An Unsupervised Port Detection Method in Polarimetric SAR Images Based on Three-Component Decomposition and Multi-Scale Thresholding Segmentation

It is difficult to detect ports in polarimetric SAR images due to the complicated components, morphology, and coastal environment. This paper proposes an unsupervised port detection method by extracting the water of the port based on three-component decomposition and multi-scale thresholding segmentation. Firstly, the polarimetric characteristics of the port water are analyzed using modified three-component decomposition. Secondly, the volume scattering power and the power ratio of the double-bounce scattering power to the volume scattering power (PRDV) are used to extract the port water. Water and land are first separated by a global thresholding segmentation of the volume scattering power, in which the sampling region used for the threshold calculation is automatically selected by a proposed homogeneity measure. The interference water regions in the ports are then separated from the water by segmenting the PRDV using the multi-scale thresholding segmentation method. The regions of interest (ROIs) of the ports are then extracted by determining the connected interference water regions with a large area. Finally, ports are recognized by examining the area ratio of strong scattering pixels to the land in the extracted ROIs. Seven single quad-polarization SAR images acquired by RADARSAT-2 covering the coasts of Dalian, Zhanjiang, Fujian, Tianjin, Lingshui, and Boao in China and Berkeley in America are used to test the proposed method. The experimental results show that all ports are correctly and quickly detected. The false alarm rates are zero, the intersection of union section (IoU) indexes between the detected port and the ground truth can reach 75%, and the average processing time can be less than 100 s.

3. The Transfer of Powers and Union Competences

This chapter examines the multifaceted and increasingly complex relationship between the European Union and its member states. The chapter begins with the transfer of sovereign powers and the democratic legitimacy of the Union and the establishment of constitutionalism within the Union. Section 3.4 considers the transfer of powers from the member states and the division and control of competences between the Union and the member states. In this context, the principles of subsidiarity and of proportionality are discussed, which are the political solutions to the very emotive questions about how power is shared between the Union and the member states.

Concepções, aproximações e afastamentos de docentes universitários em relação ao movimento sindical

The objective of this study is to analyze the process of closeness and distance of professors from the trade union movement, particularly in the case of union leaders from Federal University of Amapá Professors Trade Union (SINDUFAP), Trade Union Section of the National Union of Professors of Institutions of Higher Education (ANDES-SN), highlighting the syndicate conception that they defend in the context of transformations implemented by neoliberal governments in Brazil. The research is classified as a field research, with an exploratory nature. The subjects who participated in the research were professors who worked in the executive direction of the trade union from 1994 to 2018. It can be said that the problems imposed on trade unionism, as well as the motivations for closeness and distance are articulated with the broader issues of neoliberal policies implemented at national level which have negative consequences which need to be reflected about the limits (and possibilities) of trade unionism in general. In the core of the motivations to closeness and distance of the trade union are the conceptions of society, university and syndicate defended by the cited professors, even though other internal questions from the organizational issues need to be addressed.

2. The Foundations of European Union Intellectual Property Law

This chapter discusses the role of the EU in the IP field before and since the introduction of the Lisbon Treaty. To that end it introduces the EU legal order itself, including its founding Treaties, institutions, and authority to act (competence), with a focus on IP. The chapter is organized as follows. Section 2.2 traces the establishment of the European Economic Community and its development to the European Union. Section 2.3 describes the seven EU institutions: the European Council, European Commission, European Parliament, Council, Court of Justice of the EU, European Central Bank, and Court of Auditors. Section 2.4 explains the legal authority of the EU, in relation particularly to IP. Section 2.5 covers EU measures and their legal effects. And Section 2.6 discusses the actions of the Court of Justice.

Excursus: A Fiscal Affairs Exception?

