Towards Large Scale Image Retrieval System Using Parallel Frameworks

Recently, the increasing use of mobile devices, such as cameras and smartphones, has resulted in a dramatic increase in the amount of images collected every day. Therefore, retrieving and managing these large volumes of images has become a major challenge in the field of computer vision. One of the solutions for efficiently managing image databases is an Image Content Search (CBIR) system. For this, we introduce in this chapter some fundamental theories of content-based image retrieval for large scale databases using Parallel frameworks. Section 2 and Section 3 presents the basic methods of content-based image retrieval. Then, as the emphasis of this chapter, we introduce in Section 1.2 A content-based image retrieval system for large-scale images databases. After that, we briefly address Big Data, Big Data processing platforms for large scale image retrieval. In Sections 5, 6, 7, and 8. Finally, we draw a conclusion in Section 9.

Optimal Precursors Identification for North Atlantic Oscillation using CESM and CNOP Method

The North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) is the most prominent atmospheric seesaw phenomenon in the North Hemisphere. It has a profound influence on the westerly wind strength and storm tracks in North Atlantic, which further affect the winter climate in Northern Hemisphere. Therefore, the identification for optimal precursor (OPR) of the NAO event is of research value and practical significance. In this paper, the conditional nonlinear optimal perturbation (CNOP) method, which has been widely used in research on the OPR of climatic event, is adopted to explore which kind of initial perturbation is most likely to trigger the NAO anomaly pattern in the Community Earth System Model (CESM). Since the adjoint model of CESM has yet to be developed, this kind of problem cannot be solved using traditional strategies based on gradient information provided by the adjoint model. We utilize an adjoint-free algorithm to solve CNOP in such a high dimensional numerical model, and OPRs of the NAO can be successfully identified. The results reveal that OPRs obtained by CNOP can cause the basic state to develop into typical dipole mode, and the nonlinear process plays an important role in the last stage of the prediction period. The algorithm adopted in this work can avoid falling into a local optimum and is accelerated with multiple parallel frameworks to enhance performance. The solution scheme can also be generalized to the OPR research of other climate events or other complex numerical models.

Regional Mechanisms and Intra-State Conflicts: Implementing the African Union’s Principle of Non-Indifference?

The member states of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) established the African Union (AU) in 2001, following recognition that Africa needed a more effective institution that could maintain peace and security. In particular,the 1994 genocide in Rwanda demonstrated to the continent that it needed to enhance its ability to act before conflicts became unmanageable and destructive.The AU consequently established an institutional framework for the prevention, management, and resolution of conflicts. This institutional framework consistsof two parallel frameworks, namely the African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA).

Sisters in Arms: Ireland, Gender and Militarisation, 1914–1918

Remembering the 1914–18 War has a complex and contentious history in Ireland. Recent scholarship has re-examined the complexity of the Irish experience during this period, both by addressing the place of Irishmen in the Allied Forces and by retrieving the contribution of women towards the formation of the Irish Free State. However, the reinstatement of the female experience within the nationalist narrative has overlooked other female experiences of wartime in Ireland which were significantly different from those of their British counterparts. This essay examines an aspect of the ‘Home Front’ in Ireland when women's involvement in war industries, particularly in the Dublin munitions factories, are seen as crucial to the European war effort. Though the revolutionary, armed female volunteer is recognisably a figure of modernity, the female munitions worker, operating within the technological machinery of warfare, is also one. This essay explores the mobilization of women within the Irish war industries and suggests that there is still much work to be done in uncovering the extent of Irishwomen's contribution to the military war effort. Considering the complexities and contradictions of these parallel frameworks for modern Irish womanhood, this essay addresses how the Irish case adds important new dimensions to our understanding of the war's wide-ranging impacts on concepts of gender and the public roles of women that continue to resonate as the twentieth century unfolds.

Finding parallel patterns through static analysis in C++ applications

Since the ‘free lunch’ of processor performance is over, parallelism has become the new trend in hardware and architecture design. However, parallel resources deployed in data centers are underused in many cases, given that sequential programming is still deeply rooted in current software development. To address this problem, new methodologies and techniques for parallel programming have been progressively developed. For instance, parallel frameworks, offering programming patterns, allow expressing concurrency in applications to better exploit parallel hardware. Nevertheless, a large portion of production software, from a broad range of scientific and industrial areas, is still developed sequentially. Considering that these software modules contain thousands, or even millions, of lines of code, an extremely large amount of effort is needed to identify parallel regions. To pave the way in this area, this paper presents Parallel Pattern Analyzer Tool, a software component that aids the discovery and annotation of parallel patterns in source codes. This tool simplifies the transformation of sequential source code to parallel. Specifically, we provide support for identifying Map, Farm, and Pipeline parallel patterns and evaluate the quality of the detection for a set of different C++ applications.