In high-speed hydraulic machinery, its efficiency and reliability are affected by the cavitation in the bearing. Due to the confined effect of the bearing clearance, cavitation bubbles grow in a two-dimensional way. To uncover the cavitation process with confined and high speed shearing effect, the high-speed cavitation flowing of different refrigerants is researched experimentally based on the high-speed shearing test rig with micro-clearance. The influence of thermophysical properties on growth of cavitation bubble is evaluated and analyzed. The confined effect of micro-clearance and high-speed shearing effect has a significant influence on the cavitation bubbles evolution. The high-speed camera is used to record the morphology of cavitation bubbles for various refrigerants with different thermalphysical properties. Furthermore, the thermal-sensitive cavitation model is used to analyze the bubble-foam alternation from cavitation flow inside micro-clearance. For different refrigerants, the growth process of cavitation bubble area is exponential. Inside the micro-clearance, the cavitation inducing pressure drops of different refrigerants are analogous due to the similar thermodynamic properties. According to pressure drop during cavitation, different refrigerants are classified by introducing dimensionless numbers, σ·Re (Jie et al., 2009) [2] and σ·We. The pressure and temperature drop increase with the dimensionless numbers. The refrigerants with similar thermodynamic properties have a similar relationship between dimensionless number and supercooling degree.
The author explores the issue of “ludonarrative dissonance”, a term developed by the game designer C. Hocking in his critique of the game BioShock. The author explains Hocking’s arguments and then expands on the term, disagreeing with Hocking. In the case of BioShock, the author interprets the dissonance not as a design flaw but as a deliberate narrative strategy that momentarily distances the player from the game’s fiction to emphasize its metanarrative dimension. The author argues that ludonarrative dissonance is itself part of videogame poetics, thus echoing the works of F. Seraphine and P. Grabarczyk & B.W. Kampmann. The author then examines how ludonarrative dissonance may appear in vast, nonlinear open-world cRPGs. An analysis of examples from The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim, Fallout 3, and Fallout 4 reveals various instances of unintended dissonance. Finally, the author compares these games to Fallout: New Vegas, presenting it as an example of harmonizing the narrative – the main motifs and story – with the narrativity of gameplay, including rules, mechanics, and vast player agency.
City identity and branding have traditionally been shaped by iconic architecture, including monumental buildings and landmarks. However, recent studies have begun to explore city branding through corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives, particularly from a landscape perspective. There is limited research, particularly in the Global South, examining the role of CSR in the enhancement of open green spaces and its contribution to shaping urban landscape identity. This study investigates CSR-driven beautification projects in Kisumu City, Kenya, where corporate-funded initiatives have sought to improve urban landscapes through the landscaping of road islands and roundabouts, alongside broader urban renewal efforts. The article aims to document the spatial attributes of these CSR projects; assess their current status in terms of cleanliness, safety, and maintenance, as well as identify the challenges faced in implementing CSR-driven beautification efforts. The aim of these projects is not only to promote the city’s unique urban identity, but also to enhance the corporate image through landscape branding. A qualitative research methodology is employed, involving field observations, GIS mapping, and photography, complemented by purposive interviews. The findings reveal not only diverse landscape designs, including water features and sculptures, but also highlight significant issues with upkeep, safety concerns from street urchins, and the overall deterioration of some sites. These results are valuable for policymakers in city governments and corporations involved in CSR projects, offering insights into how such initiatives can better contribute to urban landscape identity, city branding, and the sustainability of urban beautification efforts.
Md Mijanur Rahman, Ashik Uzzaman, Sadia Islam Sami
et al.
Abstract This study introduces a novel encoder–decoder framework based on deep neural networks and provides a thorough investigation into the field of automatic picture captioning systems. The suggested model uses a “long short‐term memory” decoder for word prediction and sentence construction, and a “convolutional neural network” as an encoder that is skilled at object recognition and spatial information retention. The long short‐term memory network functions as a sequence processor, generating a fixed‐length output vector for final predictions, while the VGG‐19 model is utilized as an image feature extractor. For both training and testing, the study uses a variety of photos from open‐access datasets, such as Flickr8k, Flickr30k, and MS COCO. The Python platform is used for implementation, with Keras and TensorFlow as backends. The experimental findings, which were assessed using the “bilingual evaluation understudy” metric, demonstrate the effectiveness of the suggested methodology in automatically captioning images. By addressing spatial relationships in images and producing logical, contextually relevant captions, the paper advances image captioning technology. Insightful ideas for future study directions are generated by the discussion of the difficulties faced during the experimentation phase. By establishing a strong neural network architecture for automatic picture captioning, this study creates opportunities for future advancement and improvement in the area.
