Shadow Estimation Method for "The Episolar Constraint: Monocular Shape from Shadow Correspondence"

Recovering shadows is an important step for many vision algorithms. Current approaches that work with time-lapse sequences are limited to simple thresholding heuristics. We show these approaches only work with very careful tuning of parameters, and do not work well for long-term time-lapse sequences taken over the span of many months. We introduce a parameter-free expectation maximization approach which simultaneously estimates shadows, albedo, surface normals, and skylight. This approach is more accurate than previous methods, works over both very short and very long sequences, and is robust to the effects of nonlinear camera response. Finally, we demonstrate that the shadow masks derived through this algorithm substantially improve the performance of sun-based photometric stereo compared to earlier shadow mask estimation

Pupils Left Behind? An Analysis on the Data from National Evaluation Exams in Romania 2023

In the 2022-2023 school year, about 47% of candidates were admitted to their first-choice high school, while 1.44% were not admitted to any school. This research paper explores the dynamics of Romania's educational landscape, focusing on the National Evaluation Exams in the 2022-2023 school year. The paper investigates the path of pupils who, despite obtaining passing final admission scores, were not assigned in the first admission round to an upper-secondary educational facility. Two crucial research questions guide this study: on one hand, how many of these students competed in a different county than their residential county? On the other hand, what similarities and differences exist among them in terms of performance at the National Exam and average scores in the lower-secondary educational cycle? The findings aim to shed light on the challenges and opportunities within Romania's education system

Delaunay Diagram Representations for Use in Image Near-Duplicate Detection

Given an image or an image Delaunay Triangulation diagram representation, the purpose of this project is to identify a near-duplicate in an image database. This is done by computing the corner points of the image under some default settings, using the Voronoi diagram to adjust these settings in order to get better adjusted corner points for the image, and then using the Delaunay Triangulation of the image to identify whether there are possible duplicates in the database. The project investigates Voronoi Diagrams based on a default Harris Corner Detector as an image segmentation technique for adjusting the threshold for the Harris Corner Detector, as well as Delaunay Triangulation Diagrams as a measure of similarity between images. Ultimately, the project finds image near-duplicates in a database with some likelihood

Could Religiosity and Religion Influence the Tax Morale of Individuals? An Empirical Analysis Based on Variable Selection Methods

When people who adhere to tax morality act in a situation where there is no sense of risk, no acceptance of the government, or no environment conducive to tax compliance, it is easier to see how they are motivated to do so. Tax morality is also known as the ethics of compliance. It is the independent cause that motivates a positive tax behaviour. Employees’ religious beliefs may impact their ideas and actions in organizational life, just as individuals’ attitudes, values, emotions, abilities, and behaviours influence their thoughts and actions at work. Religion can positively influence a worker’s loyalty, morale, and communication. In this context, the research seeks to determine whether religiosity and religion may have an effect on tax morale, examining whether an individual’s religiosity reduces tax evasion and increases the degree of tax morale. Using machine learning variable selection techniques appropriate for categorical variables, we have used the dataset of the Joint EVS/WVS 2017-2020 (European Value Survey/World Value Survey), allowing for comparisons of tax morality in more than 79 nations globally (chi-squared and mutual information). The empirical findings showed that the most important aspects of religiosity, such as religious denomination, belief in God, and the significance of God, along with the degree of trust placed in other religions and churches, have a considerable positive impact on the level of tax morale. Another significant conclusion relates to how much people feel the government is responsible, how much they care about their nation, and how satisfied they are with the political system—findings that have been shown to boost employee morale. The following are a person’s primary traits that indicate their financial morale: an adult above the age of 25, a full-time worker or retired person, married, and living alone. Therefore, employees that are morally upright, trustworthy, diligent, and committed to the workplace values of justice and decency raise morale generally and improve an organisation’s success. A business may enhance its reputation and help to secure its long-term success by establishing behavioural policies

Carotid endarterectomy in treatment of critical symptomatic and asymptomatic carotidian stenosis

Emergency Institute Of Cardiovascular Diseases ”Prof. Dr. C.C. Iliescu” Vascular Surgery Department, Bucharest, Romania, Al XI-lea Congres al Asociației Chirurgilor „Nicolae Anestiadi” din Republica Moldova și cea de-a XXXIII-a Reuniune a Chirurgilor din Moldova „Iacomi-Răzeșu” 27-30 septembrie 2011This presentation’s objective is to identify efficacy of the surgical treatment of critical carotid stenosis using direct endarterectomy, in our experience. It’s been over 50 years since the first CEA and 15 years since the publication of the Nord-American and European trials’ results- which stated surgery as the elective procedure of treatment for the extracranial cerebrovascular occlusive disease.Material and Method: Our experience consists of 411 cases of carotid endarterectomies (1997- June 2011). There were 139 asymptomatic patients and 272 symptomatic patients, 173 with minor stroke, 99 with TIA. 380 carotid endarterectomies were performed, followed by venous patch angioplasty in 332 cases, Dacron patch angioplasty in 39 cases and PTFE patch in 8 cases. There were 31 cases of primary closure of the arteriotomy, and 5 patients with bilateral simultaneous carotid endarterectomy. Results: 2 patients suffered postoperative major stroke (one ischemic, one hemorrhagic) and 4 deaths (2- AMI and 2- major stroke). Mortality and combined mortality/perioperative stroke rate was of 1,21 % (only in symptomatic patients). Conculsions: In our experience, carotid endarterectomy remains the method of choice in critical carotid stenosis treatment

KNOWLEDGE REGARDING THE INDICATIONS, CONTRAINDICATIONS AND ADVANTAGES OF CBCT EXAMINATIONS AMONG DENTISTS AND SPECIALISTS

CBCT has proven to be a highly effective diagnostic tool for maxillofacial imaging and has a wide range of dental uses. Aim: the goal of this study was to assess dentists and specialits level of knowledge and attitudes regarding the indications, contraindications, and benefits of CBCT tests. Material and methods: In this cross-sectional study, the participants responded to online questionnaires that asked them about their experience using CBCT, its benefits and drawbacks, operational principles, and their reasons for recommending or not recommending CBCT. With SPSS 26.0, a statistical analysis was performed. Results: Dentists and prosthetists specialits consider that they have good knowledge regarding the use of CBCT, the same situation being recorded for those who have more than 20 years of work experience. 93.3% of dentists and all specialists recommended CBCT to patients, the trend being the same in terms of seniority where 75% of those with less than 5 years of experience and all doctors with more than 5 years of experience recommended CBCT to patients Most of the participating doctors attended training courses on the use of CBCT. The main reasons why CBCT is not recommended are because it is not necessary (40%), it is an expensive operation (26.7%). Most participants prefer to perform their own interpretation of the radiological examination, except for half of the dentists, prosthetists. Conclusion:The results of the study indicate a satisfactory level of knowledge and attitudes regarding the use of CBCT. Dentists and prosthodontists recommend the use of CBCT as a more frequent diagnostic method. Practitioners with more years of practice, are more reluctant to use this method of radiological evaluation frequently