Bottom Up

Experimental evidence on the distribution of visual attention supports the idea of a spatial saliency map, whereby bottom-up and top-down influences on attention are integrated by a winner-take-all mechanism. We implement this map with a continuous attractor neural network, and test the ability of our model to explain experimental evidence on the distribution of spatial attention. The majority of evidence supports the view that attention is unitary, but recent experiments provide evidence for split attentional foci. We simulate two such experiments. Our results suggest that the ability to divide attention depends on sustained endogenous signals from short term memory to the saliency map, stressing the interplay between working memory mechanisms and attention.

This paper illustrates how to estimate criminal justice system costs by offence type. Criminal justice system costs are all the costs the authorities incur to prevent and investigate crime, prosecute criminals, impose sentences, and take care of victims and offenders. There are two approaches: the break-down and the bottom-up approaches. The break-down approach decomposes the aggregate budget into smaller pieces. The bottom-up approach multiplies known costs per activity by volumes for each activity and offence type. Both approaches can be combined with two types of estimates: incidence-based and prevalence-based estimates. An incidence-based estimate identifies all costs attributable to crimes committed or processed in a specified period regardless of whether these costs exceed this time period. A prevalence-based estimate identifies all costs incurred in a specified period regardless of when the crime was committed or processed. This paper looks at the differences between the two approaches and the two estimates and indicates which combination works best depending on the type of analysis and the availability of data. The methodologies are illustrated using examples from The Netherlands. These examples show that the availability of reliable data is crucial. The more assumptions have to be made, the less reliable the end results. Investing in better data in this area should be a first priority for governments interested in criminal policy evaluation.

Discovery of association rules is an important problem in database mining. In this paper we present new algorithms for fast association mining, which scan the database only once, addressing the open question whether all the rules can be efficiently extracted in a single database pass. The algorithms use novel itemset clustering techniques to approximate the set of potentially maximal frequent itemsets. The algorithms then make use of efficient lattice traversal techniques to generate the frequent itemsets contained in each cluster. We propose two clustering schemes based on equivalence classes and maximal hypergraph cliques, and study two traversal techniques based on bottom-up and hybrid search. We also use a vertical database layout to cluster related transactions together. Experimental results show improvements of over an order of magnitude compared to previous algorithms.

Discussion.-Cette étude démontre l'utilité d'un travail précoce après l'AVC sur la communication. L'information précoce sur la communication, notamment non verbale, avec le patient aphasique représente un bénéfice significatif. Ce travail sur la communication ne doit plus être réservé aux patients en échec de rééducation linguistique.

Purpose -A systematic approach is needed to engage a broad range of stakeholders to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from energy use in the building sector. The purpose of this paper is to develop a systems-based bottom-up approach for this purpose, and to demonstrate its application in a case study of office building stock in the State of New South Wales (NSW) in Australia. Design/methodology/approach -A conceptual framework for the general method is developed based on a cross-typology matrix of energy consumption and supply on the one hand, and intervention schemes or policy instruments on the other. This is then tested and demonstrated using a case study of commercial office building stock, with building energy demand calculated using a validated computer energy simulation tool for a representative set of office buildings within a local government area (LGA). The energy consumption and associated GHG emissions are then aggregated up from LGA to the whole State. The impact projections of different intervention schemes are compared and mapped spatially across the State. Findings -Results have demonstrated the significance and capability of the proposed approach, in allowing quantitative comparisons of the relative effectiveness of a specific set of regulatory, technical and behavioral scenario settings on the spatial distribution and trends in energy consumption and GHG emissions of the NSW office building stock to 2020. Research limitations/implications -Further case studies involving mixed building types and specific building types with greater granularity of modelling details, energy use and supply options, and spatial resolution are needed. Originality/value -The structured cross-typology approach is a novel contribution to bottom-up modelling approaches to designing and/or assessing the effectiveness of specific policy instruments, alone or in combination. It will enable policy makers, property portfolio owners, utility companies and building tenants to assess the broader impacts of their specific actions towards a common goal.

