scholarly journals Robotification & ethical cleansing

AI & Society ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco Nørskov
Keyword(s):  
Potential Risk ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Research Area ◽  
Cutting Edge ◽  
Physical Laws ◽  
Underlying Processes ◽  
Intellectual Limitations

AbstractRobotics is currently not only a cutting-edge research area, but is potentially disruptive to all domains of our lives—for better and worse. While legislation is struggling to keep pace with the development of these new artifacts, our intellectual limitations and physical laws seem to present the only hard demarcation lines, when it comes to state-of-the-art R&D. To better understand the possible implications, the paper at hand critically investigates underlying processes and structures of robotics in the context of Heidegger’s and Nishitani’s accounts of science and technology. Furthermore, the analysis draws on Bauman’s theory of modernity in an attempt to assess the potential risk of large-scale robot integration. The paper will highlight undergirding mechanisms and severe challenges imposed upon our socio-cultural lifeworlds by massive robotic integration. Admittedly, presenting a mainly melancholic account, it will, however, also explore the possibility of robotics forcing us to reassess our position and to solve problems, which we seem unable to tackle without facing existential crises.

scholarly journals Collaboration with JINR as Key for Nuclear Physics Development in Ukraine

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (6) ◽  
pp. 72-81
Author(s):  
B.V. Grinyov ◽  
◽  
L.A. Bulavin ◽  
D.V. Soloviov ◽  
P.O. Stadnik ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
International Cooperation ◽  
International Research ◽  
Nuclear Physics ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Nuclear Research ◽  
Cutting Edge ◽  
Joint Institute ◽  
High Tech ◽  
Scholarly Research

Introduction. Today, the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR) is a kind of scientific and technical framework for Ukrainian nuclear researchers who are directly involved in conducting the cutting-edge nuclear physics experiments. Problem Statement. An important aspect of international cooperation for the Ukrainian researchers in the field of nuclear physics and materials science is to consolidate scholarly research, engineering, and financial resources of countries for creating international research organizations and implementing large-scale projects in modern science and technology. Purpose. Analysis of the factors that contribute to the development of nuclear physics and research in related disciplines in Ukraine, involvement of Ukrainian researchers in international research processes, and assessment of the future prospects. Materials and Methods. Analysis of scholarly research trends in the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR) and review of achievements of Ukrainian researchers, in particular, young researchers, in implementation of international projects in nuclear physics and related disciplines. Results. The background of nuclear physics research in Ukraine, the way of international cooperation development, and its impact on education and training of researchers have been analyzed. The examples of research results of Ukrainian nuclear physicists have been given. The cooperation of Ukrainian R&D organizations and companies with JINR has been shown to have a positive effect on creative and innovative processes, including the development and study of new high-tech materials. Conclusions. Collaboration with JINR gives Ukrainian researchers access to modern methods of physical research and unique equipment at leading international R&D centers, while planning and implementing large-scale experiments in nuclear physics, and enables studying the problems of the Universe. Teachers, students, and schoolchildren from Ukraine have additional opportunities to work with the cutting-edge methods, modern equipment and innovative approaches in the field of science and technology.

scholarly journals Advances and visions in large-scale hydrological modelling: findings from the 11th Workshop on Large-Scale Hydrological Modelling

2008 ◽  
Vol 18 ◽  
pp. 51-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Döll ◽  
K. Berkhoff ◽  
H. Bormann ◽  
N. Fohrer ◽  
D. Gerten ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
Research Area ◽  
Hydrological Modelling ◽  
Integrated Modelling ◽  
Wide Spread ◽  
Research Perspectives ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
German Speaking ◽  
Selection Of

Abstract. Large-scale hydrological modelling has become increasingly wide-spread during the last decade. An annual workshop series on large-scale hydrological modelling has provided, since 1997, a forum to the German-speaking community for discussing recent developments and achievements in this research area. In this paper we present the findings from the 2007 workshop which focused on advances and visions in large-scale hydrological modelling. We identify the state of the art, difficulties and research perspectives with respect to the themes "sensitivity of model results", "integrated modelling" and "coupling of processes in hydrosphere, atmosphere and biosphere". Some achievements in large-scale hydrological modelling during the last ten years are presented together with a selection of remaining challenges for the future.

