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Supersize Me :)
American Airlines Flt No 555, you are cleared for takeoff.
I'll have seconds
Tom Jones: - It's a good night to be abroad and looking for game.
By Remoran - November 29, 2009 3 comments:
In the Land of Custer
Normally I don't talk about US policy except through the lens of tech but the perceptive article from the NY Times titled Taliban Open Northern Front in Afghanistan compells me to say something about futility, George Armstrong Custer and why Afghanistan is a loss leader along the lines of 'Nam.
For starters, the Taliban don't have to win, just persevere. The US will not be in Afghanistan forever so just showing up is enough. Afghanistan is a huge country, inhospitable to occupiers as seen throughout history via defeats placed on Alexander the Great, the British and the Russians. Now it's our turn and Obama and the military just don't get it. To top it off, we are contemplating negotiating with the Taliban while trying to root out e-Qaeda, the terrorist organization which may or not be even a force in this war torn nation and who may be supporting the Taliban, the erstwhile enemy/collaborator? that we may or may not be fighting against in Afghanistan as both organizations consist of fanatical Sunni Muslim operatives. Note: We haven't even discussed the corrupt US backed Karzi government which is distrusted by a large segment of Afghans, a situation eerily reminiscent of the distrusted South Vietnam government backed by the US during the Vietnam war. Note II: We won't discuss the economic impact either as the defense budget already is almost 700 billion this year and counting while the US shuffles toward bankruptcy and Wall Street takes in 13 trillion of tax payer money. Same as it ever was - Talking Heads.
Alice in Wonderland has nothing on this hall of mirrors which includes the ongoing undeclared war with Pakistan designed to 1. minimize the influence of the Taliban in that nation while negotiating with the same entity in Afghanistan and 2, destroy e-Qaeda base camps located in the hinterlands of West Pakistan through the use of remote control Predator Drone attacks that often kill innocent civilians in the process. Makes sense doesn't it?
Bill Moyers' seminal piece Johnson's Escalation of Vietnam: A Timeline, says it all but maybe Obama doesn't see or realize the fact that "Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it." - Sir Winston Churchill
After reading the Washington Post piece titled Newly deployed Marines to target Taliban bastion, it appears Obama has little problem with Churchill's comment.
And so it goes. Slaughterhouse 5 - Kurt Vonnegut
Oh, I forgot about Custer..."As the Army moved into the field on its expedition, (the Little Bighorm - ed) it was operating with incorrect assumptions as to the number of Indians it would encounter.
All Army plans were based on the incorrect numbers. While after the battle, Custer was severely criticized for not having accepted reinforcements and for dividing his forces, it must be understood that he had accepted the same official Government estimates of hostiles in the area which Terry and Gibbon also accepted.
"Loyalty to the country, always. Loyalty to the government when it deserves it." - Mark Twain
By Remoran - November 27, 2009 No comments:
Chickens coming home to roost
"WASHINGTON — The United States government is financing its more than trillion-dollar-a-year borrowing with i.o.u.'s on terms that seem too good to be true.
But that happy situation, aided by ultralow interest rates, may not last much longer.
Treasury officials now face a trifecta of headaches: a mountain of new debt, a balloon of short-term borrowings that come due in the months ahead, and interest rates that are sure to climb back to normal as soon as the Federal Reserve decides that the emergency has passed."
And we even haven't discussed Iraq, Afghanistan and the defense budget as prime drivers of same. Sounds like Bush Lite to me. To get more info, the NY Times Debt Bomb is a viable way to go.
Bill Moyers, a national treasure, does it again by looking back at US policy in the 60's regarding Southeast Asia titled Johnson's Escalation of Vietnam: A Timeline, something eerily akin to what Obama is doing regarding Afghanistan. Read Danny Schecter's perceptive article titled Bill Moyers' Message to Obama: Study History or Repeat its Mistakes to see why,
On his Journal, Moyers went back to the historical record, to selected but revealing tapes of Johnson's own phone calls with his colleagues and appointees-yes he wiretapped himself the way Nixon did years later-and those calls showed how he agonized over whether to escalate the war, a course of action he knew could not succeed. The parallels with the present day, and the upcoming decision by President Obama to escalate the war in Afghanistan are unmistakable and undeniable.
There was the cunning LBJ boiling down the options to getting out or going in deeper, or perhaps "neutralizing" the situation with trainers and economic aid. He, of course opted for the third choice at first-just as Obama has-until it was clear it was not working and we and that our corrupt client state was losing. As his perceived options narrowed, so did his course of action.
As Republicans then demanded "victory," as the military (The Joint Chiefs) clamored for a higher draft and more troops, LBJ began to fear being accused of tucking tail and running, a big no-no in a culture in which Americans see themselves as perpetual winners, the toughest guys on the block. He could not, in his view, be the President who "lost" Vietnam the way his predecessors were accused of losing China-as if those countries were ours to lose!
And so slowly-as we saw, or rather hear, Johnson escalated, stage by stage, often on the basis of false "intelligence" as in the Tonkin Gulf incident that wasn't. Step by step, the third option was abandoned and the military option was embraced. One infusion of troops was followed by another as the war worsened with tens of thousands of US deaths and casualties and millions of Asian victims.
Trapped by his own limited logic, and cautiously pragmatic style. LBJ gave up his principles, compromised on his convictions, and his "Great Society" and Presidency became a disaster. He later quit politics, a broken man.
Will it happen again?
Moyers clear point in the poorly watched PBS Public Affairs Friday Night Ghetto was clear-it is about to happen again.
"We will never know what would have happened if Lyndon Johnson said no," he concluded. "We do know what happened because he said yes."
It was brilliant television, informative journalism of the kind we rarely see, all driven by the words and voice of the man who was once his own "boss." We saw how the logic of escalation supplanted all other logic and, then, logic itself.
The tragedy of 'Nam was not only the needless deaths it caused but also how it crippled the funding of Johnson's Great Society initiative intended to change America for the better by instituting innovative programs to effectively deal with the problems of racism, poverty, education and health care in the same can do attitude as that of FDR during the Great Depression.
Hopefully Obama will read War is a Racket by Smedley Butler before it's too late.
Pirate Finder General
Copyright in the UK will resemble the dictatorial government V fought against in the V for Vendetta film as this effort to control information can be the start point for dictatorship in England. At the very least, the UK will lose big time in terms of the web because no one will want to do business in a place where surveillance is king and power goes to the unelected. Sounds like 1984 and the Thought Police doesn't it?
A source close to the British Labour Government has just given me reliable information about the most radical copyright proposal I've ever seen. Secretary of State Peter Mandelson is planning to introduce changes to the Digital Economy Bill now under debate in Parliament. These changes will give the Secretary of State (Mandelson -- or his successor in the next government) the power to make "secondary legislation" (legislation that is passed without debate) to amend the provisions of Copyright, Designs and Patents Act (1988).
What that means is that an unelected official would have the power to do anything without Parliamentary oversight or debate, provided it was done in the name of protecting copyright. Mandelson elaborates on this, giving three reasons for his proposal:
1. The Secretary of State would get the power to create new remedies for online infringements (for example, he could create jail terms for file-sharing, or create a "three-strikes" plan that costs entire families their internet access if any member stands accused of infringement)
2. The Secretary of State would get the power to create procedures to "confer rights" for the purposes of protecting rightsholders from online infringement. (for example, record labels and movie studios can be given investigative and enforcement powers that allow them to compel ISPs, libraries, companies and schools to turn over personal information about Internet users, and to order those companies to disconnect users, remove websites, block URLs, etc)
3. The Secretary of State would get the power to "impose such duties, powers or functions on any person as may be specified in connection with facilitating online infringement" (for example, ISPs could be forced to spy on their users, or to have copyright lawyers examine every piece of user-generated content before it goes live; also, copyright "militias" can be formed with the power to police copyright on the web)
Mandelson is also gunning for sites like YouSendIt and other services that allow you to easily transfer large files back and forth privately (I use YouSendIt to send podcasts back and forth to my sound-editor during production). Like Viacom, he's hoping to force them to turn off any feature that allows users to keep their uploads private, since privacy flags can be used to keep infringing files out of sight of copyright enforcers.
The dark side of the Darknet beckons if the Brits actually attempt to control the flow of information by doing something as stupid and scurrilous as this. If people let this happen, V's speech regarding the loss of freedom could come to pass.
"Politicians are like diapers; they need to be changed often and for the same reason." — Mark Twain
"Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build a bridge even where there is no river." - Nikita Khrushchev
A Crack in the Mirror
In an unprecedented defeat for the Federal Reserve, an amendment to audit the multi-trillion dollar institution was approved by the House Finance Committee with an overwhelming and bipartisan 43-26 vote on Thursday afternoon despite harried last-minute lobbying from top Fed officials and the surprise opposition of Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.), who had previously been a supporter.
The measure, cosponsored by Reps. Ron Paul (R-Texas) and Alan Grayson (D-Fla.), authorizes the Government Accountability Office to conduct a wide-ranging audit of the Fed's opaque deals with foreign central banks and major U.S. financial institutions. The Fed has never had a real audit in its history and little is known of what it does with the trillions of dollars at its disposal.
The amendment expressly blocks Congress from interfering with the independence of monetary policy decision-making, but opponents of the measure said that the political pressure would inevitably follow.
Last but not least, check out this Washington's Blog's blurb about all things financial titled Are Americans Finally Standing up to Wall Street? Seems us natives are getting restless. :)
Revenge is a dish best served cold :)
Revenge is a dish best served cold - Michael Corleone/The Godfather
Why Canada is Laughing at us
"Even as drug makers promise to support Washington's health care overhaul by shaving $8 billion a year off the nation's drug costs after the legislation takes effect, the industry has been raising its prices at the fastest rate in years.
In the last year, the industry has raised the wholesale prices of brand-name prescription drugs by about 9 percent, according to industry analysts. That will add more than $10 billion to the nation's drug bill, which is on track to exceed $300 billion this year. By at least one analysis, it is the highest annual rate of inflation for drug prices."
Brainpower
Every once in a while an article comes out that answers a question I have had in my mind for years. The question: How can insects think with such power when their brain size is miniscule at best? Now I know thanks to a post on Current Biology titled Are Bigger Brains Better?
Attempts to relate brain size to behaviour and cognition have rarely integrated information from insects with that from vertebrates. Many insects, however, demonstrate that highly differentiated motor repertoires, extensive social structures and cognition are possible with very small brains, emphasising that we need to understand the neural circuits, not just the size of brain regions, which underlie these feats. Neural network analyses show that cognitive features found in insects, such as numerosity, attention and categorisation-like processes, may require only very limited neuron numbers. Thus, brain size may have less of a relationship with behavioural repertoire and cognitive capacity than generally assumed, prompting the question of what large brains are for. Larger brains are, at least partly, a consequence of larger neurons that are necessary in large animals due to basic biophysical constraints. They also contain greater replication of neuronal circuits, adding precision to sensory processes, detail to perception, more parallel processing and enlarged storage capacity. Yet, these advantages are unlikely to produce the qualitative shifts in behaviour that are often assumed to accompany increased brain size. Instead, modularity and interconnectivity may be more important.
After reading this amazing piece, one readily understands that efficiency of brain configuration is often of greater consequence than size, something also seen in the extraordinary intelligence of parrots as seen in a earlier BRT post titled Alex, we hardly knew ye.
Not only was Alex smart, (he understood colors, categories and numbers) he also was easily bored if the experiments he participated in were not up to snuff in challenging his intellect.
Seen below is another graphic from the CB writing showing how body mass is a predictor of brain mass in animals.
As follow up, check out Physorg's perceptive take on the CB posting.
Chittka says: "In bigger brains we often don't find more complexity, just an endless repetition of the same neural circuits over and over. This might add detail to remembered images or sounds, but not add any degree of complexity.
To use a computer analogy, bigger brains might in many cases be bigger hard drives, not necessarily better processors."
This must mean that much 'advanced' thinking can actually be done with very limited neuron numbers. Computer modelling shows that even consciousness can be generated with very small neural circuits, which could in theory easily fit into an insect brain.
In fact, the models suggest that counting could be achieved with only a few hundred nerve cells and only a few thousand could be enough to generate consciousness. Engineers hope that this kind of research will lead to smarter computing with the ability to recognise human facial expressions and emotions.
"Machines take me by surprise with great frequency." - Alan Turing
Kinda looks like the end scene of the Matrix Reloaded flick (The 2 sequels pale in comparison to the first film but the CG's cool.) where Neo confronts the Architect of the Matrix only to discover he is "The One No. 7", a pawn intended to be used as an agent of deception "to save mankind" in order for the Matrix, a quantum system of unimaginable power, to continue using humanity as prime energy source without interruption or interference. (This is the best part of the movie IMHO.)
Needless to say, we are not there yet in terms of quantum computing and artificial intelligence but we now are seeing, for the first time, a viable emergence of the semantic web in the form of the MESH project, (Multimedia Semantic Syndication for Enhanced News Services) the first search engine capable of using the Media Merge (video, text, images & sound) to enable machines to locate content in ways beyond the present day (dumb) search environments of Google and Bing. (No doubt, both are looking into semantics in a very big way.)
"European researchers have created the first integrated semantic search platform that integrates text, video and audio. The system can 'watch' films, 'listen' to audio and 'read' text to find relevant responses to semantic search terms. At last, computers are able to look for meaning in our multimedia searches...
But European researchers in the MESH project have developed an integrated platform which they say, for the first time, can combine semantic search -- or search by the meaning of the words -- and a host of associated tools to deliver more relevant information, from a wide variety of sources that can be accessed from an individual user.
The platform can search annotated files from any type of media -- photographs, videos, sound recordings, text, document scans -- using a host of techniques including optical character recognition, automated speech recognition and automatic annotation of movies and photographs that track salient concepts."
BRT talked about this from the perspective of OWL and RDF in The Semanatic Web Cometh, a piece discussing how formats and data transparency combined with the aforementioned languages presages an age of computers accessing data as easily as us. Now, the MESH Project is moving this tech into a reality space we are accustomed to, the world of multimedia connected to high end presentation.
If that isn't enough, consider the image based search engine from VizSeek...
VizSeek is one of the first search engines on the Internet to use a photograph, a 2D image, or a 3D model and transform it into a 3D shape. The search can be narrowed with additional information. The image-seeking search engine produces search results in a matter of seconds.
Reality is a web of transactions, the key is to find the appropriate transaction that fits the need of the user. - RM
There's a terrific New York Times article on Dreaming titled A Dream Interpretation: Tuneups for the Brain that appears to tie in nicely with the theory of sleep, a subject covered by BRT titled, The Meaning of Sleep where researchers likened sleep as a process akin to defragging a disk ...
As posted online September 11, 2009 by Nature Neuroscience, György Buzsaki, professor at the Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience at Rutgers University, Newark, and his co-researchers, Gabrielle Girardeau, Karim Benchenane, Sidney I. Wiener and Michaël B. Zugaro of the Collége de France, have determined that short transient brain events, called "sharp wave ripples," are responsible for consolidating memory and transferring the learned information from the hippocampus to the neocortex, where long-term memories are stored.
In the Times article ... Dr. J. Allan Hobson, a psychiatrist and longtime sleep researcher at Harvard, argues that the main function of rapid-eye-movement sleep, or REM, when most dreaming occurs, is physiological. The brain is warming its circuits, anticipating the sights and sounds and emotions of waking.
"It helps explain a lot of things, like why people forget so many dreams," Dr. Hobson said in an interview. "It's like jogging; the body doesn't remember every step, but it knows it has exercised. It has been tuned up. It's the same idea here: dreams are tuning the mind for conscious awareness."
Sounds like booting up a computer to me.
Addendum: The real importance of this research deals with mental illness and how the diseased brain deals with reality:
"Researchers have a way to go before they can confirm or fill out this working hypothesis. But the payoffs could extend beyond a deeper understanding of the sleeping brain. People who struggle with schizophrenia suffer delusions of unknown origin. Dr. Hobson suggests that these flights of imagination may be related to an abnormal activation of a dreaming consciousness. "Let the dreamer awake, and you will see psychosis," Jung said."
Visualizing the Invisible
In an earlier articled titled Predator Tech, BRT discussed the potential of invisibility cloaks and how it was becoming science fact and not science fiction. One big problem regarding how this technology would work centered on the question of what would a cloaked object look like. In the past, there was no way of "seeing" this effect but this inconvenient constraint no longer applies.
Scientists and curiosity seekers who want to know what a partially or completely cloaked object would look like in real life can now get their wish -- virtually. A team of researchers at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany has created a new visualization tool that can render a room containing such an object, showing the visual effects of such a cloaking mechanism and its imperfections.
What's interesting about this research is the fact Ray Tracing is the imaging engine used in this software, a technique originally invented by the MAGI corporation in Elmsford NY to track the rays given off by a nuclear explosion. (I learned CG there as Phil Mittleman, a true visionary & CEO of the company, had a very big influence on me regarding tech, fine art and design.)
Note: TRON was the first graphic example of what could be created using Ray Tracing as this imagining technique, combined with Radiosity, is considered to be the most accurate way to depict reality.
Click here to get the PDF detailing this research. It's a good read for sure.
Needle in a Haystack Redefined
Finding stuff on the web, particularly regarding pictures, is an arduous process at best, until now.
"When you search Google Images, you type in a term and it gives you returns from pages that have that text in them. We want to be able to upload an image and use it as a model for finding similar images," Milanfar said.
Milanfar and Seo developed an algorithm that enables automated recognition of both objects in images and actions in videos. The software analyzes an image or short movie and characterizes the most important constituents of the object or action represented. It can then search for those constituents in image and video databases. The researchers presented their new methods at the IEEE International Conference on Computer Vision in September and in a recent paper published by the IEEE Transcripts on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence.
Existing technology can search for and distinguish individual objects in a database of images only after running through a time-consuming training phase. "If you're looking for images of bicycles, for instance, current algorithms have to be shown pictures of hundreds, if not thousands, of bicycles in order to be able to recognize a bicycle," Milanfar said..
With his new software, a single photo of a bicycle at night can be used as a template to locate pictures of bicycles in full sunlight, in the foreground or the background. It works under a wide range of image qualities and lighting discrepancies. The template image or the target image can be sharp or out-of-focus, clean or noisy. To Milanfar's software, a bicycle is a bicycle.
Similarly, a person riding a bicycle is a person riding a bicycle. Video of Lance Armstrong in the Tour de France can be used to find clips of men and women riding along an ordinary street.
The intelligent web is coming.
Walking is controlled falling. We shift our balance from side to side and the body responds using complex muscle control, sophisticated kinetic feedback and real time recursion to make it happen. Scientists are now starting to develop tech able to harvest energy from non linear motion sources like walking, wind and tidal currents. Pretty cool approach to the energy crisis to say the least.
"The range of applications for non-linear energy harvesters varies widely. For example, Mann is working on a project that would use the motion of ocean waves to power an array of sensors that would be carried inside ocean buoys.
"These non-linear systems are self-sustaining, so they are ideal for any electrical device that needs batteries and is in a location that is difficult to access," Mann said.
For example, the motion of walking could provide enough electricity to power an implanted device, such as a pacemaker or cardiac defibrillator. On a larger scale, sensors in the environment or spacecraft could be powered by the everyday natural vibrations around them, Mann said."
What is Revolutionary?
For just less than a decade, NASA's Institute for Advanced Concepts was the staid space agency's big-vision mashup of Willy Wonka's factory, DARPA and your crazy uncle's garage workshop. And now experts want to bring it back.
"Party on dude." - Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure or...
The genius is in the generalities, and not the details.
The new idea illuminates a pathway toward an expansion of knowledge and may address a significant roadblock.
It inspires others to produce useful science and further elaboration of the fundamental idea.
It contributes to a major change in the framework of aerospace possibilities,
It triggers a transformation of intuition.
Revolutionary paradigm shifts are simple, elegant, majestic, beautiful and characterized by order and symmetry.
Sounds like creativity to me.
To get more info on the crazy side of NASA, click here.
Pretty awesome I must say.


