Akhbar Khuttah Mishriyyah-Urduniyyah li al-Saitharah alâ Taáddud Jihât al-Qarâr fi Hamas (Tahlil al-Khitab al-Naqdy Teun A. Van Dijk

This research is about critical discourse analysis using Teun A. Van Dijk's theory specialized in the discussion of the text section. Analyzing the discourse on Egyptian-Jordanian plans to control the large number of Hamas decision-makers, Van Dijk sees that the text consists of several structures/levels, which support each other. He divided it into three levels. First, the overall structure, second, the superstructure, and third, the microstructure. This type of research is qualitative research using the method of documentation and descriptive analysis of the content of the news text. In the documentation process, the researcher obtained the data from the news website alarab.co.uk. This study aims to determine the results of Teun A. Van Dijk's critical discourse analysis on the news text. The object of this study is the online news media in Arabic, alarab.co.uk, while the subject of this research is the discourse of the state of the many faces of the Hamas organization that controls decision-making. This analysis was performed on macro-structure (themes), superstructure (layouts), micro-structure (semantics: background, detail, intent, assumptions), micro-structure (structure: sentence form, coherence, and pronouns), and micro-structure (style: lexicon ), the precise structure (rhetorical: graphic, metaphor, expression) in Arabic discourse.

Tracking individual honeybees among wildflower clusters with computer vision-facilitated pollinator monitoring

Monitoring animals in their natural habitat is essential for advancement of animal behavioural studies, especially in pollination studies. Non-invasive techniques are preferred for these purposes as they reduce opportunities for research apparatus to interfere with behaviour. One potentially valuable approach is image-based tracking. However, the complexity of tracking unmarked wild animals using video is challenging in uncontrolled outdoor environments. Out-of-the-box algorithms currently present several problems in this context that can compromise accuracy, especially in cases of occlusion in a 3D environment. To address the issue, we present a novel hybrid detection and tracking algorithm to monitor unmarked insects outdoors. Our software can detect an insect, identify when a tracked insect becomes occluded from view and when it re-emerges, determine when an insect exits the camera field of view, and our software assembles a series of insect locations into a coherent trajectory. The insect detecting component of the software uses background subtraction and deep learning-based detection together to accurately and efficiently locate the insect among a cluster of wildflowers. We applied our method to track honeybees foraging outdoors using a new dataset that includes complex background detail, wind-blown foliage, and insects moving into and out of occlusion beneath leaves and among three-dimensional plant structures. We evaluated our software against human observations and previous techniques. It tracked honeybees at a rate of 86.6% on our dataset, 43% higher than the computationally more expensive, standalone deep learning model YOLOv2. We illustrate the value of our approach to quantify fine-scale foraging of honeybees. The ability to track unmarked insect pollinators in this way will help researchers better understand pollination ecology. The increased efficiency of our hybrid approach paves the way for the application of deep learning-based techniques to animal tracking in real-time using low-powered devices suitable for continuous monitoring.

Wanostrocht’s Practical Grammar and the grammar-translation model

Wanostrochts’s Practical Grammar was first published in London in 1780, then in the US from 1805.1 It was one of the most successful pedagogical grammars of its time, appearing in revised forms for almost a century. It was probably the first grammar to include ‘exercises’ in the same volume and represents a prototype of what would become known as the ‘grammar-translation’ manual that provided a template for most language schoolbooks throughout the nineteenth century and beyond. The analysis in this chapter considers the content of Wanostrocht’s primer as an example of late eighteenth-century language epistemology, and provides broader background detail to help better understand the context of the publication, its intended purpose, and the reasons for its enduring popularity.

Tracking individual honeybees among wildflower clusters with computer vision-facilitated pollinator monitoring

Monitoring animals in their natural habitat is essential for advancement of animal behavioural studies, especially in pollination studies. Non-invasive techniques are preferred for these purposes as they reduce opportunities for research apparatus to interfere with behaviour. One potentially valuable approach is image-based tracking. However, the complexity of tracking unmarked wild animals using video is challenging in uncontrolled outdoor environments. Out-of-the-box algorithms currently present several problems in this context that can compromise accuracy, especially in cases of occlusion in a 3D environment. To address the issue, we present a novel hybrid detection and tracking algorithm to monitor unmarked insects outdoors. Our software can detect an insect, identify when a tracked insect becomes occluded from view and when it re-emerges, determine when an insect exits the camera field of view, and our software assembles a series of insect locations into a coherent trajectory. The insect detecting component of the software uses background subtraction and deep learning-based detection together to accurately and efficiently locate the insect among a cluster of wildflowers.We applied our method to track honeybees foraging outdoors using a new dataset that includes complex background detail, wind-blown foliage, and insects moving into and out of occlusion beneath leaves and among three-dimensional plant structures. We evaluated our software against human observations and previous techniques. It tracked honeybees at a rate of 86.6% on our dataset, 43% higher than the computationally more expensive, standalone deep learning model YOLOv2. We illustrate the value of our approach to quantify fine-scale foraging of honeybees. The ability to track unmarked insect pollinators in this way will help researchers better understand pollination ecology. The increased efficiency of our hybrid approach paves the way for the application of deep learning-based techniques to animal tracking in real-time using low-powered devices suitable for continuous monitoring.

