G-portal : A map-based digital library for distributed geospatial and georeferenced resources

SingAREN Projec

On organizing and accessing geospatial and georeferenced web resources using the g-portal system

In order to organise and manage geospatial and georeferenced information on the web making them convenient for searching and browsing, a digital portal known as G-Portal has been designed and implemented. Compared to other digital libraries, G-Portal is unique for several of its features. It maintains metadata resources in XML with flexible resource schemas. Logical groupings of metadata resources as projects and layers are possible to allow the entire metadata collection to be partitioned differently for users with different information needs. These metadata resources can be displayed in both the classification-based and map-based interfaces provided by G-Portal. G-Portal further incorporates both a query module and an annotation module for users to search metadata and to create additional knowledge for sharing respectively. G-Portal also includes a resource classification module that categorizes resources into one or more hierarchical category trees based on user-defined classification schemas. This paper gives an overview of the G-Portal design and implementation. The portal features will be illustrated using a collection of high school geography examination-related resources.Published versio

Laser hemorrhoidoplasty versus conventional hemorrhoidectomy for grade II/III hemorrhoids: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Purpose This study compared the short- and long-term clinical outcomes of laser hemorrhoidoplasty (LH) vs. conventional hemorrhoidectomy (CH) in patients with grade II/III hemorrhoids. Methods PubMed/Medline and the Cochrane Library were searched for randomized and nonrandomized studies comparing LH against CH in grade II/III hemorrhoids. The primary outcomes included postoperative use of analgesia, postoperative morbidity (bleeding, urinary retention, pain, thrombosis), and time of return to work/daily activities. Results Nine studies totaling 661 patients (LH, 336 and CH, 325) were included. The LH group had shorter operative time (P0.999) and prolapse (P=0.240), and the likelihood of complete resolution at 12 months, were similar (P=0.240). Conclusion LH offers more favorable short-term clinical outcomes than CH, with reduced morbidity and pain and earlier return to work or daily activities. Medium-term symptom recurrence at 12 months was similar. Our results should be verified in future well-designed trials with larger samples

Java-based digital library portal for geography education

AbstractG-Portal is a Java-based digital library system for managing the metadata of geography related resources on the Web. In addition to providing a flexible repository subsystem to accommodate metadata of different formats using XML and XML Schemas, G-Portal organizes metadata into projects and layers, and supports an integrated and synchronized classification and map-based interfaces over the stored metadata. G-Portal also includes a classification subsystem that creates category structures and classifies metadata resources into categories based on user-specified classification schemas. Furthermore, G-Portal users can annotate resources and make their annotations available to others. In this paper, we describe the design and implementation of G-Portal and elaborate how Java is used to implement its features. G-Portal has been designed to be modular and some of the modules can be used as stand-alone tools. In this paper, we use UML notation to describe the detailed design of G-Portal and highlight some of the design decisions

STRATEGIES FOR LOCATING ACOUSTIC EMISSION SOURCES: EXPERIMENTAL, SYNTHETIC, AND BAYESIAN

Ph.DDOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (FOE

Spectral Proximal Method and Saliency Matrix for Robust Deep Learning Optimization

This paper presents a new training optimizer for deep learning models, called the Spectral Proximal (SP) method with saliency matrix, that aims to improve their ability to generalize to new data. Generalization is the measure of how well a model can perform on data that it has not seen during training. The SP method addresses a pair of hurdles affecting generalization: the problem of gradient confusion within complex model architectures and the limited availability of training data. The key innovation of the SP method is the use of a proximal operator with a saliency matrix, which adjusts the descent direction based on the importance of each parameter and avoids overfit issues. This leads to improved performance on image classification (MNIST and CIFAR-10) and object detection (YOLOv7) tasks and better ability to generalize to new data. We conducted a comprehensive inquiry by performing experiments on various configurations while controlling for potential confounding factors. The SP method consistently outperformed the baseline method based on the results

Impact Comparison of El Niño and Ageing Crops on Malaysian Oil Palm Yield

Ageing oil palm crops show a significant correlation with the declining oil palm yield in Malaysia. Not only do aged crops result in lower production, but they are also more costly and difficult to harvest. The Malaysian oil palm yield recovered to the pre-El Niño level after the 1997/98 El Niño event. However, the oil palm yield failed to recover after the recent 2015/16 El Niño. Due to the accumulation of aged oil palm plantations in Malaysia, the financial losses from different magnitudes of El Niño events are increasing. Thirty-four years of monthly oil palm yield trends in Malaysia were compared with the El Niño–free yield dataset to show that the oil palm yield downtrend pattern is the same with or without El Niño events in Malaysia for the most recent 15 years (2005 to 2019). The performance of oil palm yield did not show any significant difference from 2000 to 2019. This study estimates that ageing oil palms would lead to a minimum opportunity loss of USD 431 million by December 2022. Without a proper replanting program, the total combined loss attributable to the ageing crops from 2009 to 2022 is estimated to be USD 3.94 billion, which is more profound than losses due to El Niño events within the same period. This study also concluded that a continuous 7-year replanting scheme of at least 115,000 hectares per year is needed to address the adverse impact of ageing crops on the Malaysian oil palm yield, which accounts for nearly 30% of the global palm oil production

Natural rubber for sustainable high-power electrical energy generation

Clean, renewable and abundant sources of energy, such as the vast energy of ocean waves, are untapped today, because no technology exists to convert such mechanical motions to electricity economically. Other sources of mechanical energy, such as motions of people and vibrations of buildings and bridges, can potentially power portable electronics and distributed sensors. Here we show that natural rubber can be used to construct generators of high performance and low cost. Natural rubber has higher elastic modulus, fracture energy and dielectric strength than a commonly studied acrylic elastomer. We demonstrate high energy densities (369 mJ g−1) and high power densities (200 mW g−1), and estimate low levelized cost of electricity (5–11 ct kW−1 h−1). Soft generators based on natural rubber enable clean, low-cost, large-scale generation of electricity.Engineering and Applied Science

Supplemental Material - Natural language processing in narrative breast radiology reporting in University Malaya Medical Centre

Supplemental Material for Natural language processing in narrative breast radiology reporting in University Malaya Medical Centre by Wee Ming Tan, Wei Lin Ng, Mogana Darshini Ganggayah, Victor Chee Wai Hoe, Kartini Rahmat, Hana Salwani Zaini, Nur Aishah Mohd Taib, and Sarinder Kaur Dhillon in Health Informatics Journal</p