science and Technology Abstracts, and Embase. These databases cover a wide range of published studies in the field of health. RESULTS: Our initial search yielded 3102 records; after removing the duplicates, 2186 (70.47%) records were screened on the title and abstract, and 25 (0.81%) papers were included; of the 13 papers where we identified 1 mechanism, 5 (38%) described an innovation or innovative project, and of the 12 papers where we identified more mechanisms, 9 (75%) described the development or implementation of an innovation. The reflective mechanism was not identified solely but was present in papers describing a more successful development or implementation project of innovation. In these papers, the predetermined goals were achieved, and the process of integration was relatively smoother. CONCLUSIONS: The concept of boundary objects has found its way into health care. Although the idea of a boundary object was introduced to describe how specific artifacts can fulfill a bridging function between different sociocultural sites and thus have a social focus, the focus in the included papers was often on the boundary object itself rather than the social effect. The reflection and transformation mechanisms were underrepresented in the included studies but based on the findings in this review, pursuing to trigger the reflective mechanism in design, development, and implementation projects can lead to a more fluid and smooth integration of innovation into practice

Recognition of 3-D Objects from Multiple 2-D Views by a Self-Organizing Neural Architecture

The recognition of 3-D objects from sequences of their 2-D views is modeled by a neural architecture, called VIEWNET that uses View Information Encoded With NETworks. VIEWNET illustrates how several types of noise and varialbility in image data can be progressively removed while incornplcte image features are restored and invariant features are discovered using an appropriately designed cascade of processing stages. VIEWNET first processes 2-D views of 3-D objects using the CORT-X 2 filter, which discounts the illuminant, regularizes and completes figural boundaries, and removes noise from the images. Boundary regularization and cornpletion are achieved by the same mechanisms that suppress image noise. A log-polar transform is taken with respect to the centroid of the resulting figure and then re-centered to achieve 2-D scale and rotation invariance. The invariant images are coarse coded to further reduce noise, reduce foreshortening effects, and increase generalization. These compressed codes are input into a supervised learning system based on the fuzzy ARTMAP algorithm. Recognition categories of 2-D views are learned before evidence from sequences of 2-D view categories is accumulated to improve object recognition. Recognition is studied with noisy and clean images using slow and fast learning. VIEWNET is demonstrated on an MIT Lincoln Laboratory database of 2-D views of jet aircraft with and without additive noise. A recognition rate of 90% is achieved with one 2-D view category and of 98.5% correct with three 2-D view categories.National Science Foundation (IRI 90-24877); Office of Naval Research (N00014-91-J-1309, N00014-91-J-4100, N00014-92-J-0499); Air Force Office of Scientific Research (F9620-92-J-0499, 90-0083

Learning object segmentation from video data

This memo describes the initial results of a project to create a self-supervised algorithm for learning object segmentation from video data. Developmental psychology and computational experience have demonstrated that the motion segmentation of objects is a simpler, more primitive process than the detection of object boundaries by static image cues. Therefore, motion information provides a plausible supervision signal for learning the static boundary detection task and for evaluating performance on a test set. A video camera and previously developed background subtraction algorithms can automatically produce a large database of motion-segmented images for minimal cost. The purpose of this work is to use the information in such a database to learn how to detect the object boundaries in novel images using static information, such as color, texture, and shape. This work was funded in part by the Office of Naval Research contract #N00014-00-1-0298, in part by the Singapore-MIT Alliance agreement of 11/6/98, and in part by a National Science Foundation Graduate Student Fellowship

Mediating Socio-Political Barriers to Water Quality Improvement in Surface Water on Grazed Wildlands

Acute and growing social and legal conflict over regulation of non-point source pollution in Washington State has hampered proactive efforts to improve water quality in streams dominated by grazed watersheds. Livestock farmers caught in the conflict over water quality experience legal risk, reduced quality of life, and financial risk. Nonpoint source pollution is “pollution that is not released through pipes but rather originates from multiple sources over a relatively large area”. This diffuse pollution is notoriously difficult to regulate. Because causality is often not definable, coercing behavior is problematic, and most efforts to address nonpoint source (NPS) pollution rely on promoting voluntary practices. Washington State University Extension, in partnership with the National Riparian Service Team and conservation districts, developed a water quality risk assessment outreach program to focus livestock managers and regulators on the drivers of riparian function and water quality, riparian and upland health rather than sporadically collected water quality monitoring data (Hall et al., 2014). The goal of this long-term outreach has been to influence both regulatory philosophy and farmer behavior. Cooperative Extension has operated as a classic boundary spanner organization (Guston, et al., 2001), (Carr and Wilkinson, 2005), facilitating social interaction in the policy/science/social conflict of water quality in grazing areas. The boundary-spanning role is likely even more critical toward behavior change outcomes in natural resource conflict than the land grant university‟s role as source and interpreter of scientific information. Boundary spanner organizations and individuals “exist at the frontier of the two relatively different social worlds of politics and science”, interacting with principal actors from both sides of the boundary, in order to create a “site of . . . coproduction, the simultaneous production of knowledge and social order” (Guston, 2001, p. 401). They have three defining characteristics: “1) they help negotiate the boundary between science and decision-making, 2) they exist between two distinct social worlds with definite responsibility and accountability to both sides of the boundary, and 3) they provide a space to legitimize the use of boundary objects” (Cash, 2001, p. 439). Boundary-spanning individuals are called to exercise cultural awareness in order to see past surface words and gestures to the underlying beliefs and values which are the true seat of behavior; they then exercise diplomacy to bridge this cultural chasm toward a mutually beneficial end

Boundary Objects and their Use in Agile Systems Engineering

Agile methods are increasingly introduced in automotive companies in the attempt to become more efficient and flexible in the system development. The adoption of agile practices influences communication between stakeholders, but also makes companies rethink the management of artifacts and documentation like requirements, safety compliance documents, and architecture models. Practitioners aim to reduce irrelevant documentation, but face a lack of guidance to determine what artifacts are needed and how they should be managed. This paper presents artifacts, challenges, guidelines, and practices for the continuous management of systems engineering artifacts in automotive based on a theoretical and empirical understanding of the topic. In collaboration with 53 practitioners from six automotive companies, we conducted a design-science study involving interviews, a questionnaire, focus groups, and practical data analysis of a systems engineering tool. The guidelines suggest the distinction between artifacts that are shared among different actors in a company (boundary objects) and those that are used within a team (locally relevant artifacts). We propose an analysis approach to identify boundary objects and three practices to manage systems engineering artifacts in industry

Coordination and control in project-based work: digital objects and infrastructures for delivery

A major infrastructure project is used to investigate the role of digital objects in the coordination of engineering design work. From a practice-based perspective, research emphasizes objects as important in enabling cooperative knowledge work and knowledge sharing. The term ‘boundary object’ has become used in the analysis of mutual and reciprocal knowledge sharing around physical and digital objects. The aim is to extend this work by analysing the introduction of an extranet into the public–private partnership project used to construct a new motorway. Multiple categories of digital objects are mobilized in coordination across heterogeneous, cross-organizational groups. The main findings are that digital objects provide mechanisms for accountability and control, as well as for mutual and reciprocal knowledge sharing; and that different types of objects are nested, forming a digital infrastructure for project delivery. Reconceptualizing boundary objects as a digital infrastructure for delivery has practical implications for management practices on large projects and for the use of digital tools, such as building information models, in construction. It provides a starting point for future research into the changing nature of digitally enabled coordination in project-based work