Visually-Enabled Active Deep Learning for (Geo) Text and Image Classification: A Review

This paper investigates recent research on active learning for (geo) text and image classification, with an emphasis on methods that combine visual analytics and/or deep learning. Deep learning has attracted substantial attention across many domains of science and practice, because it can find intricate patterns in big data; but successful application of the methods requires a big set of labeled data. Active learning, which has the potential to address the data labeling challenge, has already had success in geospatial applications such as trajectory classification from movement data and (geo) text and image classification. This review is intended to be particularly relevant for extension of these methods to GISience, to support work in domains such as geographic information retrieval from text and image repositories, interpretation of spatial language, and related geo-semantics challenges. Specifically, to provide a structure for leveraging recent advances, we group the relevant work into five categories: active learning, visual analytics, active learning with visual analytics, active deep learning, plus GIScience and Remote Sensing (RS) using active learning and active deep learning. Each category is exemplified by recent influential work. Based on this framing and our systematic review of key research, we then discuss some of the main challenges of integrating active learning with visual analytics and deep learning, and point out research opportunities from technical and application perspectives-for application-based opportunities, with emphasis on those that address big data with geospatial components

Anthropic pressures on Nature 2000 Sites: recommendations and monitoring criteria for the pollution emergency response activities within the Orbetello lagoon

L’elevato valore naturalistico e socioeconomico di un Sito Natura 2000 richiede che tutte le attività antropiche che si svolgono al suo interno (es. pesca, turismo, trasporti, attività industriali, etc.) siano gestite in maniera tale da non pregiudicare le specie e gli habitat per i quali l’area è stata designata. Molti di questi Siti sono ambienti di transizione, ovvero zone che costituiscono il passaggio naturale tra terra e mare. La loro posizione di interfaccia tra questi due ambienti li rende ecosistemi unici e biologicamente molto produttivi, sede di meccanismi di regolazione dei processi interattivi della biosfera nelle due fasi, terrestre e marina. In alcuni Siti la presenza di attività antropiche diffuse e prolungate nel tempo ha portato al riscontro di stati di contaminazione elevata, fino all’inclusione di queste zone, o parti di esse, tra i Siti di bonifica di Interesse Nazionale (SIN). Il presente lavoro descrive le linee di indirizzo e le attività di monitoraggio da attuare per la salvaguardia della salute pubblica e dell’ambiente nel corso degli interventi di messa in sicurezza di emergenza predisposti nell’area lagunare antistante l’area industriale Ex Sitoco, all’interno della perimetrazione del SIN di Orbetello, incluso in un Sito di Importanza Comunitaria. Le matrici ambientali potenzialmente a rischio a causa dell’esecuzione di tali interventi sono: acqua, sedimento, biocenosi acquatiche, avifauna, uomo. È altresì importante valutare gli effetti che le ipotetiche modifiche su microscala, apportate a livello di ogni matrice, potrebbero causare nel lungo periodo su macroscala.The high naturalistic and socio-economic value of Natura 2000 sites requires that all human activities performed within their borders (e.g. fishing, tourism, transports, industrial activities) are regulated. Indeed, the site management should assure the effective safeguard of all species and habitats of European interest included in the protected area. A lot of such sites are located in transitional environments, that are areas characterised by a natural progression from the terrestrial to the water environments. Such environments include unique and very productive habitats, and they represent the regulation mechanisms of the interactive processes of the terrestrial and marine biosphere. In some sites, the presence of human activities that are distributed both in space and time has led to high levels of contamination, that in some cases even required their inclusion in Reclamation Sites of National Interest (SIN). The present study describes the planning and monitoring activities to be performed in order to safeguard human and environment health during the actions of MISE in the lagoonal area in front of the industrial area Ex Sitoco, within the borders of the Orbetello SIN, included in a SCI. The environmental parameters that are potentially at risk due to such activities are: water, sediment, water biocenosis, birds, humans. Furthermore, it is important to evaluate the effects that potential variations at the microscale level may cause at the macroscale level

On the use of AMSU-based products for the description of soil water content at basin scale

