Generalized Sparse Convolutional Neural Networks for Semantic Segmentation of Point Clouds Derived from Tri-Stereo Satellite Imagery

We studied the applicability of point clouds derived from tri-stereo satellite imagery for semantic segmentation for generalized sparse convolutional neural networks by the example of an Austrian study area. We examined, in particular, if the distorted geometric information, in addition to color, influences the performance of segmenting clutter, roads, buildings, trees, and vehicles. In this regard, we trained a fully convolutional neural network that uses generalized sparse convolution one time solely on 3D geometric information (i.e., 3D point cloud derived by dense image matching), and twice on 3D geometric as well as color information. In the first experiment, we did not use class weights, whereas in the second we did. We compared the results with a fully convolutional neural network that was trained on a 2D orthophoto, and a decision tree that was once trained on hand-crafted 3D geometric features, and once trained on hand-crafted 3D geometric as well as color features. The decision tree using hand-crafted features has been successfully applied to aerial laser scanning data in the literature. Hence, we compared our main interest of study, a representation learning technique, with another representation learning technique, and a non-representation learning technique. Our study area is located in Waldviertel, a region in Lower Austria. The territory is a hilly region covered mainly by forests, agriculture, and grasslands. Our classes of interest are heavily unbalanced. However, we did not use any data augmentation techniques to counter overfitting. For our study area, we reported that geometric and color information only improves the performance of the Generalized Sparse Convolutional Neural Network (GSCNN) on the dominant class, which leads to a higher overall performance in our case. We also found that training the network with median class weighting partially reverts the effects of adding color. The network also started to learn the classes with lower occurrences. The fully convolutional neural network that was trained on the 2D orthophoto generally outperforms the other two with a kappa score of over 90% and an average per class accuracy of 61%. However, the decision tree trained on colors and hand-crafted geometric features has a 2% higher accuracy for roads

How benchmarking can support the selection, planning and delivery of nuclear decommissioning projects

Nuclear Decommissioning Projects and Programmes (NDPs) are jeopardized by several risks, long schedule and cost estimates that lay in the range of hundreds of billions of pounds. Moreover, in some countries, these estimates keep increasing and key stakeholders have a limited understanding of the determinants that engender this phenomena. Benchmarking refers to the process of comparing projects in order to identify best practices and generate ideas for improvement. However, even if it is the envisaged approach to tackle the decommissioning challenges (and due to the NDPs’ uniqueness), until now, benchmarking has been only partially used. This paper proposes an innovative methodology to benchmark decommissioning projects, both from the nuclear and non-nuclear industry, within the UK and worldwide. From this cross-sectorial and cross-country analysis, it is possible to gather a list of key NDPs’ characteristic and statistically test their correlation with the project performance. The ultimate aim of the research underpinning this paper is to investigate the possible causation between the NDPs’ characteristics and the NDPs’ performance and to develop guidelines to improve the selection, planning and delivery of future NDPs

Intercomparison of Soil Moisture Retrievals From In Situ, ASAR, and ECV SM Data Sets Over Different European Sites

The availability of satellite-derived global surface soil moisture products during the last decade has opened up great opportunities to incorporate these observations into applications in hydrology, meteorology, and climatic modeling. This study evaluates a new global soil moisture product developed under the framework of the European Space Agency (ESA) climate change initiative (CCI), using finer spatial resolution synthetic aperture radar (SAR) and ground-based measurements of soil moisture. The analysis is carried out over selected in situ networks over Ireland, Spain, and Finland with the aim of assessing the temporal representativeness of the coarse-scale CCI essential climate variable (ECV) soil moisture (ECV SM) product in these different areas. A good agreement (correlation coefficient (R) values between 0.53 and 0.92) was observed between the three soil moisture data sets for the Irish and Spanish sites while a reasonable agreement (R values between 0.41 and 0.52) was observed between the SAR and ECV SM soil moisture data sets at the Finnish sites. Overall, the two different satellite-derived products captured the soil moisture temporal variations well and were in good agreement with each other, highlighting the confidence of using the coarse-scale ECV SM product to track soil moisture variability in time

Employers’ Requirements on Labour Force in the South Moravian Region

This article is focused on identifying employers’ requirements on workforce in the South-Moravian Region and assessing whether or not the requirements are referring mainly to education, level of qualification and work experience or to competencies. The research is based on the Swedish approach to monitoring employers’ requirements on workforce, which uses competency-based qualitative interviewing. The Swedish scenario of a semi-structured interview was adapted to Czech conditions. 200 employers in the South Moravian Region were interviewed. Pronounced requirements on workforce refer mainly to education, professional qualifications and experience and the resulting specific professional competencies. To a large extent the requirements were focused on values, attitudes and character traits. The general specialized competencies and soft skills were also mentioned, but mostly as last in order. The requirements varied according to the size and orientation of the company and the nature of the vacancy

