Search

Radar point clouds will experience variations in density, which may cause incorrect alerts during clustering. In turn, it will diminish the precision of the decision-level fusion method. To address this problem, a target detection algorithm based on fusing radar with a camera in the presence of a fluctuating signal intensity is proposed in this paper. It introduces a snow ablation optimizer (SAO) for solving the optimal parameters of the density-based spatial clustering of applications with noise (DBSCAN). Subsequently, the enhanced DBSCAN clusters radar point clouds, and the valid clusters are fused with monocular camera targets. The experimental results indicate that the suggested fusion method can attain a Balance-score ranging from 0.97 to 0.99, performing outstandingly in preventing missed detections and false alarms. Additionally, the fluctuation range of the Balance-score is within 0.02, indicating the algorithm has an excellent robustness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of GeSec: Revista de Gestao e Secretariado is the property of Sindicato das Secretarias e Secretarios do Estado de Sao Paulo (SINSESP) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This study examines the interlinkages between the South Atlantic Ocean Dipole (SAOD) and Central Africa (CA) rainfall variability from June to August, spanning from 1981 to 2018, using observational and reanalysis datasets. The results show that during positive SAOD events termed pSAOD, positive (negative) rainfall anomalies feature the southwestern CA termed zone I (the rest of CA landmass, termed zone II) more pronounced in reanalysis data. The reverse rainfall anomalies' pattern characterises negative SAOD events termed nSAOD. The relationship between CA rainfall variability and SAOD strengthens when the signal of El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is removed. However, the impact of ENSO on the SAOD is contrasted between the northern and southern CA, so that ENSO compensates for the reduced rainfall associated with the SAOD north of 10°N. South of 10°N, ENSO attenuates wetness over the southwestern zone, and reinforces the dryness over the southeastern zone. During the pSAOD events, increased precipitation is associated with increased moisture convergence over zone I, with advection originating from neighbouring oceanic regions. At the same time, convergent moisture towards zone II is weak and recirculates towards southern Africa and does not contribute to moistening the region. However, during nSAOD, zone I instead experiences strong moisture divergence, whereas zone II is a sink of moisture convergence originating from zone I and from Sahelian and west African regions. In general, the atmospheric circulation seems better developed throughout the tropospheric column during nSAOD events than during pSAOD events and would suggest strong modulating impacts of regional-and local-scale processes in the rainfall variability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Hemorrhagic strokes pose higher risk for seizure at onset than ischemic strokes. • Seizures at stroke onset rare but associated with severe strokes. • Seizures at onset don't affect mortality in patients with iv thrombolysis or thrombectomy. Seizures occurring at the immediate onset of a stroke, abbreviated "seizures at onset" (SaO), pose a diagnostic and therapeutic challenge for physicians. In this study, we report on the current clinical practice in managing stroke patients with SaO from a large tertiary stroke center in Germany. We selected all patients with SaO and acute ischemic or hemorrhagic stroke admitted to the Department of Neurology at the University Hospital of Cologne between 2019 and 01–01 and 2020–12–31. SaO patients were then compared to patients with acute ischemic or hemorrhagic stroke without SaO from the local stroke registry. Further, we compared SaO patients who received intravenous recombinant tissue-type plasminogen activator (rt-PA) and/or mechanical thrombectomy with matched controls. Overall, 54 out of 2312 stroke patients (2.3 %) in the examined period presented with SaO. The most prevalent SaO semiology was focal to bilateral tonic-clonic (42.6 %). SaO was associated with hemorrhagic strokes and higher in-hospital mortality in all stroke patients. The rate of acute stroke therapy was not influenced by the occurrence of SaO. In patients that received acute stroke therapy, patients with SaO had higher scores on the National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) and the modified Rankin Scale (mRS) at admission, and longer door-to-needle times for the administration of rt-PA, while none of the examined outcome parameters revealed a difference between patients with and without SaO after adjusting for potential confounders. Data