bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Hardware‐Assisted Projected Tetrahedra
Authors: Maximo A. , Marroquim R. , Farias R. 
Published: August 2010

AbstractWe present a flexible and highly efficient hardware‐assisted volume renderer grounded on the original Projected Tetrahedra (PT) algorithm. Unlike recent similar approaches, our method is exclusively based on the rasterization of simple geometric primitives and takes full advantage of graphics hardware. Both vertex and geometry shaders are used to compute the tetrahedral projection, while the volume ray integral is evaluated in a fragment shader; hence, volume rendering is performed entirely on the GPU within a single pass through the pipeline. We apply a CUDA‐based visibility ordering achieving rendering and sorting performance of over 6 M Tet/s for unstructured datasets. Furthermore, as each tetrahedron is processed independently, we employ a data‐parallel solution which is neither bound by GPU memory size nor does it rely on auxiliary volume information. In addition, iso‐surfaces can be readily extracted during the rendering process, and time‐varying data are handled without extra burden.
Scalable Multi‐view Registration for Multi‐Projector Displays on Vertically Extruded Surfaces
Authors: Sajadi Behzad , Majumder Aditi 
Published: August 2010

AbstractRecent work have shown that it is possible to register multiple projectors on non‐planar surfaces using a single uncalibrated camera instead of a calibrated stereo pair when dealing with a special class of non‐planar surfaces, vertically extruded surfaces. However, this requires the camera view to contain the entire display surface. This is often an impossible scenario for large displays, especially common in visualization, edutainment, training and simulation applications. In this paper we present a new method that can achieve an accurate geometric registration even when the field‐of‐view of the uncalibrated camera can cover only a part of the vertically extruded display at a time. We pan and tilt the camera from a single point and employ a multi‐view approach to register the projectors on the display. This allows the method to scale easily both in terms of camera resolution and display size. To the best of our knowledge, our method is the first to achieve a scalable multi‐view geometric registration of large vertically extruded displays with a single uncalibrated camera. This method can also handle a different situation of having multiple similarly oriented cameras in different locations, if the camera focal length is known.
DTI in Context: Illustrating Brain Fiber Tracts In Situ
Authors: Svetachov Pjotr , Everts Maarten H. , Isenberg Tobias 
Published: August 2010

AbstractWe present an interactive illustrative visualization method inspired by traditional pen‐and‐ink illustration styles. Specifically, we explore how to provide context around DTI fiber tracts in the form of surfaces of the brain, the skull, or other objects such as tumors. These contextual surfaces are derived from either segmentation data or generated using interactive iso‐surface extraction and are rendered with a flexible, slice‐based hatching technique, controlled with ambient occlusion. This technique allows us to produce a consistent and frame‐coherent appearance with precise control over the lines. In addition, we provide context through cutting planes onto which we render gray matter with stippling. Together, our methods not only facilitate the interactive exploration and illustration of brain fibers within their anatomical context but also allow us to produce high‐quality images for print reproduction. We provide evidence for the success of our approach with an informal evaluation with domain experts.
A Multidirectional Occlusion Shading Model for Direct Volume Rendering
Authors: Šoltészová Veronika , Patel Daniel , Bruckner Stefan , Viola Ivan 
Published: August 2010

AbstractIn this paper, we present a novel technique which simulates directional light scattering for more realistic interactive visualization of volume data. Our method extends the recent directional occlusion shading model by enabling light source positioning with practically no performance penalty. Light transport is approximated using a tilted cone‐shaped function which leaves elliptic footprints in the opacity buffer during slice‐based volume rendering. We perform an incremental blurring operation on the opacity buffer for each slice in front‐to‐back order. This buffer is then used to define the degree of occlusion for the subsequent slice. Our method is capable of generating high‐quality soft shadowing effects, allows interactive modification of all illumination and rendering parameters, and requires no pre‐computation.
Supporting Exploratory Analysis with the Select & Slice Table
Authors: Shrinivasan Yedendra B. , Van Wijk Jarke. J. 
Published: August 2010