Nitrogen fertilization and winter pruning are commonly used to control crop production in peach [Prunus persica (L.) Batsch] orchards. They are also known to affect the dynamics of Myzus persicae (Sulzer) (Homoptera: Aphididae) aphid populations via bottom-up regulation processes. Interactions between crops and pests can cause complex system behaviour in response to management practices. An integrated approach will therefore improve the understanding of the effects of these two cultural practices on aphid and peach performances.

Enhancing on line analytical processing through efficient cube computation plays a key role in Data Warehouse management. Hashing, grouping and mining techniques are commonly used to improve cube pre-computation. BitCube, a fast cubing method which uses bitmaps as inverted indexes for grouping, is presented. It horizontally partitions data according to the values of one dimension and for each resulting fragment it performs grouping following bottom-up criteria. BitCube allows also partial materialization based on iceberg conditions to treat large datasets for which a full cube pre-computation is too expensive. Space requirement of bitmaps is optimized by applying an adaption of the WAH compression technique. Experimental analysis, on both synthetic and real datasets, shows that BitCube outperforms previous algorithms for full cube computation and results comparable on iceberg cubing.

Cross-cultural research is dominated by the use of values despite their mixed empirical support and their limited theoretical scope. This article expands the dominant paradigm in crosscultural research by developing a theory of cultural tightness-looseness, the strength of social norms and degree of sanctioning within societies, and advancing a multilevel research agenda for future research. Through an exploration of the

Human error in configuring routers undermines attempts to provide reliable, predictable end-to-end performance on IP networks. Manual configuration, while expensive and errorprone, is the dominant mode of operation, especially for large enterprise networks. These networks often lack the basic building blocks-an accurate equipment inventory, a debugged initial configuration, and a specification of local configuration policies-to support the holy grail of automation. We argue that migrating an existing network to automated configuration is a rich and challenging research problem rooted in data analysis and in the modeling of network protocols and operational practices. We propose a novel, bottom-up approach that proceeds in three phases: (i) analysis of configuration data to summarize the existing network state and uncover configuration problems; (ii) data mining to identify the network's local configuration policies and violations of these policies; and ultimately (iii) boot-strapping of a database to drive future configuration changes. The first stage reduces the number of errors, the second normalizes the local policies, and the third prevents new errors and reduces the manpower needed to configure the network. We describe the architecture of our EDGE tool for steps (i) and (ii), and present some examples from our experiences applying the tool to several large enterprise networks.

This paper examines the relationship between policy and politics in relation to the development of public- sector primary education through Breton and Gaelic, considering closely the patterns of power through which such provision is delivered. Brittany and Scotland present many similarities as culturally distinctive territories, contained within larger state-nations, which until recently allowed very little scope for minority language education. Initiatives to develop public-sector education through Breton and Gaelic were finally launched in the 1980s and have now became significantly institutionalised, even if they remain small in scale. The dynamics of institutionalisation have been very different in the two territories, however: parallel problems have been tackled in different ways, and issues that have proved fraught in one have presented few complications in the other. Both case studies demonstrate the importance of ‘bottom-up’ dynamics as a source of innovative energy.

The United States is often considered the progenitor of conservation planning in the world, the first to establish a vast public domain, for example. But with continued population growth, conservation planning on private lands-rural and at the urban fringe-continues to be a substantial challenge due to a tradition of local home rule in land use planning and strong private property protection afforded by the US Constitution. New ''bottom-up'' collaborative approaches, as well as other innovative strategies seem to be emerging. How effective these will be given pressures for growth and high property values remain to be seen without a rethinking of ideas of nature, a rebalancing of the role of property in American local fiscal regimes, and of private property rights.

