Drivers of variation in occurrence, abundance, and behaviour of sharks on coral reefs

Quantifying the drivers of population size in reef sharks is critical for the development of appropriate conservation strategies. In north-west Australia, shark populations inhabit coral reefs that border growing centres of human population, industry, and tourism. However, we lack baseline data on reef sharks at large spatial scales (hundreds of km) that might enable managers to assess the status of shark populations in the face of future development in this region. Here, we examined the occurrence, abundance and behaviour of apex (Galeocerdo cuvier, Carcharhinus plumbeus) and reef (C. amblyrhynchos, C. melanopterus, Triaenodon obesus) sharks using > 1200 deployments of baited remote underwater stereo-video systems (stereo-BRUVs) across > 500 km of coastline. We found evidence for species-specific influences of habitat and fishing activities on the occurrence (probability of observation), abundance (MaxN) and behaviour of sharks (time of arrival to the stereo-BRUVs and likelihood of feeding). Although the presence of management zoning (No-take areas) made little difference to most species, C. amblyrhynchos were more common further from boat ramps (a proxy of recreational fishing pressure). Time of arrival for all species was also influenced by distance to boat ramp, although patterns varied among species. Our results demonstrate the capacity for behavioural metrics to complement existing measures of occurrence and abundance in assessing the potential impact of human activities on shark populations.

Essays in the Regulation of Drones and Counter-Drone Systems

<p>Rapid growth in the use of drones potentially delivers significant economic benefits, but it has also given rise to considerable public concern about safety risks, infringement of privacy, and other unwelcome surveillance and observation. Drones are able to be operated remotely from the pilot, making it difficult to identify the operator and attribute liability for harm caused. This in turn means that existing regulatory frameworks might not induce an efficient level of drone-related harm. The first substantive chapter of this thesis considers measures to address concerns about privacy and surveillance. I propose the adoption of a package of measures including: tort law reform, the promulgation of a "Code of Practice for Drone Operations" under New Zealand's Privacy Act 1993, a remotely-readable identifier to identify approved operators, provision for aerial trespass by unmanned aircraft, provision for the destruction of unmanned aircraft committing trespass, and the clarification of what constitutes a privacy violation by broadcast or closed-circuit television and video systems. Fundamental to those proposals are the concepts of drone registration and the legalisation of the right to self-defence against drones. Registration requires that a drone is registered with the regulatory authorities, with a registered drone being traceable back to the owner of the drone. Registered drones may also be required to carry a remotely-readable identifier. Legalisation of self-defence allows bystanders to take defensive actions against drones, with the potential for a drone to be destroyed. Both of these mechanisms provide a means by which the operator of a drone faces some cost if they are causing harm, and thus may induce more efficient actions by the drone operator. This thesis establishes a theoretical framework for self-defence, registration, and registration in conjunction with self-defence. Conditions are established under which each will be the preferred form of regulation. It is also established that the status quo, with neither registration nor self-defence, is likely to be optimal when harm from drone activity is relatively low. The conditions established around when self-defence is efficient also provide the conditions for the regulation of counter-drone systems. I identify the legal impediments to the implementation of drone-detection systems and counter-drone systems in New Zealand, and propose a regulatory framework to allow the adoption of those systems.</p>

Essays in the Regulation of Drones and Counter-Drone Systems

<p>Rapid growth in the use of drones potentially delivers significant economic benefits, but it has also given rise to considerable public concern about safety risks, infringement of privacy, and other unwelcome surveillance and observation. Drones are able to be operated remotely from the pilot, making it difficult to identify the operator and attribute liability for harm caused. This in turn means that existing regulatory frameworks might not induce an efficient level of drone-related harm. The first substantive chapter of this thesis considers measures to address concerns about privacy and surveillance. I propose the adoption of a package of measures including: tort law reform, the promulgation of a "Code of Practice for Drone Operations" under New Zealand's Privacy Act 1993, a remotely-readable identifier to identify approved operators, provision for aerial trespass by unmanned aircraft, provision for the destruction of unmanned aircraft committing trespass, and the clarification of what constitutes a privacy violation by broadcast or closed-circuit television and video systems. Fundamental to those proposals are the concepts of drone registration and the legalisation of the right to self-defence against drones. Registration requires that a drone is registered with the regulatory authorities, with a registered drone being traceable back to the owner of the drone. Registered drones may also be required to carry a remotely-readable identifier. Legalisation of self-defence allows bystanders to take defensive actions against drones, with the potential for a drone to be destroyed. Both of these mechanisms provide a means by which the operator of a drone faces some cost if they are causing harm, and thus may induce more efficient actions by the drone operator. This thesis establishes a theoretical framework for self-defence, registration, and registration in conjunction with self-defence. Conditions are established under which each will be the preferred form of regulation. It is also established that the status quo, with neither registration nor self-defence, is likely to be optimal when harm from drone activity is relatively low. The conditions established around when self-defence is efficient also provide the conditions for the regulation of counter-drone systems. I identify the legal impediments to the implementation of drone-detection systems and counter-drone systems in New Zealand, and propose a regulatory framework to allow the adoption of those systems.</p>

