53 research outputs found
Image Search Engine for Digital History: A deep learning approach
No full textThis research investigates and describes an image search engine for digital history using deep learning technologies. It is part of the Engineering Historical Memory research, contributing to a multilingual and transcultural approach to decode-encode the treasure of human experience and transmit it to the next generation of world citizens. The engine provides a new way to search in online (historical) digital libraries using content-based image retrieval and makes linguistic metadata redundant. State-of-the-art deep learning methodologies in computer vision have been investigated and tested. These methodologies include both template-based matching and feature-based matching. A VGG16 Convolutional Neural Network based approach, called D2-Net, is concluded to provide the best basis. D2-Net is then further analyzed, improved, and optimized to run on a large dataset of more than 12k image combinations related to history, heritage, and art. The final implementation shows promising results with a precision of 0.96 and a recall of 0.44 on a challenging testing dataset. Future improvements include speed improvement and model training.Authors are listed in alphabetical order (Hardy-Littlewood Rule). https://github.com/EHM-Search-Engines/ISEDH-Deep-Learning Github repository containing the source code and documentation for this thesis.Engineering Historical MemoryElectrical Engineerin
Computationally Efficient Human Body Modelling for Real Time Motion Comfort Assessment
No full textDue to the complexity of the human body and its neuromuscular stabilization, it has been challenging to efficiently and accurately predict human motion and capture posture while being driven. Existing simple models of the seated human body are mostly two-dimensional and developed in the mid-sagittal plane exposed to in-plane excitation. Such models capture fore-aft and vertical motion but not the more complex 3D motions due to lateral loading. Advanced 3D full body active human models (AHMs), such as in MADYMO, can be used for comfort analysis and to investigate how vibrations influence the human body while being driven. However, such AHMs are very time-consuming due to their complexity. To effectively analyze motion comfort, a computationally efficient and accurate three dimensional (3D) human model, which runs faster than real time, is presented. The model's postural stabilization parameters are tuned using available 3D vibration data for head, trunk and pelvis translation and rotation. A comparison between AHM and EHM is conducted regarding human body kinematics. According to the results, the EHM model configuration with two neck joints, two torso bending joints, and a spinal compression joint accurately predicts body kinematics.Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository 'You share, we take care!' - Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.Intelligent Vehicle
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‘At the breast is best?’ A corpus-informed feminist critical discourse analysis of the marginalisation of expressing human milk in online infant feeding promotional discourse
No full textExisting feminist analyses of infant feeding practices have examined the promotion of long-term exclusive direct breastfeeding (DBF) as symbolic of “total motherhood” (Wolf 2011), where formula feeding is framed in contrast as “risky” (Murphy 1999, 2000; Brookes et al. 2016; Woollard 2018). Discourses of expressing human milk (EHM), and their discriminatory potential, are currently under-researched. However, researchers note that rhetorical strategies that exclude EHM as a form of breastfeeding can reinforce the perceived normalcy of feeding at the breast and relegate breastmilk expression and formula feeding as “deviant” practices (Murphy 1999; Hunt and Thomson 2017; Rasmussen et al. 2017; [author] 2020; Anders et al. 2022).
To that end, this study integrates Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis (Lazar 2005, 2007, 2014) and corpus linguistics (e.g. Baker 2014) to examine discourses of breastmilk expression (EHM) in a corpus of online infant feeding promotional literature taken from seven organisations, with a particular focus on the largest two organisations in the corpus: La Leche League Great Britain (LLLGB) and the UK National Health Service (NHS). The analysis reveals language choices that marginalise EHM in servitude of “breast is best” (Murphy 1999), and specifically reinforce the message that ‘at the breast is best’. We show how EHM is marginalised in the texts via representations of exclusive DBF as the ‘gold standard’ of infant feeding, recirculating discourses of “total motherhood” (Wolf 2011), “natural mothering” (Bobel 2003) and “intensive motherhood” (Hays 1996)
The geology of the Lyons west oil field, Rice County, Kansas
No full textThesis (M.S.)-- Wichita State University, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Dept. of GeologyThe discovery well of the Lyons West field was drilled in February, 1963. More than 100 wells have been drilled in the field since that time and development is continuing toward the southwest at the present time. The sandstone production is controlled by a combination of structural and stratigraphic entrapment conditions. This reservoir was discovered by drill-stem testing a shallower previously undetected sandstone zone in a well which was drilled with the Arbuckle dolomite as the primary objective.
