Common Latent Space Exploration for Calibration Transfer across Hyperspectral Imaging-Based Phenotyping Systems

Hyperspectral imaging has increasingly been used in high-throughput plant phenotyping systems. Rapid advancement in the field of phenotyping has resulted in a wide array of hyperspectral imaging systems. However, sharing the plant feature prediction models between different phenotyping facilities becomes challenging due to the differences in imaging environments and imaging sensors. Calibration transfer between imaging facilities is crucially important to cope with such changes. Spectral space adjustment methods including direct standardization (DS), its variants (PDS, DPDS) and spectral scale transformation (SST) require the standard samples to be imaged in different facilities. However, in real-world scenarios, imaging the standard samples is practically unattractive. Therefore, in this study, we presented three methods (TCA, c-PCA, and di-PLSR) to transfer the calibration models without requiring the standard samples. In order to compare the performance of proposed approaches, maize plants were imaged in two greenhouse-based HTPP systems using two pushbroom-style hyperspectral cameras covering the visible near-infrared range. We tested the proposed methods to transfer nitrogen content (N) and relative water content (RWC) calibration models. The results showed that prediction R2 increased by up to 14.50% and 42.20%, while the reduction in RMSEv was up to 74.49% and 76.72% for RWC and N, respectively. The di-PLSR achieved the best results for almost all the datasets included in this study, with TCA being second. The performance of c-PCA was not at par with the di-PLSR and TCA. Our results showed that the di-PLSR helped to recover the performance of RWC, and N models plummeted due to the differences originating from new imaging systems (sensor type, spectrograph, lens system, spatial resolution, spectral resolution, field of view, bit-depth, frame rate, and exposure time) or lighting conditions. The proposed approaches can alleviate the requirement of developing a new calibration model for a new phenotyping facility or to resort to the spectral space adjustment using the standard samples.

A Practical Underwater Information Sensing System Based on Intermittent Chaos Under the Background of Lévy Noise

The Gaussian noise model has been chosen for underwater information sensing tasks under substantial interference for most of the research at present. However, it often contains a strong impact and does not conform to the Gaussian distribution. In this paper, a practical underwater information sensing system is proposed based on intermittent chaos under the background of Lévy noise. In this system, a novel Lévy noise model is presented to describe the underwater natural environment interference and estimate its parameters, which can better describe the impact characteristics of the underwater environment. Then an underwater environment sensing method of dual-coupled intermittent chaotic Duffing oscillator is improved by using the variable step-size method and scale transformation. The simulation results show that the method can sense weak signals and estimate their frequencies under the background of strong Lévy noise, and the estimation error is as low as 0.03%. Compared with the intermittent chaos of the single Duffing oscillator and the intermittent chaotic Duffing of double coupling, the minimum SNR ratio threshold has been reduced by 11.5dB and 6.9dB, respectively, and the computational cost significantly reduced, and the sensing efficiency is significantly improved.

School Leadership Master’s Program Enhancement through Cross-Border Collaboration between Assiut and Kuwait Schools of Education

Egypt and Kuwait are currently executing a large-scale transformation in the national education system. On such time, school leadership capacity building and development is crucial and fundamental. Therefore, the current research seeks to scrutiny leadership components presented in the Education Administration Master program offered in Assiut and Kuwait Faculties of Education to cross match the presented knowledge and competencies with international requirements of highly credited leadership master programs. A comparative analytical study was implemented to compare the leadership models presented in the Assiut and Kuwait master’s programs in educational administration. The intended outcome is to enhance the current master program offered in both faculties. Received: 31 October 2021 / Accepted: 1 December 2021 / Published: 3 January 2022

The Innovation Activity of Russian Enterprises from 2010 to 2020 according to Federal State Statistics Service

In modern conditions, there is a large-scale transformation of the Russian economy in the direction of its digitalization, accordingly, the innovative activity of enterprises and organizations is of particular importance. This work is devoted to the assessment of the dynamics of innovation activity of Russian enterprises for the period from 2010 to 2020 according to Rosstat of the Russian Federation. The analysis of the main indicators of innovation activity indicates that the level of innovation activity in the whole country is low, and most of the indicators show negative dynamics, which jeopardizes the implementation of many large-scale innovative projects. The results of the study can be used in planning and adjusting federal and regional programs for digitalization of certain industries and areas of activity.

