Multispecies Fruit Flower Detection Using a Refined Semantic Segmentation Network

In fruit production, critical crop management decisions are guided by bloom intensity, i.e., the number of flowers present in an orchard. Despite its importance, bloom intensity is still typically estimated by means of human visual inspection. Existing automated computer vision systems for flower identification are based on hand-engineered techniques that work only under specific conditions and with limited performance. This letter proposes an automated technique for flower identification that is robust to uncontrolled environments and applicable to different flower species. Our method relies on an end-to-end residual convolutional neural network (CNN) that represents the state-of-the-art in semantic segmentation. To enhance its sensitivity to flowers, we fine-tune this network using a single dataset of apple flower images. Since CNNs tend to produce coarse segmentations, we employ a refinement method to better distinguish between individual flower instances. Without any preprocessing or dataset-specific training, experimental results on images of apple, peach, and pear flowers, acquired under different conditions demonstrate the robustness and broad applicability of our method

Constitution, document of culture and barbarism

Based on Walter Benjamin’s reflections on history and social struggles, this paper drafts an analysis of the relations of the subject with some problems of constitutional theory, in a first effort to bring the field nearer to social philosophy. After tracing a short narrative on modern constitutionalism and its new relationship with the historical time, we argument that Constitution shall be seen as a cultural document of memory of the social struggles of the past and at the same an object of the struggles of the present. Some inconclusive reflections on the possibility of human emancipation through law are presented as conclusion

Influence of structurally bound water on the subcritical crack growth in silicate glasses

