55 research outputs found
Developing a Contextualized Retreat Manual Based on the `Tres Dias\u27 Movement for the Spiritual Disciplines of Russian Churches
The purpose of this thesis project is to create a practical retreat manual for the spiritual disciplines contextualized to the Russian context based on the `Tres Dias\u27 movement. It is important to develop the spiritual training program with contextualization as an effective mission strategy. While many of the missionaries in Russia have been trying to apply the spiritual disciplines in their mission field, little contextualized practical research exists on them. Tres Dias is one of the spiritual retreat programs compatible with contextualization. This project analyzes and evaluates the value and compatibility of the Tres Dias movement in Russia based on responses to a questionnaire survey from one hundred church leaders involved in the movement in Moscow. This thesis intends to develop a pragmatic retreat manual for the spiritual discipline in current Russian contexts
Formation of Warped Disks by Galactic Fly-by Encounters. I. Stellar Disks
Warped disks are almost ubiquitous among spiral galaxies. Here we revisit and
test the `fly-by scenario' of warp formation, in which impulsive encounters
between galaxies are responsible for warped disks. Based on N-body simulations,
we investigate the morphological and kinematical evolution of the stellar
component of disks when galaxies undergo fly-by interactions with adjacent dark
matter halos. We find that the so-called `S'-shaped warps can be excited by
fly-bys and sustained for even up to a few billion years, and that this
scenario provides a cohesive explanation for several key observations. We show
that disk warp properties are governed primarily by the following three
parameters; (1) the impact parameter, i.e., the minimum distance between two
halos, (2) the mass ratio between two halos, and (3) the incident angle of the
fly-by perturber. The warp angle is tied up with all three parameters, yet the
warp lifetime is particularly sensitive to the incident angle of the perturber.
Interestingly, the modeled S-shaped warps are often non-symmetric depending on
the incident angle. We speculate that the puzzling U- and L-shaped warps are
geometrically superimposed S-types produced by successive fly-bys with
different incident angles, including multiple interactions with a satellite on
a highly elongated orbit.Comment: 16 pages, 13 figures, 3 tables. Accepted for publication in Ap
Designing a Direct Feedback Loop between Humans and Convolutional Neural Networks through Local Explanations
The local explanation provides heatmaps on images to explain how
Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) derive their output. Due to its visual
straightforwardness, the method has been one of the most popular explainable AI
(XAI) methods for diagnosing CNNs. Through our formative study (S1), however,
we captured ML engineers' ambivalent perspective about the local explanation as
a valuable and indispensable envision in building CNNs versus the process that
exhausts them due to the heuristic nature of detecting vulnerability. Moreover,
steering the CNNs based on the vulnerability learned from the diagnosis seemed
highly challenging. To mitigate the gap, we designed DeepFuse, the first
interactive design that realizes the direct feedback loop between a user and
CNNs in diagnosing and revising CNN's vulnerability using local explanations.