Comparative Analysis of Standard ΛCDM and ΛCS Models

We draw a comparison of time-dependent cosmological parameters calculated in the standard ΛCDM model with those of the model of a homogeneous and isotropic Universe with non-zero cosmological constant filled with a perfect gas of low-velocity cosmic strings (ΛCS model). It is shown that pressure-free matter can obtain the properties of a gas of low-velocity cosmic strings in the epoch, when the global geometry and the total amount of matter in the Universe as a whole obey an additional constraint. This constraint follows from the quantum geometrodynamical approach in the semiclassical approximation. In terms of general relativity, its effective contribution to the field equations can be linked to the time evolution of the equation of state of matter caused by the processes of redistribution of the energy between matter components. In the present article, the exact solutions of the Einstein equations for the ΛCS model are found. It is demonstrated that this model is equivalent to the open de Sitter model. After the scale transformation of the time variable of the ΛCS model, the standard ΛCDM and ΛCS models provide the equivalent descriptions of cosmological parameters as functions of time at equal values of the cosmological constant. The exception is the behavior of the deceleration parameter in the early Universe.

The 3-machines energy transition model: exploring the energy frontiers for restoring a habitable climate

Earth's atmospheric CO2 concentration is on the rise, currently exceeding 420ppm. This is far above the 180ppm to 280ppm range of the past one million years and the anticipated safe limit of 350ppm. Consequently, halting fossil carbon emissions is necessary but insufficient to navigate to a safe climate future - massive and permanent removal of CO2 is inevitable. Humanity needs to do both: transit from the current fossil to a solar energy supply system and clean-up excess CO2 emissions from the atmosphere. The required global-scale transformation is ultimately limited by the availability of energy, beyond political ambitions and economic considerations. In this paper, the 3-machines energy transition model, a global system dynamics model based on energy balances, is presented and used to explore the energy frontiers for stabilizing the Earth's climate. The model comprises a hypothetical fossil engine, a solar engine including energy storage, and a carbon scrubber. These machines interact with Earth's carbon cycle and satisfy humanity’s energy demand. In 25 simulation experiments, shaped by a set of parameters regarding e.g. energy demand, energy storage and progression of the machines, the dynamics of the transformation and the effect on cumulative CO2 emissions were analysed. The resulting pathways reveal that, theoretically, atmospheric CO2 concentration can be reduced to 350ppm well before the end of this century while staying below 1.5°C with more than 50% probability. However, this requires the fastest possible energy transition, a massive and lasting carbon removal from atmosphere and hydrosphere, minimization of energy storage and a reduction of energy demand per capita.

On the issue of changes in labor legislation on remote (remote) work (experience of the COVID-19 pandemic)

The sphere of social and labor rights has undergone a large-scale transformation due to the COVID-19 pandemic and related restrictive measures. Almost all enterprises and organizations during the period of restrictive measures were forced to switch to a remote (remote) mode of operation. Some, and sometimes all, employees of organizations were forced to perform their labor function, stipulated by an employment contract, at home.At the same time, before the introduction of the above-mentioned forced measures and subsequent amendments to the labor legislation regarding the regulation of the work of “homeworkers”, there were no provisions in the domestic labor legislation that would allow establishing legal regulation of the emergence of this kind of relationship between an employee and an employer.In December 2020, the Federal Law “On Amendments to the Labor Code of the Russian Federation regarding the regulation of remote (remote) work and temporary transfer of an employee to remote (remote) work on the initiative of the employer in exceptional cases” was adopted.This article is devoted to a conceptual review of the amendments to the Labor Code of the Russian Federation adopted in 2020, aimed at establishing the regulation of remote (remote) work, as well as the procedure for temporary transfer of an employee to remote (remote) work on the initiative of the employer in strictly exceptional cases.

Chaotic Analysis of Fractional-Order Permanent Magnet Synchronous Generator for Wind Turbine

Fractional-order wind turbine is a strongly coupled non-linear dynamic system. It mainly studies the significant chaos characteristics such as the complex chaotic motion with fractional order varying. According to the mathematical model of the system, the fractional order Lorenz chaotic equation is established by linear affine transformation and time scale transformation. The theory of Lyapunov stability analysis is adopted to deeply study the development process of the system from stable operation to chaotic motion. The correctness of the chaos characteristics of the system is verified.

A Two-Stage Registration Method for Dental Volumetric Data and Mesh Data

Dental computed tomography (CT) images and optical surface scan data are widely used in dental computer-aided design systems. Registration is essential if they are used in software systems. Existing automatic registration methods are either time-consuming or rough, and interactive registration methods are experience-dependent and tedious because of a great deal of purely manual interactions. For overcoming these disadvantages, a two-stage registration method is proposed. In the rough registration stage, the rough translation and rotation matrices are obtained by applying unit quaternion based method on the points interactively selected from the two types of data. In the precise registration stage, the stridden sampling is used to reduce computational complexity and the proposed registration algorithm with scale transformation is used for precise registration. The proposed method offers a good trade-off between precision and time cost. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method provides faster convergence and smaller registration errors than existing methods.