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Being the new kid is not always easy. Whether you were the kind of kid that moved around a lot growing up, or you didn't experience that "new kid" feeling until college, we have all experienced the uneasy feeling of being new at some point in our lives. While there are quite a few students who attend one university for their entire degree, there are a number of others who choose to transfer to a different school at some point in their college experience. One student who transferred to ISU's Communication Sciences and Disorders program is Madasyn Hofstedt, a first-year speech-language pathology (SLP) graduate student from Cannon Falls, Minnesota.
Lucky for Hofstedt, and all other new students coming to ISU for the first time, the CSD department at Illinois State is filled with outstanding faculty, clinical educators, and students who are all willing to bend over backwards to accommodate the needs of all students. Hofstedt's biggest piece of advice to all new-coming students is: "Just be yourself. Once you do that, you will find your people that you fit in with because they will appreciate your authentic self. Those will be the people that carry you through the experience." So, whether you are the new kid, or you know the new kid, be kind, be patient, and always be yourself.


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Q: Even if we do not know of a single parametrization, can we prove that one exists, or does not exist? ($3$ as a sum of three cubes) There are parametrizations for $1$ and $2$.
One for $1$ is: $$(9b^4)^3+(3b-9b^4)^3+(1-9b^3)^3=1$$ and for $2$: $$(1+6c^3)^3+(1-6c^3)^3+(-6c^2)^3=2$$
But, it seems that there are no known parametrizations for $3$, if I understood correctly Wikipedia article.
If I were to try to construct them, I would try to find three polynomials $P(m)+1$ and $Q(m)+1$ and $R(m)+1$ so that we have $$(P(m)+1)^3+(Q(m)+1)^3+(R(m)+1)^3=3$$.
But this is obviously equivalent to: $$(P(m))^3+3(P(m))^2+3P(m)+(Q(m))^3+3(Q(m))^2+3Q(m)+(R(m))^3+3(R(m))^2+3R(m)=0$$
But what can now be done?
From $3|(P(m))^3+(Q(m))^3+(R(m))^3$ it seems that we should have $3|P(m)$ and $3|Q(m)$ and $3|R(m)$.
Now I was thinking on expanding $(P(m)+Q(m)+R(m))^3$ and then subtracting it from  $(P(m))^3+3(P(m))^2+3P(m)+(Q(m))^3+3(Q(m))^2+3Q(m)+(R(m))^3+3(R(m))^2+3R(m)$
but I am stuck, literally, because I do not know would I obtain something of relevance.
What can we do here?
Are there any heuristics that suggest that such $P,Q,R$ do not exist?
I also suppose that constant terms of $P$ and $Q$ and $R$ are equal to zero.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


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Q: Order on the leaves of a foliation when each leaf separates an open subset of Euclidean space. The setting is a codimension one foliation $\mathscr{F}$ of what I call $P$, the open subset of $R^n$ consisting of vectors with all positive components. I know that each leaf $L$ $\in \mathscr{F}$ is properly embedded in $P$. I also know that the normal to the tangent plane of each leaf, at every point, has all strictly positive components. Thus,  there exists a nowhere vanishing vector field on $P$ which is transverse to $\mathscr{F}$, so that by Lawson $\mathscr{F}$ is transversely orientable, so has a "positive" direction. So far so good.
I would now like to place a total order on the leaves of $\mathscr{F}$ (reflexive, transitive and anti-symmetric). I understand (by a simple extension of the Jordan-Brouwer separation theorem) that each leaf $L$ separates $P$ into two disjoint open connected components, I will call them $\mathscr{O}_L^+,\mathscr{O}_L^-$, where the former is the component in the positive direction, the latter the one in the negative direction. So my first thought is, well, OK, given two leaves $A,B \in \mathscr{F}$ we will say $A \leq B$ if $B \subset \mathscr{O}^+_A$. However, I know foliations can be extremely "tricky", so I need to show for one that if $A \leq B$ we cannot also have $B \leq A$; i.e. that we can't also have $A \subset \mathscr{O}^+_B$. I could do it if I knew that there is always a transverse segment in the positive direction connecting some point of $A$ to a point of $B$, but I don't know that. I thought of using the diagonal $\Delta = P \bigcap \{x,\ldots,x)\}, x> 0$ but can't (despite some very helpful answers in another post) see how to prove $\Delta$ intersects all leaves. I've tried indexing by the distance from one leaf to another, but have found difficulties with this as well. Another approach is to say that if $A \subset \mathscr{O}^+_B$ and $B \subset \mathscr{O}^+_A$ then we would have a transversal intersecting $A$ in two points and, using the notes "Foliated Manifolds" by Haefliger, Lemma 3.3, this is impossible. However, aside from the fact that for the life of me I can't quite figure out the proof, I can't exclude the possibility that the transversal might be closed; i.e. intersect $A$ in only one point. I know I also need completeness and  transitivity but my sense is if I can solve this issue then those will be an easy consequence.
I apologize for the length of this post but there was a lot of background that was unavoidable. Any ideas about where to look next would be appreciated.
Edit: Please note I do not know that either of the connected components is convex, if I did there would be no issue.
Edit: I should also mention that the idea of using transverse segments to generate an order on the leaves was taken from Novikov, but that was on a compact manifold and is not necessarily complete or anti-symmetric (though it is transitive where the definition makes sense).
Edit (response to Mike F): Let $Q \subset R^{n-1}$ consist of vectors with all positive components. Each leaf $L$ is the graph of a smooth $f: D \rightarrow R_+$, where $D$ is some open set in $Q$. Clearly, if $D = Q$ then there is no issue. But I don't know this, so if I let $\pi$ be the orthogonal projection of $P$ onto $Q$ then it comes down to proving that $D = \pi(L)$ intersects $\pi(\Delta)$. This is the sticking point. Just as a side observation, if $L$ separates $P$ then $\overline{D}$ cannot be contained in the interior of $Q$, but I don't think that helps (much).
Edit (Another approach): Not to bump the question, but I started to think (as was suggested) of using the integral curves of the normal field (which by definition are transversals). If you consider the collection of all integral curves which intersect the specific leaf $A$ (call it $\mathscr{N}_A$) then once a curve enters $\mathscr{O}^+_A$ it can't leave, since if it did it would need to intersect $A$ in a second point and that is ruled out by the result of Novikov referenced above. I just need to show somehow that $\mathscr{N}_A$ covers $\mathscr{O}^+_A$.
Edit (Key Observation): I believe Mike F has provided enough information that I should be able to prove that every ray through the origin intersects every leaf $L$ of $\mathscr{F}$. Specifically, considering the projectivization of $P$ by $R_{x > 0}$, restricted to each leaf (call it $\pi$), we turn consideration of $D$ into consideration of $X = \pi L \subset S^{n-1}$, where $S^{n-1}$ is the $(n-1)$-dimensional simplex. The key idea is: If the normals to all tangent spaces are strictly positive then it follows that every tangent space intersects a given ray $u$ in such a way that the "angle" between the space and $u$ is uniformly bounded away from zero. So we can try proving that $X$ is closed by demonstrating that, given a $u$ such that $\pi u \in \partial X$, every sequence $\{x_n \} \subset L$ such that $\pi x_n \rightarrow \pi u$ converges to a point in $u$. I haven't quite gotten this proof yet, but it's clear that the tangent space $T_{n}$ to $L$ at $x_n$ must cut $u$ at a point $z_n$ and that, given the uniformity assumptions, $z_n \rightarrow z \in u$, and then it should follow that $x_n \rightarrow z$. Thanks to Mike F.
Edit: Deleted proposed proof as it contained (embarrassing) errors. My apologies. If I come up with a complete proof then I will repost.

A: This should maybe be a comment, but is too long for that.
First, I wanted to note that the problem is at least somewhat subtle in the sense that the topology must come into play somehwere. If, instead of $P$, our space was $P-\Delta$ (where $\Delta$ is the diagonal ray, as in your post), then we could use helical leaves centered along $\Delta$ (still requiring positive normal vectors) to construct a foliation whose leaves are naturally in a cyclical ordering, rather than a linear ordering. Jordan-Brouwer separation would also fail here; each leaf complement has one component. The condition I suggested trying to prove in my comment, that "$P_x \cap L = \varnothing$ for $x \in L$", is also not satisfied.
Luckily, I think that the amount of topology needed is not so much. Let $X$ be the projectivization of $P$, i.e. the quotient of $P$ by the scaling action of $\mathbb{R}_{>0}$. One may concretely identify $X$ with the $(n-1)$-simplex $\{x \in P : x_1+\ldots+x_n=1\}$ if one wishes. Let $\pi : P \to X$ be the quotient map. Now, it is pretty easy to see from the assumption that $\mathscr{F}$ has positive normal vectors that, for each leaf $L$, the restriction $\pi|_L:L \to X$ is a covering map. Just show the derivative has full rank. A priori, $\pi|_L$ could fail to be surjective. However, hopefully you can confirm, using whatever argument you used to prove that the leaves were properly embedded in $P$, that $\pi$ is a proper map, so that $\pi(L)$ will be closed (as well as open).
Once you know that $\pi|_L:P\to X$ is a covering map, you can conclude that it is actually a diffeomorphism (since $X$ diffeomorphic to $\mathbb{R}^{n-1}$ and contractible). So, a teensy bit of a topology has come into play here, as we knew it must.
The fact that $\pi|_L$ is a diffeomorphism says, in effect, that $L$ intersects each of the rays $\{tv : t>0\}$ for $v \in P$, exactly once. This gives a way to linearly order your leaves (though you should check, using holonomy I suppose, that the ordering doesn't depend on the ray used).