Selecting pertinent events in the cacophony of sounds that impinge on our ears every day is regulated by the acoustic salience of sounds in the scene as well as their behavioral relevance as dictated by top-down task-dependent demands. The current study aims to explore the neural signature of both facets of attention, as well as their possible interactions in the context of auditory scenes. Using a paradigm with dynamic auditory streams with occasional salient events, we recorded neurophysiological responses of human listeners using EEG while manipulating the subjects' attentional state as well as the presence or absence of a competing auditory stream. Our results showed that salient events caused an increase in the auditory steady-state response (ASSR) irrespective of attentional state or complexity of the scene. Such increase supplemented ASSR increases due to task-driven attention. Salient events also evoked a strong N1 peak in the ERP response when listeners were attending to the target sound stream, accompanied by an MMN-like component in some cases and changes in the P1 and P300 components under all listening conditions. Overall, bottom-up attention induced by a salient change in the auditory stream appears to mostly modulate the amplitude of the steady-state response and certain event-related potentials to salient sound events; though this modulation is affected by top-down attentional processes and the prominence of these events in the auditory scene as well.

CITATIONS 25 READS 57 5 authors, including: Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects: colonization of periglacial habitats, recently uncovered due to the retreating ice sheet in Western Greenland, by clones of obligately asexual water flea populations. View project

A framework is presented for estimating the pose of a camera based on images extracted from a single omnidirectional image of an urban scene, given a 2D map with building outlines with no 3D geometric information nor appearance data. The framework attempts to identify vertical corner edges of buildings in the query image, which we term VCLH, as well as the neighboring plane normals, through vanishing point analysis. A bottom-up process further groups VCLH into elemental planes and subsequently into 3D structural fragments modulo a similarity transformation. A geometric hashing lookup allows us to rapidly establish multiple candidate correspondences between the structural fragments and the 2D map building contours. A voting-based camera pose estimation method is then employed to recover the correspondences admitting a camera pose solution with high consensus. In a dataset that is even challenging for humans, the system returned a top-30 ranking for correct matches out of 3600 camera pose hypotheses (0.83% selectivity) for 50.9% of queries.

In this paper, a thorough bottom-up optimization process (field, point and scalar arithmetic) is used to speed up the computation of elliptic curve point multiplication and report new speed records on modern x86-64 based processors. Our different implementations include elliptic curves using Jacobian coordinates, extended Twisted Edwards coordinates and the recently proposed Galbraith-Lin-Scott (GLS) method. Compared to state-of-the-art implementations on identical platforms the proposed techniques provide up to 30% speed improvements. Additionally, compared to the best previous published results on similar platforms improvements up to 31% are observed. This research is crucial for advancing high speed cryptography on new emerging processor architectures.

This article surveys deformable models, a promising and vigorously researched computer-assisted medical image analysis technique. Among model-based techniques, deformable models offer a unique and powerful approach to image analysis that combines geometry, physics, and approximation theory. They have proven to be effective in segmenting, matching, and tracking anatomic structures by exploiting (bottom-up) constraints derived from the image data together with (top-down) a priori knowledge about ...

Town twinning can be seen as the first step taken by municipalities to define their interests on the international stage. Although a small elite of mayors and urban local government administrators had long since created a web of international relationships, 1 town twinning was the first activity to involve municipal institutions as such in wide-ranging and long-term international action by councillors. Some aspects of this activity have been studied, 2 but the full story of its development remains little known. Nonetheless it is a vitally important aspect of social history, the first step towards an understanding of how local public initiatives were transported to the international scale, and of the dynamics of this process. The purpose of this article is to show how, at a time when French mayors were re-defining their international relationships, a municipal tradition was created which led to a lasting social innovation. The dynamics of this international activity by the mayors can be broadly divided into three phases. The first was characterised by initiatives by small groups of reformers seeking to arouse international awareness of municipal activity and redefine the rules of local government. This movement continued after the war, but was swamped by a much wider-ranging involvement by mayors in initiatives expressive of their status as members of an international community. It was in this context that new relationships were established, not just between mayors as individuals, but based on municipal institutions.