scholarly journals Collaboration with JINR as Key for Nuclear Physics Development in Ukraine

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (6) ◽  
pp. 73-82
Author(s):  
B.V. Gryniov ◽  
◽  
L.A. Bulavin ◽  
D.V. Soloviov ◽  
P.O. Stadnyk ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
International Cooperation ◽  
International Research ◽  
Nuclear Physics ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Nuclear Research ◽  
Cutting Edge ◽  
Joint Institute ◽  
High Tech ◽  
Scholarly Research

Introduction. Today, the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR) is a kind of scientific and technical framework for Ukrainian nuclear researchers who are directly involved in conducting the cutting-edge nuclear physics experiments. Problem Statement. An important aspect of international cooperation for the Ukrainian researchers in the field of nuclear physics and materials science is to consolidate scholarly research, engineering, and financial resources of countries for creating international research organizations and implementing large-scale projects in modern science and technology. Purpose. Analysis of the factors that contribute to the development of nuclear physics and research in related disciplines in Ukraine, involvement of Ukrainian researchers in international research processes, and assessment of the future prospects. Materials and Methods. Analysis of scholarly research trends in the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR) and review of achievements of Ukrainian researchers, in particular, young researchers, in implementation of international projects in nuclear physics and related disciplines. Results. The background of nuclear physics research in Ukraine, the way of international cooperation development, and its impact on education and training of researchers have been analyzed. The examples of research results of Ukrainian nuclear physicists have been given. The cooperation of Ukrainian R&D organizations and companies with JINR has been shown to have a positive effect on creative and innovative processes, including the development and study of new high-tech materials. Conclusions. Collaboration with JINR gives Ukrainian researchers access to modern methods of physical research and unique equipment at leading international R&D centers, while planning and implementing large-scale experiments in nuclear physics, and enables studying the problems of the Universe. Teachers, students, and schoolchildren from Ukraine have additional opportunities to work with the cutting-edge methods, modern equipment and innovative approaches in the field of science and technology.

scholarly journals Documentary data and the study of past droughts: a global state of the art

2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (12) ◽  
pp. 1915-1960 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rudolf Brázdil ◽  
Andrea Kiss ◽  
Jürg Luterbacher ◽  
David J. Nash ◽  
Ladislava Řezníčková
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
Drought Indices ◽  
Documentary Evidence ◽  
Climatic Trends ◽  
Instrumental Observations ◽  
Spatio Temporal ◽  
Epigraphic Evidence ◽  
Administrative Evidence

Abstract. The use of documentary evidence to investigate past climatic trends and events has become a recognised approach in recent decades. This contribution presents the state of the art in its application to droughts. The range of documentary evidence is very wide, including general annals, chronicles, memoirs and diaries kept by missionaries, travellers and those specifically interested in the weather; records kept by administrators tasked with keeping accounts and other financial and economic records; legal-administrative evidence; religious sources; letters; songs; newspapers and journals; pictographic evidence; chronograms; epigraphic evidence; early instrumental observations; society commentaries; and compilations and books. These are available from many parts of the world. This variety of documentary information is evaluated with respect to the reconstruction of hydroclimatic conditions (precipitation, drought frequency and drought indices). Documentary-based drought reconstructions are then addressed in terms of long-term spatio-temporal fluctuations, major drought events, relationships with external forcing and large-scale climate drivers, socio-economic impacts and human responses. Documentary-based drought series are also considered from the viewpoint of spatio-temporal variability for certain continents, and their employment together with hydroclimate reconstructions from other proxies (in particular tree rings) is discussed. Finally, conclusions are drawn, and challenges for the future use of documentary evidence in the study of droughts are presented.

scholarly journals VIPPrint: Validating Synthetic Image Detection and Source Linking Methods on a Large Scale Dataset of Printed Documents

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 50
Author(s):  
Anselmo Ferreira ◽  
Ehsan Nowroozi ◽  
Mauro Barni
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
Child Pornography ◽  
Forensic Analysis ◽  
Synthetic Image ◽  
Image Detection ◽  
Face Images ◽  
Large Scale Dataset ◽  
Scanned Images ◽  
Analysis Of The Images

