325 research outputs found
Spatial Databases
No full textSpatial database research has continued to advance greatly since three decades ago, addressing the growing data management and analysis needs of spatial applications. This research has produced a taxonomy of models for space, conceptual models, spatial query languages and query processing, spatial file organization and indexes, and spatial data mining. However, emerging needs for spatial database systems include the handling of 3D spatial data, temporal dimension with spatial data, and spatial data visualization. In addition, the rise of new systems such as sensor networks and multi-core processors is likely to have an impact in spatial databases. The goal of this paper is to provide a broad overview of the recent advancements in spatial databases and research needs in each area.Gandhi, Vijay; Kang, James; Shekhar, Shashi. (2007). Spatial Databases. Retrieved from the University Digital Conservancy, https://hdl.handle.net/11299/215734
Corrigendum: Anemia detection through non-invasive analysis of lip mucosa images
Get PDFIn the published article, there was an error in the author list. The new requested author order is: Shekhar Mahmud1, Turker Berk Donmez2, Mohammed Mansour3*, Mustafa Kutlu3 and Chris Freeman41 Department of Systems Engineering, Military Technological College, Muscat, Oman 2 Department of Biomedical Engineering, Sakarya University of Applied Sciences, Serdivan, Sakarya, Türkiye 3 Department of Mechatronics Engineering, Sakarya University of Applied Sciences, Serdivan, Sakarya, Türkiye 4 Electronics and Computer Sciences, University of Southampton, Southampton, United Kingdom The authors apologize for this error and state that this does not change the scientific conclusions of the article in any way. The original article has been updated. Copyright © 2023 Mahmud, Donmez, Mansour, Kutlu and Freeman
Reform of the Fiscal and Subsidy Regime for the Petroleum Sector (Based on a Report Commissioned by the Petroleum Federation of India)
Get PDFReform of the oil sector is long overdue. The problems in the sector emanate from the structure of central taxes and the system of subsidisation through prices. Solutions to the problems necessarily have to address both tax and subsidy simultaneously. The social losses include, misuse / wasteful use of scarce petroleum resources, diversion, adulteration, other avoidable negative externalities, improper substitution between products, tax arbitrage, distortion of consumer preferences and input choices of industries, and international cross hauling of petroleum. Nearly all these costs, and problems arise not because of subsidisation per se but due to the use of varying retail prices that are used to subsidise. Prices for the same product vary for different consumers besides. They also vary across products. These tax /subsidy variations are the root cause of nearly all problems in the sector. Autonomous price variations (i.e. those resulting from the actions of firms (under a regime of non-distortionary subsidies) would be small and not subject to ‘arbitrage’ i.e. to the realisation of rents through diversion and adulteration. Tax reform – viz casting all taxes in the form of value added taxes has not taken place in the sector despite the passage of nearly 15 years since such reform was put in place in nearly all other sectors of manufacturing. Complete deregulation of the sector allowing oil producers, oil refiners, marketing companies, and integrated operators to price their products as they deem fit. Recast central indirect taxes (excise whether specific or ad valorem) into a value added tax, as for any other product., i.e., allowing input credit for all registered intermediate users of petroleum products is overdue. Central government revenues can be protected by working out a revenue neutral value added tax rate. This we have estimated approximately to be 110-120% of value added uniformly to all segments in the industry. Such a tax regime would also be neutral to the degree of vertical integration and remove the biases in the use of products. The Public Distribution System (PDS) is not necessary and ought to be dismantled. Kerosene would then be sold in the open market for all consumers. Kerosene could also be sold by retail outlets, kirana shops, other retail outlets, and by current PDS retailers on par with kirana shops/ ROs. Ditto for LPG. Subsidies are administered through endowments defined upfront, which allows the subsidised consumer to access his/her endowments, trade the same, convert the same into cash all without the causing any distortion. Only pipelines are subject to regulation by the Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulator. The second best proposals involve the changes/recommendations as before but additionally creates a “Crude Price Stabilisation Fund” (CSF) that allows crude prices (both sharp rises and sudden falls) to be moderated, so that pass thru is influenced by the managers of the CSF. It is important that the CSF is set up as in independent body and insulated from the government and is governed by strict and automatic rules that make rapid price adjustment (to the market prices) necessary when the fund position is low, so that the probability of the fund going bankrupt is kept at nearly zero. A fund between 40 billion (Rs. 200,000 crore) envisaged as a credit line would work in most situations. The fund would operate with strict limits on the quantum of the credit line used to pay out stabilization subsidies during the boom phase of the price cycle as also on the accumulated reserves built up from stabilization taxes during the bust phase of the price cycle. To ensure that such crude stabilisation measures do not affect the competitiveness of the industry exports of product (and crude) are taxed when crude is subsidised, and subsidised when crude is taxed. Appropriate conversion factors would apply. The conversion factor should be based on a refinery loss of between 10 and 7% say 8.5%.