Abstract. Characterizing the dynamics of soil moisture fields is a key issue in hydrology, offering a strategy to improve our understanding of complex climate-soil-vegetation interactions. Besides in-situ measurements and hydrological models, soil moisture dynamics can be inferred by analyzing data acquired by sensors on board of airborne and/or satellite platforms. In this work, we investigated the use of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration – Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit-A (NOAA-AMSU-A) radiometer for the remote characterization of soil water content. To this aim, a field measurement campaign, lasted about three months (3 March 2010–18 May 2010), was carried out using a portable time-domain reflectometer (TDR) to get soil water content measures over five different locations within an experimental basin of 32.5 km2, located in the South of Italy. In detail, soil moisture measurements were carried out systematically at the times of satellite overpasses, over two square areas of 400 m2, a triangular area of 200 m2 and two transects of 60 and 170 m, respectively. Each monitored site is characterized by different land covers and soil textures, to account for spatial heterogeneity of land surface. Afterwards, a more extensive comparison (i.e. analyzing a 5 yr data time series) was made using soil moisture simulated by a hydrological model. Measured and modeled soil moisture data were compared with two AMSU-based indices: the Surface Wetness Index (SWI) and the Soil Wetness Variation Index (SWVI). Both time series of indices have been filtered by means of an exponential filter to account for the fact that microwave sensors only provide information at the skin surface. This allowed to understand the ability of each satellite-based index to account for soil moisture dynamics and to understand its performances under different conditions. As a general remark, the comparison shows a higher ability of the filtered SWI to describe the general trend of soil moisture, while the SWVI can capture soil moisture variations with a precision that increases at the higher values of SWVI

A quasi 3D approach for the modelling of an automotive turbocharger's compressor

In this work the 3DCell method has been extended to the thermo-fluid dynamic simulation of an automotive turbocharger's compressor. The 3DCell, an approach continuously developed by the authors at Politecnico di Milano, is based on a pseudo-staggered leapfrog method that allows to decompose a generic 3D problem in a set of 1D scalar equation arbitrarily oriented in space. The system of equations has been solved referring to a relative rotating framework for the moving components, whereas to an absolute reference elsewhere. The domain has been discretized on a basis of a polar coordinate system, identifying five macro sub-domains, namely the inlet pipe, impeller, vaneless diffuser, volute, outlet pipe, each treated numerically in a specific way. The diffuser's momentum in the tangential direction has been modelled resorting to the conservation of the angular momentum, while the rotor channels are modelled as rotating pipes that exchange work and momentum with the blades as they experience a relative source term due to the centrifugal force field and its potential. The model has been validated against measurements carried out on a steady state flow test bench at University of Genoa

Direct evaluation of turbine isentropic efficiency in turbochargers: Cfd assisted design of an innovative measuring technique

Turbocharging is playing today a fundamental role not only to improve automotive engine performance, but also to reduce fuel consumption and exhaust emissions for both Spark Ignition and Diesel engines. Dedicated experimental investigations on turbochargers are therefore necessary to assess a better understanding of its performance. The availability of experimental information on turbocharger steady flow performance is an essential requirement to optimize the engine-turbocharger matching, which is usually achieved by means of simulation models. This aspect is even more important when referred to the turbine efficiency, since its swallowing capacity can be accurately evaluated through the measurement of mass flow rate, inlet temperature and pressure ratio across the machine. However, in the case of a turbocharger radial inflow turbine, isentropic efficiency, directly evaluated starting from measurement of thermodynamic parameters at the inlet and outlet sections, can give significant errors. This inaccuracy is mainly related to the difficulty of a correct evaluation of the turbine outlet temperature due to the non-uniform distribution of flow field and temperature at the measuring section. This work is the follow up of a previous publication where an intensive measurement campaign was performed to obtain a reliable measurement of the turbine outlet temperature. To this aim, a hand-made 3-hole probe (unlike most of the measuring probes available on the market, which are considered as intrusive ) was adopted to perform measurement of the flow field, pressure and temperature downstream the turbine with special reference to different radial and tangential positions in two sections located near and far from the outlet machine, allowing the evaluation of the efficiency through local enthalpy fluxes across the turbine in cold and hot conditions upstream the turbine. The comparison between results obtained through the local measurements and those achieved through a direct measurement of turbine outlet temperature by three probes inserted in pipe with a different protrusion, have highlighted that heat transfer effects across the pipes and across the turbocharger components play an important role on the estimation of temperature profile at the outlet section. In order to put some light on this aspect, CFD simulations have been performed to estimate the impact of the heat transfer and flow distribution on the estimation of the isentropic efficiency. The OpenFOAM\uae code has been adopted to simulate the actual turbine geometry resorting to multi reference frame (MRF) strategies, instead of mesh motion strategies, to characterize the flow pattern downstream of the turbine. Moreover, CFD analysis was used to design a specific device, whose goal was the dissipation of flow structures dominated by vorticity, achieving in this way a uniform distribution of the flow and temperature fields at the measuring section. This will result in a much more reliable evaluation of the turbine efficienc

Renal infarction due to polyarteritis nodosa in a patient with angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma: a case report and a brief review of the literature.