show that SaO is rare in stroke patients but associated with more extensive strokes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a chaotic Arnold map (CAM)-based selective encryption (SE) bitstream cipher for the scalable High-Efficiency Video Coding (SHVC). The proposed CAM-based SHVC-SE bitstream cipher employs the CAM for ciphering the coefficients sign bits of Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT), the Motion Vector Difference (MVD) and Sample Adaptive Offset (SAO). The proposed CAM-based SHVC-SE bitstream cipher is designed with the potential of encrypting the SHVC mostly sensitive information bits while preserving the video format compliance characteristic. The performance of the proposed CAM-based SHVC-SE bitstream cipher is compared to with the AES-based SHVC SE in CFB operation mode. The achieved outcomes demonstrates the advantage of employing the CAM in the proposed CAM-based SHVC-SE bitstream cipher that results in decreasing the encoding time for the proposed CAM-based SHVC-SE bitstream cipher compared with the AES-based SHVC SE in in CFB operation mode. Security tests on the proposed CAM-based SHVC-SE bitstream cipher are carried out for testing the robustness of the proposed CAM-based SHVC-SE bitstream cipher against attacks. The results of security tests demonstrated and confirmed the efficiency of the proposed CAM-based SHVC-SE bitstream cipher. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, as the importance of user innovation has become more important, enterprises have started to demand efficient and systematic user needs analysis for their products or services. Although opinion mining research based on a large number of online reviews available has been actively conducted recently, most existing studies that analyze user needs for technology development have provided inaccurate results due to the differences in vocabulary that exist between databases holding social data and patents. Motivated by this problem, we propose an approach to exploring technology opportunities that analyzes the subject-action-object (SAO) structures found in both patents and user reviews. To achieve this, we first carried out a sentiment analysis on user-review sentences linked to user needs, from this SAO analysis we extracted ample information related to technological structures contained in the reviews. Second, since in patent analysis, patent documents are structured in terms of the technological elements present, we extracted the technology's SAO structures using their F-term code that contains multidimensional information available in this technology classification system. Finally, we vectorized the SAO structures derived from the reviews and patent documents using SAO2Vec before calculating the cosine similarity between SAOs in order to connect the reviews and patents. By applying the method proposed in this study to the automobile field, we present technological opportunities found in patents to address user needs found in automobile reviews. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates thermospheric seasonal variations composed of annual and semiannual oscillations (AO and SAO) in the column density ratio of atomic oxygen to molecular nitrogen observed by Global‐scale Observations of Limb and Disk. On the basis of multiple analysis approaches, it is revealed that the AO is the predominant component at middle latitudes, while the SAO tends to be increasingly important toward the lower latitudes. The SAO is also evident in the southern mid‐latitudes. Quantitative analyses demonstrate that AO (SAO) peaks around winter solstices (equinoxes). Additionally, the seasonal variation at low‐latitudes exhibits greater amplitudes in the early morning and around noon, whereas it gradually weakens from early morning toward late afternoon at mid‐latitudes. A hypothesis is that seasonal variations are likely modulated by atmospheric tides, including those generated in the thermosphere and those propagating upward from the lower atmosphere. Plain Language Summary: Annual and semiannual variations are the most prominent phenomenon standing out on the seasonal scale in the thermosphere‐ionosphere system. Despite being recognized for decades, the characteristics of the AO and SAO are not yet well delineated, and relevant physics is not fully understood, due largely to limited observations and sampling constraints of low‐Earth‐orbit (LEO) satellites. For instance, distinguishing the local time versus longitude variations in the thermosphere is not feasible with LEO satellites alone. Leveraging the synoptic observations enabled by the Global‐scale Observations of Limb and Disk (GOLD) mission, we identified the AO and SAO in the column density ratios of atomic oxygen to molecular nitrogen at low and middle latitudes. More importantly, since GOLD provides full coverage of daytime local times on a daily basis, we quantified the local time dependence of seasonal variations in composition. Prevalent local time modulations could be driven by atmospheric tides. Key Points: Pronounced annual and semiannual oscillations (AOs and SAOs) are seen in Global‐scale Observations of Limb and Disk ∑O/N2AO is predominant at mid‐latitudes, and SAO is evident in both low‐latitudes and southern mid‐latitudesLocal time modulations of seasonal variations are prominent at low‐ and mid‐latitudes [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The middle atmosphere plays an important role in the research of various dynamical and energy processes. Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS), reanalyses and model simulations with NCAR's Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model (WACCM) data in the range between 100 and 0.1 hPa from 2005 to 2020 have been analyzed with a focus on the temperature semi-annual oscillations (SAO). Significant SAO of temperature is prominent in the tropical region (20 ° S–20 ° N) around 1–3 hPa, which is consistent with previous studies. We also found significant SAO in the northern hemisphere (NH) high latitudes between 8 and 0.3 hPa and southern hemisphere (SH) high latitudes between 0.5 and 0.1 hPa, which has been of less concern in previous studies. The thermal budget based on MERRA2 and simulations is used to explain the mechanism of SAO in the middle atmosphere. In the tropics, the two temperature peaks are mainly determined by radiative processes. In the NH high latitudes of the stratosphere, the temperature peak in January is mainly related to dynamical processes, while the temperature peak in July is determined by a combination of dynamical and radiative processes. In the NH high latitudes of the lower mesosphere, the first peak in June is primarily associated with dynamical and radiative processes, while the second peak in December is primarily associated with the dynamical processes. In the SH high latitudes of the lower mesosphere, the first temperature peak in July is mainly due to dynamical processes while the second temperature peak in December is mainly due to radiative processes. Various features are present in the SH and NH high latitude SAO in the lower mesosphere. Furthermore, we performed model simulations with and without SAO in sea surface temperatures (SST-SAO) to study the connection between SST and temperature SAO. WACCM6 results indicate that the SAO in the middle atmosphere is partially affected by the existence of an SST-SAO. By removing SAO in SST, the PSD magnitude of the SAO decreases in the tropical region and increases in the polar region. The amplitudes of total heating rates are also modified. The WACCM experiment confirms the relationship between SST-SAO and temperature SAO in the middle atmosphere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Distal renal tubular acidosis (dRTA), a disease characterized by the failure of the distal nephron to secrete acid into the urine, can be caused by mutations in SLC4A1 gene encoding erythroid and kidney anion exchanger 1 (AE1). Here, an induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) line was generated from a patient with dRTA and hemolytic anemia carrying compound heterozygous SLC4A1 mutations containing c.1199_1225del (p.Ala400_Ala408del), resulting in Southeast Asian ovalocytosis (SAO), and c.1331C>A (p.Thr444Asn). Peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) were reprogrammed using Sendai viral reprogramming. The established iPSC line, MUSIi019-A, exhibited pluripotent property and retained the same mutations observed in the patients.

This study within the Czech Supreme Audit Office found that a relatively greater media impact had audits of the Czech Supreme Audit Office in which a criminal notification was filed. It was further found that notifications to the tax authorities were relatively more frequent for audits that focused on a longer period of time and that proportion of audit reports referring to Act No. 563/1991 Coll., Act on Accounting, is decreasing. The analysis of the Czech Supreme Audit Office also revealed that the audits for which the government imposed a remedial measure were not more expensive than those for which no government remedies were imposed. The author recommends the Czech Supreme Audit Office to continue to step up its efforts to reduce audits of formal deficiencies and to establish an independent advisory body for the evaluation of objections to audit protocols. Both content analysis and regression analysis were used as scientific methods here. The regression models were focused on variables increasing the amount of audited expenditure under the mandate of 115 Supreme Audit Institutions.

