Adopting national vegetation guidelines and the National Vegetation Information System (NVIS) framework in the Northern Territory

Guidelines and core attributes for site-based vegetation surveying and mapping developed for the Northern Territory, are relevant to botanical research, forestry typing, rangeland monitoring and reporting on the extent and condition of native and non-native vegetated landscapes. These initiatives are consistent with national vegetation guidelines and the National Vegetation Information System (NVIS) framework. This paper provides a synopsis of vegetation site data collection, classification and mapping in the Northern Territory, and discusses the benefits of consistency between the guidelines, core attributes and the NVIS framework; both of which has an emphasis on the NVIS hierarchical classification system for describing structural and floristic attributes of vegetation. The long-term aim of the NVIS framework is that national attributes are adopted at regional levels to enable comparability of vegetation information within survey and jurisdictional boundaries in the Northern Territory and across Australia. The guidelines and core attributes are incorporated in current and future vegetation survey and mapping programs in the Northern Territory

Mind the Gap: Another look at the problem of the semantic gap in image retrieval

This paper attempts to review and characterise the problem of the semantic gap in image retrieval and the attempts being made to bridge it. In particular, we draw from our own experience in user queries, automatic annotation and ontological techniques. The first section of the paper describes a characterisation of the semantic gap as a hierarchy between the raw media and full semantic understanding of the media's content. The second section discusses real users' queries with respect to the semantic gap. The final sections of the paper describe our own experience in attempting to bridge the semantic gap. In particular we discuss our work on auto-annotation and semantic-space models of image retrieval in order to bridge the gap from the bottom up, and the use of ontologies, which capture more semantics than keyword object labels alone, as a technique for bridging the gap from the top down

FIAEs in famous faces are mediated by type of processing

An important question regarding face aftereffects is whether it is based on face-specific or lower-level mechanisms. One method for addressing this is to explore how adaptation in upright or inverted, photographic positive or negative faces transfers to test stimuli that are either upright or inverted and normal or negated. A series of studies are reported in which this is tested using a typical face identity aftereffect paradigm in unfamiliar and famous faces. Results showed that aftereffects were strongest when the adaptor matched the test stimuli. In addition, aftereffects did not transfer from upright adaptors to inverted test images, but did transfer from inverted adaptors to upright test images in famous faces. However, in unfamiliar faces, a different pattern was observed. The results are interpreted in terms of how identity adaptation interacts with low-level adaptation and highlight differences in the representation of famous and unfamiliar faces

A spatial frequency account of the detriment that local processing of Navon letters has on face recognition

Five minutes of processing the local features of a Navon letter causes a detriment in subsequent face recognition performance (Macrae & H. Lewis, 2002). We hypothesise a perceptual after-effect explanation of this effect in which face recognition is less accurate after adapting to high spatial frequencies at high contrasts. Five experiments were conducted in which face recognition performance was compared after processing high contrast Navon stimuli. The standard recognition deficit was observed for processing the local features of Navon stimuli, but not if the stimuli were blurred (Experiment 1) or if they were of lower contrast (Experiment 2). A face recognition deficit was observed after processing small high contrast letters equivalent to local processing of Navon letters (Experiment 3). Experiments 4 and 5 demonstrated that recognition of bandpass filtered faces interacted with the type of Navon processing, whereby the recognition of low-pass filtered faces was better following local rather than global processing. These results suggest that the Navon effect on subsequent face recognition is a perceptual phenomenon

Lethal Parasites in Oysters from Coastal Georgia with Discussion of Disease and Management Implications

Extensive mortalities of oysters, Crassostrea virginica, occurred from 1985 through 1987 in coastal waters of Georgia. Fluid thioglycolate cultures of oysters collected from 16 of 17 locations revealed infections by the apicomplexan parasite Perkinsus marinus. An ascetosporan parasite, Haplosporidium nelsoni, was also observed in histopathological examination of oysters from 4 of the locations. While the range of H. nelsoni currently is recognized as the east coast of the United States from Maine to Florida, this is the first report of the parasite in Georgia waters. This paper documents the occurrence of these two lethal parasites in oysters from coastal waters of Georgia, along with potential disease and management implications. Results of an earlier independent and previously unpublished survey are also discussed which document the presence of P. marinus in Georgia as early as 1966

Maternal and perinatal outcome in severe preeclampsia and eclampsia at the Rivers State university teaching hospital, Nigeria