(Added 5/Aug/2022) I think the only way forward is to prove that every leaf $L$ intersects every ray $\{tv : t >0\}$, $v \in P$. That is,  $\pi(L)=X$, in the notation of my post. To do this, I think the following observation is quite important. For any fixed $u \in P$, you can check there is a  positive constant $c_u$ such that, for any $v \in P$, the angle between $u$ and $v$ is in $(0,\frac{\pi}{2}-c_u)$. Since the normal vectors of $\mathcal{F}$ are in $P$, this means the angle between any tangent space of any leaf and $u$ must lie in $(c_u,\frac{\pi}{2})$. The fact that there is a uniform bound on how small the angle between $L$ and $u$ can be will, I believe, enable you to prove that $X - \pi(L)$ is open, so that $\pi(L)=X$ must hold.
Maybe the following analogous situation will make the idea clear. Suppose $S \subset \mathbb{R}^3$ is a properly embedded surface with a smoothly varying, upward-pointing (i.e. positive $z$-coordinate) normal vector. Does it follow that the projection of $S$ to the $xy$-plane is the whole $xy$-plane? No! We could take $S = \{ (x,y,\frac{1}{1-x^2-y^2}) : x^2+y^2<1\}$, whose projection is the unit disk and is asymptotic to the cylinder $x^2+y^2=1$. So, we need more hypotheses  to ensure $S$ is the graph of a function $\mathbb{R}^2 \to \mathbb{R}$. Assume in addition that the tangent planes of $S$ satisfy $|\frac{\partial z}{\partial x}|,|\frac{\partial z}{\partial y}| <100$. Imposing a uniform bound on slopes like this prevents the surface from blowing up like in the latter example. To prove $S$ must project to the whole $xy$-plane, we can check the points missed are an open set. The main point here is that there is some uniform control on how much the image of a patch on $S$ can distort under the projection.


BETHANY: Tell me I'm doing the right thing.
GEORGIA: You're doing the right thing.
GEORGIA: Do what you gotta do and hurry back.
GEORGIA: And take the E-ZPass out of the car. Pay cash for everything. Don't leave a paper trail.
BETHANY: Easy, babe. I'll be safe. See you Monday.
They embrace as a black SUV drives up and comes to an abrupt stop.
Director Vance steps out of the car and flashes his badge.
VANCE: Bethany Collins, you're under arrest.
GEORGIA: No, wait, I'm sorry what is going on?
Director Vance grabs Bethany and escorts her to the vehicle.
BETHANY: What is this about?
Posted on Oct 22, 2018 Dec 6, 2018 by Manifest828.comPosted in Episode HighlightsTagged 105 - Connecting Flights, Bethany, featured, Georgia, Vance.


