Can You Explain That? Lucid Explanations Help Human-AI Collaborative Image Retrieval

While there have been many proposals on making AI algorithms explainable, few have attempted to evaluate the impact of AI-generated explanations on human performance in conducting human-AI collaborative tasks. To bridge the gap, we propose a Twenty-Questions style collaborative image retrieval game, Explanation-assisted Guess Which (ExAG), as a method of evaluating the efficacy of explanations (visual evidence or textual justification) in the context of Visual Question Answering (VQA). In our proposed ExAG, a human user needs to guess a secret image picked by the VQA agent by asking natural language questions to it. We show that overall, when AI explains its answers, users succeed more often in guessing the secret image correctly. Notably, a few correct explanations can readily improve human performance when VQA answers are mostly incorrect as compared to no-explanation games. Furthermore, we also show that while explanations rated as "helpful" significantly improve human performance, "incorrect" and "unhelpful" explanations can degrade performance as compared to no-explanation games. Our experiments, therefore, demonstrate that ExAG is an effective means to evaluate the efficacy of AI-generated explanations on a human-AI collaborative task.Comment: 2019 AAAI Conference on Human Computation and Crowdsourcin

Fall Cover Crop Influence on Spring Potato Production

Use of cover crops is becoming a common practice among vegetable producers. Cover crops provide multiple benefits such as building of organic matter, erosion and weed suppression, nitrogen fixation, and improvement of soil health. Cereal rye is the most widely planted cover crop in Iowa, however, cover crops such as oats, oilseed radish, and clovers are gaining popularity. The goal of this project was to evaluate and study three fall-planted cover crops and their effect on spring-planted potato. The three cover crops studied were Cereal Rye, Oilseed Radish, and Crimson Clover. The control treatment for the study was a no-cover crop plot. The treatments were chosen based on their optimal growing season as well as flexibility to fit in a vegetable crop rotation

Degradation of Phenolic Compounds Through UV and Visible- Light-Driven Photocatalysis: Technical and Economic Aspects

Phenolic compounds are found in surface and groundwater as well as wastewater from several industries. It is necessary to eliminate phenols and phenolic compounds from contaminated water before releasing into water bodies due to their toxicity to human beings. Photocatalytic degradation seems to be a promising technology for the degradation of several phenolic compounds. Complete mineralization of phenol and phenolic compound has been achieved with TiO2-based photocatalysts under both UV and visible-light irradiation. This chapter will evaluate the conventional processes and advanced oxidation processes for the degradation of phenol and phenolic compounds. The process economics and efficiencies of different advanced oxidation processes will also be discussed. The main focus of the chapter is photocatalytic degradation processes under UV and visible light along with a detailed review of several factors affecting degradation of phenol and phenolic compounds. Photocatalytic degradation process is governed by reactions with hydroxyl radical or superoxide ion. The extent of degradation depends on light sources (UV, visible, and solar), the type of photocatalyst, and experimental conditions (pH, photocatalyst dosage, initial concentration of phenolic compounds, light intensity, electron donor concentration, etc.).Visible-light-active photocatalysts are applied by several researchers to exploit sunlight and to make the photocatalysis process sustainable. In the future, using sunlight in place of UV could make photocatalysis economically more efficient

Bok Choy Cultivar Trial for Spring High Tunnel Production

Bok choy, also known as pak choy or pac choi, is a leafy vegetable that belongs to the mustard family. It is commonly referred to as ‘chinese cabbage.’ Bok choy is a non-heading form of Chinese cabbage and has thick white or pale green leafstalks (petioles). Leaves are dark green in color but there are cultivars with red leaves as well. Chinese cabbage is a coolseason annual vegetable and is grown by a number of vegetable growers in the state. The crop grows best with short days and moderate to cool temperatures (60 to 70° F mean temperature). Higher temperatures lead to soft and bitter heads and often lead to seed stalk formation (bolting)

Analysis of a model for ethanol production through continuous fermentation: ethanol productivity

We investigate a model for the production of ethanol through continuous fermentation using Saccharomyces cerevisiae in a single reactor and cascades of up to five reactors. Using path-following methods we investigate how the ethanol productivity varies with the residence time in each reactor of the cascade. With a substrate feed concentration of 160 g/l we find the optimal productivity is 3.80 g/l/h, 5.08 g/l/h, and 5.18 g/l/h in a single reactor, a double reactor cascade and a triple reactor cascade respectively. For the case of a cascade containing reactors of equal size we investigate reactor configurations of up to five reactors and find that the maximum productivity is obtained in a cascade containing three reactors

Effect of Plastic Mulch on Sweet Potato Yield and Quality

Sweet potato, Ipomoea batatas, is a warmseason vegetable predominantly grown in the southern part of the United States. In recent years, its production region has expanded quite rapidly to various Midwestern and Eastern states

Applications of the non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA) in chemical reaction engineering

Most of the chemical reaction engineering optimization problems encounters more than one objective functions. A considerable amount of research has been reported on the multiobjective optimization of various chemical reactors using various non-dominated sorting genetic algorithms. This is reviewed in this paper. The introduction of the topic is given at the beginning, followed by the description of multi-objective optimization and Pareto set. We have then discussed various non-dominated sorting genetic algorithms and its applications in chemical reaction engineering. Some comments are also made on the future research direction in this area

Oxidative protein refolding on size exclusion chromatography:From batch single-column to multi-column counter-current continuous processing

Recently protein refolding on size exclusion chromatography (SEC) operated in multi-column continuous simulated moving bed (SMB) configurations (hereinafter SMB-SEC) has been investigated for future industrial applications. This is due to several advantages offered by SMB configurations particularly when process parameters are thoroughly screened and optimized. A robust mathematical model is essential for high-throughput process screening and optimization. In this work, a previously investigated single-column mathematical model was modified to extend its applicability for protein oxidative refolding/aggregation predictions in SMB-SEC. The model considers a wide loading concentration range of the model protein (lysozyme) on SEC. The potential influences of high concentrations of chaotropic reagents on kinetic and thermodynamic model parameters have been discussed based on previous experimental results and their predicted local concentrations through the SMB-SEC columns and at the product stream. It was observed that aggregation occurs when local protein concentration exceeds a critical concentration. No urea recovery at the product stream indicated that the refolding reaction will continue off-column to recover the native-protein product. Therefore, it is suggested that the developed model is tested against experimental results for total soluble protein (early intermediates and native conformations) in the presence of L{small}-arginine additive and process performance indicators are defined based on this criterion