ABSTRACT: Angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma (AITL) is one of the most common subtypes of peripheral T-cell lymphoma (15-20% of all cases), accounting for approximately 1-2% of all non-Hodgkin lymphomas. It often presents autoimmune phenomena including hemolytic anemia, thrombocytopenia, glomerulonephrities and circulating immune complexes (CIC). Polyarteritis nodosa (PAN) is an autoimmune disease characterized by necrotizing vasculitis of medium vessels, which rarely develops in association with hematological malignant disorders. Herein we report the case of a male patient with AITL who had a renal infarction secondary to PAN, mimicking a neoplastic lesion. A 40-year-old man underwent lymph node biopsy in the suspicious of sarcoidosis. On the basis of histological and immunohistochemical findings, a diagnosis of AITL was performed. The patient was successfully treated with a cytarabine-based regimen for 6 cycles. Three months after the initial diagnosis of AITL, a whole body CT-scan showed a lesion in the lower pole of the left kidney. A renal cell carcinoma was suspected, thus a nephrectomy was carried out. The histological findings were compatible with polyarteritis nodosa. To the best of our knowledge, the association between PAN and AITL has been described only once. This relation may be secondary to the induction of an autoimmune phenomenon by the lymphoma with the formation of circulating immune complexes, leading to vessel walls injury. A careful evaluation is needed in the management of AITL patients with signs of renal failure in order to avoid delay of treatment and organ damage

Estimating gate-set properties from random sequences

With quantum computing devices increasing in scale and complexity, there is a growing need for tools that obtain precise diagnostic information about quantum operations. However, current quantum devices are only capable of short unstructured gate sequences followed by native measurements. We accept this limitation and turn it into a new paradigm for characterizing quantum gate-sets. A single experiment - random sequence estimation - solves a wealth of estimation problems, with all complexity moved to classical post-processing. We derive robust channel variants of shadow estimation with close-to-optimal performance guarantees and use these as a primitive for partial, compressive and full process tomography as well as the learning of Pauli noise. We discuss applications to the quantum gate engineering cycle, and propose novel methods for the optimization of quantum gates and diagnosing cross-talk.Comment: 10+18 pages, two figures, substantially rewritten (made more intuitive, connected better to common experimental prescriptions, equipped with stronger numerical analysis

MANAJEMEN PEMBINAAN PERPUSTAKAAN KELURAHAN DI KOTA BANDUNG

Dinas Perpustakaan dan Kearsipan (Dispusip) Kota Bandung merupakan suatu bentuk dari perpustakaan umum yang memiliki fungsi membina perpustakaan. Pemberdayaan perpustakaan kelurahan di Kota Bandung saat ini belum terealisasi sesuai dengan jumlah kelurahan yang terdapat di kota Bandung sebanyak 151 kelurahan. Perpustakaan kelurahan dapat menjalankan fungsinya dengan baik sesuai dengan fungsi perpustakaan dengan penerapan fungsi manajemen perpustakaan. Masalah yang menjadi kajian pada penelitian ini bagaimana implementasi manajemen pembinaan perpustakaan kelurahan di Kota Bandung oleh Dispusip Kota Bandung. Tujuan penelitian ini yaitu untuk mendeskripsikan mengenai perencanaan, pengorganisasian, penggerakan dan pengawasan pembinaan perpustakaan kelurahan oleh Dispusip Kota Bandung. Metode yang digunakan pada penelitian ini adalah metode kualitatif dengan pendekatan studi kasus. Partisipan dalam penelitian ini terdiri atas tiga informan yang bertindak sebagai pustakawan dan key informan sebagai Kepala Bidang Pengembangan Perpustakaan dan Kearsipan menggunakan teknik purposive sampling. Instrumen penelitian yang digunakan adalah wawancara, observasi dan studi dokumentasi. Teknik analisis data yang digunakan adalah data reduction, data display, dan conclusion drawing (verification). Berdasarkan hasil penelitian yaitu sebuah konstuksi model manajemen pembinaan perpustakaan kelurahan yang menunjukkan bahwa kegiatan pembinaan perpustakaan kelurahan oleh Dispusip Kota Bandung relevan dengan fungsi manajemen. Fungsi perencanaan, pengorganisasian, penggerakan kegiatan manajemen pembinaan perpustakaan kelurahan di Kota Bandung terealisasi cukup baik. Namun pada fungsi pengawasan belum berjalan secara optimal, hal ini dikarenakan oleh keterbatasan sumber daya manusia yang dimiliki oleh Dispusip Kota Bandung. Program pembinaan ini diharapkan dapat mewujudkan penyelenggaraan perpustakaan kelurahan dan dapat memberikan kontribusi terhadap perbaikan/ penyempurnaan manajemen pembinaan perpustakaan oleh Dispusip Kota Bandung. ;--- Dinas Perpustakaan dan Kearsipan (Dispusip) Kota Bandung is a form of public library, which function is to develop urban village libraries. Currently, the empowerment of urban village libraries in 151 village in Bandung City is not realized yet. Urban village libraries can perform its functions properly in accordance with the implementation of library management functions. The problem of this study is how Dispusip Kota Bandung manages the implementation of urban village libraries coaching in Bandung City. The purpose of this study is to describe the planning, organizing, actuating, and controlling of urban village libraries coaching by Dispusip Kota Bandung. The research method used in this study is qualitative method with a case study approach. The subjects of this study consist of three informants who act as a librarian and a key informant as a Head of Library and Archive Development by using purposive sampling technique. The research instruments used in this study are interviews, observations, and documentation studies. This study uses data analysis technique of data reduction, data display, and conclusion drawing (verification). Based on the study of a model construction of urban village libraries coaching, the result is that the coaching activities of urban village libraries done by Dispusip Kota Bandung is relevant to the management functions. The functions of planning, organizing, and actuating of village libraries coaching activities in Bandung City are realized quite well. However, the function of controlling has not run optimally. This is due to the limitations of human resources owned by Dispusip Kota Bandung. This coaching program is expected to be able to realize the enforcement of urban village libraries and to give contribution to the improvement of library coaching management done by Dispusip Kota Bandung

