3D Surveying of Underground Built Heritage: Opportunities and Challenges of Mobile Technologies

Among the existing Cultural Heritage settings, Underground Built Heritage (UBH) represents a peculiar case. The scarce or lack of knowledge and documentation of these spaces frequently limits their proper management, exploitation, and valorization. When mapping these environments for documentation purposes, the primary need is to achieve a complete, reliable, and adequate representation of the built spaces and their geometry. Terrestrial laser scanners were widely employed for this task, although the procedure is generally time-consuming and often lacks color information. Mobile Mapping Systems (MMSs) are nowadays fascinating and promising technologies for mapping underground structures, speeding up acquisition times. In this paper, mapping experiences (with two commercial tools and an in-house prototype) in UBH settings are presented, testing the different handheld mobile solutions to guarantee an accurate and reliable 3D digitization. Tests were performed in the selected case study of Camerano Caves (Italy), characterized by volumetric complexity, poor lighting conditions, and difficult accessibility. The aim of this research activity is not only to show the differences in the technological instruments used for 3D surveying, but rather to argue over the pros and cons of the systems, providing the community with best practices and rules for 3D data collection with handheld mobile systems. The experiments deliver promising results when compared with TLS data.

INTELLIGENT DATA MODEL FOR ARABIC MORPHOLOGY: MORPHOSCRIPT LANGUAGE

This paper aims to propose a specific formalism for Arabic morphology modeling that is too complex to model exhaustively with classical approaches. Therefore, it was necessary to find out an adequate representation of formalism. We designed, thus, a declarative, object-oriented language, referenced to us: MorphoScript, which allowed us to represent the complete morphological knowledge that we could identify optimally. The study that we are presenting here aims to propose an adequate data model of natural language morphological components and composition rules. We will thus present the basic elements and the theoretical and technical foundations of a language reproducing and assisting a morphological analysis process and the principles that guided the conception of this data model fully based on class concepts. Therefore, it is an object-oriented language using inheritance as basic support to define the morphological links between the different morphological classes. We have also used aggregation concepts and an annotation indexing system allowing the morphological designer a better representation of morphological knowledge.

‘Essentially an American Institution Planted on Foreign Soil’: The American Library in Paris, the Paris Herald, the Paris Tribune and Ex Libris

In 1920, the American Library in Paris (ALP) was incorporated, with the desire to ‘be a somewhat adequate representation of American life and thought’ in the city. This paper will argue that the ALP - an institution established for overseas soldiers in 1918, which became its own entity in 1920 and celebrated a century of service in 2020 - would do more than represent America in the interwar period: it would play a role in shaping American identity as well. Through archival materials, this paper explores the ALP’s representation in the three periodicals most imbricated with its interwar existence: the Paris editions of the Chicago Tribune and the New York Herald, and the little magazine, Ex Libris. I argue that the ALP - in both its physical and psychic forms - was an important site for the formation of transnational American identity in the interwar period, and that it strived to weigh in on conversations about emerging literary movements, including modernism and the Harlem Renaissance. American identity, as the Library represented it, combined national exceptionalism with a true desire for transnational cooperation. It was firmly at home on international soil, and well-versed in the era’s literary debates.

Sealing the leaky pipeline: attracting and retaining women in cardiology

Multiple publications have addressed the under-representation of women in the cardiology workforce, and indeed in leadership positions and procedural subspecialities, despite gender parity among medical school graduates. The work–life balance does not appear to be the only determining factor since other specialties such as obstetrics have a adequate representation of women. Vlachadis Castles et al report the results from their online survey of 452 female doctors (both trainees and specialists) from Australia and New Zealand, 13% of whom were women in cardiology. Female cardiologists reported working longer hours and more on-call commitments; significantly fewer women in cardiology reported a balanced life, or that cardiology was family friendly or female friendly, despite a greater earning capacity and an overwhelming majority agreeing that they were professionally challenged whilst intellectually stimulated in their jobs. Our editorial addresses the deterrents to women in cardiology seeking leadership opportunities in all areas including academic, administrative and research positions.

Inverse Modeling of Radiative Transfer by Two-Stream Approximation using the Luus-Jaakola Method

The simulation of terrestrial ecosystem processes, using numerical biosphere-atmosphere models that can be coupled to the Atmospheric Models, assist in a better diagnosis and forecast of climate and weather. To be able to represent a particular region, biome or ecosystem, the model parameters need to be adjusted for local conditions. This work aims to assess the Luus-Jaakola (LJ) method in the optimization of the parameters in a two-stream radiative transfer model applied to a vegetation canopy. Solar radiation components (incident, S↓, and reflected, S↑) were measured above a sugarcane crop in a Tropical region from February 17 to 24, 2006. Among the combinations of internal and external iterations evaluated for Luss-Jaakola method, 60/30 (external/internal) iterations presented more precise albedo (∝ = S↑/S↓) simulated (r^2 = 0.7386) and, for the accuracy of the simulated ∝, even though the 60/40 combination had the smallest percentual error (6.40%), the 60/30 combination was 0.03% higher. The precision and accuracy of S↑ was greater with the parameters obtained by the inverse problem with the combination of 60/30 (external/internal) iterations respectively. In general, the behavior of simulated S↑ at the top of the canopy was underestimated compared to the observed S↑, especially in the early morning. For the simulated ∝ at the top of the canopy, the model's overestimation was observed at the lowest values of albedo. When the largest albedos are observed, only at the beginning of the day the model underestimated the values. As shown by the tests result, the parameters optimized by Luus-Jaakola method have an adequate representation of the observed data.