Experiments were conducted to evaluate the healing of drying cracks in air-dried bentonite-sand blocks after hydration and swelling in groundwater, providing justifications to simplify the protection of blocks prior to installation in a high-level radioactive waste repository. Synthetic groundwater was prepared to represent the geochemistry of Beishan groundwater, and was used to hydrate the blocks during the swelling pressure and swelling strain measurements, as Beishan is the most promising site for China's repository. Healing of the surface cracks was recorded by photography, and healing of the internal cracks was visualized by CT images and hydraulic conductivity of air-dried blocks. The results indicate that the maximum swelling pressure and swelling strain are primarily affected by the geochemistry of Beishan groundwater, but not affected by the drying cracks. The maximum swelling pressure and swelling strain of air-dried blocks are comparable to or even higher than the pressure and strain of fresh blocks. The maximum swelling pressure measured in strong (i.e. high ion strength) Beishan groundwater was 44% of the pressure measured in deionized (DI) water, and the maximum swelling strain was reduced to 23% of the strain measured in DI water. Nevertheless, the remained swelling of the blocks hydrated in strong Beishan groundwater was sufficient to heal the surface and internal drying cracks, as demonstrated by the pictures of surface cracks and CT images. The hydraulic conductivity of the air-dried block permeated with strong groundwater was comparable (3.7× higher) to the hydraulic conductivity of the fresh block, indicating the self-healing of drying cracks after hydration and swelling in groundwater. A simplified method of protecting the block with plastic wraps before installation is recommended, since the remained swelling of the block hydrated in Beishan groundwater is sufficient to heal the drying cracks.
Engineering geology. Rock mechanics. Soil mechanics. Underground construction
The article examines the tension between the individual and the collective in current mainstream photographic practice, which is considered within the long-term historical context of commercial portraiture. The individualizing tendencies of this representational tradition as well as its status as (auto)biographical fiction were astutely analyzed by the Russian avant-garde thinkers Alexander Rodchenko and Osip Brik. Criticizing the persistence of “painterly” clichés in studio photography of their time, they saw these conventional elements as something that obscures and distorts reality, substituting for it a beautiful picture. For these leftist theorists, reality was primarily defined by the interplay of social forces, and isolating the subject within the picture frame was sufficient grounds for their disapproval. Taking up their notion of cliché applied particularly to posing, this article proposes to view it, instead, as an entry point into the usually invisible collective dimension of each individual portrait. The first section of the article discusses historical precedents to current mainstream photographic portraiture in terms of class- and gender-specific pressures on the sitters which have contributed to the homogenization of the genre’s visual canon. The suggestion to view stylistically similar images of individuals as expressing a latent collectivity is developed in the second part of the article, which analyzes Jana Romanova’s photographic series W through the theoretical framework borrowed from Lauren Berlant (“intimate public”, “female complaint”) and Gayle Letherby (“auto/biography”).
From the mid-1970s until the late 1980s, Angola hosted guerrillas fighting for the liberation of other southern African states, as well as Cuban and Soviet military advisors and civilian professionals. As the study of Cold War era liberation struggles has developed from nation-centred narratives towards both global and local perspectives, the international encounters that took place in the ambit of these struggles have attracted attention from several historians. In particular, the military training camps have come to be seen as an environment that nurtured specific kinds of social and political relationships, although little physical evidence of these camps remains. This article is based on photographs taken at Camalundu and Caculama, two sites in the Angolan Malanje province where the remains of camps are still visible. At Camalundu, Portuguese colonial architecture points to the original function of the site, while slogans painted in English and Spanish, variously referencing South African history and global revolutionary movements, bear witness to the presence of Cubans and South Africans, and provide evidence of how they saw their own role within the international politics of the day. At Caculama the secluded and defensive nature of the site and its installations provides evidence of the South African role in relation to Angolan strategic thinking. The photographs complement the existing memoirs and oral testimony about the politics of exile and about life in the camps, providing diverse evidence about the presence of liberation fighters and their relationships with the wider world. They also enable the preservation of a visual and tangible historical record which, in the absence of preservation measures, is in danger of decay beyond recognition.