The cultural production of Bioterapia: Psychic healing and the natural medicine movement in Slovakia

Despite powerful opposition, natural medicine (NM) has achieved a toe-hold in the state-run biomedical system in the Slovak Republic. The physician-leader of the NM movement hopes to leverage his ministerial post as NM 'supreme expert' and his interlocking NM clinical and research facilities to achieve a complex, unified health care system under control of medical doctors. This health care model simultaneously reinforces biomedical hegemony and decenters classical medicine by substituting a bioenergetical paradigm. NM includes, among other diagnostic and healing modalities, acupuncture, herbal therapies, bee therapy, reflexology, iridology. However, its paradigmatic form is bioterapia, the focus of this paper. Bioterapia is a form of psychic healing or therapeutic touch. According to its practitioners, it is based on bioenergetic and information-processing principles. Conceptually, bioterapia unifies psyche, soma and energy dimensions of the human body and situates the human organism in an extended transpersonal social, physical and cosmological environment. Bioterapia is a scientized and medicalized reconstruction of a folk healing tradition whose appropriation simultaneously secularized and re-sacralized this tradition by re-locating its practice from lay healers to medical doctors, from the religious domain to the venerated scientific domain, from deviant science to normal science. The reconfiguration into bioterapia as part of the creation of an academic secular parapsychology in the former Soviet Bloc in the late 1960s, illustrates the use of the privileged discourse of science for a cultural production that seems to have both supported and subverted the regime.Slovak Republic natural medicine parapsychology psychic healing health care systems

Vliv různých aniontů ve směsných oxidech Mg-Al na přítomnost sodíkových iontů v transesterifikaci olejů

The paper is focused on the influence of sodium ions in Mg-Al mixed oxides as heterogenous catalyst in the transesterification of non-edible Camelina sativa oil. The Mg-Al mixed oxides with a constant molar ratio Mg:Al (2:1) were synthesized from hydrotalcites by thermal treatment (450 °C, 3 h) and rehydrated. The novelty lays in the synthesis of the hydrotalcites with various types of anions (SO4-2, Cl-, CH3COO-, HCO3-, C2O4-2), which influence the sodium amount in materials and so its properties. The results of various characterisation methods such as ICP-OES, XRD, TPD, N-2-physisorption, FTIR were statistically evaluated, including transesterification results. The sodium was bonded predominantly in the form of sodium nitrates (nitrates were used for hydrotalcite synthesis) for all types of anions and the rehydration (i) rapidly decreased the sodium content and (ii) caused more similarity of mixed oxides with each other regardless of anion type. The sodium influenced especially acid-base properties and so the ester yield, because the sodium nitrates blocked the pores and also disturbed the TPD determination, which is also a novelty. The explanation of the influence of sodium ions enables to synthesize more stable catalyst, whose use will be environmentally beneficial.Směsné oxidy Mg-Al s konstantním molárním poměrem Mg/Al (2:1) byly syntetizovány tepelným zpracováním a rehydratovány. Byly syntetizovány hudrotalcity s různými anionty a sledován jejich vliv na množství sodíkových iontů a vlastnosti materiálů. Materiály byly charakterizovány řadou technik (ICP-OES, XRD, TPD, fyzisorpce, FTIR a testovány jako katalyzátory transesterifikace

Serial echocardiographic assessment of the left ventricular function after direct PCI

Background: Acute myocardial infarction (AMI) causes remodelling of the left ventricle (LV). Restoration of patency of an infarct-related artery by percutaneous coronary interventions (PCI) may prevent or inhibit cardiac remodelling.Aim: To assess LV contractility and function by serial echocardiographic examinations.Methods: The study group consisted of 61 patients (47 males, mean age 60±10 years) with acute MI treated with direct PCI. Echocardiography was performed 6-8 days after PCI, and 1, 6 and 12 months thereafter.Results: LV ejection fraction increased significantly at the end of the first month in comparison with the baseline examination whereas EF values obtained after 6 months and after 1 year were not significantly different. Wall motion score index showed a significant improvement after one month, whereas it did not show any further improvement when measured after 6 or 12 months after AMI. The baseline LV end-diastolic diameter was 49±6 mm and did not change after one or 6 months, whereas it increased significantly 12 months after AMI. The baseline LV end-systolic diameter was 37±5 mm. At the one-month and six-month examinations it was similar to the baseline values but increased significantly to 38±6 mm after one year.Conclusions: These results confirm the beneficial effects of PCI-induced infarct-related artery patency on LV remodelling after AMI