River segmentation using satellite image contextual information and Bayesian classifier

Satellite-based remote sensing imaging can provide continuous snapshots of the Earth’s surface over long periods. River extraction from remote sensing images is useful for the comprehensive study of dynamic changes of rivers over large areas. This paper presents a new method of extracting rivers by using training samples based on the mathematical morphology, Bayesian classifier and a dynamic alteration filter. The use of a training map from erosion morphology helps to extract the non-predictive river’s curves in the image. The algorithm has two phases: creating the profile to separate river area via evaluated morphological erosion and dilation, namely, a training map; and improving the river’s image segmentation using the Bayesian rule algorithm in which two consecutive filters swipe false positive (non-water area) along the image. The proposed algorithm was tested on the Kuala Terengganu district, Malaysia, an area that includes a river, a bridge, dam and a fair amount of vegetation. The results were compared with two standard methods based on visual perception and on peak signal-to-noise ratio, respectively. The novelty of this approach is the definition of the contextual information filtering technique, which provides an accurate extraction of river segmentation from satellite images.     

Adjoint‐weighted variational formulation for the direct solution of inverse problems of general linear elasticity with full interior data

We describe a novel variational formulation of inverse elasticity problems given interior data. The class of problems considered is rather general and includes, as special cases, plane deformations, compressibility and incompressiblity in isotropic materials, 3D deformations, and anisotropy. The strong form of this problem is governed by equations of pure advective transport. The variational formulation is based on a generalization of the adjoint‐weighted variational equation (AWE) formulation, originally developed for flow of a passive scalar. We describe how to apply AWE to various cases, and prove several properties. We prove that the Galerkin discretization of the AWE formulation leads to a stable, convergent numerical method, and prove optimal rates of convergence. The numerical examples demonstrate optimal convergence of the method with mesh refinement for multiple unknown material parameters, graceful performance in the presence of noise, and robust behavior of the method when the target solution is C^∞, C⁰, or discontinuous. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Line source and point source diffraction by a reactive step

The diffraction of a line and a point source by a reactive step joined by two half planes where each half plane and step are characterized by different surface reactances have been studied. The problem is solved by using the Wiener–Hopf technique and the Fourier transform. The scattered field in the far zone is determined by the method of steepest descent. Graphical results for the line source are also presented. It is observed that if the source is shifted to a large distance the results of the line source differ from those of Buyukaksoy and Birbir [Int. J. Eng. Sci. 1997, 35, 311–319] by a multiplicative factor to the part of the scattered field containing the effects of incident and reflected waves. Subsequently, the point source diffraction is examined using the results obtained for a line source diffraction.     

On the explicit analytic solutions of an Oldroyd 6-constant fluid

This paper deals with some steady unidirectional flows of an Oldroyd 6-constant fluid. The modelled differential equation is non-linear and proposes some new mathematical difficulties. The governing non-linear equation for the steady flow of an Oldroyd 6-constant fluid is different than from the Newtonian fluid and involves the non-Newtonian features. Moreover, the exact analytic solutions are obtained for Couette, Poiseuille and generalized Couette flows for all values of non-Newtonian parameters. The homotopy analysis method (HAM) is used to construct the solutions.     

Mechanical stability and magnetic properties of austenite

Austenitic alloys have been produced by additional alloying in maraging steel grade 18 Ni at 2400 MPa. The concentration of Mo, Ni and Co was increased individually until the martensite start temperature M _s, was suppressed below ambient value. Charpy impact strength, tensile strength and magnetic properties were determined. The impact strength in the annealed condition ranged between 260 to 294 J. In alloys where martensitic transformation occurred following quenching in liquid nitrogen, the impact strength dropped appreciably and was found to be in the range 120–216 J. The tensile strengths of the austenite and martensite phases ranged between 680 to 890 and 1030 to 1100 MPa, respectively. It was observed that the austenite phase transformed to martensite in the region that under went plastic deformation during Charpy and tensile testing. The degree of transformation incorporated, varied as a function of composition. The magnetic properties of the austenite phases were typical of a very weak magnetic material. The coercive field and saturation magnetization values were in the range 1034–2387 Am^–1 and 1.6–2.9 T, respectively. In contrast to the general observation, the austenite phase containing high Co exhibited ferromagnetic behaviour. The coercive field and saturation magnetization of ferromagnetic austenite was 1034 Am^–1 and 11 T, respectively.     

