VALENCE: affective visualisation using EEG

VALENCE is an interactive visualisation controlled by live brainwave monitoring. We used a wireless EEG headset to monitor the player's alpha waves (an indicator of relaxation) and valence (an indicator of emotion or arousal). The game world is an emergent system of attractive and repulsive forces responding to EEG input.     

FAO’s AVHRR-based Agricultural Stress Index System (ASIS) for global drought monitoring

Agricultural production is highly dependent on climate variability in many parts of the world. In particular, drought may severely reduce crop yields, potentially affecting food availability at local, regional, and global scales. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) operates the Global Early Warning System (GIEWS), which monitors global food supply and demand. One of the key challenges is to obtain synoptic information on a recurrent and timely basis about drought-affected agricultural zones. This is needed to quickly identify areas requiring immediate attention. The Agricultural Stress Index System (ASIS), based on imagery from the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) sensors on board the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and Meteorological Operational Satellite (METOP) satellites, was specifically developed to meet this need. The system is based on a methodology developed by Rojas, Vrieling, and Rembold over the African continent. This approach has been modified and adapted to the global scale to produce an agricultural stress index (ASI) representing, per administrative unit, the percentage of cropland (or pasture) areas affected by drought over the growing season. The vegetation health index (VHI), based on normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and temperature anomalies, is used as a drought indicator. A fused time series of AVHRR data from METOP and NOAA was used to produce a consistent time series of VHI at 1 km resolution. Global phenology maps, indicating the number of growing seasons and their start and end dates, were derived from a multi-annual image set of SPOT-Vegetation (1999–2011). The VHI time series and phenology maps were then combined to produce the ASI for the years 1984 to the present. This allowed evaluation of the suitability of the ASIS to identify drought using historical reports and ancillary data. As a result of this analysis, ASIS was positively evaluated to support the FAO early warning system.     

Early design stage exploration of fixed-length block structured architectures

An important challenge concerning the design of future microprocessors is that current design methodologies are becoming impractical due to long simulation runs and due to the fact that chip layout considerations are not incorporated in early design stages. In this paper, we show that statistical modeling can be used to speed up the architectural simulations and is thus viable for early design stage explorations of new microarchitectures. In addition, we argue that processor layouts should be considered in early design stages in order to tackle the growing importance of interconnects in future technologies. In order to show the applicability of our methodology which combines statistical modeling and processor layout considerations in an early design stage, we have applied our method on a novel architectural paradigm, namely a fixed-length block structured architecture. A fixed-length block structured architecture is an answer to the scalability problem of current architectures. Two important factors prevent contemporary out-of-order architectures from being scalable to higher levels of parallelism in future deep-submicron technologies: the increased complexity and the growing domination of interconnect delays. In this paper, we show by using statistical modeling and processor layout considerations, that a fixed-length block structured architecture is a viable architectural paradigm for future microprocessors in future technologies thanks to the introduction of decentralization and a reduced register file pressure.     

Sub-pixel mapping and sub-pixel sharpening using neural network predicted wavelet coefficients

Sub-pixel mapping and sub-pixel sharpening are techniques for increasing the spatial resolution of sub-pixel image classifications. The proposed method makes use of wavelets and artificial neural networks. Wavelet multiresolution analysis facilitates the link between different resolution levels. In this work a higher resolution image is constructed after estimation of the detail wavelet coefficients with neural networks. Detail wavelet coefficients are used to synthesize the high-resolution approximation. The applied technique allows for both sub-pixel sharpening and sub-pixel mapping. An algorithm was developed on artificial imagery and tested on artificial as well as real synthetic imagery. The proposed method resulted in images with higher spatial resolution showing more spatial detail than the source imagery. Evaluation of the algorithm was performed both visually and quantitatively using established classification accuracy indices.     

Porous,Sintered Glass‐Ceramics from Inorganic Polymers Based on Fayalite Slag

The present paper deals with the synthesis of porous, sintered glass‐ceramics obtained at temperatures below 1150°C, originating from inorganic polymers based on fayalite slag. Firing led to the evaporation of water, dehydroxylation, and oxidation of Fe²⁺ above 345°C. For heating >700°C, the Si–O stretching band shifted from the 1160 and 750 cm^?1 to the 1255 and 830 cm^?1 region, due to a structural reorganization of the amorphous phase, whereas Fe–O bands appeared at 550 cm^?1. The final microstructure consisted predominantly of an amorphous phase, hematite, and franklinite. The open porosity and compressive strength decreased and increased, respectively, as the firing temperature increased. The final values suggest properties comparable to that of structural lightweight concrete, still, the materials synthesized herein, are lighter, and made primarily from secondary resources.     