Complete agreement within the industry cannot be obtained concerning the age and stratigraphic relationship of the producing sandstone body even among the operators currently active in the field. Based on the results of stratigraphic and lithologic studies recently completed, it is the contention of this author that the producing unit under study is a Kinderhookian sandstone of Lower Mississippian age. Reservoir engineering problems exist in the form of abnormally high water production in certain wells which are structurally higher than wells which are water-free. It is also the contention of this author that the production of water is related to the physical parameters of the producing formation, such as grain size, permeability, interstitial cement and sorting rather than faulting, pinchouts of separate sandstones or differing ages or other phenomena used to describe this anomaly.Abstract -- Introduction -- Stratigraphy -- Structure -- Geologic history of Lyons west field area -- Field history -- Steve analysis study -- Formation pressure studies -- Fluid production -- Conclusion -- References -- Appendice
BM roadmapping approach: overcoming the barriers for the implementation of Lead Time Based Pricing
No full textThis research explores the factors that challenge the implementation of Revenue Management (RM) in manufacturing industries. Previous research focused mainly on Order Management to explain how RM could be applied with studies that are mathematical by nature. However, there is no empirical study explaining the implementation process of RM in manufacturing industries. This research adopts a differential approach and methodology which aims at filling the existing implementation gap. First, to avoid vagueness, the research proposes Lead Time based Pricing as the specific RM strategy to pursue. Then, the research focuses on creating a roadmap for the RM implementation. In order to create such roadmap, the research focuses on the field of Business Model Innovation (BMI). In this field, the research describes the BM ontology and BM roadmapping, tools which will be used for constructing the roadmap. It proposes to combines BM roadmapping with the BMI process to help facilitating the task of roadmapping and finally, upon the discovery issues hindering the real implementation of RM, the research identifies BMI barriers which are, afterwards, compared with the data collected to confirm its significance on the RM (specifically LTBP) case. With the assistance of Infineon Technologies, a semiconductor manufacturer, the research approach chosen is an instrumental case study with semi-structured interviews as a data collection methodology. The data is quoted, codified and analyzed with Atlas.ti 8.0 and the information is useful to pursue the realization of the BM roadmapping, giving answer to the main research question of this research. Management of Technology (MoT
Studies for improvement of leadership quality in international integrated companies - demonstrated at a chosen example
No full textDer Autor hat sich mit dieser Arbeit zum Ziel gesetzt, eine bessere Prognose zu erhalten, ob eine Führungskraft an einer entsprechenden Stelle eher erfolgreich sein wird, oder ob es zu Problemen kommt. Voraussetzung für eine solche Prognose ist, dass sowohl der erfolgreiche Führungsstil einer Fügungskraftstelle als auch der Führungsstil der Person bekannt ist. Letzteres zu ermitteln ist „state of the art“ und wird oft durch die Durchführung von Assessmentcenter bestimmt. Der optimal wirkende und damit erfolgreiche Soll-Führungsstil wird bislang in der Praxis noch nicht erhoben. Bevor dies geschehen kann, muss einmal überprüft werden, ob sich dieser Soll-Führungsstil erheben lässt und ob es Abhängigkeiten gibt. Es gibt sicherlich zahlreiche Möglichkeiten, wovon ein optimaler Führungsstil abhängen kann. Der Autor überprüft in dieser Arbeit drei solcher möglicher Abhängigkeiten, die von dem Unternehmen, von der Funktion (z.B. Produktion oder Entwicklung) und von dem Internationalitätsgrad. Nach einer theoretischen Betrachtung schließt der Autor eine Untersuchung der Abhängigkeit von der Organisationsform aus, da die Organisationsform selbst wiederum unter anderem von der Funktion und dem Internationalitätsgrad abhängt, und somit eine doppelte Abhängigkeit vorgelegen hätte. Für die Untersuchung der Abhängigkeiten entwickelt der Autor einen Fragebogen, mit Hilfe dessen der optimal wirkende Führungsstil ermittelt werden kann. Dieser Fragebogen erfasst 19 Merkmale eines Führungsstils und ordnet diesen semantische Paare zu. In der Erhebung wählt der Befragte, zu welcher Ausprägung des semantischen Paars eines Merkmals er im Sinne eines optimalen Führungsstils eher tendiert. Der Vergleich der Antworten bezüglich Gemeinsamkeiten oder aber signifikanten Unterschieden zeigt die optimalen Führungsstile in Abhängigkeit von Funktion, Internationalität und Unternehmen auf. Die Auswertung der Befragung zeigt bei den Funktionen ein eindeutiges Ergebnis. Es gibt signifikante Unterschiede zwischen den erhobenen optimalen Führungsstilen von Funktionen. Die Funktionen