Context Inclusive Function Evaluation: A Case Study with EM-Based Multi-Scale Multi-Granular Image Classification
No full textMany statistical queries such as maximum likelihood estimation involve finding the best candidate model given a set of candidate models and a quality estimation function. This problem is common in important applications like land-use classification at multiple spatial resolutions from remote sensing raster data. Such a problem is computationally challenging due to the significant computation cost to evaluate the quality estimation function for each candidate model. For example, a recently proposed method of multi-iscale, multi-granular classification has high computational overhead of function evaluation for various candidate models independently before comparison. In contrast, we propose an upper bound based context-inclusive approach that reduces computational overhead based on the context, i.e. the value of the quality estimation function for the best candidate model so far. We also prove that an upper bound exists for each candidate model and the proposed algorithm is correct. Experimental results using land-use classification at multiple spatial resolutions from satellite imagery show that the proposed approach reduces the computational cost significantly.Gandhi, Vijay; Kang, James; Shekhar, Shashi; Ju, Junchang; Kolaczyk, Eric D.; Gopal, Sucharita. (2008). Context Inclusive Function Evaluation: A Case Study with EM-Based Multi-Scale Multi-Granular Image Classification. Retrieved from the University Digital Conservancy, https://hdl.handle.net/11299/215768
‘Offensive’ writing: Sex and prostitution in the works by Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar
No full textThis article considers some works by the Santhal author Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar in light of the fierce critiques they attracted. Against the accusation of pornographic and offensive writing, I maintain not only that the criticism Shekhar’s works received is unjustified (something that has also been claimed by others), but also that it is symptomatic of a mood with its roots in the West that has spread all over the world. I argue that behind this kind of criticism lies the imposition of identity politics on literary works on one side, and the contemporary concern with political correctness on the other. Further, I also show that despite the progressive agenda such a criticism wants to represent and defend, it ends up producing regressive implications. Shekhar’s case appears thus to be particularly enlightening in showing the limits of identity politics and political correctness in literary criticism
Action-Reflection-Adaptation-Public Learning: Excerpts from the Life of a Pracademic. Larry Susskind in conversation with Shekhar Chandra
No full textLarry Susskind is Ford Professor of Urban and Environmental Planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). His research interests focus on the theory and practice of multiparty negotiation and public dispute resolution, the practice of public engagement in local decision-making, global en-vironmental treaty-making, and the resolution of science-intensive policy disputes, particularly those related to climate change adaptation. He is an experienced mediator, having helped to settle more than 50 resource management and development disputes in many parts of the world, mostly through the Consensus Building Institute, which he founded in 1991. Larry is the author or co-author of more than twenty books including, most recently, Environmental Problem-Solving (Anthem), Managing Climate Risks in Coastal Communities: Strategies for Engage-ment, Readiness, and Adaptation (Anthem), the second edition of Environmental Diplomacy (Oxford Press), and Good for You, Great for Me (Public Affairs Press).He is one of the co-founders of the in-ter-university Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School, where he now directs the MIT-Harvard Public Negotiations Program, serves as Vice-Chair for Instruction, and co-directs the Negotiation Pedagogy Initiative. This booklet is based on the author’s frequent interactions with Larry over several years at MIT. During his doctoral studies, the author has had multiple opportunities to work with Larry that not only inspired the author’s research but also exposed him to some of Larry’s important scholarly contributions to the planning field. Conversations in the booklet are grouped under five broad public policy questions to which Larry has made important contributions.AESOP Young Academics Booklet Project Conversations in Planning, Booklet
Topological Relationships and Their Use
No full textTopological relations between spatial objects have been widely recognized, implemented, and used in GIS. They provide a notion of the general structure and the interactions of spatial objects. Topology avoids dealing with geometry by introducing topological primitives, namely, boundary, interior, and exterior.Accepted Author ManuscriptUrban Data Scienc
Stereo-PIV Measurement of Turbulence Shear Stress in a Stirred Flow Mixer
No full textThe turbulence dissipation rate and turbulence shear stress are estimated inside a cylindrical, stirred flow mixer by carrying out Stereo PIV measurements in twelve vertical and three horizontal planes. The flow domain is vertically oriented, filled with the water. A commercially-available, three-blade impeller, HR-100, is used as the agitator. The impeller is mounted near the tip of a thin, rigid shaft, which is aligned along the central axis of the flow domain. The impeller rotates with the constant angular speed of 150RPM, and the Reynolds number based on the impeller diameter and the blade's tip-velocity is equal to 59400. The turbulence statistics in the vertical measurement planes are reported before (Shekhar C, Nishino K, Yamane Y and Huang J, \u93Stereo-PIV measurement of turbulence characteristics in a flow mixer\u94 Journal of Visualization 15 (2012) pp.293~308), which revealed that the rotation induces a downward, as well as tangential, bulk flow motion, which convects the turbulence generated at the blade-water interface, causing the turbulence level below the impeller to be much higher than the level above it. The present study is the second part of the same project, and reports the turbulence statistics in the horizontal measurement planes. The results show that the turbulence level is high in the area swept by the rotating impeller blades and underneath. However, in the outside region, the turbulence damps down and becomes negligible. The vertical and horizontal measurement results are also combined to estimate the production, convection, viscous diffusion, and turbulence dissipation terms of the turbulence kinetic energy's budget equation, along with the turbulence shear stress, along the lines where the different vertical and horizontal planes intersect
A Contemporary Victimological Dimension of Technology: Algorithmic Society and Politics of Legitimate Victimization
No full textThe paper focuses victimological dimension of social transformations connected to artificial intelligence algorithms technology particularly in the field of driverless vehicles, whose socio-economic impact has been evaluated enormous. Two victimological dimensions are examined: Harari’s hypothesis of “useless” class as consequence of automation based on algorithms structuring a victimizing mass vulnerability and politics of legitimate victimization due to implementation of different moral frameworks in automated vehicles algorithms relative to situations of unavoidable accidents
Restructuring the existing medium voltage distribution grids using DC systems
No full textGreen 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.DC systems, Energy conversion & Storag
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