2,176 research outputs found
Small-Object Detection in Remote Sensing Images with End-to-End Edge-Enhanced GAN and Object Detector Network
The detection performance of small objects in remote sensing images is not
satisfactory compared to large objects, especially in low-resolution and noisy
images. A generative adversarial network (GAN)-based model called enhanced
super-resolution GAN (ESRGAN) shows remarkable image enhancement performance,
but reconstructed images miss high-frequency edge information. Therefore,
object detection performance degrades for small objects on recovered noisy and
low-resolution remote sensing images. Inspired by the success of edge enhanced
GAN (EEGAN) and ESRGAN, we apply a new edge-enhanced super-resolution GAN
(EESRGAN) to improve the image quality of remote sensing images and use
different detector networks in an end-to-end manner where detector loss is
backpropagated into the EESRGAN to improve the detection performance. We
propose an architecture with three components: ESRGAN, Edge Enhancement Network
(EEN), and Detection network. We use residual-in-residual dense blocks (RRDB)
for both the ESRGAN and EEN, and for the detector network, we use the faster
region-based convolutional network (FRCNN) (two-stage detector) and single-shot
multi-box detector (SSD) (one stage detector). Extensive experiments on a
public (car overhead with context) and a self-assembled (oil and gas storage
tank) satellite dataset show superior performance of our method compared to the
standalone state-of-the-art object detectors.Comment: This paper contains 27 pages and accepted for publication in MDPI
remote sensing journal. GitHub Repository:
https://github.com/Jakaria08/EESRGAN (Implementation
Variation in _PNPLA3_ is associated with outcomes in alcoholic liver disease
Two recent genome-wide association studies have described associations of SNP variants in _PNPLA3_ with nonalcoholic fatty liver and plasma liver enzyme levels in population based cohorts. We investigated the contributions of these variants to clinical outcomes in Mestizo subjects with a history of excessive alcohol consumption. We show that non-synonymous variant rs738409[G] (I148M) in _PNPLA3_ is strongly associated with alcoholic liver disease and progression to alcoholic cirrhosis (unadjusted OR = 2.25, P = 1.7x10^-10^; ancestry-adjusted OR = 1.79, P = 1.9x10^-5^)
The Twente turbulent Taylor-Couette (T3C) facility: Strongly turbulent (multiphase) flow between two independently rotating cylinders
A new turbulent Taylor-Couette system consisting of two independently
rotating cylinders has been constructed. The gap between the cylinders has a
height of 0.927 m, an inner radius of 0.200 m, and a variable outer radius
(from 0.279 to 0.220 m). The maximum angular rotation rates of the inner and
outer cylinder are 20 and 10 Hz, respectively, resulting in Reynolds numbers up
to 3.4 x 10^6 with water as working fluid. With this Taylor-Couette system, the
parameter space (Re_i, Re_o, {\eta}) extends to (2.0 x 10^6, {\pm}1.4 x 10^6,
0.716-0.909). The system is equipped with bubble injectors, temperature
control, skin-friction drag sensors, and several local sensors for studying
turbulent single-phase and two-phase flows. Inner cylinder load cells detect
skin-friction drag via torque measurements. The clear acrylic outer cylinder
allows the dynamics of the liquid flow and the dispersed phase (bubbles,
particles, fibers, etc.) inside the gap to be investigated with specialized
local sensors and nonintrusive optical imaging techniques. The system allows
study of both Taylor-Couette flow in a high-Reynolds-number regime, and the
mechanisms behind skin-friction drag alterations due to bubble injection,
polymer injection, and surface hydrophobicity and roughness.Comment: 13 pages, 14 figure
Air cavities at the inner cylinder of turbulent Taylor-Couette flow
Air cavities, i.e. air layers developed behind cavitators, are seen as a
promising drag reducing method in the maritime industry. Here we utilize the
Taylor-Couette (TC) geometry, i.e. the flow between two concentric,
independently rotating cylinders, to study the effect of air cavities in this
closed setup, which is well-accessible for drag measurements and optical flow
visualizations. We show that stable air cavities can be formed, and that the
cavity size increases with Reynolds number and void fraction. The streamwise
cavity length strongly depends on the axial position due to buoyancy forces
acting on the air. Strong secondary flows, which are introduced by a
counter-rotating outer cylinder, clearly decrease the stability of the
cavities, as air is captured in the Taylor rolls rather than in the cavity.
Surprisingly, we observed that local air injection is not necessary to sustain
the air cavities; as long as air is present in the system it is found to be
captured in the cavity. We show that the drag is decreased significantly as
compared to the case without air, but with the geometric modifications imposed
on the TC system by the cavitators. As the void fraction increases, the drag of
the system is decreased. However, the cavitators itself significantly increase
the drag due to their hydrodynamic resistance (pressure drag): In fact, a net
drag increase is found when compared to the standard smooth-wall TC case.