Ziel der vorliegenden Arbeit ist es den Einfluss von strukturell gebundenem Wasser auf das unterkritische Risswachstum in silikatischen Gläsern zu untersuchen. Der Prozess des unterkritischen Risswachstums beschreibt das langsame Voranschreiten eines Risses in einem Material bei Anliegen einer unterkritischen, d.h. nicht zum unmittelbaren Versagen des Materials fuhrenden, Spannung. Im Fall von silikatischen Gläsern ist bekannt, dass die Anwesenheit von Wasser zu einer Hydrolyse des SiO-Netzwerkes, insbesondere an der Rissspitze, fuhrt und somit einen Anstieg der Rissausbreitungsgeschwindigkeit zur Folge hat. Um die Bedingungen an der Rissspitze nachzustellen, wurden in der vorliegenden Arbeit Gläser mit strukturellen Wassergehalten bis >20 mol% synthetisiert und mittels einer Kombination verschiedener Analysemethoden untersucht. Thermoanalytische Messungen zeigen, dass der Einbau von Wasser in Natrium-Borosilikatgläsern die Glasubergangstemperatur Tg um bis zu 45% absenkt. Daruber hinaus wurde mit- tels dynamisch-mechanischer Thermoanalyse nachgewiesen, dass die durch Wassermolekule verursachte -Relaxation bereits bei einer Temperatur von 57 °C feststellbar ist. Letzteres legt nahe, dass diese Form der mechanischen Relaxation in wasserreichen Regionen des Glases, wie sie an der Rissspitze vorzufinden sind, bereits bei Raumtemperatur einen Beitrag zum unterkritischen Risswachstum in silikatischen Gläsern leisten könnte. Messungen der elastischen Eigenschaften von Kalk-Natron-Silikatgläsern zeigten weiterhin, dass die Querkontraktionszahl positiv mit dem Wassergehalt korreliert. Gleichzeitig nehmen die Dichte, die Vickershärte sowie die elastischen Moduln der untersuchten Gläser mit zunehmendem Wassergehalt ab. Härtemessungen in Toluol, Stickstoff sowie Luft deuten darauf hin, dass ein zeitabhängiger Erweichungseffekt sowohl bei Messung von nominell wasserfreien Gläsern in feuchter Luft als auch bei Messung von wasserhaltigen Gläsern in trockener Atmosphäre nachweisbar ist. Um den Einfluss des strukturell gebundenen Wassers auf das Risswachstum der untersuchten Gläser beschreiben zu können, wurde weiterhin der stochastische Charakter von Radialrissen, welche durch eine Vickerspyramide induziert wurden, analysiert. Durch Anwendung statistischer Verfahren, wurde gezeigt, dass eine Vergleichbarkeit von Daten der Eindruckbruchmechanik mit Daten von herkömmlichen Messverfahren nur dann gegeben ist, wenn eine statistisch signifikante Anzahl von Rissdaten vorhanden ist. Mit den Ergebnissen der Analyse wurde eine statistisch basierte Transferfunktion entwickelt, die einen Vergleich von Daten der Eindruckbruchmechanik mit denen von herkömmlichen Methoden erlaubt. Mittels des statistisch basierten Ansatzes wurde anschließend der Einfluss des strukturell gebundenen Wassers auf das Risswachstum in Kalk-Natron-Silikatgläsern untersucht. Es konnte gezeigt werden, dass die Anwesenheit von Luftfeuchte einen stärkeren Einfluss auf das unterkritische Risswachstum hat als strukturell gebundenes Wasser. Messungen in wasserarmer Stickstoffatmosph¨are konnten jedoch auch zeigen, dass ein zunehmender struktureller Wassergehalt eine Abnahme des Risswachstumsexponenten zur Folge hat, was darauf hindeutet, dass Wasser unabhängig von seiner Herkunft (d.h. Luftfeuchte vs. Glasstruktur) das Risswachstum an der Rissspitze fördert.The aim of the present thesis is to investigate the influence of structurally bound water on the subcritical crack growth in silicate glasses. The process of subcritical crack growth describes the slow propagation of a crack in a material in presence of a subcritical, i.e. not to immediate failure leading, tension. In the case of silicate glasses, it is known that the presence of water leads to hydrolysis of the Si-O network, especially at the crack tip, and thus to an increase in the crack propagation rate. In order to mimic the conditions at the crack tip, glasses with structural water contents of up to >20 mol% were synthesized and analyzed using a combination of different analysis methods. Thermoanalytical measurements show that the incorporation of water into sodium borosilicate glasses lowers the glass transition temperature Tg by up to 45%. In addition, it was demonstrated by means of dynamic mechanical analysis that the -relaxation caused by water molecules can already be observed at a temperature of 57 °C. The latter suggests that this form of mechanical relaxation in water-rich regions of the glass, such as those found at the crack tip, could contribute to subcritical crack growth in silicate glasses at room temperature. Measurements of the elastic properties of soda-lime glasses also showed that the Poisson number correlates positively with the water content. Simultaneously, the density, the Vickers hardness and the elastic moduli of the glasses decrease with increasing water content. Hardness measurements in toluene, nitrogen and air indicate that a time-dependent softening effect can be observed when measuring both nominally water-free glasses in humid air and measuring hydrous glasses in a dry atmosphere. In order to be able to describe the influence of the structurally bound water on the crack growth of the investigated glasses, the stochastic nature of radial cracks, which were induced by a Vickers indenter, was analyzed. Using statistical methods, it was shown that data from indentation fracture toughness can be compared with data from conventional fracture toughness methods only, if there is a statistically significant number of crack data available. With the results of the analyses, a statistically based transfer function was developed, which allows a direct comparison of data from indentation fracture toughness with that of conventional fracture toughness methods. Subsequently, the influence of structurally bound water on the crack growth was investigated using the statistically based approach. It was shown that the presence of humidity has a stronger influence on the subcritical crack growth than structurally bound water. However, measurements in a dry nitrogen atmosphere also showed that an increasing water content leads to a decrease in the crack growth exponent, which indicates that water promotes crack growth at the crack tip regardless of its origin (i.e. air humidity vs. glass structure)

Fatal Attraction? Access to Early Retirement and Mortality

We estimate the causal effect of early retirement on mortality for blue-collar workers. To overcome the problem of endogenous selection, we exploit an exogenous change in unemployment insurance rules in Austria that allowed workers in eligible regions to withdraw from the workforce up to 3.5 years earlier than those in non-eligible regions. For males, instrumental-variable estimates show a significant 2.4 percentage points (about 13%) increase in the probability of dying before age 67. We do not find any adverse effect of early retirement on mortality for females. Death causes indicate a significantly higher incidence of cardiovascular disorders among eligible workers, suggesting that changes in health-related behavior explain increased mortality among male early retirees.early retirement, mortality, premature death, health behavior, endogeneity, instrumental variable

Pengaruh Transformational Leadership terhadap Financial Performance dengan Supply Chain Integration dan Job Satisfaction sebagai Variabel Intervening: Studi Kasus pada Perusahaan Manufaktur yang Go Public di Surabaya dan Sidoarjo