Tissue-engineered constructs can be fabricated by the assembly of smaller building blocks in order to mimic much of the native biology that is often made from repeating functional units. Our aim was to realize a three-dimensional (3-D) tissue-like construct in vitro by inducing the assembly of functional micrometric tissue precursors (lTPs). lTPs were obtained by dynamic cell seeding of bovine fibroblasts on porous gelatine microcarriers using a spinner flask bioreactor. During the dynamic seeding, cells adhered, proliferated and synthesized a thin layer of extracellular matrix (ECM) in and around the macroporous beads, generating the lTPs. The analysis showed that the ECM produced was rich in type I collagen. The cells and ECM layer around the lTPs allowed their biological sintering via cell-cell and cell-matrix interaction after only a few days of dynamic seeding. The assembling ability of lTPs was exploited by placing them in a maturation chamber. After 1 week of culture disc-shaped constructs (1 cm in diameter, 1 mm in thickness) of completely assembled lTPs were collected. The biohybrid obtained presented both a homogeneous and compact aspect. Moreover, histological and immunohistochemical analyses revealed an abundant ECM, rich in type I collagen, interconnecting the lTPs. The results obtained in this survey pave the way to realizing a 3-D dermal tissue equivalent by means of a bottom-up tissue engineering approach.

For many years the full potential of creating and leveraging integrated health ICT systems such as electronic health records to improve healthcare delivery, reducing its cost and promoting prevention has been elusive. Traditional health ICT business, innovation, development and adoption models have failed to address chronic road blocks to realizing its full potential and have led to many high profile failures. The chronic symptoms include persistent barriers to integration and interoperability, high cost, duplication of effort, and poor, to no support for collaborative, "evidence based" medicine. This paper provides a review of case studies and analysis on how open innovation, or open source processes, can break the grid lock and bring the fundamental paradigm shift needed to exploit the full potential of health ICTs. The paper will discuss how the open innovation model, as applied to health ICT, provides a framework for harnessing the naturally occurring "bottom up" forces and emergent behaviour found in complex adaptive systems such as healthcare. It does this by describing a model and context for collaborative, open, peer reviewed, evidence-based innovation and technology transfer processes. Evidence from case studies are presented on how open ICT innovation in healthcare provides essential feed backloops for supporting, researching, developing and disseminating while driving continuous quality improvement at a global scale.

In this paper, we present a hybrid approach to the problem of the document analysis in which the document image is segmented by means of a top-down technique and then basic blocks are grouped bottom-up in order to form complex layout components. In this latter process, called layout analysis,only generic knowledge on typesetting conventions is exploited. Sucha knowledge isindependentof theparticular class of processed documents and turns out valuable for a wide range of documents. Preliminary results of the layout analysis system LEX show the methodological validity of this approach.

When listening to speech under adverse conditions, expectancies resulting from semantic context can have a strong impact on comprehension. Here we ask how minimal variations in semantic context (cloze probability) affect the unfolding comprehension of acoustically degraded speech. Three main results are observed in the brain electric response. First, auditory evoked responses to a degraded sentence's onset (N100) correlate with participants' comprehension scores, but are generally more vigorous for more degraded sentences. Second, a pronounced N400 in response to low-cloze sentence-final words, reflecting the integration effort of words into context, increases linearly with improving speech intelligibility. Conversely, transient enhancement in Gamma band power (γ,~40-70 Hz) during high-cloze sentence-final words (~600 ms) reflects top-down-facilitated integration. This γ-band effect also varies parametrically with signal quality. Third, a negative correlation of N100 amplitude at sentence onset and the later γ-band response is found in moderately degraded speech. This reflects two partly distinct neural strategies when dealing with moderately degraded speech; a more "bottom-up," resource-allocating, and effortful versus a more "top-down," associative and facilitatory strategy. Results also emphasize the non-redundant contributions of phase-locked (evoked) and non-phase-locked (induced) oscillatory brain dynamics in auditory EEG.