Serum paraoxonase after myocardial infarction

A new concept in reproductive endocrinology is that the status of the ovary as a glucocorticoid target organ alters with follicular development. Evidence for a physiological role of glucocorticoids in the regulation of ovarian folliculogenesis has been strengthened by the discovery that 11beta-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase (11betaHSD) mRNA expression in human granulosa cells is developmentally regulated. In this study, we quantified the pattern of expression and investigated the cellular location of 11betaHSD type 1 (11betaHSD1), 11betaHSD type 2 (11betaHSD2), glucocorticoid receptor (GR), and mineralocorticoid receptor (MR) mRNAs during follicular maturation in rat ovary. Immature female rats received treatment with eCG to induce preovulatory follicular development or eCG followed by hCG to induce luteinization. 11betaHSD1, 11betaHSD2, GR, and MR mRNAs were all detectable by ribonuclease protection assay in ovarian total RNA. Treatment with eCG alone caused an approximately 8-fold increase in the ovarian level of 11betaHSD1 mRNA, which rose to approximately 30-fold after additional treatment with hCG. Equine CG alone did not measurably affect the ovarian 11betaHSD2 mRNA level, but additional treatment with hCG reduced it to 34% of the control level. Expression of GR mRNA was unchanged by any gonadotropin treatment, while MR mRNA was down-regulated. A similar pattern of 11betaHSD1, 11betaHSD2, GR, and MR mRNA expression was observed in isolated granulosa cells. These results provide direct experimental evidence that 11betaHSD genes are gonadotropically regulated in the rat ovary, including granulosa cells, and are consistent with a shift in glucocorticoid metabolism from inactivation (due to oxidation by 11betaHSD2) to activation (reduction by 11betaHSD1) during hCG-induced granulosa cell luteinization.     

A two‐phase harmony search algorithm for continuous optimization

Harmony search (HS) algorithm is inspired by the music improvisation process in which a musician searches for the best harmony and continues to polish the harmony to improve its aesthetics. The efficiency of evolutionary algorithms depends on the extent of balance between diversification and intensification during the course of the search. An ideal evolutionary algorithm must have efficient exploration in the beginning and enhanced exploitation toward the end. In this paper, a two‐phase harmony search (TPHS) algorithm is proposed that attempts to strike a balance between exploration and exploitation by concentrating on diversification in the first phase using catastrophic mutation and then switches to intensification using local search in the second phase. The performance of TPHS is analyzed and compared with 4 state‐of‐the‐art HS variants on all the 30 IEEE CEC 2014 benchmark functions. The numerical results demonstrate the superiority of the proposed TPHS algorithm in terms of accuracy, particularly on multimodal functions when compared with other state‐of‐the‐art HS variants; further comparison with state‐of‐the‐art evolutionary algorithms reveals excellent performance of TPHS on composition functions. Composition functions are combined, rotated, shifted, and biased version of other unimodal and multimodal test functions and mimic the difficulties of real search spaces by providing a massive number of local optima and different shapes for different regions of the search space. The performance of the TPHS algorithm is also evaluated on a real‐life problem from the field of computer vision called camera calibration problem, ie, a 12‐dimensional highly nonlinear optimization problem with several local optima.     

A comparison of techniques for solving the fleet size and mix vehicle routing problem

Summary In the fleet size and mix vehicle routing problem, one decides upon the composition and size of a possibly heterogeneous fleet of vehicles so as to minimize the sum of fixed vehicle acquisition costs and routing costs for customer deliveries. This paper reviews some existing heuristics for this problem as well as a lower bound procedure. Based on the latter, a new heuristic is presented. Computational results are provided for a number of benchmark problems in order to compare the performance of the different solution methods.

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Zusammenfassung Das Problem der Bestimmung einer optimalen Anzahl von möglicherweise verschiedenen Fahrzeugen in einem Fuhrpark sowie die bestmögliche Zusammensetzung verschiedener Fahrzeuge bei der Tourenplanung, wobei die Fixkosten der Beschaffung und die Kosten für die laufende Unterhaltung der Routen minimiert werden soll, wird diskutiert. Einige bekannte Heuristiken und ein Algorithmus zur Bestimmung einer unteren Schranke werden besprochen. Mit diesen Grundlagen wird eine neue Heuristik vorgeschlagen. Um die Leistungsfähigkeit der verschiedenen Lösungsmethoden zu vergleichen, werden anschließend Rechenergebnisse verschiedener benchmark Probleme vorgestellt.

     

Dynamics and the single spike

Responses of vestibular primary afferent neurons to head rotation exhibit fractional-order dynamics. As a consequence, the head tends to be in a localized region of its state-space at spike times of a particular neuron during arbitrary head movements, and single spikes can be interpreted as state measurements. We are developing a model of neural computations underlying trajectory prediction and control tasks, based on this experimental observation. This is a step toward a formal neural calculus in which single spikes are modeled realistically as the operands of neural computation.