Correction for respiratory motion in myocardial perfusion imaging requires sorting of emission data into respiratory windows where the intra-window motion is assumed to be negligible. However, it is unclear how much intra-window motion is acceptable. The aim of this study was to determine an optimal value of intra-window residual motion.
A custom-designed cardiac phantom was created and imaged with a standard dual-detector SPECT/CT system using Tc-99m as the radionuclide. Projection images were generated from the list-mode data simulating respiratory motion blur of several magnitudes from 0 (stationary phantom) to 20 mm. Cardiac defect contrasts in six anatomically different locations, as well as myocardial perfusion of apex, anterior, inferior, septal and lateral walls, were measured at each motion magnitude. Stationary phantom data were compared to motion-blurred data. Two physicians viewed the images and evaluated differences in cardiac defect visibility and myocardial perfusion.
Significant associations were observed between myocardial perfusion in the anterior and inferior walls and respiratory motion. Defect contrasts were found to decline as a function of motion, but the magnitude of the decline depended on the location and shape of the defect. Defects located near the cardiac apex lost contrast more rapidly than those located on the anterior, inferior, septal and lateral wall. The contrast decreased by less than 5% at every location when the motion magnitude was 2 mm or less. According to a visual evaluation, there were differences in myocardial perfusion if the magnitude of the motion was greater than 1 mm, and there were differences in the visibility of the cardiac defect if the magnitude of the motion was greater than 9 mm.
Intra-window respiratory motion should be limited to 2 mm to effectively correct for respiratory motion blur in myocardial perfusion SPECT.
Respiration is known to be responsible for visible artifacts in myocardial emission tomography images [1, 2] and interfere with the detectability of perfusion defects . During the last two decades, respiratory-induced cardiac motion compensation has been investigated by several research groups with either positron emission tomography (PET) or single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) by applying a variety of methods. One common feature of all these methods is the recording of a signal that represents respiratory motion during image acquisition. This signal can be generated either directly from the emission data  or from motion tracking devices . This signal is used either prospectively or retrospectively to sort emission data into respiratory windows . One simple, straightforward approach is to only use emission data from an individual respiratory window to reconstruct an image with minimized respiratory motion [2, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14]. The obvious disadvantage of these respiratory gating methods, analogous to cardiac gating, is that since the image is produced with fewer emission photons than the non-gated image, the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is lower.
More advanced respiratory motion compensation methods utilize all of the acquired emission photons by co-registering the myocardial activity from all respiratory windows at some point in the reconstruction. For example, in the method of Kovalski et al., the respiratory-gated projection images are shifted relative to each other before summing them to reconstruct a motion-compensated image . Another method is to reconstruct each respiratory window separately, co-register these images and compute their average as a motion-compensated image [16, 17, 18, 19, 20]. One other method involves estimating the inter-window motion from individually reconstructed windows and then modifying the observation matrix to finally reconstruct a motion-compensated image [4, 16, 21, 22, 23]. Alternatively, one can simultaneously reconstruct the image and estimate the cardiac displacement vectors by combining motion estimation and reconstruction into one optimization problem [24, 25].
In all of the above-mentioned methods, it is assumed that there is negligible intra-window residual respiratory motion. However, there is no clear consensus on how large the intra-window motion can be and still be acceptable: the number of applied respiratory windows in previous studies has varied from as few as three  to as many as sixteen . Adopting a larger intra-window motion would make it possible to use fewer respiratory windows to cover the whole cardiac displacement between inspiration and expiration. This, in turn, would facilitate the process of inter-window motion estimation due to the higher SNRs in the individual respiratory windows and make the motion-compensated reconstructions computationally faster.
In the patient study of Dawood et al., the authors sought to determine the optimal number of respiratory windows by measuring the cardiac displacement using different numbers of windows and concluded that it would be preferable to use eight amplitude windows . Their criterion was to detect the cardiac displacement up to a certain accuracy. Nonetheless, one important aim of myocardial perfusion tomography is to locate reliably perfusion defects in the myocardium, and this may be compromised by respiratory motion . Therefore, in this present work, we have adopted a different approach and investigated the effect of respiratory motion on the cardiac defect contrast. The investigation was carried out by imaging a physical cardiac phantom and simulating respiratory motion during the list-mode data binning. The cardiac defect contrasts for several different magnitudes of motion in the physiologically relevant range of respiratory motion are reported. Our aim was to determine an optimal value for the intra-window residual motion for the individual respiratory windows.
For the purposes of this work, a custom-designed cardiac phantom modeling the left ventricle of the heart, termed Kuopio Cardiac Phantom (KCP), was created (Fig. 1). KCP has a cylindrical–hemispherical shape; this was chosen to simplify the design and because this kind of shape is also applied in the left ventricular wall segmentation strategy applied in Emory Cardiac Toolbox (Emory University) . On the top of the hemispherical apex, there is a cylindrical bottleneck to permit filling and emptying of the myocardial compartment of the phantom. This bottleneck can be closed with a rubber plug. Cardiac dimensions, such as myocardial wall thickness, were chosen to match human male anatomy .
KCP was made by additive manufacturing (3D printing) via powder bed fusion and using polyamide as the material . Polyamide was chosen because in terms of radiodensity, it was found to be nearly soft tissue equivalent [200–300 Hounsfield units (HU)]. KCP was printed in two parts; these parts were coated with cyanoacrylate adhesive before gluing them together to prevent fluid absorption into the porous structure of the phantom . KCP was found to remain waterproof even after over 8 h of testing.
KCP contains three artificial perfusion defects in its myocardial compartment: two cube-shaped defects, denoted Cube#1 and Cube#2, and one 20 mm high, 60° arc segment-shaped defect, denoted Segment. Cube#1 is located vertically in the middle of the cylindrical wall at 0° azimuthal angle, Segment is located vertically in the middle of the cylindrical wall at 180° azimuthal angle and Cube#2 is located in the hemispherical apex at 90° azimuthal and 45° polar angle (Fig. 1). In the design, the cubical defect shape was chosen for ease of implementation and the segmental defect shape was chosen to enable comparison with a commercially available cardiac phantom (Cardiac Insert™; Data Spectrum Corporation, NC, USA).
The defects were created by extending the 3D printing region from the epicardial wall towards the endocardial wall. The dimensions of the defects could be altered in the design before manufacturing: the side length of the cubes could be altered, as well as the thickness of the Segment . In this study, a phantom with 10-mm-thick defects was produced.
To mimic extra cardiac attenuation and scattering effects, a custom-designed "torso" phantom was created (Fig. 2). The "torso" was made from plastic that was found to be soft tissue equivalent in terms of radiodensity (−100–0 HU). It consists of three cylindrical parts: a large water tank, a small water tank and a holder for KCP. These parts could be stacked such that the holder part was submerged into the large water tank, forming a cylindrical cavity for KCP, surrounding it with a soft tissue-equivalent material (Fig. 2b).
In the clinical protocol applied in Kuopio University Hospital (Finland), the standard injected activity of Tc-99m for 1-day stress/rest myocardial perfusion imaging examination is 300 MBq at stress and 700 MBq at rest. Since it has been reported that approximately 1.7% of injected activity can be taken up by the myocardium , there would be approximately 14.6 MBq of Tc-99m in the myocardium at the time of rest image acquisition. To simulate clinical rest acquisition in this work and also to create several image reconstructions from the same list-mode data, KCP was filled with water and 121 MBq of Tc-99m.
Image acquisitions were performed with a dual-detector SPECT/CT system (Precedence; Royal Philips N.V., Netherlands). KCP was placed inside the "torso" phantom, which was placed on a plastic plate on top of the patient table to provide an even support surface for the phantoms (Fig. 2b). CT image acquisition was performed using the standard clinical protocol used in myocardial perfusion SPECT/CT studies (scan mode: helical, tube potential: 140 kV, exposure: 20 mAs/slice, pixel size: 1.171875 mm, matrix size: 512 × 512 and slice thickness: 4.267 pixels).
SPECT list-mode image acquisition was performed using a 90° detector configuration, 64 projection angles, acquisition time of 30 s per projection angle, low-energy high-resolution collimators (hole length 32.8 mm and diameter 1.4 mm) and a noncircular orbit from the right anterior oblique to the left posterior oblique angle. The orbit was chosen to match the distances between the detector and the cardiac phantom used in vivo during the acquisition (approximately 8.4 cm in the anterior view and 19.5 cm in the left view). An energy window of 140 keV ± 10% was used in the acquisition.
The phantoms were imaged twice, with two different KCP orientations. In the first orientation, KCP was positioned such that the line determined by midpoints of Segment and Cube#1 was parallel to the axis of rotation of the gamma camera. In this orientation, the Segment was situated in what would be the anterior cardiac wall, Cube#1 was situated in the inferior cardiac wall and Cube#2 was situated on the septal side of the hemispherical apex. We denote this orientation as orientation A (Fig. 4). In the second orientation, KCP was positioned such that the line determined by midpoints of Segment and Cube#1 was perpendicular to the axis of rotation of the gamma camera. In this orientation, the Segment was situated in what would be the septal cardiac wall, Cube#1 was situated in the lateral cardiac wall and Cube#2 was situated on the inferior side of the apex. We denote this orientation as orientation B (Fig. 4). SPECT image acquisitions of orientations A and B were started 41 and 117 min post-injection, respectively.
The orientations were chosen to investigate the respiratory motion effect on the defect contrast when these defects are located in different positions of the heart. Since motion blur was generated in the axial direction (see next subsection), in orientation A, the Segment and Cube#1 were located on the walls perpendicular to the direction of motion. In orientation B, the Segment and Cube#1 were located on the walls parallel to the direction of motion. In addition, we were able to investigate the defect contrast in two different apical cardiac positions (Cube#2).
The list-mode data were processed into projection images of matrix size 128 × 128 and pixel size of 4.664 mm using custom-made scripts in the MATLAB R2015b environment (The MathWorks, Inc., MA, USA). In this work, instead of acquiring images of the moving phantom, motion blur was generated in the images during the list-mode data binning. A one-dimensional, uniform motion pattern was assumed along the rotation axis (z-axis) of the gamma camera.
For all i, generate a projection image from the list-mode data with a duration of ξiT, where T is the acquisition time of one realization of the projection image.
Shift the projection image by i pixels in the axial direction of the camera.
Sum the shifted projection images.
An example of generating motion-blurred projection image is displayed in Fig. 3. In total, we generated projection images with motion blur full widths of 0 (stationary images), 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18 and 20 mm. These values were chosen because the heart has been reported to move by as much as 20 mm between expiration and inspiration . For the remainder of this paper, we will call motion blur full width as motion magnitude for brevity.
To gather samples for statistical analysis, for each motion magnitude, we generated five different realizations from mutually non-overlapping sequences of list-mode data. For orientation A, the acquisition time of individual projection angle for each realization was T = 3.923 s and for orientation B, to compensate for decay, the acquisition time of individual projection angle for each realization was T = 4.542 s. The acquisition times were computed such that the product of injected activity at the start of the image acquisition and the acquisition time corresponded to the clinical situation (14.6 MBq and 30 s). For each realization, each motion-blurred image was generated from the same sequence of list-mode data as the stationary image.
In the image reconstructions, we adopted a rotation-based approach. Rotation matrices were implemented using Gaussian interpolation . Geometric collimator-detector blurring was modeled as distance-dependent Gaussian function . CT images were converted to µ-maps using piecewise linear conversion . These µ-maps were resampled to the SPECT matrix size and registered with stationary SPECT estimates using the normalized gradient fields method  with linear interpolation. Only three-dimensional translations were considered in the registration. Attenuation factors were computed using the central-ray approximation . Correction for scattering was omitted. It is worth noting that while the attenuation-corrected reconstructions were made using motion-blurred projection images, the CT images were obtained from stationary phantoms and were not motion-blurred retrospectively. This corresponds to the clinical protocol in use in Kuopio University Hospital with the CT image being acquired during breath-hold.