The goal of this article is to propose a new cognitive model that focuses on bottom-up learning of explicit knowledge (i.e., the transformation of implicit knowledge into explicit knowledge). This phenomenon has recently received much attention in empirical research that was not accompanied by a corresponding work effort in cognitive modeling. The new model is called TEnsor LEarning of CAusal STructure (TELECAST). In TELECAST, implicit processing is modeled using an unsupervised connectionist network (the Joint Probability EXtractor: JPEX) while explicit (causal) knowledge is implemented using a Bayesian belief network (which is built online using JPEX). Every task is simultaneously processed explicitly and implicitly and the results are integrated to provide the model output. Here, TELECAST is used to simulate a causal inference task and two serial reaction time experiments.

Semantic representation of multimedia information is vital for enabling the kind of multimedia search capabilities that professional searchers require. Manual annotation is often not possible because of the shear scale of the multimedia information that needs indexing. This paper explores the ways in which we are using both top-down, ontologically driven approaches and bottom-up, automatic-annotation approaches to provide retrieval facilities to users. We also discuss many of the current techniques that we are investigating to combine these top-down and bottom-up approaches.

Efficient and rational implementation of building stock CO 2 emission reduction strategies and policies requires the application of comprehensive building stock models that have the ability to: (a) estimate the baseline energy demand of the existing building stock, (b) explore the technical and economic effects of different CO 2 emission reduction strategies over time, including the impact of new technologies, and (c) to identify the effect of emission reduction strategies on indoor environmental quality.

Whilst healthcare has increased its awareness of the retrospective safety assessment techniques, such as root cause analysis, adoption of the corresponding predictive safety assessment techniques has been slow and sporadic. Reasons for this may include lack of support in technique choice and practical knowledge in the published literature. Whilst there have been many publications on these techniques, few have aimed to support the novice user in selecting a technique from the broad array of choice to facilitate targeting of education in techniques for specific purposes. This paper aims to address this through collecting an evidence base towards developing a bottom-up (resources and constraints) and top-down (requirements) approach to technique selection. Conclusions indicate there is a lack of practical experiences described in the literature to conclusively define a technique for selection and a need for a dedicated research in this area to make it accessible for healthcare and other novice users.

Cet article évalue la part croissante du secteur privé chinois en Afrique. Actuellement l’attention se porte sur les entreprises publiques chinoises qui investissent dans le secteur minier et peu d’intérêt est accordé aux entreprises du secteur privé. Cette étude comble ce manque en évaluant les caractéristiques et les motivations des entreprises privées chinoises et leurs impacts sur le développement. Les

School is considered to be a very important arena for health education among children and adolescents. Within the field of health education in school, there are nowadays manifold methods, models and directions. A typology of different models for health education in schools is accounted for in this article. The typology is built up partly from the strategy for changeÐtop-down or bottom-upÐwhich is characterized by health education, and partly from the contextual frameworkÐ narrow or wideÐwithin which health education is carried on. In this way, four different main types of models can be perceived. (i) Traditional educational models which are characterized by a top-down strategy for change and a narrow contextual framework. These models are mainly practised in the classroom and the pupils are for the most part passive receivers of information. (ii) Modern educational models which are characterized by a bottom-up strategy for change and a narrow contextual framework. In these models the pupils take an active part. These models are mainly practised in the classroom. (iii) Planner models which are characterized by a top-down strategy for change and a wide contextual framework. In these models the entire school, and sometimes also the community outside, is included in health education. The models are often characterized by being health work for, rather than with and by, pupils, even if pupil participation is sometimes focused. (iv) Empowerment models which are characterized by a bottom-up strategy for change and a wide contextual framework. In these models participantorientation is essential and the school environment and social conditions are considered to be important for health education. Empowerment models can partly be seen as an answer to the criticism of principle that health education is traditionally being subjected to as regards aim, direction and contents. In this paper, empowerment models are described and discussed, as a suggestion as to how school pupils can be enabled to participate in a programme of change concerning both lifestyles and environment.