Therefore, one must first overcome the added drag created by the cavitators
before one obtains a net drag reduction.Comment: 14 pages, 13 figure
The influence of wall roughness on bubble drag reduction in Taylor-Couette turbulence
We experimentally study the influence of wall roughness on bubble drag
reduction in turbulent Taylor-Couette flow, i.e.\ the flow between two
concentric, independently rotating cylinders. We measure the drag in the system
for the cases with and without air, and add roughness by installing transverse
ribs on either one or both of the cylinders. For the smooth wall case (no ribs)
and the case of ribs on the inner cylinder only, we observe strong drag
reduction up to and , respectively, for a void fraction of
. However, with ribs mounted on both cylinders or on the outer
cylinder only, the drag reduction is weak, less than , and thus quite
close to the trivial effect of reduced effective density. Flow visualizations
show that stable turbulent Taylor vortices --- large scale vortical structures
--- are induced in these two cases, i.e. the cases with ribs on the outer
cylinder. These strong secondary flows move the bubbles away from the boundary
layer, making the bubbles less effective than what had previously been observed
for the smooth-wall case. Measurements with counter-rotating smooth cylinders,
a regime in which pronounced Taylor rolls are also induced, confirm that it is
really the Taylor vortices that weaken the bubble drag reduction mechanism. Our
findings show that, although bubble drag reduction can indeed be effective for
smooth walls, its effect can be spoiled by e.g.\ biofouling and omnipresent
wall roughness, as the roughness can induce strong secondary flows.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figure
On bubble clustering and energy spectra in pseudo-turbulence
3D-Particle Tracking (3D-PTV) and Phase Sensitive Constant Temperature
Anemometry in pseudo-turbulence--i.e., flow solely driven by rising bubbles--
were performed to investigate bubble clustering and to obtain the mean bubble
rise velocity, distributions of bubble velocities, and energy spectra at dilute
gas concentrations (%). To characterize the clustering the pair
correlation function was calculated. The deformable bubbles with
equivalent bubble diameter mm were found to cluster within a radial
distance of a few bubble radii with a preferred vertical orientation. This
vertical alignment was present at both small and large scales. For small
distances also some horizontal clustering was found. The large number of
data-points and the non intrusiveness of PTV allowed to obtain well-converged
Probability Density Functions (PDFs) of the bubble velocity. The PDFs had a
non-Gaussian form for all velocity components and intermittency effects could
be observed. The energy spectrum of the liquid velocity fluctuations decayed
with a power law of -3.2, different from the found for
homogeneous isotropic turbulence, but close to the prediction -3 by
\cite{lance} for pseudo-turbulence
Controlling secondary flow in Taylor-Couette turbulence through spanwise-varying roughness
Highly turbulent Taylor-Couette flow with spanwise-varying roughness is
investigated experimentally and numerically (direct numerical simulations (DNS)
with an immersed boundary method (IBM)) to determine the effects of the spacing
and axial width of the spanwise varying roughness on the total drag and
{on} the flow structures. We apply sandgrain roughness, in the form of
alternating {rough and smooth} bands to the inner cylinder. Numerically, the
Taylor number is and the roughness width is varied between
, where is the gap width. Experimentally,
we explore and .
For both approaches the radius ratio is fixed at , with
and the radius of the inner and outer cylinder respectively. We
present how the global transport properties and the local flow structures
depend on the boundary conditions set by the roughness spacing .
Both numerically and experimentally, we find a maximum in the angular momentum
transport as function of . This can be atributed to the
re-arrangement of the large-scale structures triggered by the presence of the
rough stripes, leading to correspondingly large-scale turbulent vortices.Comment: 20 pages, 7 figures, draft for JF
Optimal Taylor-Couette flow: Radius ratio dependence
Taylor-Couette flow with independently rotating inner (i) and outer (o)
cylinders is explored numerically and experimentally to determine the effects
of the radius ratio {\eta} on the system response. Numerical simulations reach
Reynolds numbers of up to Re_i=9.5 x 10^3 and Re_o=5x10^3, corresponding to
Taylor numbers of up to Ta=10^8 for four different radius ratios {\eta}=r_i/r_o
between 0.5 and 0.909. The experiments, performed in the Twente Turbulent
Taylor-Couette (T^3C) setup, reach Reynolds numbers of up to Re_i=2x10^6$ and
Re_o=1.5x10^6, corresponding to Ta=5x10^{12} for {\eta}=0.714-0.909. Effective
scaling laws for the torque J^{\omega}(Ta) are found, which for sufficiently
large driving Ta are independent of the radius ratio {\eta}. As previously
reported for {\eta}=0.714, optimum transport at a non-zero Rossby number
Ro=r_i|{\omega}_i-{\omega}_o|/[2(r_o-r_i){\omega}_o] is found in both
experiments and numerics. Ro_opt is found to depend on the radius ratio and the
driving of the system. At a driving in the range between {Ta\sim3\cdot10^8} and
{Ta\sim10^{10}}, Ro_opt saturates to an asymptotic {\eta}-dependent value.
Theoretical predictions for the asymptotic value of Ro_{opt} are compared to
the experimental results, and found to differ notably. Furthermore, the local
angular velocity profiles from experiments and numerics are compared, and a
link between a flat bulk profile and optimum transport for all radius ratios is
reported.Comment: Submitted to JFM, 28 pages, 17 figure
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