Estimating the Reliability of Digital Data Acquisition in Cultural Astronomy

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 191-206 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Rodríguez-Antón ◽  
A. César González-García ◽  
Juan Antonio Belmonte
Keyword(s):  
North Africa ◽  
Google Earth ◽  
Digital Data ◽  
Digital Tools ◽  
Political Unrest ◽  
Preliminary Study ◽  
Digital Data Acquisition ◽  
Future Work ◽  
Made In

Digital tools are increasingly used in cultural astronomy, so that it is now more important than ever to assess their precision and reliability, and to identify what uncertainties they may introduce. The present work aims to address these issues by comparing a dataset of orientations of Roman cities in the Iberian Peninsula measured in situ with measurements of the same structures obtained through different digital tools. By this, it is possible to estimate the errors that using these techniques introduce and to establish precision limits to data in future work. The results of this preliminary study are then implemented in an archaeoastronomical research project in North Africa, where some on-site measurements had been made in previous fieldwork campaigns by members of the group prior to the current political unrest that now prevents work at some sites in the region. In these instances, Google Earth Pro (2017) and HeyWhatsThat (Kosowsky 2012) have been key tools that have allowed us to complete a survey stretching from present-day Morocco to Libya, as well as to extract a preliminary outline of orientation trends in Roman Africa.

scholarly journals Spatial quality assessment of the pedestrian's environment using online digital tools

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (70) ◽  
Author(s):  
João Victor Garcia de Senna ◽  
Renata Cardoso Magagnin ◽  
Maria Solange Gurgel de Castro Fontes
Keyword(s):  
Google Earth ◽  
Image Resolution ◽  
Digital Tools ◽  
Virtual Tools ◽  
Geographical Access ◽  
Data Survey ◽  
Spatial Quality ◽  
Pedestrian Infrastructure

Tourist cities, in addition to offering places of attraction, must have quality spaces, with pedestrian-oriented infrastructure to ensure comfort, safety, accessibility, among other aspects that contribute to increasing local attractiveness. However, for this to happen, it is necessary that these cities know the reality of the pedestrian-oriented infrastructure available, through accurate surveys, which can be done on site and/or through online digital tools. In this context, this paper shows results from a study on the quality of pedestrian infrastructure on an important avenue in the tourist city of Barra Bonita, a city in the Midwest of São Paulo. The methodology incorporated the use of the spatial quality index of the pedestrian environment (IQEAP), developed by TONON (2019), and the virtual tools of Google Earth and Street View. The analysis of the results showed that the evaluated area has "Regular" IQEAP and, therefore, needs improvements in aspects involving the three pedestrian environment plans aimed at the pedestrian scale. The results also show negative aspects in relation to the virtual form of data survey (technical audit), which is not very accurate due to the dates of the images, absence of precision tools, and low image resolution. However, significant positive aspects can be highlighted, such as the reduction of survey time on site (in situ), and the use of fewer financial resources. Thus, this method can facilitate the survey of data in places of difficult geographical access, dispersed, large or distant areas, and thus become an innovative and practical option.

Convergent-beam thickness determination: The advantages of digital imaging

1994 ◽  
Vol 52 ◽  
pp. 420-421
Author(s):  
Stuart McKernan ◽  
C. Barry Carter
Keyword(s):  
Intensity Variation ◽  
Convergent Beam Electron Diffraction ◽  
Digital Data ◽  
Thickness Determination ◽  
Frequent Use ◽  
Automated Processing ◽  
Beam Thickness ◽  
Convergent Beam ◽  
Remarkable Agreement

Convergent-beam electron diffraction (CBED) patterns contain an immense amount of information relating to the structure of the material from which they are obtained. The analysis of these patterns has progressed to the point that under appropriate, well specified conditions, the intensity variation within the CBED discs may be understood in a quantitative sense. Rossouw et al for example, have produced numerical simulations of zone-axis CBED patterns which show remarkable agreement with experimental patterns. Spence and co-workers have obtained the structure factor parameters for lowindex reflections using the intensity variation in 2-beam CBED patterns. Both of these examples involve the use of digital data. Perhaps the most frequent use for quantitative CBED analysis is the thickness determination described by Kelly et al. This analysis has been implemented in a variety of different ways; from real-time, in-situ analysis using the microscope controls, to measurements of photographic prints with a ruler, to automated processing of digitally acquired images. The potential advantages of this latter process will be presented.

Factors of Dementia Caregiver Burden Differentially Contribute to Desire to Institutionalize

2021 ◽  
pp. 089198872110361
Author(s):  
John T. Martin ◽  
Kimberly R. Chapman ◽  
Christopher Was ◽  
Mary Beth Spitznagel
Keyword(s):  
Factor Analysis ◽  
Linear Regression ◽  
Factor Structure ◽  
Caregiver Burden ◽  
Living Arrangements ◽  
Regression Analyses ◽  
Loved One ◽  
Dementia Caregiver ◽  
Future Work ◽  
Made In