unterscheiden sich hinsichtlich des optimal wirkenden Führungsstils. Dies trifft zwar nicht für alle Merkmale zu, es gibt auch einige nicht abhängige Merkmale, doch die Mehrheit der untersuchten Merkmale unterscheidet sich signifikant. Es ist umso erstaunlicher, als es zwischen den Unternehmen nicht der Fall ist. Dies bedeutet, dass der optimale Führungsstil einer Funktion sich nicht von dem optimalen Führungsstil der gleichen Funktion in einem anderen Unternehmen unterscheidet. Er unterscheidet sich aber von dem Soll-Führungsstil anderer Funktionen. Dies bedeutet, dass die anscheinend weitläufig überschätzte Unternehmenskultur beim optimalen Führungsstil eine untergeordnete Rolle spielt. Eine erfolgreiche Führungskraft in einer Funktion hat es demnach mit dem Wechsel in ein anderes Unternehmen unter Beibehaltung der Funktion leichter als mit dem Wechsel zu einer anderen Funktion innerhalb des Unternehmens. Dies trifft natürlich nur zu, wenn die neue Funktion gegenüber der ursprünglichen einen signifikant anderen Führungsstil aufweist. Es gibt auch verwandte Funktionen, die sich bezüglich des Soll-Führungsstils nur geringfügig unterscheiden. Außerdem muss an dieser Stelle nochmals angemerkt werden, dass der Autor die Erhebung lediglich bei deutschen Unternehmen durchgeführt hat. Es besteht demnach durchaus die Möglichkeit, dass sich das Ergebnis verändert, wenn man die Betrachtung auf ausländische Unternehmen ausdehnt. Die Korrelation zum Internationalitätsgrad der Führungsstelle kann nicht so eindeutig beantwortet werden. Auch hier gibt es Merkmale, die sich in Abhängigkeit vom Internationalitätsgrad signifikant unterscheiden, doch es sind bedeutend weniger. Der optimale Führungsstil ist daher weniger abhängig vom Internationalitätsgrad als von der Funktion. Aber auch hier gibt es signifikante Abweichungen, die es in einem international agierenden Unternehmen zu beachten gilt, natürlich mit der gleichen Einschränkung, dass die Untersuchung in deutschen Unternehmen durchgeführt wurde. Zur Absicherung der Ergebnisse wurden zufällige Stichproben verglichen. Bei diesen Vergleichen kam es bei keinem Merkmal zu signifikanten Abweichungen.The intention of the author is to obtain a better prognosis in companies on whether a leader will be successful in a specific leadership position or whether he would encounter problems. Precondition for such a forecast is that both the successful management style of a leadership position as well as the individual leadership style of a person is known. The determination of the latter can be seen as "state of the art" and is often obtained by the implementation of Assessment Centre. The optimal and hence most successful “to be” leadership style is so far not measured or determined in companies. Before this can happen, it must be investigated on whether this “to be” leadership style can be determined and whether there are dependencies. There are numerous possibilities, on which a “to be” leadership style could depend upon. The author reviewed in this work three such possible dependencies, the company, the function (e.g. and the degree of internationality. After a theoretical consideration, the author excludes an investigation into the dependence from the organizational form, as the organizational form itself depends upon the function and upon the degree of internationality, and thus a dual dependence would have existed. For the investigation of dependencies, the author developed a questionnaire, with the help of which the “to be” leadership style can be determined. This questionnaire covers 19 characteristics of a leadership style to which it assigns semantic couples. The participant chooses in the survey to which degree of the two extreme positions concerning the leadership style characteristic he tends more. The comparison of responses with respect to commonalities or differences shows the dependency of the “to be” leadership style with the function or the degree of internationality. The analysis of the survey shows a clear outcome with respect to functions. There are significant differences between the ”to be“ leadership styles of functions. The functions differ in terms of their optimal leadership style. This does not apply to all characteristics of the optimal style as also independent characteristics have been identified, but the majority of surveyed characteristics differ significantly. This is even more surprising considering the second outcome that there is no dependency between the functional “to be” leadership style at different companies. This means that the “to be” leadership style of a function is the same, independent from the company where the leader is employed. However this style is different when changing the function. This means that the apparently widely overestimated corporate culture pays a minor role with respect to the optimal leadership style. A successful leader in a function has therefore less issues with respect to the leadership style when changing the company and keeping the function as if he would stay in the company and changing the function. This applies of course only