A computer vision system for the recognition of trees in aerial photographs

Increasing problems of forest damage in Central Europe set the demand for an appropriate forest damage assessment tool. The Vision Expert System (VES) is presented which is capable of finding trees in color infrared aerial photographs. Concept and architecture of VES are discussed briefly. The system is applied to a multisource test data set. The processing of this multisource data set leads to a multiple interpretation result for one scene. An integration of these results will provide a better scene description by the vision system. This is achieved by an implementation of Steven's correlation algorithm

Detect to Track and Track to Detect

Recent approaches for high accuracy detection and tracking of object categories in video consist of complex multistage solutions that become more cumbersome each year. In this paper we propose a ConvNet architecture that jointly performs detection and tracking, solving the task in a simple and effective way. Our contributions are threefold: (i) we set up a ConvNet architecture for simultaneous detection and tracking, using a multi-task objective for frame-based object detection and across-frame track regression; (ii) we introduce correlation features that represent object co-occurrences across time to aid the ConvNet during tracking; and (iii) we link the frame level detections based on our across-frame tracklets to produce high accuracy detections at the video level. Our ConvNet architecture for spatiotemporal object detection is evaluated on the large-scale ImageNet VID dataset where it achieves state-of-the-art results. Our approach provides better single model performance than the winning method of the last ImageNet challenge while being conceptually much simpler. Finally, we show that by increasing the temporal stride we can dramatically increase the tracker speed.Comment: ICCV 2017. Code and models: https://github.com/feichtenhofer/Detect-Track Results: https://www.robots.ox.ac.uk/~vgg/research/detect-track

The Small-Town NFL Player

Introduction: Several studies have predicted the odds ratio of becoming an elite or professional player based on an athlete’s hometown. The research is evident that a player from a smaller town has better odds of making it to the elite level of sport compared to a player from a large urban city. Where an athlete is raised is important in understanding how they were introduced to football and how they developed their skills. Using the United States Census Bureau and Office of Management and Budget definition and city breakdowns for this study, small-towns are defined as an area with a population of 50,000 or less. The purpose of this study was to find what percentage of NFL players play and are from a small-town. By asking four questions: (a) How many NFL players are from a small-town (population of 50,000 or less), (b) Do small-town players play specific positions, (c) Do certain teams sign more small-town players than others, and (d) How many small-town players start? Methods: A total of 2,103 NFL players from the 2018 rosters of 32 teams were analyzed. Data was collected from Pro Football Reference and NFL.com. Variables gathered were: team, conference, starting status, position, hometown, university, university division and subdivision. The population of each players hometown was collected from the U.S. Census Bureau. Descriptive statistics were calculated for all the variables and 2 x 2 contingency tables were constructed for each comparison. A binary logistic regression was utilized to calculate odds ratios for city size and starting status in the NFL i.e. starter versus non-starter. Results: A large group of the 2018 NFL players were from a small-town; 38.14% of the players were from a town of less than 50,000 people. Small-town players were not found to play any specific positions, rather they played all positions. The Kansas City Chiefs had the highest number of small-town players on their team at exactly 50%. The average amount of small-town players on each team was 36.05%. Small-town players were found to be 25% more likely to start than players from populations greater than 50,000 (p=0.02, 95% C.I. = 0.661, 0.966). Conclusion: This study found that not only do small-town players make up 38.14% of the total NFL players and play all positions but they also have a 25% greater chance of starting and playing. A strong support system, informal sport structure, and the “big fish in a little pond” effect are thought to be the reason for small-town athletes to have strong work ethic, commitment, and enjoyment for the sport

Os Estilos de Tomada de Decisão do Centro Socioeconômico da Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina

