Funded by BP through the Florida Institute of Oceanography, the scientists will make the 10-day trip aboard the institute’s 115-foot research vessel. The divers, scientists and photographers will document hard bottoms of Florida, from the Keys to the Panhandle, to gain a better understanding of these sponge- and coral-dominated communities

The post Gulf of Mexico survey will benchmark diversity of ocean floor appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

The Buddy Bench is designed to foster friendships and prevent the blues at playtime.

A new, award-winning public arts project makes good use out of building materials salvaged from Detroit's sizable supply of destroyed/derelict homes.

Research explores best practices and challenges for organizations

Research explores best practices and challenges for organizations

Launched in September, artfairmag.com aims to be the leading website for international art fairs

To fill a void of relevant benchmarking data, Anders and our accounting association, the Leading Edge Alliance (LEA), have launched the third annual National Manufacturing Outlook Survey, and we are requesting participation. Created specifically for privately-held manufacturers, this is the… Read More

The post Anders and LEA Launch National Benchmarking Survey for Manufacturers appeared first on Anders CPAs.

According to the RBI Monetary Policy Report, 36 banks out of 62 banks have adopted repo rate as an external benchmark whereas six banks have adopted the market-based benchmarks such as CD rate, 3-month treasury bill etc.

A hike in taxes on fuels, which will add to government’s revenue, helped lift sentiment.

A hike in taxes on fuels, which will add to government’s revenue, helped lift sentiment.

SUPER HI-FI has surpassed 1 billion monthly music transitions, tripling volume from its last report in back in JANUARY. Each transition reflects a unique AI calculation driving perfect song … more

Inserting renewable energy in the electric grid in a decentralized manneris a key challenge of the energy transition. However, at local scale, both production and demand display erratic behavior, which makes it delicate to match them. It is the goal of Energy Management Systems (EMS) to achieve such balance at least cost. We present EMSx, a numerical benchmark for testing control algorithms for the management of electric microgrids equipped with a photovoltaic unit and an energy storage system. EMSx is made of three key components: the EMSx dataset, provided by Schneider Electric, contains a diverse pool of realistic microgrids with a rich collection of historical observations and forecasts; the EMSx mathematical framework is an explicit description of the assessment of electric microgrid control techniques and algorithms; the EMSx software EMSx.jl is a package, implemented in the Julia language, which enables to easily implement a microgrid controller and to test it. All components of the benchmark are publicly available, so that other researchers willing to test controllers on EMSx may reproduce experiments easily. Eventually, we showcase the results of standard microgrid control methods, including Model Predictive Control, Open Loop Feedback Control and Stochastic Dynamic Programming.

Image dehazing is an ill-posed problem that has been extensively studied in the recent years. The objective performance evaluation of the dehazing methods is one of the major obstacles due to the lacking of a reference dataset. While the synthetic datasets have shown important limitations, the few realistic datasets introduced recently assume homogeneous haze over the entire scene. Since in many real cases haze is not uniformly distributed we introduce NH-HAZE, a non-homogeneous realistic dataset with pairs of real hazy and corresponding haze-free images. This is the first non-homogeneous image dehazing dataset and contains 55 outdoor scenes. The non-homogeneous haze has been introduced in the scene using a professional haze generator that imitates the real conditions of hazy scenes. Additionally, this work presents an objective assessment of several state-of-the-art single image dehazing methods that were evaluated using NH-HAZE dataset.

Real-world application scenarios like modern Internet services consist of diversity of AI and non-AI modules with very long and complex execution paths. Using component or micro AI benchmarks alone can lead to error-prone conclusions. This paper proposes a scenario-distilling AI benchmarking methodology. Instead of using real-world applications, we propose the permutations of essential AI and non-AI tasks as a scenario-distilling benchmark. We consider scenario-distilling benchmarks, component and micro benchmarks as three indispensable parts of a benchmark suite. Together with seventeen industry partners, we identify nine important real-world application scenarios. We design and implement a highly extensible, configurable, and flexible benchmark framework. On the basis of the framework, we propose the guideline for building scenario-distilling benchmarks, and present two Internet service AI ones. The preliminary evaluation shows the advantage of scenario-distilling AI benchmarking against using component or micro AI benchmarks alone. The specifications, source code, testbed, and results are publicly available from the web site url{this http URL}.