Le lien gestion des compétences - stratégie est largement évoqué au sein de la littérature notamment à travers les deux modes d'interactions classiques (top down et bottom up). Ces travaux se centrent sur les entreprises d'une certaine taille dans la mesure où ils posent comme pré-requis l'existence de processus RH formalisés et l'élaboration d'actions stratégiques explicites. Au sein des PME, globalement caractérisées par le rôle clé de la vision stratégique du dirigeant et par un faible degré d'explication des processus RH, ce lien doit être repensé. Dans ce cadre, notre recherche vise à éclairer la relation entre stratégie et gestion des compétences dans le contexte particulier de la PME. Une attention particulière est portée à la place de la vision stratégique et des processus de formalisation dans cette relation. Ce travail exploratoire est conduit par le biais d'une recherche-action menée dans le cadre du pôle de compétitivité " Véhicule du Fut...

The paper differentiates between three conceptualizations of organizational networks: as resources, as organizational logic, and as a change mechanism. We integrate and apply these conceptualizations in one of the first comprehensive studies of private business schools in post-socialism. Using case studies, content analysis of websites, and an open-ended survey of administrators, we show how East-West networks helped in establishing a new type of organization at the end of socialism, how schools use networking as a core organizational principle to enhance efficacy and legitimacy, and how their activities help build capitalism from the bottom up by transmitting marketbased knowledge to post-socialist economic actors.

Mutualistic symbionts are widespread in plants and may have strong, bottom-up influences on community structure. Here we show that a grass-endophyte mutualism shifts the composition of a generalist predator assemblage. In replicated, successional fields we manipulated endophyte infection by Neotyphodium coenophialum in a dominant, non-native plant (Lolium arundinaceum). We compared the magnitude of the endophyte effect with manipulations of thatch biomass, a habitat feature of known importance to spiders. The richness of both spider families and morphospecies was greater in the absence of the endophyte, although total spider abundance was not affected. Thatch removal reduced both spider abundance and richness, and endophyte and thatch effects were largely additive. Spider families differed in responses, with declines in Linyphiidae and Thomisidae due to the endophyte and declines in Lycosidae due to thatch removal. Results demonstrate that the community impacts of non-native plants can depend on plantsÕ mutualistic associates, such as fungal endophytes.

This research is an attempt to better understand how external and internal organizational influences shape organizational actions for improving information systems security. A case study of a multi-national company is presented and then analyzed from the perspective of neo-institutional theory. The analysis indicates that coercive, normative, and mimetic isomorphic processes were evident, although it was difficult to distinguish normative from mimetic influences. Two internal forces related to work practices were identified representing resistance to initiatives to improve security: the institutionalization of work mobility and the institutionalization of efficiency outcomes expected with the adoption of company initiatives, especially those involving information technology. The interweaving of top-down and bottom-up influences resulted in an effort to reinforce, and perhaps reinstitutionalize the systems component of information security. The success of this effort appeared to hinge on top management championing information system security initiatives and propagating an awareness of the importance of information security among employees at all levels of the company. The case shows that while regulatory forces, such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, are powerful drivers for change, other institutional influences play significant roles in shaping the synthesis of organizational change.

In Brazil energy efficiency standards for cold appliances was established in 2007. A specified single set of MEPS (minimum energy performance standards) for refrigerators, freezers and freezer refrigerators was implemented without evaluating its impacts and estimation of potential electricity savings. This paper presents a methodology for assessing the impacts of the Brazilian MEPS for cold appliances. It uses a bottom-up approach to estimate residential end-use consumption and to evaluate the energy saving potential for refrigerators. The household electricity consumption is projected by modeling appliance ownership using an econometric approach based on the recent household survey data. A cost-benefit analysis for more stringent standards is presented from the perspective of the society and electricity customers. The results showed that even considering the current market conditions (high discount rate for financing new efficient equipment) some MEPS options are advantageous for customers. The analysis also demonstrates significant cost-effective saving potential from the society perspective that could reach 21 TWh throughout the period of 2010-2030-about 25% of current residential consumption.

