We describe a method for automatic detection and localisation of vertebrae in clinical images that was designed to avoid making a-priori assumptions of how many vertebrae are visible. Multiple Random Forest regressors were trained to identify vertebral end-plates, providing estimates of both the location and pose of the vertebrae. The highest-weighted responses from each model were combined usi...

The quantized Dirac field is known, by a result of Fewster and Verch, to satisfy a Quantum Weak Energy Inequality (QWEI) on its averaged energy density along time-like curves in arbitrary four-dimensional globally hyperbolic spacetimes. However, this result does not provide an explicit form for the bound. By adapting ideas from the earlier work, we give a simplified derivation of a QWEI for the...

Article history: Received 12 February 2009 Accepted after revision 2 February 2010 Available online 6 March 2010 Presented by Gérard Iooss

Solar energy represents one of the most abundant and yet least harvested sources of renewable energy. In recent years, tremendous progress has been made in developing photovoltaics that can be potentially mass deployed. Of particular interest to cost-effective solar cells is to use novel device structures and materials processing for enabling acceptable efficiencies. In this regard, here, we re...

In the last two decades, there is significant increase in the grid connected distributed energy resources (DER) worldwide. At the distribution level, a high DER penetration provides a number of challenges for the Distribution system operators (DSOs) concerning the operation and planning of their electricity networks. Despite these operational problems, DSOs are often faced with high political p...

Temperature tolerance and sensitivity were examined for some North Atlantic marine species and linked to their energetics in terms of species-specific parameters described by dynamic energy budget (DEB) theory. There was a general lack of basic information on temperature tolerance and sensitivity for many species. Available data indicated that the ranges in tolerable temperatures were positivel...

Impact of Induced Thermal Stresses during Circulation Tests in an Engineered Fractured Geothermal Reservoir: Example of the Soultz-sous-Forêts European Hot Fractured Rock Geothermal Project, Rhine Graben, France — The wider concept of hot fractured rock geothermal energy is put forward to overcome the natural limitations of classic geothermal fields. A suite of numerical modules based on a disc...

Analytical results are presented for a steady three-dimensional free convection flow in the stagnation point region over a general curved isothermal surface placed in a nanofluid. The momentum equations in x- and y-directions, energy balance equation, and nanoparticle concentration equation are reduced to a set of four fully coupled nonlinear differential equations under appropriate similarity ...

Considerable effort has been made to fabricate graphene (GR)/semiconductor composite photocatalysts, by using graphene oxide (GO) as the most widely used precursor of GR, toward an improved efficacy of solar energy conversion. However, thus far, the role of GO in the preparation and photocatalytic activity of GR/semiconductor composites has remained rather elusive. Herein, we report a simple ye...