This paper presents TeknoAssistant, a domain-specific tech mining method for building a problem–solution conceptual network aimed at helping technicians from a particular field to find alternative tools and pathways to implement when confronted with a problem. We evaluate our approach using Natural Language Processing field, and propose a 2-g text mining process adapted for analyzing scientific publications. We rely on a combination of custom indicators with Stanford OpenIE SAO extractor to build a Bernoulli Naïve Bayes classifier which is trained by using domain-specific vocabulary provided by the TeknoAssistant user. The 2-g contained in the abstracts of a scientific publication dataset are classified in either "problem", "solution" or "none" categories, and a problem–solution network is built, based on the co-occurrence of problems and solutions in the abstracts. We propose a combination of clustering technique, visualization and Social Network Analysis indicators for guiding a hypothetical user in a domain-specific problem solving process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The troposphere, the lowest and closest layer of the atmosphere, is where all meteorological events take place. The tropospheric — lower stratospheric (TLS) temperature trend is determined using linear regression and is essential to comprehending the consequences of climate change in the future. In this article, we explored the long-term temperature variabilities and trends of TLS (1–25 km) temperature and its responses by natural drivers such as El Nino southern oscillation (ENSO), solar flux (SF), quasi-biannual oscillation (QBO), Indian ocean dipole (IOD), and aerosol indexes (AI) using monthly averaged zonal mean COSMIC satellite and ground — based Radiosonde (RS) observations for the period of 2006 – 2020 over tropical station Addis (9 0 N, 38. 8 0 E) and subtropical station Cairo (30. 0 3 0 N, 31. 2 3 0 E). The tropopause is located at the tropical station Addis at 17 km with a temperature of 190–194 K, and for the subtropical station Cairo, it is located at 15 km with a temperature of 201 K, which supports the decrement of tropopause height from the tropics to the subtropics with a slight increase in temperature. The two main oscillations in the TLS region can be seen by using the wavelet analysis technique: the semiannual oscillation (SAO) and the annual oscillation (AO), with the AO being especially strong in the lower troposphere. Furthermore, Morlet wavelet analysis on cold-point tropopause temperature CPTt displays AO and cold point tropopause height CPTh reveals a QBO-like signal. The TLS region has positive peaks at heights of 7, 21, 22, 13, and 4 km for the Addis station, and at 15, 19, 25, 15, and 16 km for the Cairo station in response to natural drivers such as ENSO, SF, QBO, IOD, and aerosol. Lag analyses demonstrate a one-month delay for all natural forcings, except for oceanic indices and SSF, up to three months below the tropopause (below 15 km). There is a noticeable 3 to 4 months lag in every oscillation above the tropopause. A warming trend in the tropospheric region and a cooling trend in the UTLS regions are revealed by MLR trend analysis. In contrast to the subtropical Cairo station, which has the highest warming rate of 0.38 K/decade at 2 km and the maximum cooling rate of −0.2 K/decade at 10 km, the tropical Addis station has the highest cooling rate of −0.38 K/decade at 12 km and the highest warming rate of 0.28 K/decade at 3 km. Our trend findings are consistent with previous research. • All meteorological phenomena occur in the troposphere, which is the lowest and closet layer of the atmosphere. • Our findings indicate that the main component influencing temperature variability in the troposphere is AO while UTLS are SAO, ENSO and QBO. • By using morlet wavelet analysis on CPTt displays AO and CPTh reveals a QBO signal. • A warming trend in the tropospheric region and a cooling trend in the UTLS region are revealed by MLR trend analyses. • Lag analyses demonstrate a one month delay for all natural atmospheric forces except for oceanic indices and SSF. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Each new video encoding standard includes encoding techniques that aim to improve the performance and quality of the previous standards. During the development of these techniques, PSNR was used as the main distortion metric. However, the PSNR metric does not consider the subjectivity of the human visual system, so that the performance of some coding tools is questionable from the perceptual point of view. To further explore this point, we have developed a detailed study about the perceptual sensibility of different HEVC video coding tools. In order to perform this study, we used some popular objective quality assessment metrics to measure the perceptual response of every single coding tool. The conclusion of this work will help to determine the set of HEVC coding tools that provides, in general, the best perceptual response.