when the new function has few style similarities to the previous function. There are functions that only show little differences in the “to be” leadership style. Moreover, it must be noted that the author only considered international acting German companies and that the result could differ when the investigation is enlarged to other countries. The correlation to the level of internationality of a leadership position cannot be answered as clearly as this is the case looking at functions. Again, there are characteristics that differ with the degree of internationality but they are significantly fewer, meaning that the optimal leadership is more dependent upon the function than upon the degree of internationality. But also with respect to this degree there are significant differences that an international acting company should consider. This is true with the same restriction that only German companies have been considered. In order to statistically assure the results, a number of random samples have been compared and none of them showed any dependencies
Nounself pronouns: 3rd person personal pronouns as identity expression
No full textThis paper is an examination of and attempt at a preliminary definition of nounself pronouns, which are a large number of newly invented English 3rd person personal pronouns that have not been previously studied. The pronouns are created and used primarily by a virtual community on the blogging platform tumblr.com, with the first occurrence of a nounself pronoun in late 2013. The study is based on data from 134 responses to a questionnaire written by the author, distributed through tumblr.com, as well as on email-based interviews with three respondents who volunteered to be interviewed. Analysis of the data suggests that the pronouns are used to express, explore, and negotiate the identities of the respondents, in particular in relation to gender identities
Book Review: The New Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins
No full textAuthor John Perkins writes a bold, yet compelling, account of his personal experiences as an economic hit man (EHM), involving manipulating data and foreign government officials, deception, lies, sex, assassinations, and attempted murder. His true story recounted in the book The New Confessions of an Economic Hit Man is an eye-opener for those who are unaware of the underpinnings of the government’s ability to bully other countries into large debt to benefit American multinational corporations and secure our place as the sole superpower
Gender differences in children’s math self-concept in the first years of elementary school
No full textIn the course of elementary school children start to develop an academic self-concept reflecting their motivation, thoughts, and feelings about a specific domain. For the domain of mathematics, gender differences can emerge which are characterized by a less pronounced math self-concept for girls. However, studies are rather sparse regarding the early years of elementary school education, hence, the point in time when such gender differences emerge yet remains a matter of debate. In our study, we found that the math self-concept of elementary school children (n = 81) declined from first to second grade. While no differences in math achievement were observed between girls and boys, it became apparent that girls’ math self-concept was already less pronounced than the math self-concept of boys in the first years of elementary school. Our findings emphasize the importance of considering such gender differences even at the beginning of school education
Oral diseases associated with hepatitis C virus infection. Part 1. Sialadenitis and salivary glands lymphoma
No full textMorbidity associated with hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is due not only to the sequelae of chronic liver disease, but also to a variety of extraheaptic manifestations (EHM). Some of the most frequently reported EHM of HCV infection involves the oral region predominantly or exclusively and they are the topics of this 2-part review. The current part 1 discusses the evidences on the association of salivary glands disorders with HCV. HCV- infected patients may frequently have histological signs of Sjögren-like sialadenitis with mild or even absent clinical symptoms. However, the pathogenetic role of HCV in Sjogren Syndrome (SS) development and the characteristics distinguishing classic SS from HCV-related sialadenitis are still an issue. It is unclear if the virus may cause a disease mimicking primary SS or if HCV is directly responsible for the development of SS in a specific subset of patients. Notably, some patients may present a triple association between HCV, SS-like sialadenitis and salivary gland lymphoma and the virus may be involved in the lymphomagenesis. The risk of having a salivary gland lymphoma is particularly high in patients with mixed cryoglobulinemia. Little attention has been paid to the effects of anti-HCV treatment on sialadenitis or lymphoma development. \ua9 2008 The Author
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