For the reconstruction algorithm, we chose the ordered subsets expectation maximization (OSEM) that maximizes data log-likelihood . We divided the projection data into eight subsets and ran the algorithm for ten iterations. A total of 80 updates has been found to be sufficient to maximize the contrast in Tc-99m images , and it is currently recommended in clinical practice for use in Hybrid Recon–Cardiology reconstruction software (HERMES Medical Solutions, Sweden). Reconstructions were carried out in the MATLAB R2015b environment (The MathWorks, Inc., MA, USA) using custom-made scripts.
To examine the well-known artificial decrease of myocardial uptake due to motion in anterior and inferior walls [1, 2], images of orientation B were analyzed with Carimas software v.2.9.4.0 (Turku PET Centre, Turku, Finland) . The images were arranged into one dynamic image series (16 motion magnitudes and 5 realizations → 80 frames in total) to enable similar segmentation setup for all images. Using the standard 17-segment polar map division , anterior wall perfusion was computed as the average value of the anterior wall segments (basal-, mid-, and apical anterior segments), and inferior wall perfusion was computed as the average value of the inferior wall segments (basal-, mid-, and apical inferior segments). In addition, perfusion was examined in apex, lateral and septal walls. Septal wall perfusion was computed as the average value of apical septal, mid anteroseptal, mid inferoseptal, basal anteroseptal and basal inferoseptal segments, and lateral wall perfusion was computed as the average value of apical lateral, mid anterolateral, mid inferolateral, basal anterolateral and basal inferolateral segments.
To assess the contrast between the cardiac defects and normal myocardium, we defined six regions of interest (ROIs) in both KCP orientations: three for the defects and three for their normal references. The ROIs were defined according to the CT images. As the defect regions had higher HU values than water, we defined the defect regions by increasing the threshold HU value until only a few clusters of voxels remained in the image. An HU value of 50 was chosen as the threshold for identifying defect region and the defect-containing clusters were found by considering the volumes of the clusters. Coordinates of the cluster voxels were recorded for further calculations. For Cube#1 and Segment, the reference regions were chosen as the regions adjacent (on the side of the apex) to their respective defect regions, and for Cube#2, the reference region was chosen symmetrically on the opposite side of the phantom (Fig. 4). All reference regions were of the same size and shape as their corresponding defect regions.
where Adefect and Anormal are the average voxel values on defect ROI and normal myocardium ROI, respectively.
Statistical tests were performed in SPSS Statistics v.23 (IBM Corporation, NY, USA). Statistical significance of differences between motion-blurred images and stationary images was examined with a linear mixed model analysis. In the model, motion was treated as a fixed effect and the ordinal of realization as a random effect. Pairwise comparisons were performed between the motion-blurred images and the stationary images. Bonferroni adjustment was applied for multiple comparisons. P value of < 0.05 was considered statistically significant.
To evaluate the differences between motion-blurred and stationary images visually, two experienced nuclear medicine physicians were recruited to assess the images in terms of defect visibility and perfusion (Fig. 5). Using the Quantitative Perfusion SPECT (QPS) 2012 program (Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA, USA), the physicians were simultaneously shown two images—a stationary image and a motion-blurred image—but they were not aware of the extent of the motion magnitude in the motion-blurred image. The order of motion-blurred images was randomized. The physicians were asked to evaluate whether there were differences in the visibility of the cardiac defects or myocardial perfusion using a scoring system of 0–4 (0 = no difference, 1 = very small difference, 2 = small difference, 3 = medium-sized difference, 4 = large difference). The physicians scored the images as a consensus. The physicians viewed one realization of each motion magnitude in both phantom orientations, thus they viewed a total of 30 images.
Anterior and inferior wall perfusions were statistically significantly (P < 0.05) lower than in the stationary case at every motion magnitude (Table 1). Septal and lateral wall perfusions were statistically significantly (P < 0.05) lower than in the stationary case when the motion magnitude was 3 mm or greater (Table 1). Perfusion of the apex was statistically non-significantly (p > 0.05) different from the stationary case at every motion magnitude (Table 1).
In phantom orientation A, the contrast of Cube#2 was statistically significantly (P < 0.05) lower than that of the stationary case when the motion magnitude was 2 mm or greater, the contrast of Segment was statistically significantly (P < 0.05) lower as compared to the stationary case when the motion magnitude was 3 mm or greater, and the contrast of Cube#1 was statistically significantly (P < 0.05) lower as compared to the stationary case when the motion magnitude was 6 mm or greater, except at a motion magnitude of 8 mm (Table 2).
In phantom orientation B, the contrast of Segment was statistically significantly (P < 0.05) lower than the stationary case when the motion magnitude was 3 mm or greater, the contrast of Cube#2 was statistically significantly (P < 0.05) lower in comparison to the stationary case when the motion magnitude was 5 mm or greater, and the contrast of Cube#1 was statistically significantly (P < 0.05) lower than the stationary case when the motion magnitude was 8 mm or greater (Table 3).
In the visual assessment, differences between motion-blurred and stationary images were discernible in terms of perfusion if the motion magnitude was larger than 1 mm with orientation A and larger than 3 mm with orientation B (Table 4). In terms of defect visibility, the differences were discernible if the motion magnitude was larger than 10 mm with orientation A and larger than 9 mm with orientation B (Table 4).
In this study, we investigated the effect of respiratory motion on myocardial perfusion and contrast of various cardiac defects by imaging a custom-made cardiac phantom and generating motion-blurred data during list-mode data processing. We found that a motion magnitude as small as 1 mm could significantly affect anterior and inferior wall perfusion (Table 1), and a motion magnitude as small as 2 mm could significantly affect defect contrast (Table 2). In addition, we found that the motion influenced the defect contrast differently depending on the shape and position of the defect.
Our perfusion analysis revealed significant associations between the motion magnitude and the anterior and inferior wall perfusions (Table 1). Septal and lateral wall perfusions also decreased as a function of motion but the decrease was slower (Table 1). The perfusion of the apex, on the other hand, remained statistically unchanged as motion increased (Table 1). In the simulation study conducted by Kovalski et al., axial cardiac motions of 6 and 12 mm induced up to 3–4% and 10–12% changes in polar map segments . These results are quantitatively comparable to our values (approximately 5% reduction in myocardial counts at 6 mm and 10–11% at 12 mm in anterior and inferior walls). On the contrary, Pitman et al. found that the reduction in counts in the anterior and inferior walls is barely visible if the magnitude of respiratory motion is less than 10 mm . This difference may be explained by the fact that they used a lower number of projection angles, a larger voxel size, a smaller number of iterations in the iterative reconstruction and low-pass filtering , which all contribute to lower spatial resolution and thus complicate the detection of small differences attributable to motion.
The decrease in the defect contrast as a function of motion depends on the position and shape of the defect. In orientation A, the contrast of Segment decreased more rapidly as a function of motion blur than the contrast of Cube#1 (Table 2), whereas it was the opposite in orientation B (Table 3). In the study of Yang et al., a channelized hotelling observer analysis found that the visibility of lateral wall defects was more strongly affected by motion than that of the defects in the anterior and inferior walls . Based on our results, the same phenomenon was found for Cube#1 defects but not for Segment defects. This may be explained by the fact that for Segment, there was very little activity surrounding the defect in the direction of motion in both orientations. Therefore, in orientation A, as the average counts on the reference region (anterior wall) decreased due to motion blur, the contrast values decreased; however, in orientation B, the average counts in the reference region (septal wall) remained almost unchanged which led to a slower decrease in the contrast values.
The contrast of Cube#2 decreased more rapidly as a function of motion than either of the other two defects in both orientations. This indicates that defects in the apical region are more sensitive to respiratory motion than defects in the wall segments that are oriented either perpendicularly or tangentially to the direction of motion. As far as we are aware, the visibility of defects in the apical region in the presence of motion has not been evaluated before and therefore this is the first study to report this result.
The results of the visual assessment were slightly discordant with the quantitative results. While the physicians recognized very small differences in perfusion already at 2 mm motion magnitude (Table 4), it was more difficult for them to discern differences in defect visibility. Only at motion magnitudes of 10 mm or greater were the differences scored higher than as non-existent (Table 4). These results suggest that small changes in defect contrast are not visually perceivable as effectively as with ROI-based quantification, but small changes in myocardial perfusion are detectable.
This study had some limitations. First, the induced motion pattern was simplified. Real respiratory motion is a nonrigid transformation that can only be approximated as an axial rigid translation . Second, the cardiac phantom was imaged in only one cranio-caudal angle, such that the long axis of the phantom was perpendicular to the rotational axis of the camera. Third, all the studied defects were solid defects. In real-life scenarios, a region with a perfusion defect will display at least some activity, unless it consists exclusively of scar tissue. However, despite these limitations, this study represents a useful benchmark for more advanced studies that will utilize more realistic phantoms and investigate more complex types of motion.
Our quantitative results showed that there is no clear "safe" respiratory motion magnitude which could be included in individual respiratory windows for motion correction. The defect contrast and anterior and inferior wall perfusion decreased continuously as a function of motion. However, our quantitative results help to estimate how much a particular motion magnitude will affect the results. For example, on average, a motion of 5 mm led to an approximately 7% reduction of contrast in apicoseptal defects (Table 2). Furthermore, a motion of 2 mm resulted in less than a 5% reduction of contrast at every location studied in this work (Tables 2, 3) and less than a 2% reduction of average myocardial counts in anterior and inferior walls (Table 1). In addition, a motion of 2 mm produced only a very small visually discernible difference in myocardial perfusion. For example, for a common respiratory motion of 12 mm, six respiratory windows should be used to effectively correct for respiratory motion blur in the images. Therefore, if possible, it is advisable to obtain a priori knowledge about the extent of respiratory motion to choose the correct number of respiratory windows.
Defect contrast declines as a function of respiratory motion magnitude in the apical cardiac region more rapidly than on the cardiac walls which are perpendicular or parallel to the direction of motion. The intra-window respiratory motion should be limited to 2 mm per window to effectively correct for respiratory motion blur.
The authors express thanks to Lauri Alonen, MSc, Riku Miettinen, BEng, and Antti Alonen, MEng, from Savonia University of Applied Sciences, Kuopio, Finland, for manufacturing and the partial design of KCP, Mikko Kortelainen, BEng, for assistance in designing the "torso" phantom, Samplastic Oy, Kuopio, Finland, for manufacturing the "torso" phantom, Antti Sohlberg, PhD, for informative discussion about collimator-detector blur modeling, Tuomas Selander, MSc, for statistical testing advice, Tomi Laitinen, MD, PhD, and Hanna Mussalo, MD, PhD, for visual assessment of the images, Arto Urpilainen, BEng, for assistance in creating Figs. 1, 2, and Ewen MacDonald, PharmD, for linguistic advice.
This study was supported by University of Eastern Finland (The Doctoral Programme in Science, Technology and Computing), Kuopio University Hospital (VTR, Project 5031351), the Academy of Finland (Centre of Excellence in Inverse Modelling and Imaging, Project Number 14515), Jane and Aatos Erkko Foundation (Project Number 64741) and by the Finnish Cultural Foundation, North Savo Regional Fund. Open access funding provided by University of Eastern Finland (UEF) including Kuopio University Hospital.
Kortelainen MJ, Koivumäki TM, Vauhkonen MJ, Hedman MK, Kärkkäinen ST, Niño Quintero J, et al. Respiratory motion reduction with a dual gating approach in myocardial perfusion SPECT: effect on left ventricular functional parameters. J Nucl Cardiol. 2017:1–9. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12350-017-0844-9.
Polycarpou I, Chrysanthou-Baustert I, Demetriadou O, Parpottas Y, Panagidis C, Marsden PK, et al. Impact of respiratory motion correction on SPECT myocardial perfusion imaging using a mechanically moving phantom assembly with variable cardiac defects. J Nucl Cardiol. 2015:1–10. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12350-015-0323-0.
Daou D, Sabbah R, Coaguila C, Boulahdour H. Feasibility of data-driven cardiac respiratory motion correction of myocardial perfusion CZT SPECT: a pilot study. J Nucl Cardiol. 2016:1–10. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12350-016-0493-4.