The Quasi‐Biennial Oscillation initiative (QBOi) is a model intercomparison programme that specifically targets simulation of the QBO in current global climate models. Eleven of the models or model versions that participated in a QBOi intercomparison study have upper boundaries in or above the mesosphere and therefore simulate the region where the stratopause semiannual oscillation (SAO) is the dominant mode of variability of zonal winds in the tropical upper stratosphere. Comparisons of the SAO simulations in these models are presented here. These show that the model simulations of the amplitudes and phases of the SAO in zonal‐mean zonal wind near the stratopause agree well with the information derived from available observations. However, most of the models simulate time‐average zonal winds that are more westward than determined from observations, in some cases by several tens of m·s–1. Validation of wave activity in the models is hampered by the limited observations of tropical waves in the upper stratosphere but suggests a deficit of eastward forcing either by large‐scale waves, such as Kelvin waves, or by gravity waves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using version 1.0 of TIMED/SABER nighttime O(3P) density data in the mesosphere and lower thermosphere (MLT) retrieved from 2.0 and 1.6 μm radiances, we conducted a study on the semiannual oscillation (SAO), annual oscillation (AO) and quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO) of the atomic oxygen volume mixing ratio at 96 km, from 40° S to 40° N, for 2002–2019. We first analyzed the altitude profiles of the atomic oxygen volume mixing ratio and kinetic temperature, and chose to study the daily average of the atomic oxygen volume mixing ratio at 96 km. For the analysis of SAO and AO, we fitted two sinusoidal functions with periods of 6 and 12 months to the daily mean atomic oxygen volume mixing ratio to obtain the annual and semiannual amplitude. The SAO amplitudes had two peaks of 1.68 × 10−3 and 1.63 × 10−3 at about 25° S and 25° N, and displayed a clear hemispheric symmetry. The AO amplitude increased with the latitude and showed distinct minima (valleys) of 3.36 × 10−4 around the equator, as well as a clear hemispheric asymmetry. The correlation coefficient between the atomic oxygen volume mixing ratio QBO with equatorial stratospheric QBO was higher in the tropics than the mid latitudes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The wave energy flux along the southern African coastline often reaches extreme levels, seriously impacting coastal communities, infrastructure, as well as near‐coast and offshore marine operations. Understanding the drivers behind past high wave energy events and their frequency is key to forecasting future events. Using in‐situ wave buoy data recorded by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), the ERA5 and CACWR global wave model products are evaluated. The better‐performing ERA5 product is used to assess long‐term variability and trends around the coastline between 1979 and 2020. There are significant increasing trends in offshore flux for all seasons, with spring having the strongest coastal trends. Substantial interannual variability exists in wave energy flux and direction. Possible drivers, the Southern Annular Mode (SAM), El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO), and the semi‐annual oscillation (SAO), were assessed to find that SAM appears to show the strongest relationship overall. Negative (positive) SAM is associated with above (below) average and westerly (easterly) anomalies in both flux and direction. ENSO directly impacts the summer wave climate while the SAO indirectly impacts the wave energy flux over spring and winter. During many seasons, more than one climate mode is active. It is found the strongest significant near‐coast positive westerly anomalies occurred under negative SAM and negative SAO, with more intense offshore anomalies under El Niño, whereas the strongest significant negative east‐northeasterly anomalies occurred under a combination of La Niña with positive SAM and SAO phases. Plain Language Summary: The long‐term changes in the strength and direction of waves arriving at the South African coastline are assessed. The waves have become significantly stronger between 1979 and 2020 particularly over spring. At the interannual scale, shifts in the position and intensity of extratropical cyclones drive changes in the strength and direction of the waves arriving at the coast. Large‐scale climate modes (ENSO, SAM, and the SAO) impact on the wave characteristics. Negative phases of SAM allow for more intense, equatorward shifted systems and lead to stronger and more westerly waves, with the opposite true for positive phases. ENSO and SAO mainly impact in summer and spring. When multiple modes are active, they strengthen the wave response. The strongest and most westerly waves occur under negative SAM combined with negative SAO, whereas when positive SAM combines with a positive SAO and a La Niña, the waves are significantly weaker and more easterly in direction. Key Points: ERA5 reanalysis outperforms the CAWCR hindcast against coastal in‐situ Waverider buoy data around the South African coastSAM is the main driver of interannual variability in the wave energy flux and direction around the southern African coastThe strongest near coast positive wave energy flux anomalies occur under concurrent positive Southern Annular Mode and semi‐annual oscillation months [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We characterized the mechanism underlying star anise (Illicium verum Hook.f) oil (SAO)–mediated antioxidant status during subclinical Escherichia coli (E. coli) challenge. A total of 512 male birds (White Leghorn) at 30 wk of age with similar body weight (2.14 ± 0.02 kg) were randomly divided into 2 groups with 1 group being orally challenged with E. coli (every other day from day 15 to day 27) during the experiment. Each group of birds was then randomly allocated to dietary treatment of SAO supplementation at 0, 200, 400, or 600 mg/kg of basal diet (8 replicate cages during each treatment). The treatments were arranged a 4 × 2 factorial arrangement. The experiment comprised 1 wk of adaptation and 3 wks of data collection. There was no interaction (P > 0.05) between SAO supplementation and E. coli challenge for final body weight and average daily feed intake of birds. However, E. coli challenge resulted in a significant decrease (P < 0.001) in final body weight of birds as compared with unchallenged birds. There were interactions between SAO supplementation and E. coli challenge for the activity of glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px) and malondialdehyde (MDA) concentration in serum and for the activity of GSH-Px in the liver of birds. Supplementation of SAO enhanced the activities of antioxidant enzymes but decreased the MDA content in the serum and liver of birds, and it also enhanced the expression of genes including superoxide dismutase, catalase, and nuclear factor E2–related factor 2 (Nrf2) in the liver of the birds. Meanwhile, supplementation of SAO can also reduce E. coli challenge–induced oxidative stress in the serum and liver of birds, and the efficacy of SAO in birds during subclinical E. coli challenge is dose-dependent. In conclusion, the enhancement of antioxidant capacity by star anise or its effective compounds is through upregulation of Nrf2 signaling pathway. The optimum supplementation dose of SAO for protecting birds against E. coli challenge is 400 mg/kg.