AbstractIn interactive visualization, selection techniques such as dynamic queries and brushing are used to specify and extract items of interest. In other words, users define areas of interest in data space that often have a clear semantic meaning. We call such areas Semantic Zones, and argue that support for their manipulation and reasoning with them is highly useful during exploratory analysis. An important use case is the use of these zones across different subsets of the data, for instance to study the population of semantic zones over time. To support this, we present the Select & Slice Table. Semantic zones are arranged along one axis of the table, and data subsets are arranged along the other axis of the table. Each cell contains a set of items of interest from a data subset that matches the selection specifications of a zone. Items in cells can be visualized in various ways, as a count, as an aggregation of a measure, or as a separate visualization, such that the table gives an overview of the relationship between zones and data subsets. Furthermore, users can reuse zones, combine zones, and compare and trace items of interest across different semantic zones and data subsets. We present two case studies to illustrate the support offered by the Select & Slice table during exploratory analysis of multivariate data.
Brushing Moments in Interactive Visual Analysis
Authors: Kehrer Johannes , Filzmoser Peter , Hauser Helwig 
Published: August 2010

AbstractWe present a systematic study of opportunities for the interactive visual analysis of multi‐dimensional scientific data that is based on the integration of statistical aggregations along selected independent data dimensions in a framework of coordinated multiple views (with linking and brushing). Traditional and robust estimates of the four statistical moments (mean, variance, skewness, and kurtosis) as well as measures ofoutlyingnessare integrated in an iterative visual analysis process. Brushing particular statistics, the analyst can investigate data characteristics such as trends and outliers. We present a categorization of beneficial combinations of attributes in 2D scatterplots: (a) kthvs. (k + 1)thstatistical moment of a traditional or robust estimate, (b) traditional vs. robust version of the same moment, (c) two different robust estimates of the same moment. We propose selected view transformations to iteratively construct this multitude of informative views as well as to enhance the depiction of the statistical properties in scatterplots and quantile plots. In the framework, we interrelate the original distributional data and the aggregated statistics, which allows the analyst to work with both data representations simultaneously. We demonstrate our approach in the context of two visual analysis scenarios of multi‐run climate simulations.
Coherent Culling and Shading for Large Molecular Dynamics Visualization
Authors: Grottel Sebastian , Reina Guido , Dachsbacher Carsten , Ertl Thomas 
Published: August 2010

AbstractMolecular dynamics simulations are a principal tool for studying molecular systems. Such simulations are used to investigate molecular structure, dynamics, and thermodynamical properties, as well as a replacement for, or complement to, costly and dangerous experiments. With the increasing availability of computational power the resulting data sets are becoming increasingly larger, and benchmarks indicate that the interactive visualization on desktop computers poses a challenge when rendering substantially more than millions of glyphs. Trading visual quality for rendering performance is a common approach when interactivity has to be guaranteed. In this paper we address both problems and present a method for high‐quality visualization of massive molecular dynamics data sets. We employ several optimization strategies on different levels of granularity, such as data quantization, data caching in video memory, and a two‐level occlusion culling strategy: coarse culling via hardware occlusion queries and a vertex‐level culling using maximum depth mipmaps. To ensure optimal image quality we employ GPU raycasting and deferred shading with smooth normal vector generation. We demonstrate that our method allows us to interactively render data sets containing tens of millions of high‐quality glyphs.
Winding Roads: Routing edges into bundles
Authors: Lambert A. , Bourqui R. , Auber D. 
Published: August 2010

