Improved image classification with neural networks by fusing multispectral signatures with topological data

Automated schemes are needed to classify multispectral remotely sensed data. Human intelligence is often required to correctly interpret images from satellites and aircraft. Humans suceed because they use various types of cues about a scene to accurately define the contents of the image. Consequently, it follows that computer techniques that integrate and use different types of information would perform better than single source approaches. This research illustrated that multispectral signatures and topographical information could be used in concert. Significantly, this dual source tactic classified a remotely sensed image better than the multispectral classification alone. These classifications were accomplished by fusing spectral signatures with topographical information using neural network technology. A neural network was trained to classify Landsat mulitspectral signatures. A file of georeferenced ground truth classifications were used as the training criterion. The network was trained to classify urban, agriculture, range, and forest with an accuracy of 65.7 percent. Another neural network was programmed and trained to fuse these multispectral signature results with a file of georeferenced altitude data. This topological file contained 10 levels of elevations. When this nonspectral elevation information was fused with the spectral signatures, the classifications were improved to 73.7 and 75.7 percent

Secure and Verifiable Electronic Voting in Practice: the use of vVote in the Victorian State Election

The November 2014 Australian State of Victoria election was the first statutory political election worldwide at State level which deployed an end-to-end verifiable electronic voting system in polling places. This was the first time blind voters have been able to cast a fully secret ballot in a verifiable way, and the first time a verifiable voting system has been used to collect remote votes in a political election. The code is open source, and the output from the election is verifiable. The system took 1121 votes from these particular groups, an increase on 2010 and with fewer polling places

The Pitfalls of Work Requirements in Welfare-to-Work Policies: Experimental Evidence on Human Capital Accumulation in the Self-Sufficiency Project

This paper investigates whether policies that encourage recipients to exit welfare for full-time employment influence participation in educational activity. The Self-Sufficiency Project ('SSP') was a demonstration project where long-term welfare recipients randomly assigned to the treatment group were offered a generous earnings supplement if they exited welfare for full-time employment. We find that treatment group members were less likely to upgrade their education along all dimensions: high-school completion, enrolling in a community college or trade school, and enrolling in university. Thus, 'work-first'; policies that encourage full-time employment may reduce educational activity and may have adverse consequences on the long-run earnings capacity of welfare recipients. We also find that there was a substantial amount of educational upgrading in this population. For instance, among high-school dropouts at the baseline, 19% completed their diploma by the end of the demonstration. Finally, we simulate the consequences of the earnings supplement in the absence of adverse effects on educational upgrading. Doing so alters the interpretation of the lessons from the SSP demonstration.welfare policy, human capital, experimental methods, earnings supplementation

CoolBeans: Using Technology to Encourage Real-World Informal Interaction

Informal interaction is considered an important part of the work ethic and process in business and academia. We found that the new facilities for a computer science department at the University of Southampton were not conducive to this, and designed a technology-based solution to improve social awareness and encourage interaction using a presence-aware application and web interface. Users could use the system to find out who was taking a break and to invite others to do so. Initial results suggest that the project both encouraged social activity and became a popular fixture in the area on which efforts were focused

Opening the Black Box: A Multi-Method Analysis of An Enterprise Resource Planning Implementation

This paper presents a multi-method analysis of the implementation of an enterprise resource planning system. It argues the majority of research treats these systems as having essential technical properties that enable them to bring about positive organisational effects. In contrast, we adopt a post-essentialist perspective that understands discourse as constructing ERP systems, rather than reflecting their essential properties. Discourse analysis of interviews and focus groups was used to compare justifications for the implementation produced by members of the ERP project team with end users’ reactions to the system. In contrast to previous studies, this opens the ERP black box by illustrating how the capabilities of these systems, and their organisational effects, are constructed through language. Moreover, it demonstrates the important function these constructions perform in legitimising or undermining ERP implementation. Statistical analysis of post-implementation questionnaires identified the predictors of established measures of users’ reactions to IT systems. By comparing these data with end users’ discursive reactions to the project, we identify several constructs for inclusion in future studies of users’ reactions to ERP systems. The paper concludes by summarising the contributions and limitations of the study and its implications for future research and practice

Feasibility study of using the overlap-Dirac operator for hadron spectroscopy

We investigate a number of algorithms that calculate the quark propagators for the overlap-Dirac fermion operator. The QCD simulations were performed at beta = 5.9 with a lattice volume of 16**3*32.Comment: LATTICE99(Chiral Fermions) 3 pages, 2 figures. A problem with the incorrect definition of the overlap mass has been corrected. The results have changed, but not the conclusions of the pape