DeepFuse helps CNN engineers to systemically search "unreasonable" local
explanations and annotate the new boundaries for those identified as
unreasonable in a labor-efficient manner. Next, it steers the model based on
the given annotation such that the model doesn't introduce similar mistakes. We
conducted a two-day study (S2) with 12 experienced CNN engineers. Using
DeepFuse, participants made a more accurate and "reasonable" model than the
current state-of-the-art. Also, participants found the way DeepFuse guides
case-based reasoning can practically improve their current practice. We provide
implications for design that explain how future HCI-driven design can move our
practice forward to make XAI-driven insights more actionable.Comment: 32 pages, 6 figures, 5 tables. Accepted for publication in the
Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction (PACM HCI), CSCW 202
Visus: An Interactive System for Automatic Machine Learning Model Building and Curation
While the demand for machine learning (ML) applications is booming, there is
a scarcity of data scientists capable of building such models. Automatic
machine learning (AutoML) approaches have been proposed that help with this
problem by synthesizing end-to-end ML data processing pipelines. However, these
follow a best-effort approach and a user in the loop is necessary to curate and
refine the derived pipelines. Since domain experts often have little or no
expertise in machine learning, easy-to-use interactive interfaces that guide
them throughout the model building process are necessary. In this paper, we
present Visus, a system designed to support the model building process and
curation of ML data processing pipelines generated by AutoML systems. We
describe the framework used to ground our design choices and a usage scenario
enabled by Visus. Finally, we discuss the feedback received in user testing
sessions with domain experts.Comment: Accepted for publication in the 2019 Workshop on Human-In-the-Loop
Data Analytics (HILDA'19), co-located with SIGMOD 201
Unwind: Interactive Fish Straightening
The ScanAllFish project is a large-scale effort to scan all the world's
33,100 known species of fishes. It has already generated thousands of
volumetric CT scans of fish species which are available on open access
platforms such as the Open Science Framework. To achieve a scanning rate
required for a project of this magnitude, many specimens are grouped together
into a single tube and scanned all at once. The resulting data contain many
fish which are often bent and twisted to fit into the scanner. Our system,
Unwind, is a novel interactive visualization and processing tool which
extracts, unbends, and untwists volumetric images of fish with minimal user
interaction. Our approach enables scientists to interactively unwarp these
volumes to remove the undesired torque and bending using a piecewise-linear
skeleton extracted by averaging isosurfaces of a harmonic function connecting
the head and tail of each fish. The result is a volumetric dataset of a
individual, straight fish in a canonical pose defined by the marine biologist
expert user. We have developed Unwind in collaboration with a team of marine
biologists: Our system has been deployed in their labs, and is presently being
used for dataset construction, biomechanical analysis, and the generation of
figures for scientific publication
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Harmonized gap-filled datasets from 20 urban flux tower sites
A total of 20 urban neighbourhood-scale eddy covariance flux tower datasets are made openly available after being harmonized to create a 50 site-year collection with broad diversity in climate and urban surface characteristics. Variables needed as inputs for land surface models (incoming radiation, temperature, humidity, air pressure, wind and precipitation) are quality controlled, gap-filled and prepended with 10 years of reanalysis-derived local data, enabling an extended spin up to equilibrate models with local climate conditions. For both gap filling and spin up, ERA5 reanalysis meteorological data are bias corrected using tower-based observations, accounting for diurnal, seasonal and local urban effects not modelled in ERA5. The bias correction methods developed perform well compared to methods used in other datasets (e.g. WFDE5 or FLUXNET2015). Other variables (turbulent and upwelling radiation fluxes) are harmonized and quality controlled without gap filling Site description metadata include local land cover fractions (buildings, roads, trees, grass etc.), building height and morphology, aerodynamic roughness estimates, population density and satellite imagery. This open collection can help extend our understanding of urban environmental processes through observational synthesis studies or in the evaluation of land surface environmental models in a wide range of urban settings. These data can be accessed from https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7104984 (Lipson et al., 2022).Peer reviewe
Adult-onset Still's Disease with Disseminated Intravascular Coagulation and Multiple Organ Dysfunctions Dramatically Treated with Cyclosporine A
Severe systemic manifestations of adult onset Still's disease (AOSD) are often fatal and occasionally related to hemophagocytic syndrome (HS). We describe the case of a 49-yr-old woman with AOSD presenting with non-remitting high fever, confusion, jaundice, hepatosplenomegaly, serositis, azotemia, pancytopenia, coagulopathy with disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC), hyperferritinemia, acute acalculous cholecystitis and ileocolitis noted in computed tomographic images. The patient had a history of herpes zoster developed prior to the admission, but there is no history of diarrhea or abdominal pain. Although bone marrow examination was not performed due to hemorrhagic diathesis, we suspected AOSD-associated HS on the basis of clinical course without detectable infectious agents in cultures or serologic studies. Intravenous immunoglobulin, pulse methylprednisolone, oral cyclosporine A (CsA) and ceftriaxone brought about transient improvement of fever and confusion, but the disease progressed. After increasing CsA dose, all previously mentioned abnormalities disappeared rapidly. Accordingly, we believe that DIC and multiple organ dysfunctions might have been the complications of HS but not that of sepsis, and that CsA can be used as a first-line therapy in case of life-threatening situations
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