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Archaeology and conservation along the Silk Road : conference 2016 postprints
\"Supported by Eurasia Pacific Uninet, the second international conference on 'Archaeology and Conservation along the Silk Road' was jointly organized by Nanjing University China and Institute of Conservation, University of Applied Arts Vienna and held in May 2016 in China. Silk Road showcases the trans-continental cultural movements between Europe and Asia and this event encouraged researchers to reflect on popular as well as otherwise under-represented topics. This volume includes selected papers from the conference and merges aspects of archaeology with conservation. Subjects vary from field drawings, unique local techniques, spread of diseases and epidemics to DNA studies assessing population migration and mixture. Next Silk Road conference is planned for 2018 to carry forward the initiative of learning and exchange of knowledge\"--Publisher's website.
Book
Road surface detection and differentiation considering surface damages
A challenge still to be overcome in the field of visual perception for vehicle and robotic navigation on heavily damaged and unpaved roads is the task of reliable path and obstacle detection. The vast majority of the researches have scenario roads in good condition, from developed countries. These works cope with few situations of variation on the road surface and even fewer situations presenting surface damages. In this paper we present an approach for road detection considering variation in surface types, identifying paved and unpaved surfaces and also detecting damage and other information on other road surfaces that may be relevant to driving safety. Our approach makes use of Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) to perform semantic segmentation, we use the U-NET architecture with ResNet34, in addition we use the technique known as Transfer Learning, where we first train a CNN model without using weights in the classes as a basis for a second CNN model where we use weights for each class. We also present a new Ground Truth with image segmentation, used in our approach and that allowed us to evaluate our results. Our results show that it is possible to use passive vision for these purposes, even using images captured with low cost cameras.
Journal Article
Life along the Silk Road / Susan Whitfield
\"In this long-awaited second edition, Susan Whitfield expands her trailblazing exploration of the Silk Road and broadens her rich and varied portrait of life along the great premodern trade routes of Eurasia. This new edition is comprehensively updated to support further understanding of themes relevant to global and comparative history. In the first 1,000 years after Christ, merchants, missionaries, monks, mendicants, and military men traveled on the vast network of Central Asian tracks that became known as the Silk Road. Whitfield recounts the lives of twelve individuals who lived at different times during this period, including two new characters: an African shipmaster and a Persian traveler and writer during the Arab caliphate. With these additional tales, Whitfield extends both geographical and chronological scope, bringing into view the maritime links across the Indian Ocean and depicting the network of north-south routes from the Baltic to the Gulf. Throughout the narrative, Whitfield conveys a strong sense of what life was like for ordinary men and women on the Silk Road, the individuals usually forgotten to history. A work of great scholarship, Life along the Silk Road continues to be extremely accessible and entertaining\"--Provided by publisher.
Book
Application of Combining YOLO Models and 3D GPR Images in Road Detection and Maintenance
Improving the detection efficiency and maintenance benefits is one of the greatest challenges in road testing and maintenance. To address this problem, this paper presents a method for combining the you only look once (YOLO) series with 3D ground-penetrating radar (GPR) images to recognize the internal defects in asphalt pavement and compares the effectiveness of traditional detection and GPR detection by evaluating the maintenance benefits. First, traditional detection is conducted to survey and summarize the surface conditions of tested roads, which are missing the internal information. Therefore, GPR detection is implemented to acquire the images of concealed defects. Then, the YOLOv5 model with the most even performance of the six selected models is applied to achieve the rapid identification of road defects. Finally, the benefits evaluation of maintenance programs based on these two detection methods is conducted from economic and environmental perspectives. The results demonstrate that the economic scores are improved and the maintenance cost is reduced by $49,398/km based on GPR detection; the energy consumption and carbon emissions are reduced by 792,106 MJ/km (16.94%) and 56,289 kg/km (16.91%), respectively, all of which indicates the effectiveness of 3D GPR in pavement detection and maintenance.
Journal Article
Silk, Slaves, and Stupas : Material Culture of the Silk Road
\"Following her bestselling Life Along the Silk Road, Susan Whitfield widens her exploration of the great cultural highway with another captivating portrait through the experience of things. Silk, Slaves, and Stupas tells the stories of ten very different objects, considering their interaction with the peoples and cultures of the Silk Road--those who made them, carried them, received them, used them, sold them, worshipped them, and, in more recent times, bought them, conserved them, and curated them. From a delicate pair of earrings from a steppe tomb to a massive stupa deep in Central Asia, a hoard of Kushan coins stored in an Ethiopian monastery to a Hellenistic glass bowl from a southern Chinese tomb, and a fragment of Byzantine silk wrapping the bones of a French saint to a Bactrian ewer depicting episodes from the Trojan War, these objects show us something of the cultural diversity and interaction along these trading routes of Afro-Eurasia. Exploring the labor, tools, materials, and rituals behind these various objects, Whitfield infuses her narrative with delightful details as the objects journey through time, space, and meaning. Silk, Slaves, and Stupas is a lively and unique approach to understanding the Silk Road and the cultural, economic, and technical changes of the late antiquity and medieval periods\"--Provided by publisher.