This article uses text mining techniques to determine the time lag of knowledge transfer between research activity and technology development in bioremediation, complementing these with advanced visualization techniques in order to extract patterns that could be of interest for decision making in this field. The emergence patterns in this field have been identified and a method based on subject-action-object (SAO) semantic structure is proposed for characterizing such patterns, using 2-word tuples. Our results show that technology developments in heavy metal bioremediation swiftly follow scientific advances, as opposed to developments in bioremediation of organic chemical components. The science mapping reveals three distinct areas: 1) heavy metal remediation and phytoremediation; 2) aerobic and anaerobic remediation of chemical elements; and 3) bioremediation techniques for treating specific contamination sources such as oil. The emergence analysis points at activities involving energy recovery by bioremediation, and shows an increasing amount of technologies involving specific strains of microorganisms, which could gain significant traction in this field in an estimated time horizon of ten years. Our SAO approach, tested on the data sample corresponding to these strains, proves to be useful for characterizing the emerging technologies when applied to instrumental concepts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bioaugmentation – the addition of specific microorganisms to microbial consortia to obtain specific functions - is a promising method to improve the performance of sub-optimal anaerobic digestion processes and recover methane production. The present study implements for the first time a model with bioaugmentation functionalities, enabling the dynamic microbiological study of augmented anaerobic systems. The model is based on a previous advanced mathematical model focused on ammonia inhibition, which was extended. Three inhibited anaerobic digestion experiments were simulated, where bioaugmentation involved the addition of: (i) hydrogenotrophic methanogenic archaea; (ii) a combination of hydrogenotrophs and syntrophic acetate oxidizing bacteria; and (iii) acetoclastic methanogenic archaea to the inhibited reactors. Methane productivity, pH, and ammonia were correctly predicted by the model, with weighted absolute percentage errors below 10%. Trends in volatile fatty acids accumulation and consumption showed good agreement between in silico and in vivo data. Simulations revealed that bioaugmentation will result in process improvement when specialized hydrogenotrophs are used: not only do they establish themselves in the inhibited environment, but also help in the recovery of acetoclastic methanogens. Overall, the mathematical approach adopted to describe the bioaugmentation phenomena resulted in a robust computational tool for simulation of general bioaugmentation strategies. [Display omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study within the Czech Supreme Audit Office found that a relatively greater media impact had audits of the Czech Supreme Audit Office in which a criminal notification was filed. It was further found that notifications to the tax authorities were relatively more frequent for audits that focused on a longer period of time and that proportion of audit reports referring to Act No. 563/1991 Coll., Act on Accounting, is decreasing. The analysis of the Czech Supreme Audit Office also revealed that the audits for which the government imposed a remedial measure were not more expensive than those for which no government remedies were imposed. The author recommends the Czech Supreme Audit Office to continue to step up its efforts to reduce audits of formal deficiencies and to establish an independent advisory body for the evaluation of objections to audit protocols. Both content analysis and regression analysis were used as scientific methods here. The regression models were focused on variables increasing the amount of audited expenditure under the mandate of 115 Supreme Audit Institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Video compression uses encoding to convert video files into smaller files for efficient storage and transmission in image processing. A decoder reconstructs the received data into a representation of the original video. This research presents recently added in-loop as a filtering technique for extension of sample adaptive offset (SAO) in High-Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC).The principle of SAO is to lessen pixel errors caused by the compression process. Through this an average data reduction up to 1.43% in Low delay configuration and 1.03% in Random access configuration