Abstract Face hallucination is a super‐resolution technique specially designed to reconstruct high‐resolution faces from low‐resolution faces. Most state‐of‐the‐art algorithms leverage position‐patch prior knowledge of human faces to better super‐resolve face images. However, most of them assume the training face dataset is sufficiently large, well cropped or aligned. This paper, proposes a novel example‐based face hallucination method, based on cluster consistent dictionary learning with the assumption that human faces have similar facial structures. In this method, the paired face image patches are firstly labelled as face areas including eyes, nose, mouth and other parts, as well as non‐face areas without requiring the training face images cropped and aligned. Then, the training patches are clustered according their labels and textures. The cluster consistent dictionary is learned to represent the low‐resolution patches and the high‐resolution patches. Finally, the high‐resolution patches of the input low‐resolution face image can be efficiently generated by using the adjusted anchored neighbourhood regression. As utilizing the labelled facial parts prior knowledge, the proposed method represents more details in the reconstruction. Experimental results demonstrate that the authors' algorithm outperforms many state‐of‐the‐art techniques for face hallucination under different datasets.
Iain R. Williamson, Kerry Quincey, Benjamin J. Lond
et al.
Using participant-authored photography to inform and complement the collection of interview data is increasingly popular in Psychology but reflective accounts of issues faced by researchers and participants remain scarce. We therefore present a critical commentary on some of the unexpected outcomes that have emerged during recent studies on health and disability which have employed this approach. Under the theme of ‘unanticipated voices’ we discuss some of the challenges we have experienced around data gathering, interpretation, presentation and dissemination. We consider methodological, theoretical and ethical challenges for this paradigm and some of the challenges involved in publishing this type of work.
William M. Hammond, Marie E. B. Stone, Paul A. Stone
Abstract Anthropogenic climate change is altering every ecosystem on Earth. Understanding these changes requires quality baseline measurements of ecosystem states. While satellite imagery provides a coarse baseline for regional‐scale changes in vegetation, landscape‐scale observations are lacking. Ground‐based repeat photographic points (RPP) can provide this finer baseline. As precise visual records of ecosystems at a particular time, RPP provide rich data for diverse uses. Current methodology for establishing RPP, developed in the era of film cameras, requires placement of permanent markers in a landscape to provide accurate repeats over time. Another form of RPP involves relocating sites of historic photographs, to assess change between historic and present‐day photographs. Through a three‐year field survey, we synthesized these techniques to modernize repeat photography for the 21st century ecologist. We established 100 RPP in the Peloncillo Mountains of New Mexico, recapturing 86 RPP in the three years (2015–2017) of the study. During our study, a large (>16,000 ha) complex of wildfires burned more than half of the RPP sites we established in the prior month, providing a unique opportunity to assess method accuracy after dramatic landscape disturbance by comparing burned, unburned, pre‐, and post‐fire RPP image recapture precision. Our method produced 92% mean similarity for 86 RPP between original and repeated photographs, with no difference between burned and unburned sites. Interval between photographs did not cause a decline in similarity. Our updated methods can be practically applied to nearly all terrestrial study systems. Landscape changes driven by human (e.g., effects of anthropogenic climate change, land use) and natural activities (e.g., wildfires, phenology, and hydrologic events) are especially well suited to our updated methods. Modern smartphones include the technology necessary (e.g., camera, GPS, and compass) to employ our method and provide a means for low‐cost deployment of the technique in diverse landscapes. We encourage broad adoption of this technique to establish baseline RPP of ecosystems across the globe, and the formation of a centralized database for repeat photography.
The sprouting of potato tubers during storage is a significant problem that suppresses obtaining high quality seeds or fried products. In this study, the potential of fusing data obtained from visible (VIS)/near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopic and hyperspectral imaging systems was investigated, to improve the prediction of primordial leaf count as a significant sign for tubers sprouting. Electronic and lab measurements were conducted on whole tubers of Frito Lay 1879 (FL1879) and Russet Norkotah (R.Norkotah) potato cultivars. The interval partial least squares (IPLS) technique was adopted to extract the most effective wavelengths for both systems. Linear regression was utilized using partial least squares regression (PLSR), and the best calibration model was chosen using four-fold cross-validation. Then the prediction models were obtained using separate test data sets. Prediction results were enhanced compared with those obtained from individual systems’ models. The values of the correlation coefficient (the ratio between performance to deviation, or r(RPD)) were 0.95(3.01) and 0.9s6(3.55) for FL1879 and R.Norkotah, respectively, which represented a feasible improvement by 6.7%(35.6%) and 24.7%(136.7%) for FL1879 and R.Norkotah, respectively. The proposed study shows the possibility of building a rapid, noninvasive, and accurate system or device that requires minimal or no sample preparation to track the sprouting activity of stored potato tubers.