The experience of dementia caregiver burden is multidimensional. Little is known about how different aspects of burden contribute to the consideration of moving a loved one to a structured living facility. In the present study, caregiver burden (Zarit Burden Interview; ZBI) and consideration of structured living arrangements (Desire to Institutionalize Scale; DIS) were self-reported by 339 caregivers. Exploratory factor analysis was used to determine the ZBI factor structure; these factors were then examined via hierarchical linear regression for prediction of DIS. Factor analysis indicated a 4-factor ZBI solution: Impact on Life, Guilt, Embarrassment/Frustration, and Escape/Uncertainty. Regression analyses indicated that only Escape/Uncertainty ( p < .001) was associated with DIS. Of the 4 identified factors of caregiver burden, desire to escape the caregiving role was most related to consideration of structured living arrangements. Future work should explore longitudinal contribution of this factor to determine its role in actual changes made in living arrangements.

scholarly journals Training with Agency-Inspired Feedback from an Instrumented Glove to Improve Functional Grasp Performance

Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 1173
Author(s):  
Mingxiao Liu ◽  
Samuel Wilder ◽  
Sean Sanford ◽  
Soha Saleh ◽  
Noam Y. Harel ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sensory Feedback ◽  
Small Object ◽  
Intentional Binding ◽  
Audio Feedback ◽  
Instrumented Glove ◽  
Sensory Consequence ◽  
Preliminary Study ◽  
Future Work ◽  
Flex Sensors ◽  
Functional Task

Sensory feedback from wearables can be effective to learn better movement through enhanced information and engagement. Facilitating greater user cognition during movement practice is critical to accelerate gains in motor function during rehabilitation following brain or spinal cord trauma. This preliminary study presents an approach using an instrumented glove to leverage sense of agency, or perception of control, to provide training feedback for functional grasp. Seventeen able-bodied subjects underwent training and testing with a custom-built sensor glove prototype from our laboratory. The glove utilizes onboard force and flex sensors to provide inputs to an artificial neural network that predicts achievement of “secure” grasp. Onboard visual and audio feedback was provided during training with progressively shorter time delay to induce greater agency by intentional binding, or perceived compression in time between an action (grasp) and sensory consequence (feedback). After training, subjects demonstrated a significant reduction (p < 0.05) in movement pathlength and completion time for a functional task involving grasp-move-place of a small object. Future work will include a model-based algorithm to compute secure grasp, virtual reality immersion, and testing with clinical populations.

Engaging with the science and politics of biodiversity futures: a literature review

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Carina Wyborn ◽  
Elena Louder ◽  
Mike Harfoot ◽  
Samantha Hill
Keyword(s):  
Human Life ◽  
Global Environmental Change ◽  
Life Forms ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
Science And Politics ◽  
Science Community ◽  
Impact On Biodiversity ◽  
Made In

Summary Future global environmental change will have a significant impact on biodiversity through the intersecting forces of climate change, urbanization, human population growth, overexploitation, and pollution. This presents a fundamental challenge to conservation approaches, which seek to conserve past or current assemblages of species or ecosystems in situ. This review canvases diverse approaches to biodiversity futures, including social science scholarship on the Anthropocene and futures thinking alongside models and scenarios from the biophysical science community. It argues that charting biodiversity futures requires processes that must include broad sections of academia and the conservation community to ask what desirable futures look like, and for whom. These efforts confront political and philosophical questions about levels of acceptable loss, and how trade-offs can be made in ways that address the injustices in the distribution of costs and benefits across and within human and non-human life forms. As such, this review proposes that charting biodiversity futures is inherently normative and political. Drawing on diverse scholarship united under a banner of ‘futures thinking’ this review presents an array of methods, approaches and concepts that provide a foundation from which to consider research and decision-making that enables action in the context of contested and uncertain biodiversity futures.

scholarly journals Detected Changes in Precipitation Extremes at Their Native Scales Derived from In Situ Measurements

2019 ◽  
Vol 32 (23) ◽  
pp. 8087-8109 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark D. Risser ◽  
Christopher J. Paciorek ◽  
Travis A. O’Brien ◽  
Michael F. Wehner ◽  
William D. Collins
Keyword(s):  
Extreme Precipitation ◽  
Seasonal Changes ◽  
Signal To Noise Ratio ◽  
Statistical Technique ◽  
In Situ Measurements ◽  
Absolute Sense ◽  
Underlying Causes ◽  
Changes Over Time ◽  
Future Work

Abstract The gridding of daily accumulated precipitation—especially extremes—from ground-based station observations is problematic due to the fractal nature of precipitation, and therefore estimates of long period return values and their changes based on such gridded daily datasets are generally underestimated. In this paper, we characterize high-resolution changes in observed extreme precipitation from 1950 to 2017 for the contiguous United States (CONUS) based on in situ measurements only. Our analysis utilizes spatial statistical methods that allow us to derive gridded estimates that do not smooth extreme daily measurements and are consistent with statistics from the original station data while increasing the resulting signal-to-noise ratio. Furthermore, we use a robust statistical technique to identify significant pointwise changes in the climatology of extreme precipitation while carefully controlling the rate of false positives. We present and discuss seasonal changes in the statistics of extreme precipitation: the largest and most spatially coherent pointwise changes are in fall (SON), with approximately 33% of CONUS exhibiting significant changes (in an absolute sense). Other seasons display very few meaningful pointwise changes (in either a relative or absolute sense), illustrating the difficulty in detecting pointwise changes in extreme precipitation based on in situ measurements. While our main result involves seasonal changes, we also present and discuss annual changes in the statistics of extreme precipitation. In this paper we only seek to detect changes over time and leave attribution of the underlying causes of these changes for future work.

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