TCC (graduação) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Centro Sócio Econômico, Curso de Administração.A tomada de decisão ocorre em todas as dimensões da sociedade, sendo considerada parte indispensável de qualquer ato a ser realizado. No contexto das universidades federais, os processos de decisão são realizados com base em uma administração específica e com a intenção de entender o seu funcionamento. Este estudo apresenta como objetivo a análise dos estilos de tomada de decisão e sua aplicação no Centro Socioeconômico (CSE) da Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina (UFSC). A Universidade, enquanto instituição social, é vista pela sociedade como espaço para discussões que elevam os indivíduos a reflexões inerentes aos acontecimentos sociais, políticos e econômicos. Para realização deste estudo de caso, foram utilizados os seguintes estilos de tomada de decisão: diretivo, analítico, conceitual e comportamental, por meio de uma abordagem bibliográfica e documental. O embasamento e orientação de como realizar a pesquisa teve caráter tanto quantitativo quanto qualitativo, utilizando como forma de captura de informações um questionário com perguntas de múltipla escolha junto aos gestores do CSE da UFSC. Na avaliação dos resultados, o estudo mostrou que não é possível determinar somente um estilo para a tomada de decisão, e sim uma mescla, tendo como predominante o comportamental. Na reflexão sobre as características predominantes do estilo de tomada de decisão dos gestores do CSE e as características das organizações universitárias, foi percebido que o estilo comportamental possui ligações com algumas características presentes nas organizações universitárias.Decision making happens all over society, as it is considered absolutely needful to any action to be taken. In federal universities contexts the decision processes are conducted based on specific management and the will to understand the way it works. The aim of this study is the analysis of decision making process styles and its application in the Federal University of Santa Catarina Social Economic Center. Whereas a social institution, the university is seen as a place for debates which take the individuals into reflections concerning social, political and economic events. In order to improve the case study, the following decision making styles have been considered: directive, analytical, conceptual and behavioral, through bibliographical and documentary approaches. The grounding and guidance of how to conduct a research had quantitative and qualitative features, considering a quiz including straight questions as a means to get information from the managers of the Federal University of Santa Catarina Social Economic Center. The analysis of the results pointed out it is not possible to set an only style for decision making, but a blend considering the behavioral one. In this reflection concerning the main features of the decision making styles of the Social Economic Center and the features among universities management, it has been detected that the behavioral styles are linked to some features of the universities management

Kit for Detecting CTHRC1 in a Sample

The invention provides methods for the treatment of coronary heart disease, peripheral vascular disease, stroke, and ischemia featuring agents that interfere with the expression or activity of Cthrc1. The invention also provides the use of Cthrc1 peptide as a therapeutic agent for the treatment of acute or chronic cardiac deficiencies. The invention further provides detection and monitoring of Cthrc1 peptide in blood or serum to assess or monitor cardiac function

Albergue da juventude no Centro Histórico de São Francisco do Sul

TCC (graduação) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina. Centro Tecnológico. Arquiteturasem resumo

Albergue da juventude em São Francisco do Sul

TCC (graduação) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina. Centro Tecnológico. ArquiteturaTCC sem resumo

Statistical and Computational Approaches in ICME with Applications in Fatigue and Additive Manufacturing

This thesis showcases a set of computational and statistical approaches with applications in integrated computational materials engineering. The first is the development of the microstructure based, statistically equivalent representative volume element (M-SERVE) for the Ni-based superalloy Ren'e 88DT. The incredible strength of Ni-based superalloys can be traced to the γ-γ’ microstructure, where the morphology of the microstructure playing a substantial role in the material properties. A robust collection of image processing tools, statistical characterization approaches, and microstructure reconstruction methods are developed, allowing for the computationally efficient generation of statistically equivalent microstructures. The second main thrust of this thesis is the development of a Bayesian classifier for crack nucleation events in the Ni-based superalloy Ren'e 88DT under fatigue loading. A large set of experimentally obtained crack nucleation sites are imaged, and subsequently simulated with a homogenized constitutive model. A crystal plasticity constitutive law is simulates the image based microstructure, and is embedded in a self-consistent rate-dependent elasto-plastic model to provide accurate boundary conditions. The results are input to a data-driven Bayesian classification methodology that automatically incorporates the most informative state variables. This is augmented by the addition of theoretically derived crack nucleation indicators and results in a human interpretable and effective model that predicts crack nucleation likelihood. The final component of this thesis is an effective crystal plasticity model for additively manufactured Ti-6Al-4V. The microstructure of additively manufactured Ti-6Al-4V is characterized by a complex Widmanstdätten morphology containing 12 unique α lath variants. Characterization of the microstructure necessitates a pipeline of image processing and sterological techniques. The material model explicitly represents parent β grains, with statistical representations of the α laths and variant volume fractions within them. The material model which directly incorporates the statistics of the α laths is then calibrated to the experimental data, while maintaining the vast majority of the material parameters which were previously calibrated for Ti-6242. This allows for an accurate representation of rate dependency and other important material parameters. Finally the material model is validated by matching the experimental mechanical responses of microstructures with substantively different α laths, that the model was not trained on