Photography, Computer applications to medicine. Medical informatics
Antonija Kovač, Dorotea Kovačević , Josip Bota
et al.
Many recent researches focused on packaging elements as two separate groups: visual and informative elements. This study goes deeper into the group of visual elements on food packaging (i.e. strawberry chocolate packaging) in order to investigate their ability to attract attention. The elements tested in the study were: typeface, graphics, pattern and colour. The study included 90 people who participated by filling out an online questionnaire. The participants’ task was to choose, among packaging designs with the manipulated visual elements, the one they preferred. According to the results, typeface did not affect participants’ preferences. On the contrary, graphics, patterns and colours had a significant impact on the choices. Participants preferred photography over illustration, concrete pattern over abstract and vivid colours over dull. These results can be used as guidelines in marketing and design.
Arianne Pontes Oriá, Miriam Flores Rebouças, Emanoel Martins Filho
et al.
The original article [1] contained an error whereby the respective legends of Figs. 2 and 3 were mistakenly interchanged. This error has now been amended.
In recent years, the world has been focusing heavily on the technological development of television production, which represents a fundamental tool in the development of the visual media system, in addition to the viewer who has become one of the most important variables in this system between technology and television creativity in its various forms and types. This technological development has brought about great and dramatic transformations in television media practice in accordance with trends and ideologies that always serve specific objectives for different organizations and media systems through precise technological techniques and techniques for image formation Which led to many fundamental changes in the executive methods of the television image as one of the most important means of the visual media system and how to receive it by the viewer, Which led to the development of new ways in the world of media creativity on both sides of intellectual and technical has been able to affect the methods of production of the media system constituent of the visual discourse in general and its different types. The research will discuss the evolution of the TV production technology and its latest developments,and the development of the different multiple aspects of the systems and devices to be able to catch up with the creative aspect of the creators of the media content of the visual image in general and television in particular, and also Exposure to the role that played by this technological development to advance the media message presented.
Jake E. Simpson, Martin J. Wooster, Thomas E. L. Smith
et al.
We provide the first assessment of tropical peatland depth of burn (DoB) using structure from motion (SfM) photogrammetry, applied to imagery collected using a low-cost, low-altitude unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) system operated over a 5.2 ha tropical peatland in Jambi Province on Sumatra, Indonesia. Tropical peat soils are the result of thousands of years of dead biomass accumulation, and when burned are globally significant net sources of carbon emissions. The El Niño year of 2015 saw huge areas of Indonesia affected by tropical peatland fires, more so than any year since 1997. However, the Depth of Burn (DoB) of these 2015 fires has not been assessed, and indeed has only previously been assessed in few tropical peatland burns in Kalimantan. Therefore, DoB remains arguably the largest uncertainty when undertaking fire emissions calculations in these tropical peatland environments. We apply a SfM photogrammetric methodology to map this DoB metric, and also investigate combustion heterogeneity using orthomosaic photography collected using the UAV system. We supplement this information with pre-burn airborne light detection and ranging (LiDAR) data, reducing uncertainty by estimating pre-burn soil height more accurately than from interpolation of adjacent unburned areas alone. Our pre-and post-fire Digital Terrain Models (DTMs) show accuracies of 0.04 and 0.05 m (root-mean-square error, RMSE) respectively, compared to ground-based global navigation satellite system (GNSS) surveys. Our final DoB map of a 5.2 ha degraded peat swamp forest area neighboring Berbak National Park (Sumatra, Indonesia) shows burn depths extending from close to zero to over 1 m, with a mean (±1σ) DoB of 0.23 ± 0.19 m. This lies well within the range found by the few other studies available (on Kalimantan; none are available on Sumatra). Our combustion heterogeneity analysis suggests the deepest burns, which extend to ~1.3 m, occur around tree roots. We use these DoB data within the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) default equation for fire emissions to estimate mean carbon emissions as 134 ± 29 t·C∙ha−1 for this peatland fire, which is in an area that had not had a recorded fire previously. This is amongst the highest per unit area fuel consumption anywhere in the world for landscape fires. Our approach provides significant uncertainty reductions in such emissions calculations via the reduction in DoB uncertainty, and by using the UAV SfM approach this is accomplished at a fraction of the cost of airborne LiDAR—albeit over limited sized areas at present. Deploying this approach at locations across Indonesia, sampling a variety of fire-affected landscapes, would provide new and important DoB statistics for producing optimized carbon and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions estimates from peatland fires.