The possibility of carrying out a meaningful forensic analysis on printed and scanned images plays a major role in many applications. First of all, printed documents are often associated with criminal activities, such as terrorist plans, child pornography, and even fake packages. Additionally, printing and scanning can be used to hide the traces of image manipulation or the synthetic nature of images, since the artifacts commonly found in manipulated and synthetic images are gone after the images are printed and scanned. A problem hindering research in this area is the lack of large scale reference datasets to be used for algorithm development and benchmarking. Motivated by this issue, we present a new dataset composed of a large number of synthetic and natural printed face images. To highlight the difficulties associated with the analysis of the images of the dataset, we carried out an extensive set of experiments comparing several printer attribution methods. We also verified that state-of-the-art methods to distinguish natural and synthetic face images fail when applied to print and scanned images. We envision that the availability of the new dataset and the preliminary experiments we carried out will motivate and facilitate further research in this area.

scholarly journals SketchGNN: Semantic Sketch Segmentation with Graph Neural Networks

2021 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Lumin Yang ◽  
Jiajie Zhuang ◽  
Hongbo Fu ◽  
Xiangzhi Wei ◽  
Kun Zhou ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Neural Network ◽  
Neural Networks ◽  
Network Architecture ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
Semantic Segmentation ◽  
Structure Information ◽  
Graph Neural Networks ◽  
Node Labels ◽  
Point Level

We introduce SketchGNN , a convolutional graph neural network for semantic segmentation and labeling of freehand vector sketches. We treat an input stroke-based sketch as a graph with nodes representing the sampled points along input strokes and edges encoding the stroke structure information. To predict the per-node labels, our SketchGNN uses graph convolution and a static-dynamic branching network architecture to extract the features at three levels, i.e., point-level, stroke-level, and sketch-level. SketchGNN significantly improves the accuracy of the state-of-the-art methods for semantic sketch segmentation (by 11.2% in the pixel-based metric and 18.2% in the component-based metric over a large-scale challenging SPG dataset) and has magnitudes fewer parameters than both image-based and sequence-based methods.

scholarly journals Diversification of the Balloon bushcrickets (Orthoptera, Hexacentrinae, Aerotegmina) in the East African mountains

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Beata Grzywacz ◽  
Elżbieta Warchałowska-Śliwa ◽  
Maciej Kociński ◽  
Klaus-Gerhard Heller ◽  
Claudia Hemp
Keyword(s):  
Molecular Phylogeny ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Diploid Number ◽  
Karyotype Analysis ◽  
Spatial Separation ◽  
Eastern Arc Mountains ◽  
East African ◽  
Habitat Islands ◽  
Extinction Event ◽  
Underlying Processes

AbstractEast African mountains constitute a network of isolated habitat islands among dry savannah and are thus ideal for studying species diversification processes. This study elucidated the phylogenetic and phylogeographic relationships of all bushcricket species comprising the genus Aerotegmina. Our analysis indicated that large-scale climatic and topographic processes in Africa are likely to have driven speciation in this group, and revealed the cytogenetic traits of the species. Molecular phylogeny supported the monophyly of Aerotegmina and showed that the genus probably originated in the old Eastern Arc Mountains of Tanzania and Kenya. Two lineages were distinguished: small- and large-sized species with geographically distinct habitats. The underlying processes are thought to be eight dispersals, ten vicariance events, and one extinction event linked to repeated fragmentation of the African rainforest. Those processes, in conjunction with habitat change, probably also led to the spatial separation of the species into a northern clade with a diploid number of chromosomes 2n = 32 + X0 or 2n = 30 + neo-XY and a southern clade with a reduced number of chromosomes (2n = 28 + X0 or 24 + neo-X1X2Y). Karyotype analysis suggests that Aerotegmina is currently in the process of speciation.

scholarly journals ShadingNet: Image Intrinsics by Fine-Grained Shading Decomposition

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anil S. Baslamisli ◽  
Partha Das ◽  
Hoang-An Le ◽  
Sezer Karaoglu ◽  
Theo Gevers
Keyword(s):  
Neural Network ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
Image Decomposition ◽  
Natural Environments ◽  
Decomposition Algorithms ◽  
Ambient Light ◽  
Fine Grained ◽  
Large Scale Dataset ◽  
Direct Illumination

