Structured 3D representations such as keypoints and meshes offer compact, expressive descriptions of deformable objects, jointly capturing geometric and topological information useful for downstream tasks such as dynamics modeling and motion planning. However, robustly extracting such representations remains challenging, as current perception methods struggle to handle complex deformations. Moreover, large-scale 3D data collection remains a bottleneck: existing approaches either require prohibitive data collection efforts, such as labor-intensive annotation or expensive motion capture setups, or rely on simplifying assumptions that break down in unstructured environments. As a result, large-scale 3D datasets and benchmarks for deformable objects remain scarce. To address these challenges, this paper presents an affordable and autonomous framework for collecting 3D datasets of deformable objects using only RGB-D cameras. The proposed method identifies 3D keypoints and robustly tracks their trajectories, incorporating motion consistency constraints to produce temporally smooth and geometrically coherent data. TrackDeform3D is evaluated against several state-of-the-art tracking methods across diverse object categories and demonstrates consistent improvements in both geometric and tracking accuracy. Using this framework, this paper presents a high-quality, large-scale dataset consisting of 6 deformable objects, totaling 110 minutes of trajectory data.
The underlying data source for web usage mining (WUM) is commonly thought to be server logs. However, access log files ensure quite limited data about the clients. Identifying sessions from this messy data takes a considerable effort, and operations performed for this purpose do not always yield excellent results. Also, this data cannot be used for web analytics efficiently. This study proposes an innovative method for user tracking, session management, and collecting web usage data. The method is mainly based on a new approach for using collected data for web analytics extraction as the data source in web usage mining. An application-based API has been developed with a different strategy from conventional client-side methods to obtain and process log data. The log data has been successfully gathered by integrating the technique into an enterprise web application. The results reveal that the homogeneous structured data collected and stored with this method is more convenient to browse, filter, and process than web server logs. This data stored on a relational database can be used effortlessly as a reliable data source for high-performance web usage mining activity, real-time web analytics, or a functional recommendation system.
parasitological investigation of diagenetictrematodes in three fish species from Iraqi marine territorial waters was conducted from December 2021 to December 2022. The study identified five trematode species belonging tothe families Hemiuridae, Acanthocolpidae, and Opecoelidae. Lecithocladium angustiovumYamaguti, 1953, found in the intestines of the black pomfret Parastromateus niger(Bloch, 1795) (Hemiuridae).Three species of acanthocolpid trematodes, Monostephanostomum loossi(Pandey & Tewari, 1984), Stephanostomum ditrematis(Yamaguti, 1939), and Stephanostomumsp., were recorded in the greater amberjack Seriola dumerili(Risso, 1810) Additionally,Pseudopecoeloides tenuisYamaguti, 1940 (Opecoelidae) was recorded in thepurple-spotted bigeyes Priacanthus tayenusRichardson, 1810. Except for L. angustiovum, all of these parasites were recorded for the first time in Iraq and the Arabian Gulf.
Museums. Collectors and collecting, Natural history (General)
Nicolás Benet, Luís Luís, Rosario Pérez Martín
et al.
Exponemos las circunstancias que rodearon el descubrimiento, identificación inicial y reconocimiento científico de las manifestaciones artísticas paleolíticas de Siega Verde y Foz Côa. Se describe como discurrieron, de forma paralela y asimétrica, el polémico proceso de validación científica de su carácter cultural y cronológico debido a los intereses que se vieron involucrados, los problemas de protección y conservación abordados a cada lado de la frontera, y el impacto social e incluso político que acarrearon ambos hallazgos. Todos los acontecimientos vividos en la última década del siglo XX influyeron de forma muy notable en el desarrollo posterior de la investigación, de su proyección pública, y en la dotación de infraestructuras culturales en un contexto rural muy deprimido, alejado de los centros poblacionales y económicos. Y el proceso concluye en la situación actual, una vez que ambas estaciones hermanadas se ganaron el reconocimiento patrimonial en el ámbito nacional e internacional.
History of the arts, Museums. Collectors and collecting
The author highlights the importance of museum activism as institutions become agents of social change in war. The article provides an understanding of how local stakeholders in conflict scenarios such as the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 can become empowered and develop effective strategies to preserve their values and rebuild their careers. In addition, the author presents examples of international solidarity which have supported Ukrainian museums and their workers. The research findings support the potential of museum activism in sustaining cultural heritage in times of conflict.