Proximal sensing methods using digital photography have gained wide acceptance for describing and quantifying canopy properties. Digital hemispherical photography (DHP) is the most widely used photographic technique for canopy description. However, the main drawbacks of DHP have been the tedious and time-consuming image processing required and the sensitivity of the results to the image analysis methods. Recently, an alternative approach using vertical photography has been proposed, namely, digital cover photography (DCP). The method captures detailed vertical canopy gaps and performs canopy analysis by dividing gap fractions into large between-crown gaps and small within- crown gaps. Although DCP is a rapid, simple and readily available method, the processing steps involved in gap fraction analysis have a large subjective component by default. In this contribution, we propose an alternative simple, more objective and easily implemented procedure to perform gap fraction analysis of DCP images. We compared the performance of the two image analysis methods in dense deciduous forests. Leaf area index (LAI) estimates from the two image analysis methods were compared with reference LAI measurements obtained through the use of litter traps to measure leaf fall. Both methods provided accurate estimates of the total gap fraction and, thus, accurate estimates of the LAI. The new proposed procedure is recommended for dense canopies because the subjective classification of large gaps is most error-prone in stands with dense canopy cover.
On June 1917 the Bolivian Society was shaken by news: the President of Bolivia Jose Manuel Pando was found dead in a mountain stream (1899-1909). Through the months the hypothesis of a possible political crime gained strength over a simple accident. Which was the point of view of the press about Ascarrunz Rosa Villegas, Dolores Jáuregui y Tomasa de Villegas who were under charge of the crime?
Latin America. Spanish America, French literature - Italian literature - Spanish literature - Portuguese literature
We communicate increasingly with visual imagery such as realistic pictures (e.g., photographs, computer graphic images, perspective drawings and paintings). People are readily able to interpret pictures, but the means by which they do so is poorly understood. Photographers utilize many guidelines for creating natural-looking pictures. One guideline concerns the lens focal length required to produce pictures that are not spatially distorted. Photography texts recommend choosing a focal length of 50mm. There are two phenomena related to this guideline. One is perceived spatial distortions in wide-angle (short focal length) pictures. I will argue that the perceived distortions are caused by the perceptual mechanisms people employ to take into account oblique viewing positions. The second phenomenon is perceived depth in pictures taken with different focal lengths. The textbooks argue that pictures taken with short focal lengths expand perceived depth and those taken with long focal lengths compress it. I will argue that these effects are due to a combination of the viewing geometry and peoples' viewing. Another guideline concerns the camera aperture and depth-of-field blur. Photography textbooks do not describe a quantitative rule and treat the magnitude of depth-of-field blur as arbitrary. I examine apertures, lenses, and image formation. From that examination, I argue that there is a natural relationship between depth-of-field blur and the 3D layout of the photographed scene. Human viewers are sensitive to this relationship. In particular, depicted scenes are perceived differently depending on the relationship between blur and 3D layout. Understanding the perceptual basis of these guidelines provides insight into how to construct photographs, perspective paintings, and computer graphic images for more effective visual communication.
<h4>Background</h4>Cumulative oxidative damage is implicated in the pathogenesis of age-related macular degeneration (AMD). Nuclear factor erythroid 2-related factor 2 (NRF2) is a transcription factor that plays key roles in retinal antioxidant and detoxification responses. The purposes of this study were to determine whether NRF2-deficient mice would develop AMD-like retinal pathology with aging and to explore the underlying mechanisms.<h4>Methods and findings</h4>Eyes of both wild type and Nrf2(-/-) mice were examined in vivo by fundus photography and electroretinography (ERG). Structural changes of the outer retina in aged animals were examined by light and electron microscopy, and immunofluorescence labeling. Our results showed that Nrf2(-/-) mice developed age-dependent degenerative pathology in the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE). Drusen-like deposits, accumulation of lipofuscin, spontaneous choroidal neovascularization (CNV) and sub-RPE deposition of inflammatory proteins were present in Nrf2(-/-) mice after 12 months. Accumulation of autophagy-related vacuoles and multivesicular bodies was identified by electron microscopy both within the RPE and in Bruch's membrane of aged Nrf2(-/-) mice.<h4>Conclusions</h4>Our data suggest that disruption of Nfe2l2 gene increased the vulnerability of outer retina to age-related degeneration. NRF2-deficient mice developed ocular pathology similar to cardinal features of human AMD and deregulated autophagy is likely a mechanistic link between oxidative injury and inflammation. The Nrf2(-/-) mice can provide a novel model for mechanistic and translational research on AMD.