Regime maintenance in post-Soviet Kazakhstan: the case of the regime and oil industry relationship (1991-2005)

The main aim of this thesis is to investigate the ways in which the authoritarian regime in post-Soviet Kazakhstan maintained itself in power from 1991 until 2005. This study endeavours to uncover the palette of the regime’s methods by analysing the ways in which it went about controlling the oil industry – an industry with which the political and economical future of Kazakhstan is inseparably intertwined. The empirical section of this study investigates the interplay between the regime and the actors located in and around two cores: the National Oil Company and the oil-rich areas. This thesis focuses in particular on instances where players involved with the oil industry, whether directly or indirectly, attempted to challenge the regime’s authority in those two centres either due to greed or grievances. It is argued that these moments of crisis reveal the regime’s maintenance techniques, and can precipitate the deployment of new methods of maintenance in response to them. In order to account for the techniques that the Kazakh ruling regime applied in structuring its relationships with the oil industry, this thesis shifts the emphasis from the prevalent zhuz-horde, tribe, and clan-based approaches to Kazakh politics towards formal (corporatism) and informal (patron-client) mechanisms of control

Automatyzacja w procesie detekcji obiektów archeologicznych z danych ALS

In this paper approaches of historical, archaeological object detection from airborne laser scanning (hereinafter referred to as ASL) data were shown. Presented approach of automatic extraction of potential charcoal pile was the analysis of a selected processing of digital terrain model. In this example, it was attempted to detect archaeological sites on a small test area by usage of template matching. Positive results have proved a great number of detected objects. Methodology applied in the research allowed for finding of a large percentage of measured objects indirectly. Presented approach was also assessed by the results of object extraction in respect to field measurements in the area of interest, as well as effectiveness of automation procedure

Three-dimensional stratigraphy reconstruction and GIS - postprocessing issues in archaeological field 3D documentation

This paper aims to present the results of experiments which allowed us to propose up-to-date method of 3D visual representation of explored archaeological layers. Considering the destructive nature of excavations, the correct documentation of an exploration, which offers an insight both into the decision-making process taking place on site, and into the most faithful representation of the examined material, presents a fundamental challenge for a field archaeologist. The aim of the experiments presented here was to test three methods of creating 3D models of successive archaeological layers (contexts) recorded during an exploration. The presented findings show that the method of editing point clouds using open-source software prior to importing the model of the reconstruction of the explored layer into GIS software, is the best solution from the point of view of both the effort and time required, and it can definitely be suggested as the standard procedure of creating the graphical bases for an archaeological database

Multi-Hop Fact Checking of Political Claims

Recent work has proposed multi-hop models and datasets for studying complex natural language reasoning. One notable task requiring multi-hop reasoning is fact checking, where a set of connected evidence pieces leads to the final verdict of a claim. However, existing datasets either do not provide annotations for gold evidence pages, or the only dataset which does (FEVER) mostly consists of claims which can be fact-checked with simple reasoning and is constructed artificially. Here, we study more complex claim verification of naturally occurring claims with multiple hops over interconnected evidence chunks. We: 1) construct a small annotated dataset, PolitiHop, of evidence sentences for claim verification; 2) compare it to existing multi-hop datasets; and 3) study how to transfer knowledge from more extensive in- and out-of-domain resources to PolitiHop. We find that the task is complex and achieve the best performance with an architecture that specifically models reasoning over evidence pieces in combination with in-domain transfer learning.Comment: 10 pages, to be published at Proceedings of IJCAI-202

REDUKCJA DRGAŃ OBIEKTU NIELINIOWEGO Z REGULATOREM ADAPTACYJNYM PROPORCJONALNO-RÓŻNICZKUJĄCYM O STRUKTURZE MRAS

The paper presents a method of adapting the MFC actuator control algorithm used for nonlinear vibration reduction of an cantilever beam. The mathematical description presented of the PD controller operating in the MRAS structure and the adaptation algorithm is based on the Lyapunov principle. The simulation study carried out defines the algorithm’s resistance to modelling errors and hardware delays occurring in real systems.W artykule zaprezentowano metodę adaptacji algorytmu sterowania aktuatorem MFC służącym do redukcji drgań nieliniowych belki wysięgnikowej. Zastosowany opis matematyczny regulatora PD zaprojektowano jako strukturę MRAS, a algorytm adaptacji oparty jest o zasadę Lapunowa. Przeprowadzone badania symulacyjne określiły odporność algorytmu na błędy modelowania oraz na występujące w rzeczywistych systemach opóźnienia sprzętowe

