Object Segmentation in Images using EEG Signals

This paper explores the potential of brain-computer interfaces in segmenting objects from images. Our approach is centered around designing an effective method for displaying the image parts to the users such that they generate measurable brain reactions. When an image region, specifically a block of pixels, is displayed we estimate the probability of the block containing the object of interest using a score based on EEG activity. After several such blocks are displayed, the resulting probability map is binarized and combined with the GrabCut algorithm to segment the image into object and background regions. This study shows that BCI and simple EEG analysis are useful in locating object boundaries in images.Comment: This is a preprint version prior to submission for peer-review of the paper accepted to the 22nd ACM International Conference on Multimedia (November 3-7, 2014, Orlando, Florida, USA) for the High Risk High Reward session. 10 page

Physiological and histological phenomena of the bovine estrual cycle with special reference to vaginal-cervical secretions

Digitized 2007 AES.Includes bibliographical references (pages 65-70)

Selected Hydrologic Data for Cache Valley, Utah and Idaho, 1969-91

This report contains hydrologic data collected in Cache Valley from 1969 to 1991. The report area is in north-central Utah and southeast Idaho, within the Basin and Range physiographic province described by Fenneman (1931), and includes about 660 square miles. Most of the data in this report were collected by the U.S. Geological Survey in cooperation with the Utah Department of Natural Resources, Divisions or Water Resources and Water Rights. Some of the data collected before 1969 were previously published by McGreevy and Bjorklund (1970). The purpose of this report is to provide hydrologic data for use by the general public and by officials managing the area\u27s water resources, and to supplement interpretive reports for the area. Tables 1 to 7 contain selected well, spring, and surface-water data. The numbering systems used in this report for hydrologic-data sites are illustrated in figure 1. Hydrologic-data sites are shown on plate 1. These data could not have been collected without the cooperation of local residents and officials of irrigation companies and municipalities, that permitted access to their wells, springs, and canals to measure water levels in wells and flow in springs and canals. The Idaho Deparment of Water Resources also provided valuable assistance Ind data

In Situ Geochronology on the Mars 2020 Rover with KArLE (Potassium-Argon Laser Experiment)

If extinct and/or extant life is discovered on Mars, knowledge of the chronology of the biosphere will be of paramount importance. KArLE will provide absolute ages of Mars 2020 rocks, which will allow us to understand them in the context of Mars' geologic history, connect them to other landing sites, and compare Martian epochs of habitability with the Earth's history and evolution of life. KArLE significantly enhances the ability of Mars 2020 to meet its science objectives by performing in situ age dating on key lithologies, enabling targeted searches for ancient biosignatures and increasing the chances of identifying evidence for Martian microbial life. The KArLE investigation makes its measurements on a core sample obtained with the rover drill, inserted into a small, mechanically simple chamber, followed by interrogation by laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS), mass spectrometry, and optical imaging. The KArLE experiment is flexible enough to accommodate any partner providing these instrument components, a creative approach that extends the ability of the Mars 2020 payload to accomplish an additional highly-desirable science measurement for low cost and risk and minimal extra hardware

Meaning to Form: Measuring Systematicity as Information

A longstanding debate in semiotics centers on the relationship between linguistic signs and their corresponding semantics: is there an arbitrary relationship between a word form and its meaning, or does some systematic phenomenon pervade? For instance, does the character bigram \textit{gl} have any systematic relationship to the meaning of words like \textit{glisten}, \textit{gleam} and \textit{glow}? In this work, we offer a holistic quantification of the systematicity of the sign using mutual information and recurrent neural networks. We employ these in a data-driven and massively multilingual approach to the question, examining 106 languages. We find a statistically significant reduction in entropy when modeling a word form conditioned on its semantic representation. Encouragingly, we also recover well-attested English examples of systematic affixes. We conclude with the meta-point: Our approximate effect size (measured in bits) is quite small---despite some amount of systematicity between form and meaning, an arbitrary relationship and its resulting benefits dominate human language.Comment: Accepted for publication at ACL 201

Insights into methane dynamics from analysis of authigenic carbonates and chemosynthetic mussels at newly-discovered Atlantic Margin seeps