We present the Perceptimatic English Benchmark, an open experimental benchmark for evaluating quantitative models of speech perception in English. The benchmark consists of ABX stimuli along with the responses of 91 American English-speaking listeners. The stimuli test discrimination of a large number of English and French phonemic contrasts. They are extracted directly from corpora of read speech, making them appropriate for evaluating statistical acoustic models (such as those used in automatic speech recognition) trained on typical speech data sets. We show that phone discrimination is correlated with several types of models, and give recommendations for researchers seeking easily calculated norms of acoustic distance on experimental stimuli. We show that DeepSpeech, a standard English speech recognizer, is more specialized on English phoneme discrimination than English listeners, and is poorly correlated with their behaviour, even though it yields a low error on the decision task given to humans.

Over the years, performance evaluation has become essential in computer vision, enabling tangible progress in many sub-fields. While talking-head video generation has become an emerging research topic, existing evaluations on this topic present many limitations. For example, most approaches use human subjects (e.g., via Amazon MTurk) to evaluate their research claims directly. This subjective evaluation is cumbersome, unreproducible, and may impend the evolution of new research. In this work, we present a carefully-designed benchmark for evaluating talking-head video generation with standardized dataset pre-processing strategies. As for evaluation, we either propose new metrics or select the most appropriate ones to evaluate results in what we consider as desired properties for a good talking-head video, namely, identity preserving, lip synchronization, high video quality, and natural-spontaneous motion. By conducting a thoughtful analysis across several state-of-the-art talking-head generation approaches, we aim to uncover the merits and drawbacks of current methods and point out promising directions for future work. All the evaluation code is available at: https://github.com/lelechen63/talking-head-generation-survey.

A system for testing a plurality of transistors on a wafer having a storage device or personal computer connected via a bus to a plurality of drivers. Each of the voltage drivers having a microcontroller adapted to receive test parameters and provide test data from a plurality of voltage drivers. By utilizing a bus structure, the personal computer can look on one bus for flags indicating test data is available from a driver and receive the data. In addition a bus may be used to provide test parameters to the drivers. In this manner, multiple drivers may be run at the same time incorporating multiple tests. When data is available it is transferred to the personal computer, for providing test parameters to a plurality of drivers, and connected via a second bus for receiving test results from the plurality of drivers.

A welding workbench assembly comprises a base. The welding workbench assembly further comprises a first wraparound barrier comprising at least three panels, including a first panel, a second panel, and a third panel. The second panel is adjacent to the first panel at a first end of the first panel and the third panel is adjacent to the first panel at a second end of the first panel. The welding workbench assembly further comprises a second wraparound barrier comprising at least three panels, including a fourth panel, a fifth panel, and a sixth panel. The fifth panel is adjacent to the fourth panel at a first end of the fourth panel and the sixth panel is adjacent to the fourth panel at a second end of the fourth panel.

A wheeled mobile work bench which has an adjustable tabletop surface. The tabletop surface removably engages an adjustable rectangular frame which, in turn, is attached atop a pair of upright frame members, each upright frame member being attached to a respective bottom frame component. An electrical box attached to one of the right and left upright frame members is operationally connectable connected to a power cord having a plug. While the mobile work bench is in use, the plug is operationally connectable to a source of standard electrical current to permit use of a power tool plugged into the electrical box.

Benchmark Pizzeria in Old Oakland has closed permanently.

A notice now posted at the restaurant's website, addressed "to our Friends, Regulars, and Supporters," reads:

"We have made the very tough decision to close Benchmark Oakland permanently.…

Want to grow herbs and keep fish in your kitchen? Aquaculture could be for you.

The South Australian Government's attempt to reform land tax appears doomed to fail, despite an eleventh-hour bid to get the support of traditional Liberal Party allies.

Park benches in neighbourhood parks across the country are being painted bright red to encourage people to take a stand against domestic violence.

What if you made it more comfortable to sleep at a bus stop?

Whoever thought of this must've been really tipsy.

This week for Case Mod Friday we have what might be the ultimate bench build! It is from KillR_MODZ and he calls it the IndominAORUS Bench featuring all new Z490 hardware and some awesome watercooling!

The post Case Mod Friday: IndominAORUS Bench appeared first on ThinkComputers.org.

A new show, “Judy Justice,” will premiere the next year.

