scholarly journals Pig-Posture Recognition Based on Computer Vision: Dataset and Exploration

Animals ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 1295
Author(s):  
Hongmin Shao ◽  
Jingyu Pu ◽  
Jiong Mu
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Disease Monitoring ◽  
Pathological Changes ◽  
Convolutional Network ◽  
Postural Changes ◽  
The World ◽  
Posture Recognition ◽  
Behavioral Activities ◽  
Changes Over Time ◽  
Over Time

Posture changes in pigs during growth are often precursors of disease. Monitoring pigs’ behavioral activities can allow us to detect pathological changes in pigs earlier and identify the factors threatening the health of pigs in advance. Pigs tend to be farmed on a large scale, and manual observation by keepers is time consuming and laborious. Therefore, the use of computers to monitor the growth processes of pigs in real time, and to recognize the duration and frequency of pigs’ postural changes over time, can prevent outbreaks of porcine diseases. The contributions of this article are as follows: (1) The first human-annotated pig-posture-identification dataset in the world was established, including 800 pictures of each of the four pig postures: standing, lying on the stomach, lying on the side, and exploring. (2) When using a deep separable convolutional network to classify pig postures, the accuracy was 92.45%. The results show that the method proposed in this paper achieves adequate pig-posture recognition in a piggery environment and may be suitable for livestock farm applications.

3. Defining Autocracy

2019 ◽  
pp. 36-51
Author(s):  
Andrea Kendall-Taylor ◽  
Natasha Lindstaedt ◽  
Erica Frantz
Keyword(s):  
The Political ◽  
Democratic Regimes ◽  
Key Characteristics ◽  
The World ◽  
Russian President ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Totalitarian Regimes ◽  
Changes Over Time ◽  
News Headlines ◽  
Over Time

Totalitarian regimes 37 Contemporary approaches to disaggregating autocracy 40 Blended regimes and changes over time 48 Conclusion 49 Key Questions 50 Further Reading 50 In Chapter 2, we defined democracy and identified the key characteristics of democratic regimes. In this chapter, we turn our attention to the other side of the political ledger and delve into the world of authoritarianism. Even a casual scan of international news headlines—filled with stories on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s latest feats, China’s rise, and Turkish President Erdoğan’s consolidation of power—reinforces the notion that today’s autocrats are resurgent. After a turbulent decade following the end of the Cold War, many authoritarian regimes have regained their footing and grown bolder and more capable of dealing with dissent....

scholarly journals Lifelong Learning with a Changing Action Set

2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (04) ◽  
pp. 3373-3380
Author(s):  
Yash Chandak ◽  
Georgios Theocharous ◽  
Chris Nota ◽  
Philip Thomas
Keyword(s):  
Lifelong Learning ◽  
Real World ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Learning Problems ◽  
Sequential Decision Making ◽  
Sequential Decision ◽  
Transition Dynamics ◽  
Unknown Structure ◽  
Changes Over Time ◽  
Over Time

In many real-world sequential decision making problems, the number of available actions (decisions) can vary over time. While problems like catastrophic forgetting, changing transition dynamics, changing rewards functions, etc. have been well-studied in the lifelong learning literature, the setting where the size of the action set changes remains unaddressed. In this paper, we present first steps towards developing an algorithm that autonomously adapts to an action set whose size changes over time. To tackle this open problem, we break it into two problems that can be solved iteratively: inferring the underlying, unknown, structure in the space of actions and optimizing a policy that leverages this structure. We demonstrate the efficiency of this approach on large-scale real-world lifelong learning problems.

Social support in the process of household reorganization after divorce

2020 ◽  
Vol 37 (6) ◽  
pp. 1927-1944 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dries Van Gasse ◽  
Dimitri Mortelmans
Keyword(s):  
Social Support ◽  
Academic Research ◽  
Single Parents ◽  
Dynamic State ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Theory Analysis ◽  
The World ◽  
Dynamic Perspective ◽  
Changes Over Time ◽  
Over Time

Social support has been shown to be important in the world of single parents. As for divorce, social support is mostly studied in a static way in academic research. Divorcing and/or separating people are in a dynamic state of a changing need for social support. This need changes over time within their process of becoming a single parent. In this article, we propose a more dynamic perspective on social support in the process of household reorganization after divorce. We argue that single parents move on after divorce and work toward a new conciliation of their responsibilities at home and at the labor market, using their social network. This resulted from a grounded theory analysis, conducted using 30 unstructured interviews that were then compared within an elaborative population of an additional 244 semi-structured interviews in order to develop a six-phase model of family reorganization after divorce.