AbstractVisualizing graphs containing many nodes and edges efficiently is quite challenging. Drawings of such graphs generally suffer from visual clutter induced by the large amount of edges and their crossings. Consequently it is difficult to read the relationships between nodes and the high‐level edge patterns that may exist in standard node‐link diagram representations. Edge bundling techniques have been proposed to help solve this issue, which rely on high quality edge rerouting. In this paper, we introduce an intuitive edge bundling technique which efficiently reduces edge clutter in graphs drawings. Our method is based on the use of a grid built using the original graph to compute the edge rerouting. In comparison with previously proposed edge bundling methods, our technique improves both the level of clutter reduction and the computation performance. The second contribution of this paper is a GPU‐based rendering method which helps users perceive bundles densities while preserving edge color.
The Concept of Rights in Contemporary Human Rights Discourse
Authors: CHWASZCZA CHRISTINE 
Published: August 2010

AbstractIn a variety of disciplines, there exists a consensus that human rights are individual claim rights that all human beings possess simply as a consequence of being human. That consensus seems to me to obscure the real character of the concept and hinder the progress of discussion. I contend that rather than thinking of human rights in the first instance as “claim rights” possessed by individuals, we should regard human rights as higher order norms that articulate standards of legitimacy for sociopolitical and legal institutions.
Some Myth about Realism
Authors: MAUTNER THOMAS 
Published: August 2010

AbstractThis paper discusses the place of philosophical naturalism in the philosophy of law, with special reference to Scandinavian Realism. Hägerström originated a non‐cognitivist analysis of certain fundamental legal concepts, but he also proposed an error theory. The two approaches are incompatible, but were not always clearly distinguished. Among his followers, Olivecrona and Ross gradually abandoned the latter, at least from the late 1940s. Many accounts of their views are unclear, because the presence of these two kinds of analysis, their incompatibility, and the gradual abandonment of one, has often been overlooked. A corollary of the discussion is that there are some important corrigenda in the entry “Naturalism in legal philosophy” in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Europeanization or EU‐ization? The Transfer of European Norms across Time and Space
Authors: FLOCKHART TRINE 
Published: August 2010

AbstractWhat is the content of Europeanization? Which causal relationships should be explained? Which theory should be used? In answering these questions, the article forwards a conceptualization of Europeanization based on Historical Sociology and Social Constructivism, which implies a departure from the practice in the current Europeanization literature to concentrate on the contemporary with a narrow focus (EU‐ization) at the expense of the historical with a broad focus (Europeanization). It is suggested that the causal relationships to be explained are the transfer of European ideas across time and space using a ‘present‐as‐reality’ definition of the European idea set. In doing so, it becomes apparent that Europeanization cannot be accepted as either static or something that is solely connected to the EU, and that Europeanization has been characterized by diffusion patterns going both into and out of Europe and sociological processes involving subtle shifts in process, structure, agents and conceptions of ‘Other’ and ‘Significant We’.
Bicameral Politics in the European Union
Authors: HAGEMANN SARA , HØYLAND BJØRN 
Published: August 2010

AbstractThe literature on legislative decision‐making and bargaining in the EU has reached a common conclusion that the European Parliament (Parliament) and the Council of the European Union (Council) are on an equal footing in the main legislative procedure, the co‐decision procedure. We present theoretical and empirical evidence to suggest that this is not the case. First, our analysis of the formal rules reveals that the Council has conditional agenda‐setting power due to a change in the majority thresholds for adopting legislation from the first to the second reading in the Parliament. This change has important implications for the internal dynamics of the Parliament and its institutional powers vis‐à‐vis the Council. Testing these analytical considerations of the formal decision rules against voting data on all co‐decision legislation adopted in the two institutions between 1999 and 2004, our empirical findings show that: first, from 1999 to 2004 coalition formation in the Council fell predominantly along the traditional left–right political dimensions when negotiating co‐decision proposals. Second, when disagreement over legislation is recorded in the Council, a strong divide can also be found in the Parliament. Third, when the Parliament is divided along party political lines, it is less likely to be able to meet the absolute majority requirement for amending the proposal adopted by the Council. Lastly, Parliament amendments are most likely to be adopted when a decision by voting is requested by a party group associated with the main ideological contingency in the Council.
Across the EU Studies–New Regionalism Frontier: Invitation to a Dialogue
Authors: WARLEIGH‐LACK ALEX , ROSAMOND BEN 
Published: August 2010