Rangers could be without Alfredo Morelos and Scott Arfield for their trip to play Hearts on Sunday.

I FEAR that holding Downing Street media briefings about the virus every single afternoon is now totally counterproductive.

It's a bad week to own a Washington skill position player, but a great time to get Tevin Coleman and other into your lineup.

The Patriots quarterback has been sensational for years, but with everything on the line for your fantasy season in Week 16, he's a liability.

strataconf: Read our initial findings of @amplab's open source benchmark for tracking large-scale Query Engines http://t.co/rGgOVeTHQ8 #strataconf

The U.S. Department of Education said Texas must stop using a guideline for special education enrollment that may have led to thousands of children being denied services they were qualified to receive.

Segmentation of cardiac images, particularly late gadolinium-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (LGE-MRI) widely used for visualizing diseased cardiac structures, is a crucial first step for clinical diagnosis and treatment. However, direct segmentation of LGE-MRIs is challenging due to its attenuated contrast. Since most clinical studies have relied on manual and labor-intensive approaches, automatic methods are of high interest, particularly optimized machine learning approaches. To address this, we organized the "2018 Left Atrium Segmentation Challenge" using 154 3D LGE-MRIs, currently the world's largest cardiac LGE-MRI dataset, and associated labels of the left atrium segmented by three medical experts, ultimately attracting the participation of 27 international teams. In this paper, extensive analysis of the submitted algorithms using technical and biological metrics was performed by undergoing subgroup analysis and conducting hyper-parameter analysis, offering an overall picture of the major design choices of convolutional neural networks (CNNs) and practical considerations for achieving state-of-the-art left atrium segmentation. Results show the top method achieved a dice score of 93.2% and a mean surface to a surface distance of 0.7 mm, significantly outperforming prior state-of-the-art. Particularly, our analysis demonstrated that double, sequentially used CNNs, in which a first CNN is used for automatic region-of-interest localization and a subsequent CNN is used for refined regional segmentation, achieved far superior results than traditional methods and pipelines containing single CNNs. This large-scale benchmarking study makes a significant step towards much-improved segmentation methods for cardiac LGE-MRIs, and will serve as an important benchmark for evaluating and comparing the future works in the field.

With the publication of evidence-based guidelines for asthma, bronchiolitis, and pneumonia, numerous efforts have been made to standardize and improve the quality of care. However, despite these guidelines, variation in care exists.

This study establishes clinically achievable benchmarks of care for asthma, bronchiolitis, and pneumonia. Using a published method for achievable benchmarks of care, we calculated average utilization among the high-performers, which can serve as achievable goals for local quality improvement. (Read the full article)

Intel has released some benchmarks for its next-gen Core i9 'Cascade Lake-X' processors, which will be arriving next month with a big price cut. The company is also slightly dropping prices on Core S-series chips that lack GPUs, and preparing to launch the Xeon W-2200 series.

A new report by the World Bank puts the results of much-publicized international tests–which many poor nations do not take part in–on a comparable scale as regional exams commonly used by developing countries.

Order will create subcommittee focused on bettering health care spending, quality across the state WILMINGTON, Del. – Governor Carney on Tuesday signed Executive Order #25 establishing health care spending and quality benchmarks. This Executive Order will form a subcommittee of the Delaware Economic and Financial Advisory Council to focus on reducing the cost of health […]

Benchmark initiative will limit spending growth, improve quality of care NEW CASTLE, Del. – The Delaware Economic and Financial Advisory Council (DEFAC) on Wednesday issued a recommended Benchmark Index that set the state’s health care spending growth target at 3.8 percent for 2019 – the initial year of Delaware’s newly created Health Care Spending Benchmark. […]

The Seltos has a modern design, and one that the next-generation Creta (likely in 2020) could take some cues from.

The Kona Electric, the world’s first electric compact SUV, was launched in India last week. Priced Rs 25.3 lakh, it’s available for sale in 11 cities.

The Xiaomi Redmi Note 7 Pro is a big upgrade from its predecessor with a 48MP camera and a powerful mid-range chipset tuned for gaming, but is it best mid-range phone to buy right now? Watch our review to find out.

The nine-judge Bench, which a week ago clarified it won’t be deciding the review petition but only lay down the general law to be followed, will examine the “scope and ambit of right to freedom of religion under Article 25 of the Constitution”.