SOME CONCEPTUAL PROBLEMS IN THE EVALUATION OF WATER POLLUTION DAMAGES

Environmental Economics and Policy,

Automating the Hunt for Volcanoes on Venus

Our long-term goal is to develop a trainable tool for locating patterns of interest in large image databases. Toward this goal we have developed a prototype system, based on classical filtering and statistical pattern recognition techniques, for automatically locating volcanoes in the Magellan SAR database of Venus. Training for the specific volcano-detection task is obtained by synthesizing feature templates (via normalization and principal components analysis) from a small number of examples provided by experts. Candidate regions identified by a focus of attention (FOA) algorithm are classified based on correlations with the feature templates. Preliminary tests show performance comparable to trained human observers

THE ROLE OF ALTERNATIVE AGRICULTURAL ENTERPRISES IN A CHANGING AGRICULTURAL ECONOMY

Agribusiness,

Entropy-based active learning for object recognition

Most methods for learning object categories require large amounts of labeled training data. However, obtaining such data can be a difficult and time-consuming endeavor. We have developed a novel, entropy-based ldquoactive learningrdquo approach which makes significant progress towards this problem. The main idea is to sequentially acquire labeled data by presenting an oracle (the user) with unlabeled images that will be particularly informative when labeled. Active learning adaptively prioritizes the order in which the training examples are acquired, which, as shown by our experiments, can significantly reduce the overall number of training examples required to reach near-optimal performance. At first glance this may seem counter-intuitive: how can the algorithm know whether a group of unlabeled images will be informative, when, by definition, there is no label directly associated with any of the images? Our approach is based on choosing an image to label that maximizes the expected amount of information we gain about the set of unlabeled images. The technique is demonstrated in several contexts, including improving the efficiency of Web image-search queries and open-world visual learning by an autonomous agent. Experiments on a large set of 140 visual object categories taken directly from text-based Web image searches show that our technique can provide large improvements (up to 10 x reduction in the number of training examples needed) over baseline techniques

Finding Faces in Cluttered Scenes using Random Labeled Graph Matching

An algorithm for locating quasi-frontal views of human faces in cluttered scenes is presented. The algorithm works by coupling a set of local feature detectors with a statistical model of the mutual distances between facial features it is invariant with respect to translation, rotation (in the plane), and scale and can handle partial occlusions of the face. On a challenging database with complicated and varied backgrounds, the algorithm achieved a correct localization rate of 95% in images where the face appeared quasi-frontally

Oral History Interview: Burl Collins

Burl Collins was born on October 25, 1903. He was raised in McDowell County, West Virginia. When he was 15 years old, he started his first job in a coal mine. He worked in this mine for 33 years. Mr. Collins married and had 11 children, including eight girls and three boys. He discusses the social, economic, and technological changes during his lifetime. In the audio clip provided, Mr. Collins discusses his wedding and marriage.https://mds.marshall.edu/oral_history/1028/thumbnail.jp

THE WELFARE REFORM BILL AND ITS EFFECTS IN THE SOUTH

Political Economy,

Deconstructing Brown Adipocyte Neogenesis In Brown And White Adipose Tissue

Global incidence of Type 2 Diabetes (T2D) has reached epidemic proportions, and increasing evidence indicates that dysfunctional adipose tissue is an important contributor to the pathogenesis of T2D. Expanding brown adipocyte (BA) populations within adipose tissues through adrenergic activation improves energy balance and insulin sensitivity. In order to exploit this remodeling of adipose tissue for therapeutic benefit, we need to understand the mechanisms by which adrenergic signaling expand populations of BAs in vivo. These studies utilized single-cell RNA-sequencing and transgenic mouse models, in combination with single-molecule fluorescence in situ hybridization (smFISH) and immunoistochemical analysis, to study BA neogenesis in vivo. scRNA-seq identified distinct PDGFRA+ adipocyte progenitor subpopulations in all adipose depots that appeared to be differentially poised to enter the adipogenic pathway. These progenitor subtypes occupy distinct tissue locations. Beta3-adrenergic receptor (ADRB3) activation triggered the dramatic appearance of proliferating ASCs in mouse epididymal white adipose tissue (eWAT), whose differentiation into BAs could be inferred from a single time point. scRNA-seq identified various immune cell types in eWAT, including a proliferating macrophage subpopulation that occupies adipogenic niches. In interscapular brown adipose tissue (iBAT), knockout of the Beta1-adrenergic receptor (ADRB1) in progenitors did not prevent cold-induced neogenesis. However, pharmacological activation of the ADRB3 on BAs was sufficient to induce neogenesis, suggesting that signals derived from mature BAs indirectly trigger ASC proliferation and differentiation in iBAT as in eWAT. In this regard, cold exposure induced the delayed appearance of multiple macrophage and dendritic cell populations in iBAT whose recruitment strongly correlated with the onset and magnitude of neogenesis across diverse experimental conditions. High resolution immunofluorescence and smFISH demonstrated that cold-induced neogenesis involves dynamic interactions between progenitor subtype ASC1 and recruited immune cells that occur on the micrometer scale in distinct tissue regions. Finally, we acknowledge that tissue digestion method can alter cells captured with scRNA-seq and therefore confound results. It is therefore critical validate results from scRNA-seq in the intact tissue. This work provides unbiased profiling of BA neogenesis in multiple adipose tissues at the single-cell level, and demonstrates a framework for validating single-cell results with smFISH and immunohistochemistry