Distributed deep neural network training necessitates efficient GPU collective communications, which are inherently susceptible to deadlocks. GPU collective deadlocks arise easily in distributed deep learning applications when multiple collectives circularly wait for each other. GPU collective deadlocks pose a significant challenge to the correct functioning and efficiency of distributed deep learning, and no general effective solutions are currently available. Only in specific scenarios, ad-hoc methods, making an application invoke collectives in a consistent order across GPUs, can be used to prevent circular collective dependency and deadlocks. This paper presents DFCCL, a novel GPU collective communication library that provides a comprehensive approach for GPU collective deadlock prevention while maintaining high performance. DFCCL achieves preemption for GPU collectives at the bottom library level, effectively preventing deadlocks even if applications cause circular collective dependency. DFCCL ensures high performance with its execution and scheduling methods for collectives. Experiments show that DFCCL effectively prevents GPU collective deadlocks in various situations. Moreover, extensive evaluations demonstrate that DFCCL delivers performance comparable to or superior to NCCL, the state-of-the-art collective communication library highly optimized for NVIDIA GPUs.
This paper addresses the importance of a structural approach for identifying and interpreting building chronology, as well as for the establishment of historical stratigraphy. Through structural analyses, carried out on the oldest extant royal mausoleum in North Africa, the Medracen (4th-3rd century BC), located in eastern Algeria, it has been possible to identify building sequences and structural characteristics; a reinterpretation of its constructive sequence within a specific historical context was also suggested. A static linear Finite Element Method (FEM) analysis was performed on a simplified 3D model conceived with solid elements to assess the structural behaviour of the structure under the effect of its self-weight and to identify, consequently, its construction sequence. The equilibrium approach was effective in identifying the structure’s geometry. Results show that Medracen’s ancient restoration was a strengthening intervention strategy and had a symbolic aim related to the function of the funerary building. Restoration works, consisting of repairing specific parts of the building and adding an external cladding, as a whole architectural entity, contributed to reducing the effect of tensile stress, therefore, stabilizing the inner core. Besides, this same action was a means for the Numidian elite to transform an ancient monumental burial (sepulchrum) into a monument (monumentum) with cultural significance likely to convey socio-political messages relating to power and sovereignty. Therefore, we can speak of an “evolutionary restoration” that reflects the ambitions of the Numidian elite to become part of the Mediterranean orbit.
Collections of research article data harvested from the web have become common recently since they are important resources for experimenting on tasks such as named entity recognition, text summarization, or keyword generation. In fact, certain types of experiments require collections that are both large and topically structured, with records assigned to separate research disciplines. Unfortunately, the current collections of publicly available research articles are either small or heterogeneous and unstructured. In this work, we perform topic segmentation of a paper data collection that we crawled and produce a multitopic dataset of roughly seven million paper data records. We construct a taxonomy of topics extracted from the data records and then annotate each document with its corresponding topic from that taxonomy. As a result, it is possible to use this newly proposed dataset in two modalities: as a heterogeneous collection of documents from various disciplines or as a set of homogeneous collections, each from a single research topic.
Kasra EdalatNejad, Mathilde Raynal, Wouter Lueks
et al.
We introduce Private Collection Matching (PCM) problems, in which a client aims to determine whether a collection of sets owned by a server matches their interests. Existing privacy-preserving cryptographic primitives cannot solve PCM problems efficiently without harming privacy. We propose a modular framework that enables designers to build privacy-preserving PCM systems that output one bit: whether a collection of server sets matches the client's set. The communication cost of our protocols scales linearly with the size of the client's set and is independent of the number of server elements. We demonstrate the potential of our framework by designing and implementing novel solutions for two real-world PCM problems: determining whether a dataset has chemical compounds of interest, and determining whether a document collection has relevant documents. Our evaluation shows that we offer a privacy gain with respect to existing works at a reasonable communication and computation cost.
This paper reports the first academic research on the collection of Yan Xinhou (1838–1906), a prominent gentry–merchant from the second half of the nineteenth century. It presents the Yan collection, now housed at the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University, and tells a fascinating story of the Yan family and how their collection came to the United States during the early twentieth century. More importantly, it provides a starting point for future explorations of the taste, collecting practices and social relations of the late Qing merchants. The collection contains thirty-two works of Ming and Qing dynasty painting and calligraphy, including calligraphy items by Zhang Ruitu (1570–1641), Jiang Chenying (1628–1699) and Qian Bojiong (1738–1812); paintings by Wang Shimin (1592–1680), Xiao Yuncong (1596–1673), Wang Wu (1632-1690), Ma Quan (active 1800s), Shangguan Zhou (1665–c.1749), Zheng Xie (1693–1765), Hua Yan (1682–1756), Xi Gang (1746–1803), Pan Simu (1756–after 1843), Zhao Wei (1746–1825), Qian Du (1764–1845), Gai Qi (1773–1828) and Wu Xizai (1799–1870).