AbstractThis article notes a lack of communication between two broad schools of scholarship on regional integration: EU studies and analyses of the ‘new regionalism’. It is argued that the existence of this divide, which is perpetrated by proponents of both schools, is an impediment to the elaboration of useful theory as well as being a missed opportunity. The benefits and problems of using the EU as a comparator in studies of regionalism are assessed. While the mistake of giving the EU analytical primacy as a benchmark or model is to be avoided, it is argued that careful treatment of accumulated insights from EU studies (including a proper re‐inspection of classical integration theory) brings clear methodological and meta‐theoretical benefits for the project of comparative regional integration scholarship.
Who Controls Whom? Dynamics of Power Delegation and Agency Losses in EU Trade Politics
Authors: DA CONCEIÇÃO EUGÉNIA 
Published: August 2010

AbstractThere has been considerable debate about power delegation in EU trade politics, but few studies explore the question of how and why agency losses occur. Focusing on agricultural issues in the Doha Round, this article analyses the impact of agency losses (agency shirking and agency slippage) in the process of power delegation in EU trade politics. Are agency losses the result of the delegation structure, which stimulates the agent to adopt a different position from the principals (agency slippage), or do conflict situations arise because of conflicting interests between the interests of the Member States and those of the European Commission (agency shirking)? Based on information collected from Agence Europe and interviews with European officials, the main conclusions are that: (1) the Council–Commission relationship can be conflict‐laden or co‐operative depending on the negotiating stage at the international level; (2) a low degree of interest alignment among Member States increases the Commission's discretion at the international level; (3) inter‐institutional conflict weakens the EU negotiating position at the international level because the other WTO members know that the EU is divided and ask for further concessions.
Observations on the reproductive cycle of female Molossus fortis (Chiroptera: Molossidae) in Puerto Rico
Authors: Krutzsch Philip H. , Crichton Elizabeth G. 
Published: August 2010

The reproductive cycle of female Molossus fortis, a molossid bat endemic to Puerto Rico (18°N), was studied from specimens collected throughout the year and immediately preserved in the field. The reproductive tracts were subsequently dissected out in the laboratory and processed for light microscopic observation of their histological status.Observations revealed that the species is monotocous and bimodally reproductively active, conceiving in March and June/July and giving birth in June and September. Anoestrus occurs between September and February. The data strongly suggest that Molossus is polyoestrous, conceiving a second time each year as the result of a post‐partum oestrus in June/July. Gestation occupies about three and a half months in each instance and the young are born at approximately 30 mm crown‐rump length. Lactation ensues for about six weeks. Molossus fortis displays dextral dominance of the reproductive tract and lack of advanced follicular growth stages in the left ovary, features that are characteristic of Molossidae.This is the first description of the reproductive cycle of a wild population of a tropical molossid from the New World. Polyoestry has been described in some Old World tropical Molossidae; a post‐partum oestrus per se has not been described in any molossid, but no doubt will be recognized in other species once more detailed studies are made.
The biology of Vaejovis littoralis Williams, an intertidal scorpion from Baja California, Mexico
Authors: Due A. Denise , Polis G. A. 
Published: August 2010