Climate of the Sahel and West Africa

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sharon E. Nicholson
Keyword(s):  
Time Scales ◽  
Unique Feature ◽  
West African Monsoon ◽  
West African ◽  
Rainfall Regime ◽  
Proxy Data ◽  
The World ◽  
Changes Over Time ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Over Time

This article provides an in-depth look at all aspects of the climate of the Sahel, including the pervasive dust in the Sahelian atmosphere. Emphasis is on two aspects: West African monsoon and the region’s rainfall regime. This includes an overview of the prevailing atmospheric circulation at the surface and aloft and the relationship between this and the rainfall regime. Aspects of the rainfall regime that are considered include its unique characteristics, its changes over time, the storm systems that produce rainfall, and factors governing its variability on interannual and decadal time scales. Variability is examined on three time scales: millennial (as seen is the paleo records of the last 20,000 years), multi-decadal (as seen over the last few centuries as seen from proxy data and, more recently, in observations), and interannual to decadal (quantified by observations from the late 19th century and onward). A unique feature of Sahel climate is that is rainfall regime is perhaps the most sensitive in the world and this sensitivity is apparent on all of these time scales.

A new analytic framework for prediction of migration patterns and locations of historical manuscripts based on their script types

2019 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 441-458
Author(s):  
Gila Prebor ◽  
Maayan Zhitomirsky-Geffet ◽  
Yitzchak Miller
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Machine Learning Algorithms ◽  
Supervised Machine Learning ◽  
13Th Century ◽  
Migration Patterns ◽  
Historical Manuscripts ◽  
European Jewish ◽  
Changes Over Time ◽  
Over Time

Abstract In this article, we utilized large-scale statistical analysis and data visualization techniques of the greatest collection in the world of Hebrew manuscript metadata records to develop a new methodology for quantitative investigation of the palaeographic, geographic, and temporal characteristics of historical manuscripts. The study aims to explore whether and to what extent the script type of the manuscript and its changes over time can be used to automatically predict and complete missing geospatial data of the manuscripts. To this end, various ontological entities were used as features to train supervised machine-learning algorithms to predict the places of writing of manuscripts which were often absent in the catalogue records. The obtained results show that while the script type as an only feature might not be sufficient for prediction of the location of the manuscript’s writing, its combination with temporal data of the manuscript yielded about 80% accuracy. Eventually, our system was able to complete the missing places of writing for over 60% of the manuscripts in the corpus. Moreover, we found that through typical and marginal script types in different regions and their changes over time, it is possible to draw the migration map of the Jewish communities over the centuries. This reinforces the findings of historical research on Jewish migration patterns and communal formation. For example, the waves of immigration from Western Europe can be seen clearly from the second half of the 13th century, which continued until the 17th century and greatly increased the Eastern European Jewish community.

E-Government and Related Indices

2020 ◽  
pp. 1810-1824
Author(s):  
Kathleen M. Boyer-Wright ◽  
Jeffrey E. Kottemann
Keyword(s):  
Future Research ◽  
Government Services ◽  
Telecommunications Infrastructure ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
The World ◽  
Efficacy Index ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Changes Over Time ◽  
Over Time ◽  
Qualitative Analyses

The primary United Nations E-Government Index is a composite of three component indices: telecommunications infrastructure, human capital, and online e-government services, where the first two can be seen as enablers of the third. This study investigates the addition of a complementary component index for institutional efficacy, which is hypothesized to be another enabling factor. The institutional efficacy index is operationalized using existing measures gathered and made available by the World Bank. Statistical analysis shows that the institutional efficacy index is indeed a significant, additional predictor of online e-government services across nations. Following the presentation of basic results, qualitative analyses are undertaken to develop an assortment of generic national profiles. Preliminary analyses of changes over time are also presented using data from prior years, and directions for future research are outlined.