Ever since 1957, the European Treaties made, with regard to goods, a fundamental distinction between regulatory and fiscal barriers to intra-Union trade. Fiscal barriers were here subject to a special constitutional regime. This constitutional regime was however not uniform and itself distinguished between (external) customs duties and (internal) taxes with both aspects being firmly rooted in an international model. Has this changed over the course of the past sixty years? Have the Treaty provisions on fiscal barriers been ‘federalized’and, if so, are they nonetheless subject to distinct doctrinal principles (like in the United States)? This final chapter explores these complex questions. Section I starts with an analysis of the legal structure of the customs union; Section II looks at the question from the point of ‘internal taxation’, and here in particular the question of double taxation.

Emotions and Empowerment in Collective Action: The Experience of a Women’s Collective in Oaxaca, Mexico, 2006–2017

In 2006, in the city of Oaxaca in Mexico, the protests of the local section of the teachers’ union (Section XXII-CNTE) turned in a few days to a popular insurrection, which was characterised by the strong participation of women, a group historically excluded and marginalised in Mexican and Oaxaca social and political life. This article analyses the process of empowerment of a group of women who participated in the insurgency and then decided to self-organise as a collective: Mujer Nueva (New Woman). The aim of this article is to contribute to a better understanding of empowerment as a dynamic process and a biographical consequence of protest and activism by analysing the role of different emotions in it.

How Your Gift Can Keep on Giving

A new incentive program will award up to $5000 in unrestricted funds to each American Geophysical Union section or focus group with enough donors making contributions this year of $50 or more to any AGU funds.

Social Legitimacy and the Court of Justice of the EU: Some Reflections on the Role of the Advocate General

The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU, Court of Justice or Court, for short) operates in circumstances that are similar to those of a national constitutional court; at the same time, some significant features set it apart and make it more difficult for the Court of Justice to command the institutional loyalty or public support that national constitutional courts seem to enjoy in Europe. This chapter will, first, offer a brief overview of how and why the Court acquired a markedly political, and problematic, role within the judicial and legal system of the Union (Section II). Section III will then examine the different concepts of legitimacy that may be applied to courts and their decisions, focusing more specifically on the social dimension of legitimacy. This chapter will argue that the fact that the Court of Justice has to operate in a transnational context leads to a shortfall in its social legitimacy, at least when compared to national constitutional courts in Europe. Finally, Section IV will focus on the figure of the Advocate General as a mechanism that may lend some extra social legitimacy to the Court and its decisions—obviously without solving the problem completely—and that, more generally, may foster dialogue, debate and deliberative democracy in the Union.

Impacts of a liberalization in the USA market for Frozen Concentrated Orange Juice: why Florida's producers are so afraid?

This study aims at examining the resource allocation and welfare implications of the reduction of barriers in the United States market for Frozen Concentrated Orange Juice (FCOJ) imported from Brazil. The present paper is organized as follows: section 2 presents an overview of the main features of the market and current trade regime for orange juice, as well as the possible impacts of liberalization within FTAA and with the European Union; section 3 describes the partial equilibrium model of imperfect substitute goods used to estimate the impact of trade liberalization in the United States, on prices and quantities and on welfare; in section 4 two possible scenarios for liberalization are designed using the large country model. The last section summarizes the main conclusions.

Free Movement: The Workseeker as Citizen

This article is concerned with the legal position of Community nationals who move to another Member State in search of employment. Section II will summarise the traditional legal status of the workseeker viewed as an economic factor of production. Section III will explore the new legal status of the workseeker viewed as a citizen of the European Union. Section IV will offer some brief comments on the Commission’s 2001 proposal for an umbrella directive on free movement for Union citizens, and its implications for the migrant workseeker. It will be argued, through this analysis, that the institution of Union citizenship, so often criticised for its ‘us and them’ mentality in the treatment of third country nationals, is equally characterised by a ‘haves and have-nots’ approach to its own members—thus presenting a model which (albeit for perhaps understandable pragmatic reasons) is not necessarily in the best interests of maximising economic efficiency within the Common Market, places limits on certain of the political aspirations vested in the process of European integration, and questions the depth or at least the methodology of the Community’s stated commitment to attaining high levels of social protection.