In many applications, there are multiple time series that are hierarchically organized and can be aggregated at several different levels in groups based on products, geography or some other features. We call these "hierarchical time series". They are commonly forecast using either a "bottom-up" or a "top-down" method. In this paper we propose a new approach to hierarchical forecasting which provides optimal forecasts that are better than forecasts produced by either a top-down or a bottom-up approach. Our method is based on independently forecasting all series at all levels of the hierarchy and then using a regression model to optimally combine and reconcile these forecasts. The resulting revised forecasts add up appropriately across the hierarchy, are unbiased and have minimum variance amongst all combination forecasts under some simple assumptions. We show in a simulation study that our method performs well compared to the top-down approach and the bottom-up method. We demonstrate our proposed method by forecasting Australian tourism demand where the data are disaggregated by purpose of travel and geographical region.

This article will analyse which areas rural and urban Local Action Groups (LAGs) in the Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship function in. The thesis of this research is: LAGs are a bottom-up tool for local management. The first part presents the main assumptions of public management approaches and shows the LEADER approach and Community-Led Local Development as a form of bottom up approach in the process of public management on the local level. Th en comparison analysis between rural and urban LAGs will take places. Similarities and differences were identified in the legal framework of their existence, the actors who create them, the possibility of receiving EU financial support and within the e fields of their activities. These were all analysed, along with financial activities implemented in the rural and urban LAGs in the Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship through 2014-2020.

Image segmentation has traditionally been thought of us a low/mid-level vision process incorporating no high level constraints. However, in complex and uncontrolled environments, such bottom-up strategies have drawbacks that lead to large misclassification rates. Remedies to this situation include taking into account (1) contextual and application constraints, (2) user input and feedback to incrementally improve the performance of the system. We attempt to incorporate these in the context of pipeline segmentation in industrial images. This problem is of practical importance for the 3D reconstruction of factory environments. However it poses several fundamental challenges mainly due to shading. Highlights and textural variations, etc. Our system performs pipe segmentation by fusing methods from physics-based vision, edge and texture analysis, probabilistic learning and the use of the graph-cut formalism

The effects of fish kill and different fish stocks on the phytoplankton and zooplankton dynamics were studied in a shallow hypertrophic reservoir system. When fish stock was below 100 kg ha-1, nutrient availability was not the main limiting factor for growth of phytoplankton. Consequently top-down forces controlled phytoplankton. In the years with high fish stock (>100 kg ha-1) the bottom-up forces dominated as nutrient availability was the main limiting factor for growth of phytoplankton. We can conclude that significant water quality improvement can be achieved in the reservoir system by decreasing fish stock below 100 kg ha-1. Although clear-water phase could be stabilised temporary by macrophytes, stabilisation of good water quality requires continuous regulation of fish community. (

Although the effects of nutrient enhancement on aquatic systems are well documented, the consequences of nutritional supplements on soil food webs are poorly understood, and results of past research examining bottom-up effects are often conflicting. In addition, many studies have failed to separate the effects of nutrient enrichment and the physical effects of adding organic matter. In this field study, we hypothesised that the addition of nitrogen to soil would result in a trophic cascade, through detritivores (Collembola) to predators (spiders), increasing invertebrate numbers and diversity.

Nitrogen fertilization and winter pruning are commonly used to control crop production in peach [Prunus persica (L.) Batsch] orchards. They are also known to affect the dynamics of Myzus persicae (Sulzer) (Homoptera: Aphididae) aphid populations via bottom-up regulation processes. Interactions between crops and pests can cause complex system behaviour in response to management practices. An integrated approach will therefore improve the understanding of the effects of these two cultural practices on aphid and peach performances.