Efficiency of spatially recursive algorithms for transmitting images of marine vessels

На современном этапе развития интеллектуальных морских технологий необходимо включить в состав видеосистемы обработки изображений две подсистемы передачи видеоинформации морских сюжетов. Во первых на основе спектрального преобразования сигналов из пространственной области в частотную для оперативной доставки видеоинформации, полученной с различных камер подводного и надводного наблюдения. Во вторых, на основе пространственных методов обработки, без перехода в спектральную область сигнала для передачи выделенных ключевых точек объектов на изображениях. При этом важнейшая особенность этих подсистем заключается в улучшении информационных показателей качества морских видеосистем автоматизированной обработкой видеоинформации: точность визуальных данных, битовая скорость передачи по каналам связи и вычислительная сложность алгоритмов анализа и передачи видеоинформации. В предлагаемом исследовании приводятся алгоритмы спектральной и пространственной обработки видеоинформации, проведена оценка эффективности алгоритмов обработки изображений. А также отражены результаты моделирования алгоритмов и сравнительная оценка информационных показателей интеллектуальных морских видеосистем: точность, битовая скорость и вычислительная сложность видеосистем обработки морских изображений. At the present stage of the development of intelligent marine technologies, it is necessary to include two subsystems for the transmission of video information of marine scenes in the video image processing system: 1) based on the spectral conversion of signals from the spatial domain to the frequency domain for the rapid delivery of video information obtained from various underwater and surface surveillance cameras; 2) based on spatial processing methods without switching to the spectral domain of the signal to transmit selected key points of objects in the images. At the same time, the most important feature of these subsystems is to improve the information quality indicators of marine video systems by automated processing of video information: the accuracy of visual data, the bit rate of transmission over communication channels and the computational complexity of algorithms for analyzing and transmitting video information. The proposed study provides algorithms for spectral and spatial processing of video information. The results of algorithm modeling and comparative evaluation of information indicators of intelligent marine video systems are also presented: accuracy, bit rate and computational complexity of marine image processing video systems.

Traffic interception in fiber optical video-systems

In fiber-optic video systems, as well as in optical communication systems, standard single mode optical fibers (SSMF, standard G.652) are usually used. One of the advantages of these fibers is the ability to use CWDM in a wide spectrum. At the same time, more optimal near the wave-length of 1550 nm are provided by non-zero dispersion fiber (NZDSF, standard G.655) fibers. However, as studies have shown, these optical fibers have an increased sensitivity to bending. This fact can be used to traffic interception. It is shown that fiber-optics systems with SSMF have more protection from traffic interception than systems with NZDSF. To transmit a high-confidentiality video signal, special techniques, such as frequency modulation, can be used, or additional noise signals can be added.

VEHICLE CLASSIFICATION USING THE CONVOLUTION NEURAL NETWORK APPROACH

We present vehicle detection classification using the Convolution Neural Network (CNN) of the deep learning approach. The automatic vehicle classification for traffic surveillance video systems is challenging for the Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) to build a smart city. In this article, three different vehicles: bike, car and truck classification are considered for around 3,000 bikes, 6,000 cars, and 2,000 images of trucks. CNN can automatically absorb and extract different vehicle dataset’s different features without a manual selection of features. The accuracy of CNN is measured in terms of the confidence values of the detected object. The highest confidence value is about 0.99 in the case of the bike category vehicle classification. The automatic vehicle classification supports building an electronic toll collection system and identifying emergency vehicles in the traffic.

Stereo Video Quality Metric Based on Multi-Dimensional Analysis

Stereo video has been widely applied in various video systems in recent years. Therefore, objective stereo video quality metric (SVQM) is highly necessary for improving the watching experience. However, due to the high dimensional data in stereo video, existing metrics have some defects in accuracy and robustness. Based on the characteristics of stereo video, this paper considers the coexistence and interaction of multi-dimensional information in stereo video and proposes an SVQM based on multi-dimensional analysis (MDA-SVQM). Specifically, a temporal-view joint decomposition (TVJD) model is established by analyzing and comparing correlation in different dimensions and adaptively decomposes stereo group of frames (sGoF) into different subbands. Then, according to the generation mechanism and physical meaning of each subband, histogram-based and LOID-based features are extracted for high and low frequency subband, respectively, and sGoF quality is obtained by regression. Finally, the weight of each sGoF is calculated by spatial-temporal energy weighting (STEW) model, and final stereo video quality is obtained by weighted summation of all sGoF qualities. Experiments on two stereo video databases demonstrate that TVJD and STEW adopted in MDA-SVQM are convincible, and the overall performance of MDA-SVQM is better than several existing SVQMs.