Book
Road avoidance responses determine the impact of heterogeneous road networks at a regional scale
Barrier effect is a road‐related impact affecting several animal populations. It can be caused by behavioural responses towards roads (surface and/or gap avoidance), associated emissions (traffic‐emissions avoidance) and/or circulating vehicles (vehicle avoidance). Most studies so far have described road‐effect zones along major roads, without determining the actual factor inducing the behavioural response. The purpose of the present study was to assess the factors potentially causing road‐effect zones in a heterogeneous road network (with variations in road width, road surface and traffic volume) and eventually to estimate the reduction of habitat quality imposed by roads within a protected area (Doñana Biosphere Reserve, Spain). As model species, we used two ungulates, red deer Cervus elaphus and wild boar Sus scrofa. We surveyed the presence of both species along 200‐m transects. All transects started and were perpendicular to reference roads (those with a traffic volume above 10 cars per day), often intersecting unpaved minor roads with virtually no traffic. The presence probability of both species was mainly affected by the distance to the nearest road (in most cases unpaved roads without traffic), but also by the proximity to reference roads. Red deer presence was also affected by the traffic volume of the nearest reference road. At a regional scale, the overall road network within the protected area imposes a reduction in presence probability of 40% for red deer and 55% for wild boar. A road network optimization, decommissioning unused and unpaved roads, would re‐establish almost entirely the potential habitat quality (91% for both species). Synthesis and applications. We found that both study species avoided roads regardless of their surface or traffic volume, suggesting a response due to gap avoidance which may be based on the association between linear infrastructures and the possibility of vehicles occurring along them. The overall behavioural response can substantially decrease habitat quality over large scales, including the conservation value of protected areas. For this reason, we recommend road network optimization by road decommissioning to mitigate the impact of roads at a regional scale, with potential positive effects at ecosystem level.
Journal Article
Silk Roads : peoples, cultures, landscapes
As world powers realign their cultural outlooks, there is no better time to consider how Eurasia's complex network of ancient trade routes - which spanned high mountain ranges, open river plains and vast deserts across the continent and on to the seas beyond - fostered economic activity and cultural communication. From perfume to spice, from religion to art, the trade and exchange of goods and ideas was crucial to the development of civilizations throughout the region, and the world. This book is the first comprehensive illustrated publication on the Silk Roads. Edited by an established authority on the subject, 'The Silk Roads' situates the ancient routes against the landscapes that defined them, to reveal the raw materials that they produced, the means of travel that were employed to traverse them and the communities that were formed by them. Organized by terrain, from steppe to desert to ocean, each section includes detailed maps, a historical overview, thematic essays and features showcasing iconic art objects, buildings and archaeological discoveries. A wealth of photographs reveal the breathtaking landscapes of Central Asia, mostly unseen by those who haven't travelled the routes. Designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 2014, the Silk Road has never been of greater interest or importance than today. This beautiful publication honours the astonishing diversity in the way cultures can advance and flourish not in spite of their differences, but because of them.
Book
Africa's infrastructure : a time for transformation
This study is part of the Africa Infrastructure Country Diagnostic (AICD), a project designed to expand the world's knowledge of physical infrastructure in Africa. The AICD will provide a baseline against which future improvements in infrastructure services can be measured, making it possible to monitor the results achieved from donor support. It should also provide a more solid empirical foundation for prioritizing investments and designing policy reforms in the infrastructure sectors in Africa. The AICD is based on an unprecedented effort to collect detailed economic and technical data on the infrastructure sectors in Africa. The project has produced a series of original reports on public expenditure, spending needs, and sector performance in each of the main infrastructure sectors, including energy, information and communication technologies, irrigation, transport, and water and sanitation. The first phase of the AICD focused on 24 countries that together account for 85 percent of the gross domestic product, population, and infrastructure aid flows of Sub-Saharan Africa. Under a second phase of the project, coverage is expanding to include as many of the additional African countries as possible.
eBook
Road Condition Monitoring Using Vehicle Built-in Cameras and GPS Sensors: A Deep Learning Approach
Road authorities worldwide can leverage the advances in vehicle technology by continuously monitoring their roads’ conditions to minimize road maintenance costs. The existing methods for carrying out road condition surveys involve manual observations using standard survey forms, performed by qualified personnel. These methods are expensive, time-consuming, infrequent, and can hardly provide real-time information. Some automated approaches also exist but are very expensive since they require special vehicles equipped with computing devices and sensors for data collection and processing. This research aims to leverage the advances in vehicle technology in providing a cheap and real-time approach to carry out road condition monitoring (RCM). This study developed a deep learning model using the You Only Look Once, Version 5 (YOLOv5) algorithm that was trained to capture and categorize flexible pavement distresses (FPD) and reached 95% precision, 93.4% recall, and 97.2% mean Average Precision. Using vehicle built-in cameras and GPS sensors, these distresses were detected, images were captured, and locations were recorded. This was validated on campus roads and parking lots using a car featured with a built-in camera and GPS. The vehicles’ built-in technologies provided a more cost-effective and efficient road condition monitoring approach that could also provide real-time road conditions.
Journal Article