Our Board members represent different aspects of the mission community. Many have participated in our programs or have been partners in mission.
Br. Bede is a De La Salle Christian Brother. He was missioned to Kenya and since returning to the United States has been active in justice and peace work, including ministry to the Native American Indians. He now serves in leadership for his congregation.
Mike is Global Solidarity Coordinator through the Center for Mission at the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. He served in Kenya, and with his wife, Mickie, and two daughters, he accompanied the people of a Venezuelan barrio as Maryknoll Lay Missioners.
Mike served in southern Colorado through Volunteers in Diocesan Action, in the Dominican Republic through the Institute for Latin American Concern and in Papua New Guinea with the Volunteer Missionary Movement. Currently, Mike is a non-profit administrator in Minneapolis with MicroGrants.
Currently Director of Operations for Catholic Volunteer Network, a national umbrella of faith-based volunteer and mission programs, Katie served as a lay missioner in Zambia for three years with Franciscan Mission Service.
Currently Co-creator of Calm Clarity, a mindful leadership training social enterprise, Gina served as the Director of Cabrini Mission Corps and served in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic with the sisters of the Society of the Holy Child Jesus.
Program Officer at the Fetzer Institute in Kalamazoo, MI, an organization focused on "helping build the spiritual foundation for a loving world," Michelle served with the Claretian Volunteer and Lay Missionary Program in Chicago and Guatemala.
An Ursuline Sister of Cleveland who served in a rural mountain town in El Salvador for 11 years, Sr. Rose has been serving as the Community Partnership Coordinator for an inner city school since returning from mission. She joined the board of FMTM in 2016.
A School Sister of Notre Dame, Sister Mary Jo was a missioner for 13 years, serving in Kenya, Ghana and The Gambia. She presently serves as director of Sacred Space Ministry in Mankato, MN. Sister Mary Jo has been on the board for six years.


