The contradictory implications of statistical mechanics have worried physicists and philosophers for centuries. Does our present-day knowledge allow us to exorcize those philosophical demons?

In IVUS imaging, constant linear velocity and a constant angular velocity of 1800 rev/min causes displacement of the calcium in subsequent image frames. To overcome this error in intravascular ultrasound video, IVUS image frames must be registered prior to the lesion quantification. This paper presents a comprehensive comparison of four registration methods, namely: Rigid, Affine, B-Splines and...

Sri Lanka has a rich culture of theatre called kolam and exorcism called tovil, which make use of actors, exorcists, masks,music, and dance. The Sanni Yakuma is the best known exorcism ritual, in which numerous sanni (disease) demons are portrayed by exorcists wearing elaborate masks. Occasionally the full complement of 18 possible disease demons is represented in the Daha Ata Sanniya (18 disea...

Osteoarticular allograft transplantation is a popular treatment method in wide surgical resections with large defects. For this reason hospitals are building bone data banks. Performing the optimal allograft selection on bone banks is crucial to the surgical outcome and patient recovery. However, current approaches are very time consuming hindering an efficient selection. We present an automati...

Background. The risk of ovarian cancer is increased in the association of ovarian tumor, ascites, and hydrothorax with the significant elevated tumor marker CA-125. However, this association can be observed in a rare clinical and benign pathological entity, that is Demons-Meigs' syndrome. Objective. To describe a rare case of Demons-Meigs' syndrome observed in our department. Methods. A black A...

The development of a framework of deformable image registration and segmentation for the purpose of temporal subtraction contrast-enhanced breast CT is described. An iterative histogram-based two-means clustering method was used for the segmentation. Dedicated breast CT images were segmented into background (air), adipose, fibroglandular and skin components. Fibroglandular tissue was classified...

Experimental results show that ratchets may be implemented in semiconductor and chemical systems, bypassing the second law and opening up huge gains in energy production. This paper summarizes or describes experiments and results on systems that effect demons and ratchets operating in chemical or electrical domains. One creates temperature differences that can be harvested by a heat engine. A s...

A fundamental difficulty in robotics arises from changes in the experienced environment—periods when the robot’s current situation differs from past experience. We present an architecture whereby many independent reinforcement learning agents (or demons) observe the behaviour of a single robot. Each demon learns one piece of world knowledge represented with a generalized value function. This ar...

Maxwell’s ”finite being” was born in 1867, as one ”who knows the paths and velocities of all the molecules” ([7], p.213), and who, unlike us, is ”clever enough” ([7], p.213), and can violate the second law of thermodynamics. It was baptized as a demon by Lord Kelvin ([7], p. 214), and ever since has fueled the discussions in the foundations of statistical mechanics. Since its inception, and con...