EXPERIENCE IN THE PENAL INSTITUTIONS` WORK FOR THE ESCAPES PREVENTION

В структуре деятельности учреждений уголовно-исполнительной системы по предупреждению побегов первое место традиционно занимают меры общей и специальной профилактики, реализуемые в рамках оперативной деятельности и режимных мероприятий посредством воздействия на лиц, склонных к совершению рассматриваемых преступлений. Немаловажная роль в рассматриваемом механизме отводится техническим средствам и новациям, внедряемым в деятельность учреждений УИС. Осознание того, что средства контроля в непрерывном режиме осуществляют постоянный мониторинг деятельности учреждения, постепенно формируют у осужденных, подозреваемых и обвиняемых убежденность в бесперспективности попыток совершения преступлений, в том числе побегов. В статье анализируются вопросы использования опыта учреждений, обеспечивающих изоляцию от общества, в профилактике побегов. Охарактеризован комплекс мероприятий по предупреждению побегов из мест лишения свободы и из-под стражи, показана специфика общепрофилактического воздействия. Выявлены существенные недостатки в организации взаимодействия частей и служб отдельных учреждений и территориальных органов ФСИН России при осуществлении профилактической работы по предотвращению побегов. Сделан вывод о необходимости качественного научно-технического обеспечения деятельности исправительных учреждений и следственных изоляторов. На основе обобщения положительного опыта работы органов и учреждений ФСИН России выделены основные направления деятельности, в наибольшей степени влияющие на предупреждение побеговой активности осужденных и лиц, содержащихся под стражей: использование средств электронного мониторинга в отношении отдельных категорий осужденных; использование видеосистем и биометрических технологий в деятельности учреждений УИС; повышение качества патрулирования на режимной территории. In the structure of the penal institutions activities for the escapes prevention, the first place is traditionally occupied by measures of general and special prevention, implemented within the framework of operational activities and regime measures, by influencing persons who are inclined to commit the crimes in question. An important role in the mechanism under consideration is given to technical means and innovations introduced into the penal institutions activities. The realization that the means of control continuously monitor the institution activities, gradually form the conviction of convicts in the futility of attempts to commit crimes, including escapes. The article analyzes the issues of using the experience of institutions that provide isolation from society in the escapes prevention. The article describes a set of measures to prevent escapes from places of liberty deprivation and from custody, and shows the specifics of the general preventive effect. Significant shortcomings in the organization of parts interaction and services of individual institutions and territorial bodies of the Federal Penitentiary Service in the implementation of preventive work to prevent escapes were identified. The conclusion is made about the need for high quality scientific and technical support for the activities of correctional institutions and pretrial detention centers. Based on the generalization of the positive penal experience, the main areas of activity that most affect the prevention of escape activity of convicts and persons in custody are identified: the use of electronic monitoring tools in relation to certain categories of convicts; the use of video systems and biometric technologies in the activities of penal institutions; improving the quality of patrolling in the restricted territory.

A robust method for dynamic image stitching on a fully mechanized mining face

Video surveillance systems can be applied in coal mines for remote monitoring and for production control. Stitching video images into a panorama enhances the usability of video systems, since a panorama offers a wider view than single images do. But there are big challenges when conventional image stitching methods are applied to the domain of coal mine, especially in the mining faces. These challenges consist of non-uniform illumination, missed scenes and oblique panoramas. In this paper, a robust method was proposed to solve these three problems: (i) to overcome the non-uniform illumination on a mining face, the wide dynamic range technology and the histogram matching algorithm were used to enhance single images and reduce differences among images, respectively; (ii) to eliminate the missed scenes, overlapped images were quickly taken, then the feature matching method and template recognition method were adaptively used to achieve robust stitching and (iii) to mitigate the obliqueness of panoramas, vertical correction technology was used, which exploited the posture information of the camera. Next, the adjacent panoramas were concatenated and experiments were conducted on a fully mechanized mining face. The results show that the proposed method solves these three problems well and a dynamic panorama of the partial long-wall mining face is outputted. The research provides a new approach for displaying extended scenes of stope faces in intelligent collieries.