How large is your tent?
When I was a child, I passed by a Protestant church every day walking to school. That church fascinated me, because it looked very different from my parish, St. Patrick's in Troy.
When the doors of the Protestant church were open, I noticed it had no altar or statues of saints. I was tempted to go in, but restrained myself because my Catholic school teachers warned us to be wary of non-Catholics who did not belong to the "true Church."
Last Sunday's Scripture passages brought back that childhood memory. The readings from the Book of Numbers and the Gospel have a common theme concerning the walls we build between those who are like us and those who are different from us.
It is not uncommon for human beings to see people whose skin color, religion, sexual orientation or cultural customs are different from our own as outsiders. When we belong to a group -- any group -- we may be suspicious of those who are not part of that group. We may even close ranks and try to keep those who are different outside of our group!
That process is visible on our TV screens, as we watch thousands of migrants knock on the doors of other countries seeking safety.
On the journey to the Promised Land, Moses complained to God that he needed help. He could not meet the people's needs by himself. God sent the Spirit on 70 elders gathered in a tent, but Eldad and Medad did not get there in time. Like so many of us, maybe these two were always late!
Even so, Eldad and Medad received God's Spirit and began to prophesy like the others. Joshua was upset that these two men had not been ordained for the job! Joshua viewed them as outsiders, without proper credentials. Moses, however, was not jealous or threatened by the outsiders. Rather, he rejoiced over the way God lavishly gives His gifts, and prayed that all the people of Israel might be prophets!
Jesus' disciples were as narrow-minded as Joshua. They tried to stop someone who was driving out demons in Jesus' name because he was not one of them. Again, the unnamed exorcist was an outsider, not a card-carrying disciple.
Jesus dismisses their objections. Jesus sees that the outsider is doing good works in Jesus' name. Jesus sees the outcome, the good works of this exorcist, and knows that everything that is good is done in the name of God, who is the source of all goodness and good works.
Every person who does good in this world, gives a drink to someone who is thirsty or serves a child will be rewarded. Jesus is not concerned with what group people belong to or their credentials; it is the substance of our lives, our actions and behaviors, that is important to Him.
The reign of God, God's tent, is much wider and more inclusive than any earthly institution or structure.
Discipleship is not about belonging to the right group, being in the right church or associating with the right people. Disciples are people who recognize God's spirit in every person on this planet and do whatever they can to help alleviate suffering in this world.
While it's easy to criticize the narrow-mindedness of Joshua and the disciples, we see in their behavior much of ourselves. We may consider ourselves "Church insiders" and resent those who don't attend church regularly, or dismiss those who worship in other tents -- Protestants, Jews, Muslims, Hindus -- or those who worship no God at all.
Prejudice toward those outside our group can blind us to God's Spirit, which moves as it will, blowing inside and outside the little tents we construct to try and contain God.
Sunday's readings revealed a God who is extravagant in spirit, who moves beyond all artificial boundaries to bring life to all. There is no place in God's reign for bigotry, racism, sexism, sectarianism or any other disease that divides and separates human beings.
Last week, we saw Pope Francis' powerful witness to the inclusiveness of God's reign. He met with powerful world leaders of Cuba and the United States, as well as with the poor, the displaced and the least. His message transcended human boundaries of national identity, religion and culture. He spoke of our common home, the planet Earth, and urged all to care for our common home and to work for the common good.
Pope Francis affirmed that the whole earth and all its people are in the same tent. We should be filled with joy. Our God is a God of surprises, who will not be confined to any tent!
Have you ever seem a photo of Earth from the Hubble telescope? No national boundaries, no separations are visible. Earth is simply a large sphere with water and land masses. It is our common home. This is God's perspective on our planet.
The question for each of us to ponder is: How large is our tent?


Road that follows the Leigh Creek railway line and loops up over the ranges and back on to Bitumen just North of Hawker.
Rough and bumpy in places, creeks occasionally get washed out and if after rains expect to slide and find boggy patches.
easy to moderate track depending on weather conditions, follows the edge of the western side of the flinders.
Be aware that you will be driving through Station country so expect to see lots of sheep and cattle crossing roads.
at the Highest point of the tracks as you cross over the ranges you will get a great View of Lake Torrens to the west.


SINGAPORE: Singapore's telecommunications regulator said a unit of Australia's TPG Telecom made the winning bid of S$105 million ($73.7 million) in an airwaves auction that would make it the city-state's fourth telecoms operator.
TPG's unit will be provisionally allocated 60 MHz of spectrum made available in the new entrant spectrum auction, the Info-communications Media Development Authority said in a statement.
Singapore currently has three telecommunications network operators - Singapore Telecommunications Ltd, M1 Ltd and StarHub Ltd - and the government has been seeking to increase competition.
The city-state will hold a second phase of the airwaves auction open to the existing players and TPG's unit in the first quarter of 2017, the IMDA said.


Black Xmas' mission is to highlight black-owned businesses.
Issa Rae already read our minds by saying she was "rooting for everybody black," now we get to put our money where our mouth is! The Los Angeles chapter of Black Lives Matter is fighting against white supremacy and white capitalism with its initiative entitled, "Black Xmas," which pushes for holiday shoppers to buy from black-owned businesses, per Newsweek.
Black Xmas, which was a mission for last year's holiday season as well, calls for an elimination of traditional holiday shopping and instead transfer that energy into investing in the black community.
For more information on the Black Xmas initiative, visit https://blackxmas.org/.
Let's root for everybody black and buy from everybody black!


text:
// Copyright 2019 The Chromium Authors. All rights reserved.
// Use of this source code is governed by a BSD-style license that can be
// found in the LICENSE file.

package org.chromium.chrome.browser.identity_disc;

import static android.support.test.espresso.Espresso.onView;
import static android.support.test.espresso.assertion.ViewAssertions.matches;
import static android.support.test.espresso.matcher.ViewMatchers.isDisplayed;
import static android.support.test.espresso.matcher.ViewMatchers.withContentDescription;
import static android.support.test.espresso.matcher.ViewMatchers.withEffectiveVisibility;
import static android.support.test.espresso.matcher.ViewMatchers.withId;

import static org.hamcrest.Matchers.allOf;
import static org.hamcrest.Matchers.anyOf;
import static org.hamcrest.Matchers.not;

import static org.chromium.chrome.test.util.ViewUtils.waitForView;

import android.support.test.espresso.matcher.ViewMatchers;
import android.support.test.filters.MediumTest;
import android.view.View;

import org.hamcrest.Matchers;
import org.junit.After;
import org.junit.Before;
import org.junit.Rule;
import org.junit.Test;
import org.junit.runner.RunWith;

import org.chromium.base.test.util.CommandLineFlags;
import org.chromium.chrome.R;
import org.chromium.chrome.browser.flags.ChromeSwitches;
import org.chromium.chrome.browser.tab.Tab;
import org.chromium.chrome.test.ChromeJUnit4ClassRunner;
import org.chromium.chrome.test.ChromeTabbedActivityTestRule;
import org.chromium.chrome.test.util.ChromeTabUtils;
import org.chromium.chrome.test.util.NewTabPageTestUtils;
import org.chromium.chrome.test.util.browser.signin.SigninTestUtil;
import org.chromium.components.embedder_support.util.UrlConstants;
import org.chromium.content_public.common.ContentUrlConstants;

/**
 * Instrumentation test for Identity Disc.
 */
@RunWith(ChromeJUnit4ClassRunner.class)
@CommandLineFlags.Add({ChromeSwitches.DISABLE_FIRST_RUN_EXPERIENCE})
public class IdentityDiscControllerTest {
    @Rule
    public ChromeTabbedActivityTestRule mActivityTestRule = new ChromeTabbedActivityTestRule();

    private Tab mTab;

    @Before
    public void setUp() {
        SigninTestUtil.setUpAuthForTesting();
        mActivityTestRule.startMainActivityWithURL(UrlConstants.NTP_URL);
        mTab = mActivityTestRule.getActivity().getActivityTab();
        NewTabPageTestUtils.waitForNtpLoaded(mTab);
    }

    @After
    public void tearDown() {
        SigninTestUtil.tearDownAuthForTesting();
    }

    @Test
    @MediumTest
    public void testIdentityDiscWithNavigation() {
        // User is signed in.
        SigninTestUtil.addAndSignInTestAccount();
        waitForView(allOf(withId(R.id.optional_toolbar_button), isDisplayed()));

        // Identity Disc should be hidden on navigation away from NTP.
        leaveNTP();
        onView(withId(R.id.optional_toolbar_button))
                .check(matches(anyOf(withEffectiveVisibility(ViewMatchers.Visibility.GONE),
                        not(withContentDescription(
                                R.string.accessibility_toolbar_btn_identity_disc)))));
    }

    @Test
    @MediumTest
    public void testIdentityDiscWithSignInState() {
        // When user is signed out, Identity Disc should not be visible on the NTP.
        onView(withId(R.id.optional_toolbar_button)).check((view, noViewException) -> {
            if (view != null) {
                ViewMatchers.assertThat("IdentityDisc view should be gone if it exists",
                        view.getVisibility(), Matchers.is(View.GONE));
            }
        });

        // Identity Disc should be shown on sign-in state change without NTP refresh.
        SigninTestUtil.addAndSignInTestAccount();
        waitForView(allOf(withId(R.id.optional_toolbar_button), isDisplayed()));

        onView(withId(R.id.optional_toolbar_button))
                .check(matches(
                        withContentDescription(R.string.accessibility_toolbar_btn_identity_disc)));

        SigninTestUtil.removeTestAccount(SigninTestUtil.getCurrentAccount().name);
        waitForView(allOf(withId(R.id.optional_toolbar_button),
                withEffectiveVisibility(ViewMatchers.Visibility.GONE)));
    }

    private void leaveNTP() {
        mActivityTestRule.loadUrl(ContentUrlConstants.ABOUT_BLANK_DISPLAY_URL);
        ChromeTabUtils.waitForTabPageLoaded(mTab, ContentUrlConstants.ABOUT_BLANK_DISPLAY_URL);
    }
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


There is a variety of opportunities to help orphaned and abandoned children in <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Russia.
You can make a direct impact in the lives of orphans by donating money. Through your generosity we will provide them with quality shoes and clothing, hygiene products, medical supplies, essentials for education. More than anything, though, your gift will help these children on their way to becoming self-sustaining adults. You can truly make a difference.
Help us to expand our activity to more orphans in need by attracting more sponsors. You can simply tell your friends about us or organize a sponsored walk, a coffee morning, etc.