Obecne Muzeum Książąt Czartoryskich jest najstarszym muzeum w Polsce, powstało z inicjatywy Izabeli Czartoryskiej, znanej kolekcjonerki i patriotki. Nie była osamotniona w pozyskiwaniu dla niego pamiątek, znacznie się do tworzenia muzeum przyczynił Tadeusz Czacki, dzięki jego staraniom do muzeum trafiły i zostały ocalone przedmioty należące do znanych Polaków, w tym królów polskich, wyjęte z krypt katedry na Wawelu czy skarbca królewskiego. Choć nie zawsze mamy pewność, czy pozyskane i ofiarowane przez niego do muzeum obiekty są autentycznymi pamiątkami czy prochami sławnych Polaków, należy docenić jego zasługi w powstawaniu tej prześwietnej kolekcji.
La pandemia provocada por el SARS-COV-2 en 2020 y el consecuente estado de alarma
en el que hemos vivido son las causas de los cambios sustanciales producidos en los tradicionales métodos de trabajo; del trabajo presencial hubo que pasar al teletrabajo y adaptarse a medios de comunicación laboral que, si bien ya se usaban, se convirtieron en imprescindibles.
El patrimonio cultural también se ha visto expuesto a nuevos riesgos y los responsables de su salvaguarda ante emergencias han tenido que afrontar el reto de su protección y conservación. Desde la Dirección General de BB. AA. del Ministerio de Cultura y Deporte, se han realizado las actuaciones que se exponen en este trabajo, centrándonos fundamentalmente en lo que ha afectado al Museo Arqueológico Nacional.
History of the arts, Museums. Collectors and collecting
Experience design has become a widely discussed topic. Museums use experience design for engaging their visitors and culture offers exceptional tools for it. Visual arts and music are particularly effective in eliciting visitors’ emotions. However, there are a number of visual and acoustic cues that influence museum visitor response behaviours. Understanding the ways in which the human brain processes information provides a basis for furthering experience design principles. This study focuses on the emotion of surprise, considered especially effective for engaging visitor attention, providing meaning and affecting memory. The methodology involved monitoring psychophysiological responses and self-reports to assess research participants’ reactions to visual/acoustic stimuli. The aim was to confirm/detect types of sensory stimuli that generate the emotion of surprise, to see if participants have similar reactions to stimuli and whether individuals’ self-reports are aligned with their psychophysiological reactions. The results showed that musical stimuli are more effective than visual arts in eliciting surprise. While the study showed no clear indications that visual cues have an effect on surprise, musical cues, such as rapid attack, large pitch variation, higher harmonics, slow tempo with a sudden interruption, and sudden change in loudness do seem to play a role. Other cues, such as major key, 4/4 meter, timbral difference, and diatonic harmony also have an impact on the elicitation of surprise. These are important implications for designing museum experiences.
: El Museo del Prado conserva, desde 1988, la única escultura conocida de John Henry Foley en España, un retrato de
hacia 1872 de Charles Lawes, que se convertiría años después en sir Charles Lawes-Wittewronge. Se representa a tamaño natural
de cuerpo entero, desnudo, como un atleta vencedor descansando, en su condición de excepcional deportista y ganador de innumerables premios. La estatua no figura en ningún estudio de la obra de Foley, solo aparece mencionada en una pequeña biografía de 1912
editada en Londres. Este artículo aporta documentación inédita, localizada junto con la colaboración de Roger Plumb, tanto textual
como fotográfica sobre el encargo y la ejecución, analiza los posibles avatares de su historia y sus características.
The Square Kilometre Array telescopes have recently started their construction phase, after years of pre-construction effort. The new SKA Observatory (SKAO) intergovernmental organisation has been created, and the start of construction ($\mathrm{T_0}$) has already happened. In this talk, we summarise the construction progress of our facility, and the role that agile software development and open-source collaboration, and in particular the development of our TANGO-based control system, is playing.
Konstantinos Giannakis, Joanna M. Chustecki, Iain G. Johnston
Mitochondria in plant cells form strikingly dynamic populations of largely individual organelles. Each mitochondrion contains on average less than a full copy of the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) genome. Here, we asked whether mitochondrial dynamics may allow individual mitochondria to `collect' a full copy of the mtDNA genome over time, by facilitating exchange between individuals. Akin to trade on a social network, exchange of mtDNA fragments across organelles may lead to the emergence of full `effective' genomes in individuals over time. We characterise the collective dynamics of mitochondria in \emph{Arabidopsis thaliana} hypocotyl cells using a recent approach combining single-cell timelapse microscopy, video analysis, and network science. We then use a quantitative model to predict the capacity for the sharing and accumulation of genetic information through the networks of encounters between mitochondria. We find that biological encounter networks are strikingly well predisposed to support the collection of full genomes over time, outperforming a range of other networks generated from theory and simulation. Using results from the coupon collector's problem, we show that the upper tail of the degree distribution is a key determinant of an encounter network's performance at this task and discuss how features of mitochondrial dynamics observed in biology facilitate the emergence of full effective genomes.