This study aimed to examine the direct and significant affect of transformational leadership to job satisfaction, supply chain integration to financial performance, job satisfaction to financial performance, on go public manufacturing firms in Surabaya and Sidoarjo. This study used quantitative approach, and the data obtained through the distribution of questionnaire and used ratio financial statement analysis to go public manufacturing firms in Surabaya and processed by using SmartPLS software. This study showed that there was a positive and significant relationship of transformational leadership to financial performance, transformational leadership to job satisfaction, transformational leadership to supply chain integration, and supply chain integration to financial performance on go public manufacturing firms in Surabaya and Sidoarjo Job satisfaction and supply chain integration became the intervening variables to transformational leadership and financial performance

Stochastic Methods for Fine-Grained Image Segmentation and Uncertainty Estimation in Computer Vision

In this dissertation, we exploit concepts of probability theory, stochastic methods and machine learning to address three existing limitations of deep learning-based models for image understanding. First, although convolutional neural networks (CNN) have substantially improved the state of the art in image understanding, conventional CNNs provide segmentation masks that poorly adhere to object boundaries, a critical limitation for many potential applications. Second, training deep learning models requires large amounts of carefully selected and annotated data, but large-scale annotation of image segmentation datasets is often prohibitively expensive. And third, conventional deep learning models also lack the capability of uncertainty estimation, which compromises both decision making and model interpretability. To address these limitations, we introduce the Region Growing Refinement (RGR) algorithm, an unsupervised post-processing algorithm that exploits Monte Carlo sampling and pixel similarities to propagate high-confidence labels into regions of low-confidence classification. The probabilistic Region Growing Refinement (pRGR) provides RGR with a rigorous mathematical foundation that exploits concepts of Bayesian estimation and variance reduction techniques. Experiments demonstrate both the effectiveness of (p)RGR for the refinement of segmentation predictions, as well as its suitability for uncertainty estimation, since its variance estimates obtained in the Monte Carlo iterations are highly correlated with segmentation accuracy. We also introduce FreeLabel, an intuitive open-source web interface that exploits RGR to allow users to obtain high-quality segmentation masks with just a few freehand scribbles, in a matter of seconds. Designed to benefit the computer vision community, FreeLabel can be used for both crowdsourced or private annotation and has a modular structure that can be easily adapted for any image dataset. The practical relevance of methods developed in this dissertation are illustrated through applications on agricultural and healthcare-related domains. We have combined RGR and modern CNNs for fine segmentation of fruit flowers, motivated by the importance of automated bloom intensity estimation for optimization of fruit orchard management and, possibly, automatizing procedures such as flower thinning and pollination. We also exploited an early version of FreeLabel to annotate novel datasets for segmentation of fruit flowers, which are currently publicly available. Finally, this dissertation also describes works on fine segmentation and gaze estimation for images collected from assisted living environments, with the ultimate goal of assisting geriatricians in evaluating health status of patients in such facilities

Effects of condensed tannins on established populations and on incoming larvae of Trichostrongylus colubriformis and Teladorsagia circumcincta in goats

The use of tanniferous plants or tannins represents one alternative approach to the control of gastrointestinal parasites in ruminants but most data have been obtained in sheep. The current study was therefore performed in goats with two objectives: firstly, to investigate the effects of condensed tannins (CT) on adult populations of Trichostrongylus colubriformis and Teladorsagia circumcincta; secondly, to examine their effects on the establishment of infective larvae of these two species. In experiment 1, two groups of kids were infected with 6 000 L3 of T. colubriformis and 6 000 L3 of T. circumcincta. After 7 weeks, quebracho extracts were administered per os for 8 days to one group. A comparable group which did not receive tannins was included as the control. The kids were slaughtered on week 11. Parasitological and pathophysiological parameters were measured weekly. Worm counts were assessed and mast cells, globule leukocytes and eosinophils were counted in the abomasal and intestinal mucosae. Tannin administration was associated with a decrease in egg excretion, and a decrease in female fecundity, but with no changes in worm numbers. These changes were associated with an increased number of intestinal mast cells. In experiment 2, 24 goats were used according to a 2 2 factorial design, depending on infection and tannin administration. Two groups were either infected with 6 000 L3 of T. colubriformis or T. circumcincta. Within each group, the goats were either drenched or undrenched with tannin extracts. Pathophysiological parameters were measured weekly. Twelve days after the cessation of tannin administration, the goats were slaughtered. Worm counts and female worm fecundity were determined. Tannin consumption was associated with a significant reduction (P < 0.001) of Trichostrongylus populations and a close to significant reduction for Teladorsagia. No effect on fecundity was observed. Our results (1) confirm the consequences of condensed tannins on nematodes in goats as in sheep and (2) indicate divergent effects depending on the parasitic stage exposed to the condensed tannins