Copyright of Contributions / Prilozi is the property of Institute for History, University of Sarajevo and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The text-based patent analysis is grounded in information extraction technique. However, such technique suffers from obvious defects such as low degree of automation and unsatisfactory extraction accuracy. To deal with these problems, after an information schema is pre-defined, which contains 17 types of entities and 15 types of semantic relations, a dataset of 1010 patent abstracts is annotated and opened freely to the research community. Then, a novel patent information extraction framework is proposed, in which two deep-learning models, BiLSTM-CRF and BiGRU-HAN, are respectively used for entity identification and semantic relation extraction. Finally, to demonstrate the advantages of the new framework, extensive experiments are conducted, and the SAO method and PCNNs model are taken as respective baselines on the framework and module levels. Experimental results show that our framework out-performs the traditional one in terms of automation and accuracy, and is capable of extracting fine-grained structured information from patent texts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores intra‐annual oscillations (IAOs) in upper thermospheric winds using GOCE cross‐track wind measurements between 70°S and 70°N. Due to the Sun‐synchronous dawn‐dusk orbit of GOCE, the cross‐contamination between seasonality and local time variations in winds is minimal, which makes it a unique space‐based data set to extract IAOs and study their latitudinal variation. Our analysis reveals that the annual (AO), semiannual (SAO), and terannual (TAO) oscillations are robust features in thermospheric winds. The AO is strongest at middle latitudes; SAO and TAO amplitudes increase with increasing latitude. The latitudinally averaged amplitudes of the AO, SAO, and TAO for dusk/dawn are 30.0/35.0, 8.5/11.3, and 6.0/6.6 m/s, respectively. The phase of AO reverses around the equator. SAO and TAO phases vary with latitude but do not reverse like the AO. For both the SAO and TAO, the average phase at dusk and dawn differs by ∼30 days. Plain Language Summary: The Earth's upper atmosphere (90–500 km) exhibits many well‐known seasonal oscillations, but the presence of such seasonal oscillations (order higher than annual) in global upper atmospheric neutral winds has not been clearly established. Understanding the characteristics and sources of these oscillations in the ionosphere and thermosphere is necessary to accurately forecast the Earth's upper atmosphere. Most of the widely available wind databases are either not suitable for such a study due to cross‐contamination of seasons and local time in their measurements or have limited spatial or seasonal coverage. However, because of GOCE's near Sun‐synchronous orbit, the cross‐contamination between local solar time and seasonal variations is minimal, which makes it a unique data set to study the seasonal behavior of upper thermospheric winds at least around the dawn and dusk periods. Thus, in this study we utilized GOCE wind data to quantify the annual, semiannual, and terannual oscillations in upper thermospheric winds. Key Points: The cross‐contamination between seasonality and local solar time variations is minimal in GOCE dataAO, SAO, and TAO oscillations are robust features in neutral winds, all having appreciable amplitudes that vary as a function of latitudeThe AO is strongest at middle latitudes, and SAO and TAO amplitudes increase with increasing latitude on both sides of the equator [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to compare the results of 4 selected audit areas of the SAO, namely audits carried out in the domain of the state budget revenues, state property, state-owned enterprises and state funds. The hypothesis is that the findings of audits on the revenue side of the state budget have resulted in the largest number of legislative changes within the period under review. As part of the assessment of the development of the impact of the SAO activity measured by the number of government-imposed corrective measures, it was also found that the benefits of audit findings have increased and their usability has risen noticeably since 2005. By analysing the selected audit areas, the first established hypothesis was confirmed when it was found that the largest number of legislative changes was made in the area of the state budget revenues. In this domain, areas of system failures and implementations of the imposed recommendations were analysed additionally, with the aim to uncover the most problematic areas and to assess the overall implementation of the imposed recommendations. The hypothesis in this respect was that the recommended remedies were mostly met. Within the area of the state budget revenues, based on the publicly available information and the auditees' opinions it was found out that most of the recommendations were met. The second hypothesis was met, as well. The presented paper analyses both the government's resolutions, audit findings and conclusions, annual reports, EU reports, and selected views of the auditees. Within the audit areas, the number of submitted criminal notifications and notifications to the tax authority is also quantified. The usefulness of the results is based on the fact that the audits in the assessed areas were focused on the audit of legality with elements of the performance audit, though the best results in the domain of legality were brought by audits in the area of the state budget revenues. In this domain, it is therefore appropriate to focus more on the audit issues related to legality, as evidenced by the number of corrective measures in which the government has imposed a legislated solution to the given issue. Conversely, for audits of state assets (the remaining three groups), it would make more sense to strengthen the focus of these audits on the performance-related risks (the so-called 3E). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) and the Centre National d'Études Spatiales (CNES) worked closely together in the early years of the space program to deploy satellite laser ranging (SLR) systems at overseas sites to enhance global coverage to support specific missions. The data were routinely made available for use by the science community for programs in geodesy, gravity field, atmospheric physics, and ultimately for oceanography and geodynamics. SAO and CNES organized campaigns for international participation and loaned each other equipment to enhance the network. SAO and CNES provided technical expertise and advice to a number of other groups as they planned and deployed SLR systems. In this paper, we will discuss the history and the role of the two institutions in the building of the international SLR network. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the development of a new optimization algorithm called the Smell Agent Optimization (SAO). The algorithm uses the phenomenon of smell and the intuitive trailing behavior of an agent to identify a smell source. The developed algorithm has two basic modes used in the optimization process, which are the sniffing mode and trailing mode. In the sniffing mode, the evaporation of smell molecules from a source is modeled and in the trailing mode, the movement of an agent towards the smell molecules is modeled. The performance of SOA was evaluated using 10 benchmark functions and results was compared with PSO, ABC, and GA. Simulation results showed the efficiency of the developed SAO in solving unimodal and multimodal functions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The large temperature variability of nightly mean temperatures in 30 to 80 km altitude range is investigated using 15 years of lidar data from the year 1998 to 2012 over a low latitude station Gadanki, India (13.5o N, 79.2o E). The monthly mean values are compared with the coincident SABER temperature data obtained in a grid encompassing latitudes 08-18°N and longitudes 74-84°E during years 2002-2012 (i.e., 11 years). The comparison between the lidar and SABER measurements reveals a reasonable agreement with the standard deviation of the temperature difference ~1.5 K at 50 km and ~3 K at 70 km altitudes. To understand the physics of variability noted in the temperature data, abest-fit analysis is used. This reveals the presence of Semi-Annual Oscillation (SAO), Annual Oscillation (AO), Quasi-Biennial Oscillation (QBO), El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO), Solar Cycle Influence, and a residual secular trend. The residual trend shows a warming at 30-40 km altitudes and cooling between 40 and 80 km. The underlying physics of these oscillations are explained with the present knowledge of atmospheric forcings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In-loop filtering is an important part of high efficiency video coding (HEVC), which consists of deblocking filter and sample adaptive offset (SAO) filter. It can not only improve the compression efficiency of HEVC, but also improve the visual quality of the reconstructed videos significantly. However, the high computational complexity hampers its applications for real-time encoding scenarios. In this paper, we propose a parallel strategy for in-loop filtering in HEVC encoder on graphics processing unit (GPU). In the proposed strategy, the pipeline structure for HEVC encoding by parallel processing deblocking filter and SAO on GPU is described first. Then, the joint optimization for deblocking filter and SAO on GPU is detailed by parallel processing of deblocking filter and parallel processing of SAO separately. The joint optimization can improve the degree of parallelism and ease the computational burden of the CPU. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method can achieve about 47% (up to 67%) time saving on average for test sequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Mediterranean Agricultural Sciences is the property of Akdeniz Universitesi Ziraat Fakultesi and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

We analyzed the diet and seasonal variation in diet composition ofBrycon orthotaenia, an endangered and endemic species of the São Francisco River Basin, in the middle stretch of the São Francisco River.Brycon orthotaeniahad an herbivorous diet, with occasional consumption of animals, mainly in the dry season. Variation among dry and wet seasons in diet composition may be related to the species’ reproduction and energy allocation, since some items (e.g.insects, fishes) may support gonadal development. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]