Painterly rendering techniques: A state-of-the-art review of current approaches

In this publication we will look at the different methods presented over the past few decades which attempt to recreate digital paintings. While previous surveys concentrate on the broader subject of non-photorealistic rendering, the focus of this paper is firmly placed on painterly rendering techniques. We compare different methods used to produce different output painting styles such as abstract, colour pencil, watercolour, oriental, oil and pastel. Whereas some methods demand a high level of interaction using a skilled artist, others require simple parameters provided by a user with little or no artistic experience. Many methods attempt to provide more automation with the use of varying forms of reference data. This reference data can range from still photographs, video, 3D polygonal meshes or even 3D point clouds. The techniques presented here endeavour to provide tools and styles that are not traditionally available to an artist. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

Stippling by Example

In this work, we focus on stippling as an artistic style and discuss our technique for capturing and reproducing stipple features unique to an individual artist. We employ a texture synthesis algorithm based on the gray-level co-occurrence matrix (GLCM) of a texture field. This algorithm uses a texture similarity metric to generate stipple textures that are perceptually similar to input samples, allowing us to better capture and reproduce stipple distributions. First, we extract example stipple textures representing various tones in order to create an approximate tone map used by the artist. Second, we extract the stipple marks and distributions from the extracted example textures, generating both a lookup table of stipple marks and a texture representing the stipple distribution. Third, we use the distribution of stipples to synthesize similar distributions with slight variations using a numerical measure of the error between the synthesized texture and the example texture as the basis for replication. Finally, we apply the synthesized stipple distribution to a 2D grayscale image and place stipple marks onto the distribution, thereby creating a stippled image that is statistically similar to images created by the example artist

Fire maintenance and artificial burrows increase growth and survival of the endangered dusky gopher frog in longleaf pine forests

The critically endangered Dusky Gopher Frog occupies longleaf pine savannas frequented by fire, where grasses and natural burrows are abundant. Gopher frogs avoid fire-suppressed habitat, where the understory is comprised of shrubs and there are fewer burrows. It is assumed that fire-suppression creates a suboptimal environment for gopher frogs, but there are few data to support this. In this experiment, I examined growth and survival rates of juvenile dusky gopher frogs in burned and fire-suppressed habitats and, using artificial burrows, I examined how burrow density affected these rates. I marked and released newly metamorphosed frogs into outdoor enclosures in a longleaf pine forest assigned to one of four treatments: frequently-burned, frequently-burned with artificial burrows, fire-suppressed, and fire-suppressed with artificial burrows. From June 2018 through January 2019, I recaptured frogs and recorded their mass and snout-vent length. I found that frogs in frequently-burned enclosures containing artificial burrows had the greatest growth. Frogs in fire-suppressed enclosures without artificial burrows had the lowest growth. Frogs in the frequently-burned enclosures without artificial burrows and frogs in fire-suppressed enclosures with artificial burrows had strikingly similar growth, demonstrating that increasing burrow density could mitigate the effects of fire-suppression. Survival was highest in frequently-burned enclosures containing artificial burrows. The results of this research suggest that both controlled burns and artificial burrows can increase growth in gopher frogs while the combination of the two treatments can enhance survival. Management burns and incorporating artificial burrows into forest management strategies could facilitate the recovery of this endangered species

Local Citation Recommendation with Hierarchical-Attention Text Encoder and SciBERT-based Reranking

The goal of local citation recommendation is to recommend a missing reference from the local citation context and optionally also from the global context. To balance the tradeoff between speed and accuracy of citation recommendation in the context of a large-scale paper database, a viable approach is to first prefetch a limited number of relevant documents using efficient ranking methods and then to perform a fine-grained reranking using more sophisticated models. In that vein, BM25 has been found to be a tough-to-beat approach to prefetching, which is why recent work has focused mainly on the reranking step. Even so, we explore prefetching with nearest neighbor search among text embeddings constructed by a hierarchical attention network. When coupled with a SciBERT reranker fine-tuned on local citation recommendation tasks, our hierarchical Attention encoder (HAtten) achieves high prefetch recall for a given number of candidates to be reranked. Consequently, our reranker requires fewer prefetch candidates to rerank, yet still achieves state-of-the-art performance on various local citation recommendation datasets such as ACL-200, FullTextPeerRead, RefSeer, and arXiv

RETROSPECTIVE STUDY OF FMOL HEALTH SYSTEM UTILIZATION USING GEOSPATIAL INFORMATION

Medicaid Expansion and closing of Emergency Departments (ED) like Earl K. Long, Baton Rouge General Mid-City ED, and Champion Medical Center changed the health care landscape in East Baton Rouge Parish (EBRP). In this research study, a Geographical Information System (GIS) is used to analyze the impact of the expansion of Medicaid and the inauguration of Our Lady of the Lake North Baton Rouge ED (OLOL NBR ED) over the utilization of Franciscan Missionaries of our Lady Health System (FMOLHS) for both emergency and non-emergency health care services. This study is performed across the 58 neighborhoods of EBRP. Overutilization of ED is another major issue faced by the health care providers. This research study also focusses on the impact of expansion of Medicaid on over-utilizers of FMOLHS ED facilities in EBRP. The patient data obtained from the Electronic Health Records (EHR) of Francis Missionaries of our Lady Health System (FMOLHS) is geocoded and mapped into ArcGIS software. The census information that is publicly available for EBRP as shape files is used to map and join geocoded patient data to form heat maps. After the expansion of Medicaid, there is a significant increase in patient visits in FMOLHS ED and non-ED facilities (primary care centers) due to an increase in the number (count) of patients to these facilities and not to an increased rate of visits per patient. More proportion of patients started visiting FMOLHS ED facilities from lower-income neighborhoods in EBRP and FMOLHS non-ED facilities from medium-income neighborhoods after the expansion of Medicaid. After the inauguration of OLOL NBR ED, there is a significant reduction in the number of patients to other FMOLHS ED facilities (OLOL RMC ED and Livingston ED). The highest reduction in patients count to OLOL RMC ED and Livingston ED is observed in the lower-income neighborhoods compared to the reduction in patients count in the medium and higher income neighborhoods after the inauguration of OLOL NBR E

Organizational Complexity, Plan Adequacy, and Nursing Home Resiliency: A Contingency Perspective

Some social and organizational behavior scientists measure resiliency through anecdotal qualitative research, i.e. personality analyses and stories of life experience. Empirical evidence remains limited for identifying measurable indicators of resiliency. Therefore, a testable contingency model was needed to clarify resiliency factors pertinent to organizational performance. Two essential resiliency factors were: 1) a written plan and 2) affiliation with a disaster network. This contingency study demonstrated a quantifiable, correlational effect between organizational complexity, disaster plan adequacy and organizational resiliency. The unit of analysis, the skilled nursing facility proved vulnerable, therefore justifying the need for a written emergency management plan and affiliation with a disaster network. The main purpose of this research was to verify the significance of emergency management plans within a contingency framework of complexity theory, resource dependency, systems theory, and network theory. Distinct sample moments quantified causal relationships between organizational complexity (A), plan adequacy (B) and resiliency (C). Primary and secondary research data were collected from within the context of public health and emergency management sectors within the State of Florida