Dynamic content-page identification for media-rich websites

Knowledge of the information goal of users is critical in website design, analyzing the efficacy of such designs, and in ensuring effective user-access to desired information. Determining the information goal is complex due to the subjective and latent nature of user information needs. This challenge is further exacerbated in media-rich websites since the semantics of media-based information is context-based and emergent. A critical step in determining information goals lies in the identification of content pages. These are the pages which contain the information the user seeks. We propose a method to automatically determine the content pages by taking into account the organization of the web site, the media-based information content, as well as the influence of a specific user browsing pattern. Given a specific browsing pattern, in our method, putative content pages are identified as the pages corresponding to the local minima of page-content entropy values. For an (unknown) user information goal this intuitively corresponds to modeling the progressive transition of the user from pages with generic information to those with specific information. Experimental investigations on media rich sites demonstrate the effectiveness of the technique and underline its potential in modeling user information needs and actions in a media-rich web.     

A tutorial on modelling and inference in undirected graphical models for hyperspectral image analysis

ABSTRACT

Undirected graphical models have been successfully used to jointly model the spatial and the spectral dependencies in earth observing hyperspectral images. They produce less noisy, smooth, and spatially coherent land-cover maps and give top accuracies on many datasets. Moreover, they can easily be combined with other state-of-the-art approaches, such as deep learning. This has made them an essential tool for remote-sensing researchers and practitioners. However, graphical models have not been easily accessible to the larger remote-sensing community as they are not discussed in standard remote-sensing textbooks and not included in the popular remote-sensing software and toolboxes. In this tutorial, we provide a theoretical introduction to Markov random fields and conditional random fields-based spatial–spectral classification for land-cover mapping along with a detailed step-by-step practical guide on applying these methods using freely available software. Furthermore, the discussed methods are benchmarked on four public hyperspectral datasets for a fair comparison among themselves and easy comparison with the vast number of methods in literature which use the same datasets. The source code necessary to reproduce all the results in the paper is published on-line to make it easier for the readers to apply these techniques to different remote-sensing problems.     

Active Fiber Bragg Grating Hydrogen Sensors for All-Temperature Operation

The use of liquid hydrogen as a fuel requires low-cost multipoint sensing of hydrogen gas for leak detection and location well below the 4% explosion limit of hydrogen. Herein is presented a multipoint in-fiber hydrogen sensor capable of hydrogen detection below 0.5% concentration with a response time of less than 10 s. Our solution entails use of a fiber Bragg grating (FBG) coated with a layer of hydrogen-absorbing palladium which, in turn, induces strain in the FBG in the presence of hydrogen. Infrared power laser light is used to induce heating in the palladium coating which dramatically decreases sensor response time and increases the sensor's sensitivity at low temperatures. This technology promises an inexpensive fiber solution for a multipoint hydrogen detection array with only one fiber feed-through     

The Effects of Concentration, Relative Permittivity and Temperature on the Transport Properties of Sodium Polystyrenesulphonate in Methanol–Water Mixed Solvent Media

Precise measurements on the electrical conductivity of solutions of sodium polystyrenesulphonate in methanol–water mixed solvent media containing 8, 16, 25, and 34 wt.% of methanol at 308.15, 313.15, 318.15, and 323.15 K are reported. The degree of substitution of sodium polystyrenesulphonate used was 1, and the concentrations were varied from ∼2.0 × 10⁻⁴ to ∼4.0 × 10⁻³ monomol l⁻¹. The results showed a slight and monotonous increase in the equivalent conductivity with decreasing polyelectrolyte concentration. The applicability of the Manning’s theory for salt-free polyelectrolyte solution was examined and a major discrepancy against the theory was observed. The calculated values of the equivalent conductivity deduced on the basis of this theory were found to be lower than the experimental ones. Possible reasons for this discrepancy have been discussed. The effects of the temperature and relative permittivity of the medium on the equivalent conductivity were also investigated. Estimation of the fractions of uncondensed counterions provides important insight regarding the solution behavior of the polyelectrolyte in methanol–water mixtures.     

Validation of the MEDFICTS dietary questionnaire: A clinical tool to assess adherence to American Heart Association dietary fat intake guidelines

Background  

Dietary assessment tools are often too long, difficult to quantify, expensive to process, and largely used for research purposes. A rapid and accurate assessment of dietary fat intake is critically important in clinical decision-making regarding dietary advice for coronary risk reduction. We assessed the validity of the MEDFICTS (MF) questionnaire, a brief instrument developed to assess fat intake according to the American Heart Association (AHA) dietary "steps".     