Consumer Knowledge and Acceptance of Driving Automation: Changes Over Time and Across Age Groups

2021 ◽  
Vol 65 (1) ◽  
pp. 1395-1399
Author(s):  
Chaiwoo Lee ◽  
Pnina Gershon ◽  
Bryan Reimer ◽  
Bruce Mehler ◽  
Joseph F. Coughlin
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
The United States ◽  
Consumer Knowledge ◽  
Safety Assurance ◽  
Vehicle Automation ◽  
Willingness To Use ◽  
Changes Over Time ◽  
Over Time ◽  
Knowledge And Acceptance

Increasing availability of and extensive investments toward automation in consumer vehicles call for a better understanding of public perceptions and acceptance. This study presents a five-year series of large-scale surveys (N=17,548, average 3,510 participants/year) on consumer knowledge and acceptance of vehicle automation in the United States. Results suggest a continued hesitance toward use of self-driving vehicles, with willingness to use increasing sharply under hypothetical conditions around inability to drive and added safety assurance. While drivers of all ages were most comfortable with driver assist level automation, acceptance of automation overall decreased with age. Findings also indicate that the public may have incorrect beliefs regarding the availability of self-driving vehicles. In conclusion, drivers’ acceptance of vehicle automation changes over time, is tied to factors beyond the current state of development and deployment, and may depend on a relative assessment of benefits and reliability in comparison to their own driving capabilities.

Assessing sustainability knowledge of a student population

2014 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 375-389 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam Zwickle ◽  
Tomas M. Koontz ◽  
Kristina M. Slagle ◽  
Jeremy T. Bruskotter
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Assessment Tool ◽  
Multiple Choice Questions ◽  
Content Type ◽  
College And University ◽  
Expert Input ◽  
Changes Over Time ◽  
Practical Implications ◽  
Over Time

Purpose – The purpose of this article is to present a tool for assessing the sustainability knowledge of an undergraduate population. Design/methodology/approach – Multiple-choice questions were developed through soliciting expert input, focus groups, pilot testing, distribution via a large-scale online survey and analysis using item response theory. Findings – The final assessment consists of 16 questions from the environmental, economic and social domains, covering foundational concepts within the topic of sustainability. Research limitations/implications – This assessment represents an initial effort to quantify knowledge of the broad and abstract concept of sustainability. The authors plan to continue refining these questions to better differentiate between students with higher levels of knowledge and to replace those with answers that may change over time. Practical implications – With knowledge of sustainability concepts becoming increasingly included in institution-wide learning objectives, there is a growing demand for a way to measure progress in this area. Our assessment tool can easily be used (via a campus-wide survey or distributed at the classroom level) by institutions to gauge current levels of knowledge and track changes over time, as well as assess the effectiveness of courses and curricula at meeting sustainability knowledge goals. Originality/value – This assessment of sustainability knowledge is the first of its kind to include all three separate domains of sustainability, and we expect it to be useful across a variety of college and university contexts.

Mortgaging One's Work to the World: Publication and the Structure of Montaigne's Essais

PMLA ◽  
1981 ◽  
Vol 96 (2) ◽  
pp. 210-223 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barry Lydgate
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Public Image ◽  
World Publication ◽  
Self Image ◽  
Printed Books ◽  
Conflicting Demands ◽  
The World ◽  
Printed Word ◽  
Changes Over Time ◽  
Over Time

In seeking to distill into a public image a consciousness that changes over time, Montaigne faced moral and rhetorical dilemmas that confront all autobiographers. Unlike most literary self-portraitists, however, he gives evidence of having consciously tailored his project to the powers and limitations of his medium, the printed word. Montaigne's solution to the problem of imagining and addressing the reader reflects his perception of a new audience for printed books in the sixteenth century. Acknowledging that his public self-image has clarified and defined his private one, he reconciles the conflicting demands of a self in process and a book in print by making successive additions that temper the lapidary finality of the text. The deepest truth of Montaigne's claim to have written a book “consubstantial with its author” lies in the dynamic equilibration of past and current consciousness manifested both in the labile self and on the printed page.

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