Background: Severe preeclampsia and eclampsia remain a challenge in tropical obstetric practice. It is a major contributor to feto-maternal morbidity and mortality in developing countries. This study seeks to determine the prevalence, associated risk factors and the feto-maternal outcome of severe preeclampsia and eclampsia at the rivers state university teaching hospital (RSUTH).Method: A retrospective study of all women who had severe preeclampsia and eclampsia and were delivered at the RSUTH in a two-year period, 1ST January 2018 to 31ST December 2019, was carried out. Data on patients’ age, parity, education, booking status, gestational age at delivery, diagnosis, complications, mode of delivery and fetal sex, birth weight and Apgar scores were retrieved using structured pro-forma. Data were analyzed using SPSS version 20.Results: There were 4496 deliveries of which 128 had severe preeclampsia and eclampsia, giving a prevalence of 2.85%. Of these, 94 (73.4%) had severe preeclampsia and 34 (26.6%) had eclampsia. The mean age of the women ± SD was 29.84±5.44 years, median parity was para 1, and mean gestational age ± SD was 35.38±3.84 weeks. There were 10 maternal deaths giving case fatality of 7.8%. The mean birth weight ± SD was 2.61±0.91 kg and stillborn rate was 14.4%. There was significant association with maternal age, education, booking status, method of delivery and Apgar score of the baby.Conclusion: The prevalence in this study is high with associated high maternal mortality and stillborn rates. Timely and appropriate intervention including primary management and judicious termination of pregnancy will reduce mortality of mother and fetus

Changing faces: Direction is important

Recent research has provided evidence for the role of norm-based coding in face recognition (e.g. Leopold et al., 2001). In such a model, any given face can be represented by a vector from the norm, with the difference between two faces being the difference between the two vectors. However, as has previously been suggested it is also possible to conceive of a model in which the angle between two vectors provides relevant information for differentiating faces. Two experiments investigated this possibility using a face matching paradigm. Discrimination was found to be better when two faces lay on different vectors than when they were the same physical distance apart but lying on the same vector. The results favour a specific type of norm-based model suggesting that vector angle is important in face perception

Attention misplaced: the role of diagnostic features in the face-inversion effect

Inversion disproportionately impairs recognition of face stimuli compared to non-face stimuli arguably due to the holistic manner in which faces are processed. A qualification is put forward in which the first point fixated upon is different for upright and inverted faces and this carries some of the face-inversion effect. Three experiments explored this possibility by using fixation crosses to guide attention to the eye or mouth region of the to-be-presented faces in different orientations. Recognition was better when the fixation cross appeared at the eye region than at the mouth region. The face-inversion effect was smaller when the eyes were cued than when the mouth was cued or when there was no cueing. The results suggest that the first facial feature attended to is important for accurate face recognition and this may carry some of the effects of inversion

Fluid/solid transition in a hard-core system

We prove that a system of particles in the plane, interacting only with a certain hard-core constraint, undergoes a fluid/solid phase transition

Telerobotic Surgery: An Intelligent Systems Approach to Mitigate the Adverse Effects of Communication Delay

An extremely innovative approach has been presented, which is to have the surgeon operate through a simulator running in real-time enhanced with an intelligent controller component to enhance the safety and efficiency of a remotely conducted operation. The use of a simulator enables the surgeon to operate in a virtual environment free from the impediments of telecommunication delay. The simulator functions as a predictor and periodically the simulator state is corrected with truth data. Three major research areas must be explored in order to ensure achieving the objectives. They are: simulator as predictor, image processing, and intelligent control. Each is equally necessary for success of the project and each of these involves a significant intelligent component in it. These are diverse, interdisciplinary areas of investigation, thereby requiring a highly coordinated effort by all the members of our team, to ensure an integrated system. The following is a brief discussion of those areas. Simulator as a predictor: The delays encountered in remote robotic surgery will be greater than any encountered in human-machine systems analysis, with the possible exception of remote operations in space. Therefore, novel compensation techniques will be developed. Included will be the development of the real-time simulator, which is at the heart of our approach. The simulator will present real-time, stereoscopic images and artificial haptic stimuli to the surgeon. Image processing: Because of the delay and the possibility of insufficient bandwidth a high level of novel image processing is necessary. This image processing will include several innovative aspects, including image interpretation, video to graphical conversion, texture extraction, geometric processing, image compression and image generation at the surgeon station. Intelligent control: Since the approach we propose is in a sense predictor based, albeit a very sophisticated predictor, a controller, which not only optimizes end effector trajectory but also avoids error, is essential. We propose to investigate two different approaches to the controller design. One approach employs an optimal controller based on modern control theory; the other one involves soft computing techniques, i.e. fuzzy logic, neural networks, genetic algorithms and hybrids of these