Digitizing Historical Aerial Images: Evaluation of the Effects of Scanning Quality on Aerial Triangulation and Dense Image Matching

In the last decade, many aerial photographic archives have started to be digitized for multiple purposes, including digital preservation and geoprocessing. This paper analyzes the effects of professional photogrammetric versus consumer-grade scanners on the processing of analog historical aerial photographs. An image block over Warsaw is considered, featuring 38 photographs acquired in 1986 (Wild RC10, Normal Aviogon II lens, 23 × 23 cm format) with a ground sampling distance (GSD) of 4 cm. Aerial triangulation (AT) and dense image matching (DIM) procedures are considered, analyzing how scanning modalities are important in the massive digitization of analog images for georeferencing and 3D product generation. The achieved results show how consumer-grade scanners, unlike more expensive photogrammetric scanners, do not possess adequate recording quality to ensure high accuracy and geometric precision for geoprocessing purposes. However, consumer-grade scanners can be used for time and cost-efficient applications where a partial loss of data quality is not critical

Mapping Succession in Non-Forest Habitats by Means of Remote Sensing: Is the Data Acquisition Time Critical for Species Discrimination?

The process of secondary succession is one of themost significant threats to non-forest (natural and semi-natural open) Natura 2000 habitats in Poland; shrub and tree encroachment taking place on abandoned, low productive agricultural areas, historically used as pastures or meadows, leads to changes to the composition of species and biodiversity loss, and results in landscape transformations. There is a perceived need to create amethodology for themonitoring of vegetation succession by airborne remote sensing, both from quantitative (area, volume) and qualitative (plant species) perspectives. This is likely to become a very important issue for the effective protection of natural and semi-natural habitats and to advance conservation planning. A key variable to be established when implementing a qualitative approach is the remote sensing data acquisition date, which determines the developmental stage of trees and shrubs forming the succession process. It is essential to choose the optimal date on which the spectral and geometrical characteristics of the species are as different from each other as possible. As part of the research presented here, we compare classifications based on remote sensing data acquired during three different parts of the growing season (spring, summer and autumn) for five study areas. The remote sensing data used include high-resolution hyperspectral imagery and LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) data acquired simultaneously from a common aerial platform. Classifications are done using the random forest algorithm, and the set of features to be classified is determined by a recursive feature elimination procedure. The results show that the time of remote sensing data acquisition influences the possibility of differentiating succession species. This was demonstrated by significant differences in the spatial extent of species, which ranged from 33.2% to 56.2% when comparing pairs of maps, and differences in classification accuracies, which when expressed in values of Cohen’s Kappa reached ~0.2. For most of the analysed species, the spring and autumn dates turned out to be slightly more favourable than the summer one. However, the final recommendation for the data acquisition time should take into consideration th

IRT research on influence of long-term loads on defects in FRP strengthened RC beams

It has been more than two decades, since FRP strengthening method was first time used in Poland. Therefore there is a natural need to develop an efficient quality assessment technique to verify design assumptions of strengthening in existing structures after many years. One of the promising non-destructive method of quality assessment is infrared thermography (IRT). In this paper, an initial study on recognition of delamination mainly in CFRP laminates using IRT was conducted as well as the influence of long-term loads on defects in CFRP strengthened RC beams was presented

Bilateral absence of the deep brachial artery

The aim of the following study was to present and comprehensively describe a case of a bilateral absence of the DBA. Furthermore, its embryology and clinical significance will also be discussed. During routine dissection, a 71-year-old male cadaver with a bilateral abnormality in the DBA and its branches was found. The first branch of the BA was found to be the radial collateral artery, which passed behind the radial nerve. Furthermore, the middle collateral artery originated distal to the radial collateral artery and gave off first a singular, minor muscular branch and then the superior ulnar collateral artery. Later, the preceding nutrient arteries of the humerus and the deltoid branch consecutively branched off from the middle collateral artery. Subsequently, the middle ulnar collateral artery, the inferior ulnar collateral artery, the deltoid artery, the radial artery, and the ulnar artery branched off from the BA, as adapted in the current knowledge regarding the anatomy of the upper extremity. Furthermore, detailed measurements of the distances between the mentioned arteries were carried out. In the present study, a bilateral absence of the DBA was demonstrated. Meta-analysis focusing on the anatomy of this artery has shown how variable its characteristics are. However, our case report is the first in the literature to present this extremely rare variation. Having adequate knowledge regarding the anatomy of the arteries of the proximal arm is of immense importance when performing orthopedic and reconstructive surgeries in this area