Estimation of the daily global solar radiation; Nepal experience

This work focuses on estimation of global solar radiation and, in particular, it explores the effect of precipitation and temperature on solar radiation profile of Kathmandu (Nepal). An accurate knowledge of solar radiation distribution in each particular geographical location is crucial for the promotion of solar energy technology. The best way of knowing the amount of global solar radiation is to install quality instruments at many locations in the given region. This requires their day to day maintenance, recording and calibration, which is very costly in developing countries like Nepal. Thus, the alternative approach is to correlate meteorological measurements with appropriate models and investigate the key parameters. For the research activities the RadEst program has been used. It includes, for evaluating the daily global solar radiation values at a given latitudes, four models which estimate the atmospheric transmissivity by measurements of daily temperature range and precipitations. The model parameters are fitted in 2 years data by iterative procedures. The values obtained by these models are, then, compared with measured radiation data. The paper reports graphical and statistical evaluations suggesting that among the four models, the Modular DCBB is the best model for Kathmandu area. This result is useful for designing solar panels able to maximize the harvesting of solar energy and to reduce the chronic shortage of hydrocarbon fuel that Nepal imports in a significant amount each year.     

A First-Principles Computational Framework for Liquid Mineral Systems

Computer modeling of liquid phase poses tremendous challenge: It requires a relatively large simulation size, long simulation time and accurate interatomic interaction and as such, it produces massive amounts of data. Recent advances in hardware and software have made it possible to accurately simulate the liquid phase. This paper reports the details of methodology used in the context of liquid simulations and subsequent analysis of the output data. For illustration purpose, we consider the results for the liquid phases of two geophysically relevant materials, namely MgO and MgSiO₃. The simulations are performed using the parallel first-principles molecular dynamics (FPMD) technique within the framework of density functional theory. Various physical properties including the equation of state, diffusion, atomic structure and electronic structure of these liquids are obtained as a function of pressure and temperature. The three-dimensional and timedependent data for atomic configuration and electronic density are analyzed using the recently developed spacetime- multiresolution and multiple-dataset-visualization techniques. It is shown that the structural, dynamical and electronic properties of the liquid phases are highly sensitive to compression, with no discernible influence of temperature in most cases.     

Adapted Delaunay triangulation method for free-form surface generation from random point clouds for stochastic optimization applications

Free-form surfaces are defined with NURBS (non-uniform rational basis spline) for most computer-aided engineering (CAE) applications. The NURBS method requ     

Enhancing Therapeutic Efficacy of Combined Cancer Phototherapy by Ultrasound‐Mediated In Situ Conversion of Near‐Infrared Cyanine/Porphyrin Microbubbles into Nanoparticles

Nanoparticles (NPs)‐based diagnosis and phototherapy are emerging as the cutting‐edge technologies for detection and treatment of cancer but their applications are still limited since insufficient and heterogeneous NPs accumulation in cancer often causes recurrence. To overcome these limitations, multifunctional microbubbles (MBs) were constructed with 1, 1‐dioctadecyl‐3, 3, 3, 3‐tetramethylindotricarbocyanine iodide (DiR) and porphyrin grafted lipid (PGL). Both DiR and PGL self‐assembled as microbubbles, the as‐designed PGL‐DiR MBs possess remarkably high drug loading contents (5.8% PGL and 10.38% DiR) and stable co‐delivery drug combinations. In vivo experiments showed PGL‐DiR MBs could serve as an excellent ultrasound contrast agent to enhance ultrasound imaging greatly for identifying the location and size of the tumors. Upon exposure to ultrasound, in situ conversion of PGL‐DiR MBs into nanoparticles resulted in a remarkable increase in fluorescence intensity (~5 folds) in tumor compared with PGL‐DiR NPs, validating the enhanced tumor accumulation and cellular uptake of therapeutic agents. PGL‐DiR MBs showed complete tumor ablation without recurrence in vivo, while PGL‐DiR NPs showed only 72.6% tumor growth inhibition at the same dose. We believe that PGL‐DiR MBs will soon reach their full potential as an important class of phototherapeutic formulations and will contribute to remarkable advances in cancer treatments.     

Relating the N-shaped polarization curve of a PEM fuel cell to local oxygen starvation and hydrogen evolution

In this study, we experimentally investigate the appearance of a local negative differential resistance (N-NDR) branch in polarization curves of a segmented 7 by 7 cell measured under the steady and highly-dynamic conditions. Under both conditions, a comma shaped polarization curve, corresponding to depletion of oxygen, was followed by an increase in current as the cell voltage was lowered. This characteristic was measured under potentiostatic mode, where no current is forced through the cell, and at a positive cell voltage (<100 mV in steady-state and ∼300 mV in dynamic condition). With a theoretical model, we show that at these positive cell voltages and upon the depletion of oxygen, a shift in the Nernst potential occurs allowing for the hydrogen evolution reaction to take place in the cathode catalyst layer. The results of the model are complemented with experimental measurements of produced hydrogen at the cathode outlet.