Al-'Ula oasis is located in the verdant Wadi Al-Qura, or "valley of villages," approximately 110 km southwest of the modern city of Tayma and 380 km north of Medina. It was an important way station and mercantile center on the frankincense trade route linking South Arabia to Mesopotamia, Syria, and Egypt. At Al-'Ula, the road branched, with one arm leading to Babylon, via Tayma, and the second to Petra and Syria. Al-'Ula was the capital of the Dedan and Lihyan Kingdoms (6th-2nd centuries BCE) and was controlled by the Nabataeans from the second century BCE to 106 CE, when the Romans defeated them, enabling Masudu, a Lihyanite ruler, to regain power. The area has an incredibly rich heritage, with innumerable archaeological sites dotting the landscape.
The vertical sandstone cliffs surrounding Al-'Ula provide ample surfaces for rock art, making Al-'Ula one of the richer petroglyph regions in the Kingdom. Ar-Ruzeiqiah is a mountain located in the southern part of Al-'Ula with a large petroglyph panel displaying hundreds of images, including depictions of hunting scenes with humans and a variety of animals. Ibexes are the most common species, but camels, horses, and other species can also be found. Mount Ikma also has a large façade with scenes, strange symbols, and inscriptions.


Look at the amazing transformation by our Trulawn Installation Partners Lifetime Lawns!
They completely turned around this common area into a space that is a safe and pleasant to use.
If you want to better utilise your space, but it is in a hard to reach or hard to manage area, then artificial grass is a fantastic option. Low maintenance and long-lasting, it's a ideal for schools and commercial properties.
Wayne Freer-Ash, the managing director of Lifetime Lawns and Living Landscapes, started his career over fifteen years ago, in the parks and gardens division of the council in East Sussex. He has trained in both basic horticulture and park management before moving to Plumpton College where he studied for 5 years towards NVQ's on soft landscaping and general horticulture.
Successfully gaining a place at Merrist Wood College in Guildford, Wayne gained further NCH qualifications in landscape construction, plant sciences and business management before starting his career as a freelance fully qualified landscape gardener.
Our team pride themselves on their professional, dedicated workmanship. All of our staff are expertly trained in the installation of our high quality synthetic grasses. They are extremely well mannered, well presented, prompt and professional from the start to the very end of the process.
We at Lifetime Lawns will provide the highest quality service to all of our customers. We are proud to work in partnership with Trulawn, one of the country's leading providers of artificial grasses. As one of their registered partner installers, we will provide a sales package that is second to none.
Putting you first as the customer has always been our number one priority. At Lifetime Lawns we strive to build relationships with our clients based on trust and honesty and look to offer a first class customer service from the very first time you contact us to the finished result.
We will always work with you to meet your requirements whether it be the design or meeting a specific budget. With such a wide range of different artificial lawn products to choose from, we are guaranteed to have the perfect solution for your needs.


North Gulham Spa is set in the beautiful Lincolnshire countryside. Situated in the most secluded of places, the spa offers complete peace and tranquillity. The Spas facilities include a 12mx5m Indoor Heated Pool, Sauna, Relaxation Area, Hot Tub, an Outside Sun Deck and Zen Room, two treatment rooms with an onsite beautician offering a wide range of treatments including specialist treatments.
We are a family run business which offers a unique personal experience. We cater for all sized group sizes, offering exclusive use which enables you to have a completely personal experience for you and your friends.
Whether you're popping in for an essential treatment or spending the whole day with us, we want your experience to be pleasurable from start to finish. Our dedicated team will take care of you from the moment you enter the building to the moment you leave, ensuring your comfort throughout.


text:
ABERDEEN WEBINAR
Visual Engagement in Customer Service
January 21st, 12:00pm ET
Live Contact Centers
Live Field Services
Visual Self-Service
Visual Engagement Platform
Computer Vision AI
Life at TechSee
Field Service Outsourcing Made Simple with Visual Technology
By Andrew Mort
Visual Engagement
6 Salesforce FSL Integrations that Drive Technician Enablement
The Artificial Intelligence Field Service Revolution
Augmented reality in field service: smart glasses or mobiles?
Field service outsourcing offers plenty of benefits, but it also presents major challenges. And during a crisis such as COVID-19, there is often a sudden and urgent need to accelerate the outsourcing process without compromising on standards. This article describes how companies using visual technology are able thrive during emergency scenarios.
Outsourcing is nothing new for field service organizations. For years, third parties have been used to increase service coverage, meet temporary spikes in demand or handle simple tasks more cheaply than with full-time employees. The increasing demand for rapid, high-quality service coupled with the knowledge gap resulting from an aging and shrinking pool of experienced technicians has further entrenched the practice of outsourcing in the field service industry. Gartner, for example, has estimated that over 40% of field service work is now performed by outsourced technicians.
Field service outsourcing in the era of COVID-19
The practice of field service outsourcing has accelerated due to the current pandemic. The United Nations International Labour Organization (ILO) estimated that COVID-19 could eliminate up to 195 million jobs worldwide – an unemployment rate commensurate with that of the Great Depression – with the service sector being hit especially hard. Many field service organizations are finding themselves with a skeleton staff. However, they must still meet their SLA commitments, increasingly leading them to choose field service outsourcing during this time of crisis.
Challenges of field service outsourcing at short notice
Onboarding and working with third-party technicians, especially at short notice during a crisis, presents its own set of challenges.
Outsourcing work – whether to a third-party organization or to independent contractors — means explaining new systems, workflows, and other protocols. Management must find ways to cost-effectively onboard contractors and optimize initial processes — often remotely — in order to ensure consistent service levels.
Keeping track of subcontractors' skills and certifications is complicated and time-consuming even at the best of times. Management must therefore find ways to ensure their subcontractors are fully trained and capable of completing any job assigned to them. Delegating complex work to an unqualified technician can be unsafe, waste company time and squander precious resources.
In the digital age, a poor customer experience can rapidly go viral on social media, severely damaging a service organization's reputation even before the technician finishes the job. Management must ensure that outsourced workers are fully trained and arrive fully equipped to complete the job properly the first time.
Visual technology to the rescue
For field service outsourcing to be successful during a crisis, it is more important than ever for organizations to utilize innovative tools and technologies that enable supervision and guidance. Remote video support and video collaboration tools can be immensely helpful in field service outsourcing.
During onboarding, visual technologies can shorten the time it takes subcontractors to learn new systems, understand proper workflows and other relevant protocols necessary for them to do their jobs efficiently. A learning curve is always to be expected; new technicians will not be able to solve every problem without assistance. They are often dependent on remote experts for:
confirmation of completion
maintenance of safety regulations
quality control.
A remote expert can utilize visual technology to provide outsourced field service technicians with all necessary data and instructions in real time.
How does it work in practice?
Here is an example of how visual technology can help with outsourcing field service work to technicians who may not be familiar with the equipment they need to fix.
The field service technician points his smartphone to show the equipment to the remote expert. The expert can view the issue and walk him through the steps required to fix it using on-screen AR instructions, driving efficiencies in the resolution process. Once fixed, the technician can point his smartphone at the equipment again and the expert will verify that it is working properly.
First-time fixes such as these not only enhance operational efficiency, but they also have a positive impact on customer satisfaction.
Going further: Visual automation
COVID-19 has caused numerous countries to restrict movement, and field technicians have become increasingly scarce human resources. This has driven a greater need to scale support for outsourced technicians. After all, remote experts only have one pair of eyes – a fact that often causes workflow bottlenecks and delays the completion of service, especially when demand is unusually high. Automating these processes using visual analysis tools or "smart eyes" can be a game-changer, thanks to Computer Vision AI.
Computer Vision AI refers to the processing and analysis of digital images and videos to automatically understand their meaning and context. The technology enables a third-party technician to perform a variety of tasks in autonomous assistance mode.
Help from a virtual field service technician
Let's say a technician isn't sure what to do. He captures an image of the issue using his tablet camera and the system searches for similar images in the company knowledge base, identifies the resolution and provides it to the technician in the form of on-screen Augmented Reality instructions. A visual virtual 'technician' bot can also interact with the worker, provide feedback, and correct any errors during the resolution process. In addition, the technician can take an image of the completed job and the system can compare it with the ideal image to verify that the job was done correctly.
Field service organizations can leverage images collected from any visual interactions – including remote visual sessions, on-site recordings, and automated guidance sessions – to train their systems using deep learning techniques. This enables them to achieve ever-higher levels of accuracy in recognizing objects in real-life conditions, delivering significant cost savings, extending expert reach, and streamlining training, especially in the area of field service outsourcing.
See what else visual technology for field service is capable of right here.
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Discover how Artificial Intelligence is transforming the field service industry with improved scheduling, knowledge base retrieval & visual analysis
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ESSENTIAL TOOL
Remote Support Maturity Model

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
What a Global Economic Slowdown Means for the U.S.
Stocks plummeted Wednesday after weak German and Chinese economic data raised concerns of an impeding global slowdown. WSJ's Gerald F. Seib explains how the two are connected. Photo: Getty
Spreading quickly from its epicenter in the city of Wuhan, a potentially lethal virus has sickened hundreds around China and reached the U.S., Japan and South Korea. While experts believe it is much less deadly than the related coronavirus that caused the 2003 SARS epidemic, countries are rushing to contain the outbreak, and Wuhan residents are taking their own protective measures. Photo: Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
Chief Justice Roberts and Senators Sworn In for Impeachment Trial