A comprehensive methodology for computational fluid dynamics combustion modeling of industrial diesel engines

Combustion control and optimization is of great importance to meet future emission standards in diesel engines: increase in break mean effective pressure at high loads and extension of the operating range of advanced combustion modes seem to be the most promising solutions to reduce fuel consumption and pollutant emissions at the same time. Within this context, detailed computational fluid dynamics tools are required to predict the different involved phenomena such as fuel-air mixing, unsteady diffusion combustion and formation of noxious species. Detailed kinetics, consistent spray models and high quality grids are necessary to perform predictive simulations which can be used either for design or diagnostic purposes. In this work, the authors present a comprehensive approach which was developed using an open-source computational fluid dynamics code. To minimize the pre-processing time and preserve results' accuracy, algorithms for automatic mesh generation of spray-oriented grids were developed and successfully applied to different combustion chamber geometries. The Lagrangian approach was used to describe the spray evolution while the combustion process is modeled employing detailed chemistry and, eventually, considering turbulence-chemistry interaction. The proposed computational fluid dynamics methodology was first assessed considering inert and reacting experiments in a constant-volume vessel, where operating conditions typical of heavy-duty diesel engines were reproduced. Afterward, engine simulations were performed considering two different load points and two piston bowl geometries, respectively. Experimental validation was carried out by comparing computed and experimental data of in-cylinder pressure, heat release rate and pollutant emissions (NOx, CO and soot)

Exercise respiratory cycle time components in patients with emphysema

Background: We have recently demonstrated that in patients with COPD the severity of emphysema (E) measured by high resolution computed tomography (HRCT) correlated with: ratio VTpeak/FEV1; VE/VCO2 slope and PETCO2 values at peak exercise. The aim of this study was to further investigate if exercise respiratory cycle time components correlated with % of E measured by HRCT. Method: Twelve patients (age = 65±8 yrs; FEV1 = 55±17%pred) with moderate to severe E (quantified by lung HRCT as % voxels < −910 HU) were evaluated with incremental cardiopulmonary exercise testing (CPET). Mean inspiratory time (TiM), mean total respiratory cycle time (TtotM), mean expiratory time during exercise (TeM) and mean expiratory time during the last third of exercise (TeM-end), has been calculated. Results: Both TeM and TeM-end had a good linear correlation with % of E (r = 0,61; p = 0,004 and r = 0,63; p = 0,003). Moreover, by dividing the patients in two groups based on the % of E (>50% and <50%), we observed that patients with higher % of E had longer TeM (TeM: 1,72±0,26sec vs 1,34±0,27sec, p = 0,005) and TeM-end. A good linear correlation has been observed also between TeM and PETCO2 and VE/VCO2 (r = 0,64; p = 0,002 and r = 0,7; p = 0,0005). TeM did not correlated with resting lung function values or inspiratory capacity (IC). Conclusion: The data confirm that distinct physiologic response pattern can be detected at CPET in these patients