Formation,stability, and properties of in-situ composites based on blends of a thermotropic liquid crystalline polymer and a thermoplastic elastomer

This paper describes the preparation and properties of in-situ composites based on polymers with no overlap in processing temperatures. The polymers used were Vectra A900, a thermotropic liquid crystalline copolyester (TLCP), and Arnitel em630, a thermoplastic elastomer. Blends were generated by feeding the two components from separate extruders into a Ross static mixer. Different morphologies were obtained by varying the number of mixing elements of the static mixer. Using 8 mixing elements led to a stratified morphology of Vectra layers in Arnitel, using 11 mixing elements resulted in the desired continuous fiber/matrix morphology whereas a pronounced skin-core morphology was obtained with 14 mixing elements. It is argued that in-situ composites can be generated by a distributive mixing process without the formation of an intermediate droplet/matrix morphology as occurs in common dispersive blending equipment. Tensile modulus and strength of all blends increased with extrudate draw ratio as a result of increased molecular orientation of the TLCP phase. The level of reinforcement, however, was lower than expected, probably due to the low temperature of drawing. Annealing and capillary instability experiments showed that above the melting point of the TLCP the fiber/matrix morphology rapidly breaks up into a droplet/matrix morphology. This process takes just a few seconds for fibers of thickness ∼ 1 μm. It is shown to be the probable cause of the skin-core morphology obtained in case of 14 mixing elements.     

Resistance of Listeria monocytogenes, Escherichia coli O157:H7 and Campylobacter jejuni after exposure to repetitive cycles of mild bactericidal treatments

While maintaining nutritional and sensorial attributes of fresh foods mild processing technologies generally deliver microbiologically perishable food products. Currently little information exists on possible increase in the resistance of pathogens after repetitive exposure to mild (sub-lethal) treatments. Multiple strain-cocktails of Listeria monocytogenes, Escherichia coli O157:H7 and Campylobacter jejuni were exposed to 20 consecutive cycles of sub-lethal inactivation by three different techniques. Used techniques comprised inactivation with lactic acid (LA), chlorine dioxide (ClO₂) and intense light pulses (ILP). Results showed that the selection of resistant cells was both species and technique dependent. While repetitive cycles of ClO₂ treatment did not result in increased resistance, repetitive inactivation with LA yielded L. monocytogenes culture of higher resistance in comparison to the parental culture. The increased resistance, expressed as decreased level of reduction in bacterial counts in subsequent inactivation cycles, was also observed with ILP for both L. monocytogenes and E. coli O157:H7 strains. Visual trend observations were confirmed through statistical linear regression analysis. No such effects were noted for C. jejuni which became undetectable after first 2–5 cycles. Current findings indicate the ability of foodborne pathogens to adapt to mild bactericidal treatments creating new challenges in risk assessment and more specifically in hazard analysis.     

Molecular characterization of Escherichia coli O157 contamination routes in a cattle slaughterhouse

In a cattle slaughterhouse, sampling was performed over a 1-week period to examine the prevalence and possible contamination routes of Escherichia coli O157. Each sampling day, swab samples were collected from the slaughterhouse environment before onset of slaughter, from the slaughterline, and from 20 successively slaughtered animals. Isolation of E. coli O157 consisted of a 6-hour enrichment followed by immunomagnetic separation and selective plating. From the 394 samples taken, 84 (21%) were positive for E. coli O157. Pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) of collected isolates produced 26 different profiles, from which 5 PFGE profiles carried two or more Stx genes. The combination of PFGE profiles and Stx types resulted in 32 different E. coli O157 types. E. coli O157 was found in the slaughterhouse environment before the onset of slaughter. The first two sampling days, feces and carcasses were found negative. On the third sampling day, five fecal samples and four carcasses from animals negative in the feces were positive. Hide of the anal region and the shoulder were found positive every sampling day. The shoulder hide was more than twice as contaminated as the anal region hide. Typing of different isolates from a sample showed that frequently different E. coli O157 types were presented. On sampling days 1 and 2, types present in the environment and on the hides of the slaughtered animals differed. On the third sampling day, two dominant types were found in the environment (even before the onset of slaughter), as well as on the hides, feces, and carcasses. Although examined animals originated from different farms, one (two on day 3) dominant E. coli O157 type was present on their hides each sampling day. These data indicated that (i) the progress of contamination can differ from day to day within a slaughterhouse and (ii) contact between animals after the departure from the farm can have a large effect on the spread of E. coli O157 hide contamination.