Spectral-spatial classification of hyperspectral images: three tricks and a new supervised learning setting

Spectral-spatial classification of hyperspectral images has been the subject of many studies in recent years. In the presence of only very few labeled pixels, this task becomes challenging. In this paper we address the following two research questions: 1) Can a simple neural network with just a single hidden layer achieve state of the art performance in the presence of few labeled pixels? 2) How is the performance of hyperspectral image classification methods affected when using disjoint train and test sets? We give a positive answer to the first question by using three tricks within a very basic shallow Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) architecture: a tailored loss function, and smooth- and label-based data augmentation. The tailored loss function enforces that neighborhood wavelengths have similar contributions to the features generated during training. A new label-based technique here proposed favors selection of pixels in smaller classes, which is beneficial in the presence of very few labeled pixels and skewed class distributions. To address the second question, we introduce a new sampling procedure to generate disjoint train and test set. Then the train set is used to obtain the CNN model, which is then applied to pixels in the test set to estimate their labels. We assess the efficacy of the simple neural network method on five publicly available hyperspectral images. On these images our method significantly outperforms considered baselines. Notably, with just 1% of labeled pixels per class, on these datasets our method achieves an accuracy that goes from 86.42% (challenging dataset) to 99.52% (easy dataset). Furthermore we show that the simple neural network method improves over other baselines in the new challenging supervised setting. Our analysis substantiates the highly beneficial effect of using the entire image (so train and test data) for constructing a model.Comment: Remote Sensing 201

Quantifying the relevance of different mediators in the human immune cell network

Immune cells coordinate their efforts for the correct and efficient functioning of the immune system (IS). Each cell type plays a distinct role and communicates with other cell types through mediators such as cytokines, chemokines and hormones, among others, that are crucial for the functioning of the IS and its fine tuning. Nevertheless, a quantitative analysis of the topological properties of an immunological network involving this complex interchange of mediators among immune cells is still lacking. Here we present a method for quantifying the relevance of different mediators in the immune network, which exploits a definition of centrality based on the concept of efficient communication. The analysis, applied to the human immune system, indicates that its mediators significantly differ in their network relevance. We found that cytokines involved in innate immunity and inflammation and some hormones rank highest in the network, revealing that the most prominent mediators of the IS are molecules involved in these ancestral types of defence mechanisms highly integrated with the adaptive immune response, and at the interplay among the nervous, the endocrine and the immune systems.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figure

Design and Evaluation of IoT-Enabled Instrumentation for a Soil-Bentonite Slurry Trench Cutoff Wall

In this work, we describe our approach and experiences bringing an instrumented soil-bentonite slurry trench cutoff wall into a modern IoT data collection and visualization pipeline. Soil-bentonite slurry trench cutoff walls have long been used to control ground water flow and contaminant transport. A Raspberry Pi computer on site periodically downloads the sensor data over a serial interface from an industrial datalogger and transmits the data wirelessly to a gateway computer located 1.3 km away using a reliable transmission protocol. The resulting time-series data is stored in a MongoDB database and data is visualized in real-time by a custom web application. The system has been in operation for over two years achieving 99.42% reliability and no data loss from the collection, transport, or storage of data. This project demonstrates the successful bridging of legacy scientific instrumentation with modern IoT technologies and approaches to gain timely web-based data visualization facilitating rapid data analysis without negatively impacting data integrity or reliability. The instrumentation system has proven extremely useful in understanding the changes in the stress state over time and could be deployed elsewhere as a means of on-demand slurry trench cutoff wall structural health monitoring for real-time stress detection linked to hydraulic conductivity or adapted for other infrastructure monitoring applications

Characterization of Strontium Oxide Layers on Silicon for CMOS High-K Gate Stack Scaling

Extended abstract of a paper presented at Microscopy and Microanalysis 2011 in Nashville, Tennessee, USA, August 7-August 11, 201

Representações de Ernesto Geisel em Obras Historiográficas, Biográficas e Didáticas

A presente dissertação tem por objetivo analisar representações de Ernesto Geisel dadas a ler em obras historiográficas, biográficas e Livros Didáticos (LD) de História indicados pelo Guia do Livro Didático nos anos de 2008 à 2012. Busca-se também compreender as implicações dessas representações para a apropriação do personagem histórico. A fundamentação teórica tem por base princípios da História Cultural, atendo mais precisamente aos conceitos de representação, apropriação e práticas apresentados por Roger Chartier em algumas de suas obras, em especial na obra História Cultural: entre práticas e representação (2002). Notamos que os autores dos LDH dedicaram-se basicamente em descrever Geisel como o presidente da distensão política. O motivo que nos levou a optar por trabalhar também com biografias/entrevistas como fontes de pesquisa, deveu-se ao fato de acreditarmos que seja importante analisar se representações de Geisel que circulam em LDH coincidem com representações nelas expostas, assim como averiguar se são as mesmas que ele fazia de si. Identificou-se que existem representações de Ernesto Geisel em obras bibliográficas e historiográficas que comungam entre si, porém, isso não ocorre quando inserimos o LDH em tal comparação, pois o mesmo não nos trás representações claras de Ernesto enquanto indivíduo encarnado em seu contexto histórico

Semi-invasive pulmonary aspergillosis in an immunosuppressed patient: a case report

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licens

Morphological and molecular characterization of adults and larvae of Crassicauda spp. (Nematoda: Spirurida) from Mediterranean fin whales Balaenoptera physalus (Linnaeus, 1758)

Crassicauda boopis is known to infect the kidneys and vascular system of mysticetes included Balaenoptera physalus and has been recently reported in Mediterranean waters. Identification at the species level relies on the observation of morphological features of the adult parasites, but field conditions during necropsy and the massive reaction of the host's immune system often prevent optimal conservation of the extremities. Moreover, larval stages of Crassicauda have never been described and no sequences are available in public databases to help such identification. Adult and larvae of Crassicauda were isolated from four specimens of B. physalus and studied with morphological and molecular techniques. Specimens of C. anthonyi, C. grampicola and Crassicauda sp. isolated from Ziphius cavirostris, Grampus griseus, Stenella coeruleoalba and Tursiops truncatus respectively were studied as well. Sequences of nuclear markers 18S and ITS-2 and of mitochondrial gene cox1 were obtained and phylogenetic relationships within the genus Crassicauda were analysed. Analysis of the ITS2 grouped the dif- ferent species in accordance with morphological identification, as already evidenced in literature for other Spirurida. A higher intra-specific variability was observed for the cox1 gene, for which two species (C. grampicola and C. anthonyi) did not appear as monophyletic in the tree. Well-developed non-attached larval specimens in the intestinal lumen of a whale calf were molecularly identified as C. boopis, allowing new insights on the life cycle of this species. This work broadens the genetic database on cetaceans parasites, allowing species identi- fication even in challenging field conditions or in poor conservation of the samples; moreover, the first mor- phological description of C. boopis larvae is provided