EVALUATION OF CLOUDS, RADIATION, AND PRECIPITATION IN CMIP6 MODELS USING GLOBAL WEATHER STATES DERIVED FROM ISCCP-H CLOUD PROPERTY DATA

A clustering methodology is applied to cloud optical depth cloud top pressure (TAU-PC) histograms from the new, 1-degree resolution, ISCCP-H dataset, to derive an updated global Weather State (WS) dataset. Then, PC-TAU histograms from current-climate CMIP6 model simulations are assigned to the ISCCP-H WSs along with their concurrent radiation and precipitation properties, to evaluate model cloud, radiation, and precipitation properties in the context of the Weather States. The new ISCCP-H analysis produces WSs that are very similar to those previously found in the lower resolution ISCCP-D dataset. The main difference lies in the splitting of the ISCCP-D thin stratocumulus WS between the ISCCP-H shallow cumulus and stratocumulus WSs, which results in the reduction by one of the total WS number. The evaluation of the CMIP6 models against the ISCCP-H Weather States, shows that, in the ensemble mean, the models are producing an adequate representation of the frequency and geographical distribution of the WSs, with measurable improvements compared to the WSs derived for the CMIP5 ensemble. However, the frequency of shallow cumulus clouds continues to be underestimated, and, in some WSs the good agreement of the ensemble mean with observations comes from averaging models that significantly overpredict and underpredict the ISCCP-H WS frequency. In addition, significant biases exist in the internal cloud properties of the model WSs, such as the model underestimation of cloud fraction in middle-top clouds and secondarily in midlatitude storm and stratocumulus clouds, that result in an underestimation of cloud SW cooling in those regimes.

Comparative Study Between Integrator Backstepping and Fuzzy Logic Control Applied to an Electric Powered Wheelchair

The aim of this paper is the control of electric powered wheelchairs (EPW) which was made for people suffering of temporary or permanent disabilities due to illnesses or accidents. The EPW is powered by two Permanent Magnet Synchronous Motors (PMSM) that are characterized by high efficiency, high torque, low noise and robustness; hence the dynamic model of the both EPW-motors is presented in the first. After that, a comparative study is made between two nonlinear command theory; Integrator Backstepping based on the second method of Lyapunov which combine the choice of the energy function with the laws control, and, fuzzy logic introduced to approach human reasoning with the help of an adequate representation of knowledge. To evaluate the performance of the two controls, numerical simulations are presented to show the evolution of electrical and mechanical quantities, the energy consumed and the squared error of the displacement and velocity. However, the reference trajectory used is that generated by the fifth-degree polynomial interpolation, which ensures a regular trajectory that is continuous in positions, velocities and accelerations.

What constitutes a majority in Curaçao Government? An analysis of the results of Curaçao’s March 2021 elections

The objective of this case study is to examine the current electoral system of Curaçao to ascertain whether it provides adequate representation of its constituents. The current system is imbalanced because it favors the larger political parties disproportionally, which leads to a distortion of the will of the voter. The results from the most recent election held in March 2021 were compiled and examined. An alternative system was considered to gain insight into the detrimental effects of the current system. An evaluation of the current system employed to allocate seats after the election were found to be inequitable, suggesting that measures should be taken to enhance the legitimacy of the system by better reflecting the will of the voters. Given that it has been decades since the system was examined, this research provides an updated foundation for considering alternative allocation procedures that would be more consistent with a healthy representative democracy.

Compressing PDF sets using generative adversarial networks

We present a compression algorithm for parton densities using synthetic replicas generated from the training of a generative adversarial network (GAN). The generated replicas are used to further enhance the statistics of a given Monte Carlo PDF set prior to compression. This results in a compression methodology that is able to provide a compressed set with smaller number of replicas and a more adequate representation of the original probability distribution. We also address the question of whether the GAN could be used as an alternative mechanism to avoid the fitting of large number of replicas.

Peak bodies: Indigenous representation in the Australian higher education sector

The number of Indigenous Australians engaged in the higher education has risen steadily in recent years. Since the 1970s, several groups have been established to represent issues impacting Indigenous staff and students across the Australian higher education sector. Despite the deep passion and commitment by Indigenous leaders to advance Indigenous education in general, no single group currently provides adequate representation and advocacy on these issues. This article reports on findings from an Australian Research Council-funded study on Indigenous leadership in higher education. In doing so, it shares the perspectives of senior Indigenous leaders, university executive such as Vice-Chancellors and Indigenous academics. Ultimately, this article purports that it is necessary for the Federal Government and Universities Australia to work collaboratively with Indigenous People if we are going to see collective advancement across the sector and that this needs to occur in a more meaningful way than currently exercised.