The recent discovery of active methane venting along the US northern and mid-Atlantic margin represents a new source of global methane not previously accounted for in carbon budgets from this region. However, uncertainty remains as to the origin and history of methane seepage along this tectonically inactive passive margin. Here we present the first isotopic analyses of authigenic carbonates and methanotrophic deep-sea mussels, Bathymodiolus sp., and the first direct constraints on the timing of past methane emission, based on samples collected at the upper slope Baltimore Canyon (∼385 m water depth) and deepwater Norfolk (∼1600 m) seep fields within the area of newly-discovered venting. The authigenic carbonates at both sites were dominated by aragonite, with an average image signature of image, a value consistent with microbially driven anaerobic oxidation of methane-rich fluids occurring at or near the sediment–water interface. Authigenic carbonate U and Sr isotope data further support the inference of carbonate precipitation from seawater-derived fluids rather than from formation fluids from deep aquifers. Carbonate stable and radiocarbon (image and image) isotope values from living Bathymodiolus sp. specimens are lighter than those of seawater dissolved inorganic carbon, highlighting the influence of fossil carbon from methane on carbonate precipitation. U–Th dates on authigenic carbonates suggest seepage at Baltimore Canyon between image to image, and at the Norfolk seep field between image to image, providing constraint on the longevity of methane efflux at these sites. The age of the brecciated authigenic carbonates and the occurrence of pockmarks at the Baltimore Canyon upper slope could suggest a link between sediment delivery during Pleistocene sea-level lowstand, accumulation of pore fluid overpressure from sediment compaction, and release of overpressure through subsequent venting. Calculations show that the Baltimore Canyon site probably has not been within the gas hydrate stability zone (GHSZ) in the past 20 ka, meaning that in-situ release of methane from dissociating gas hydrate cannot be sustaining the seep. We cannot rule out updip migration of methane from dissociation of gas hydrate that occurs farther down the slope as a source of the venting at Baltimore Canyon, but consider that the history of rapid sediment accumulation and overpressure may play a more important role in methane emissions at this site

Syntactic discriminative language model rerankers for statistical machine translation

This article describes a method that successfully exploits syntactic features for n-best translation candidate reranking using perceptrons. We motivate the utility of syntax by demonstrating the superior performance of parsers over n-gram language models in differentiating between Statistical Machine Translation output and human translations. Our approach uses discriminative language modelling to rerank the n-best translations generated by a statistical machine translation system. The performance is evaluated for Arabic-to-English translation using NIST’s MT-Eval benchmarks. While deep features extracted from parse trees do not consistently help, we show how features extracted from a shallow Part-of-Speech annotation layer outperform a competitive baseline and a state-of-the-art comparative reranking approach, leading to significant BLEU improvements on three different test sets

Corrigendum to “Insights into methane dynamics from analysis of authigenic carbonates and chemosynthetic mussels at newly-discovered Atlantic Margin seeps” [Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 449 (2016) 332–344]

This paper is not subject to U.S. copyright. The definitive version was published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters 475 (2017): 268, doi:10.1016/j.epsl.2017.07.037

DART-RAY: a 3D ray-tracing radiative transfer code for calculating the propagation of light in dusty galaxies

We present DART-Ray, a new ray-tracing 3D dust radiative transfer (RT) code designed specifically to calculate radiation field energy density (RFED) distributions within dusty galaxy models with arbitrary geometries. In this paper, we introduce the basic algorithm implemented in . DART-Ray which is based on a pre-calculation of a lower limit for the RFED distribution. This pre-calculation allows us to estimate the extent of regions around the radiation sources within which these sources contribute significantly to the RFED. In this way, ray-tracing calculations can be restricted to take place only within these regions, thus substantially reducing the computational time compared to a complete ray-tracing RT calculation. Anisotropic scattering is included in the code and handled in a similar fashion. Furthermore, the code utilizes a Cartesian adaptive spatial grid and an iterative method has been implemented to optimize the angular densities of the rays originated from each emitting cell. In order to verify the accuracy of the RT calculations performed by DART-Ray, we present results of comparisons with solutions obtained using the dusty 1D RT code for a dust shell illuminated by a central point source and existing 2D RT calculations of disc galaxies with diffusely distributed stellar emission and dust opacity. Finally, we show the application of the code on a spiral galaxy model with logarithmic spiral arms in order to measure the effect of the spiral pattern on the attenuation and RFED. © 2014 The Authors Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society

Diversity of Zoanthids (Anthozoa: Hexacorallia) on Hawaiian Seamounts: Description of the Hawaiian Gold Coral and Additional Zoanthids

The Hawaiian gold coral has a history of exploitation from the deep slopes and seamounts of the Hawaiian Islands as one of the precious corals commercialised in the jewellery industry. Due to its peculiar characteristic of building a scleroproteic skeleton, this zoanthid has been referred as Gerardia sp. (a junior synonym of Savalia Nardo, 1844) but never formally described or examined by taxonomists despite its commercial interest. While collection of Hawaiian gold coral is now regulated, globally seamounts habitats are increasingly threatened by a variety of anthropogenic impacts. However, impact assessment studies and conservation measures cannot be taken without consistent knowledge of the biodiversity of such environments. Recently, multiple samples of octocoral-associated zoanthids were collected from the deep slopes of the islands and seamounts of the Hawaiian Archipelago. The molecular and morphological examination of these zoanthids revealed the presence of at least five different species including the gold coral. Among these only the gold coral appeared to create its own skeleton, two other species are simply using the octocoral as substrate, and the situation is not clear for the final two species. Phylogenetically, all these species appear related to zoanthids of the genus Savalia as well as to the octocoral-associated zoanthid Corallizoanthus tsukaharai, suggesting a common ancestor to all octocoral-associated zoanthids. The diversity of zoanthids described or observed during this study is comparable to levels of diversity found in shallow water tropical coral reefs. Such unexpected species diversity is symptomatic of the lack of biological exploration and taxonomic studies of the diversity of seamount hexacorals