DIDFuse: Deep Image Decomposition for Infrared and Visible Image Fusion

Infrared and visible image fusion, a hot topic in the field of image processing, aims at obtaining fused images keeping the advantages of source images. This paper proposes a novel auto-encoder (AE) based fusion network. The core idea is that the encoder decomposes an image into background and detail feature maps with low- and high-frequency information, respectively, and that the decoder recovers the original image. To this end, the loss function makes the background/detail feature maps of source images similar/dissimilar. In the test phase, background and detail feature maps are respectively merged via a fusion module, and the fused image is recovered by the decoder. Qualitative and quantitative results illustrate that our method can generate fusion images containing highlighted targets and abundant detail texture information with strong reproducibility and meanwhile surpass state-of-the-art (SOTA) approaches.

Vergil's Green Thoughts

The Eclogues, Georgics, and Aeneid abound with plants, yet much Vergilian criticism underestimates their significance beyond attractive background detail or the occasional symbolic set-piece. This work joins the growing field of nature-centred studies of literature, looking head-on at Vergil’s plants and trees to reveal how fundamental they are to an understanding of the poet’s outlook on religion, culture, and mankind’s place within the world. The first half of the book explores the religious and more diffusely numinous aspects of Vergil’s plants, from awe–inspiring sacred groves to divinely promoted fields of corn, showing how both cultivated and uncultivated plants fit within and help to shape the complex landscape of Vergilian (and, more broadly, Roman) religious thought. In the second half, the focus moves to human interactions with plants from the perspectives of both cultivation and relaxation, exploring the love–hate relationship with vegetation which sometimes supports and sometimes contests the human self-image as the world’s dominant species. Combining a series of close readings of a wide range of passages with the identification of broader patterns of association, this book reveals and celebrates the complexity and variety of Vergilian flora.

TRAJANIC TREES: THE DACIAN FOREST ON TRAJAN'S COLUMN

Trajan's Column stands in the centre of Rome as a proud monument to Trajan's triumph over Dacia in the early second century. On its 29 m tall shaft, a helical frieze depicts the events of the two wars which won the province for the Roman Empire. There are 224 trees to be found throughout this relief, 222 of which are native to Dacia. These trees have traditionally been treated as scene dividers and background material to the column's action. This article, which begins by exploring the identification of the trees in previous scholarship, argues that they are in fact crucial to the column's narrative of industry and conquest. The discussion of identification is followed by an examination of the numerous tree-felling scenes on the column as a metaphor for conquest. The article closes with a detailed analysis of contrasting representations of the two leaders on the column, Trajan and Decebalus, one an urban emperor, the other a forest king. By directing attention towards the arboreal population of the column, this article argues that trees cannot be dismissed as mere background detail, but play an active and significant role in the communication of ideas about triumph, imperialism and the conquest of nature.

Researching a segmented market: reflections on telephone interviewing

Purpose The purpose of this paper was to review the effectiveness of telephone interviewing for capturing data and to consider in particular the challenges faced by telephone interviewers when capturing information about market segments. Design/methodology/approach The platform for this methodological critique was a market segment analysis commissioned by Sport Wales which involved a series of 85 telephone interviews completed during 2010. Two focus groups involving the six interviewers involved in the study were convened to reflect on the researchers’ experiences and the implications for business and management research. Findings There are three principal sets of findings. First, although telephone interviewing is generally a cost-effective data collection method, it is important to consider both the actual costs (i.e. time spent planning and conducting interviews) as well as the opportunity costs (i.e. missed appointments, “chasing participants”). Second, researchers need to be sensitised to and sensitive to the demographic characteristics of telephone interviewees (insofar as these are knowable) because responses are influenced by them. Third, the anonymity of telephone interviews may be more conducive for discussing sensitive issues than face-to-face interactions. Originality/value The present study adds to this modest body of literature on the implementation of telephone interviewing as a research technique of business and management. It provides valuable methodological background detail about the intricate, personal experiences of researchers undertaking this method “at a distance” and without visual cues, and makes explicit the challenges of telephone interviewing for the purposes of data capture.

Swap futurization

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that certain rules, implemented as a result of the Dodd-Frank Act (DFA) of 2010, should be harmonized between economically equivalent products in swap and futures markets to prevent regulatory arbitrage. Design/methodology/approach – The paper focuses on rules surrounding margin requirements and block size thresholds. As such, a background of clearing and exchange systems is presented to familiarize the reader with the risk management objectives of the regulation. Viewpoints of several leading commentators taken from a Commodity Futures Trading Commission roundtable and comment letters are then analysed to support the argument that margin requirements and block size thresholds should be the same for similar financial products. Findings – Based on the review and analysis of several commentators and industry participants, harmonization of rules for swaps and economically equivalent futures contract should be achieved to prevent regulatory arbitrage. Originality/value – To the best of the author's knowledge, there are no articles that address the swap futurization debate in this detail. This paper will be of interest to readers who would like to learn more about how the DFA has impacted the derivatives market leading to the recent trend of swap “futurization”. It is also ideal for those who are unfamiliar with current clearing and exchange systems, as it presents background detail of this framework to supplement the debate on swap rules.