AbstractIn general, intrinsic image decomposition algorithms interpret shading as one unified component including all photometric effects. As shading transitions are generally smoother than reflectance (albedo) changes, these methods may fail in distinguishing strong photometric effects from reflectance variations. Therefore, in this paper, we propose to decompose the shading component into direct (illumination) and indirect shading (ambient light and shadows) subcomponents. The aim is to distinguish strong photometric effects from reflectance variations. An end-to-end deep convolutional neural network (ShadingNet) is proposed that operates in a fine-to-coarse manner with a specialized fusion and refinement unit exploiting the fine-grained shading model. It is designed to learn specific reflectance cues separated from specific photometric effects to analyze the disentanglement capability. A large-scale dataset of scene-level synthetic images of outdoor natural environments is provided with fine-grained intrinsic image ground-truths. Large scale experiments show that our approach using fine-grained shading decompositions outperforms state-of-the-art algorithms utilizing unified shading on NED, MPI Sintel, GTA V, IIW, MIT Intrinsic Images, 3DRMS and SRD datasets.

scholarly journals On the relation between mini-halos and AGN feedback in clusters of galaxies

2020 ◽  
Vol 499 (2) ◽  
pp. 2934-2958
Author(s):  
A Richard-Laferrière ◽  
J Hlavacek-Larrondo ◽  
R S Nemmen ◽  
C L Rhea ◽  
G B Taylor ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
Vital Role ◽  
Clusters Of Galaxies ◽  
Relativistic Jets ◽  
X Ray ◽  
Core Cluster ◽  
Central Galaxy ◽  
Central Regions ◽  
Radio Power

ABSTRACT A variety of large-scale diffuse radio structures have been identified in many clusters with the advent of new state-of-the-art facilities in radio astronomy. Among these diffuse radio structures, radio mini-halos are found in the central regions of cool core clusters. Their origin is still unknown and they are challenging to discover; less than 30 have been published to date. Based on new VLA observations, we confirmed the mini-halo in the massive strong cool core cluster PKS 0745−191 (z = 0.1028) and discovered one in the massive cool core cluster MACS J1447.4+0827 (z = 0.3755). Furthermore, using a detailed analysis of all known mini-halos, we explore the relation between mini-halos and active galactic nucleus (AGN) feedback processes from the central galaxy. We find evidence of strong, previously unknown correlations between mini-halo radio power and X-ray cavity power, and between mini-halo and the central galaxy radio power related to the relativistic jets when spectrally decomposing the AGN radio emission into a component for past outbursts and one for ongoing accretion. Overall, our study indicates that mini-halos are directly connected to the central AGN in clusters, following previous suppositions. We hypothesize that AGN feedback may be one of the dominant mechanisms giving rise to mini-halos by injecting energy into the intra-cluster medium and reaccelerating an old population of particles, while sloshing motion may drive the overall shape of mini-halos inside cold fronts. AGN feedback may therefore not only play a vital role in offsetting cooling in cool core clusters, but may also play a fundamental role in re-energizing non-thermal particles in clusters.

scholarly journals Extrinsic Camera Calibration with Line-Laser Projection

Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 1091
Author(s):  
Izaak Van Crombrugge ◽  
Rudi Penne ◽  
Steve Vanlanduit
Keyword(s):  
Camera Calibration ◽  
Real World ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
Bundle Adjustment ◽  
Field Of View ◽  
Extrinsic Calibration ◽  
Practical Procedure ◽  
Partial Overlap

Knowledge of precise camera poses is vital for multi-camera setups. Camera intrinsics can be obtained for each camera separately in lab conditions. For fixed multi-camera setups, the extrinsic calibration can only be done in situ. Usually, some markers are used, like checkerboards, requiring some level of overlap between cameras. In this work, we propose a method for cases with little or no overlap. Laser lines are projected on a plane (e.g., floor or wall) using a laser line projector. The pose of the plane and cameras is then optimized using bundle adjustment to match the lines seen by the cameras. To find the extrinsic calibration, only a partial overlap between the laser lines and the field of view of the cameras is needed. Real-world experiments were conducted both with and without overlapping fields of view, resulting in rotation errors below 0.5°. We show that the accuracy is comparable to other state-of-the-art methods while offering a more practical procedure. The method can also be used in large-scale applications and can be fully automated.

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