Vaejovis littoralis Williams is an intertidal scorpion inhabiting chiefly the drift zone in the high intertidal of beaches in Baja California, Mexico. Density within the drift zone averages approximately 2–4/m2 (island sites) to 12/m2 (mainland sites). Populations are aggregated into patches. Primarily, juveniles exhibit diurnal activity. Nocturnally active juveniles tend to be spatially segregated from nocturnally active adults within the drift zone.Diet of V. littoralis includes the isopod Ligia, V. littoralis, spiders, pseudoscorpions, centipedes and beetles. Prey size is not a function of predator size. Centruroides exilicauda, V. littoralis and Ligia were observed as predators on V. littoralis.The adult sex ratio is skewed toward females (1 male : 2.1 females). Adult females are usually larger than adult males. Litter size ranges from 1–8. Limited data suggest that offspring size and litter size increase with maternal size. Vaejovis littoralis exhibits cryptic coloration, small size and lithophilic tarsal claws, all of which favour intertidal existence. Although V. littoralis is able to withstand up to 12 hours of submergence, it does not survive submergence significantly better than a comparable desert species. Field data suggest that V. littoralis does not exhibit an endogenous tidal rhythm.
Thermoregulation and metabolism in the smallest African gerbil, Gerbillus pusillus
Authors: Buffenstein Rochelle , Jarvis Jennifer U. M. 
Published: August 2010

The effect of temperature on thermoregulation, metabolism, evaporative water loss and thermal conductance was studied in Gerbillus pusillus. Its resting body temperature (TB) was 34·6°C, approximately 5°C higher than the mean ambient temperature (TA) encountered in its burrow. As TA increased above 34°C, its ability to lose heat to the environment decreased. It overcame this problem by tolerating increases in TB to a non‐lethal maximum of 41°C, whilst also eliminating increasing quantities of obligate heat by pulmocutaneous evaporation and conduction.Metabolic rate was 41% lower than that predicted from Kleiber's (1975) allometric equation. This confers a considerable saving in energy in an environment where food is often scarce, whilst simultaneously reducing heat production and the degree of gaseous exchange in the already oxygen‐poor and carbon dioxide‐rich environment encountered in the plugged burrows of its natural milieu. Gerbillus pusillus, therefore, does not maintain strict homeothermy and utilizes a labile TB and reduced metabolic rate as an adaptive mechanism for survival in the arid zones of tropical Africa.
Statocyst structure in the Anomalodesmata (Bivalvia)
Authors: Morton Brian 
Published: August 2010

Statocyst structure in representatives of each, as currently recognized, family of the bivalve sub‐class Anomalodesmata has been investigated.Three types are recognized—A, B and C. Type A is possessed only by Pholadomya Candida, a representative of the ancient Pholadomyacea. Type C is found only in the Cuspidariacea. Type B, possessed by all other anomalodesmatans is divided, on the basis of statolith structure, into three sub‐types—B1, B2 and B3.Type A statocyst is extraordinarily complex with a capsule penetrated by nerve endings and a multicellular statolith. Such a sophisticated structure is adjudged essential for a bivalve that is postulated to lie angled on its back in the sediment and to collect subsurface deposits via the pedal gape, using the foot as a suction piston.Type B statocyst comprises a large, multicellular capsule of ciliated cells as the sensory receptors. Variations in structure relate to whether or not there is a single, large, statolith (B1), a large statolith and other statoconia (B2), or numerous crystal‐like statoconia, one of which may be enlarged into a statolith (B3).Type C statocyst comprises a small capsule of but four or five cells in transverse section, each of which is swollen and lined by microvilli. A large, oval statolith is not freely mobile within the lumen and probably confers little fine orientation discrimination.It is concluded that statocyst structure has some phylogenetic significance, widely separating the Pholadomyidae from other anomalodesmatans and indicating that the Cuspidariacea may have a separate origin from the other deep‐water ‘septibranch’ predators. Type B3 statocyst (crystal‐like statoconia) appears typical of the Clavagellacea, but is also possessed by Myadora striata.All other anomalodesmatans possess either Type B1 or B2 statocysts, and with so much variation between and within constituent genera, families and superfamilies, little adaptive significance is attached to form. All other bivalves investigated to date have a statocyst structure of Type B, this probably representing ‘primitive’ conditions. Earlier conclusions from studies of other bivalves that type B2 or B3 is more primitive than B1 cannot be substantiated, because more comprehensive studies of these phylogenies may reveal a wider diversity of form than is at present realized.