The Visual Social Distancing Problem

One of the main and most effective measures to contain the recent viral outbreak is the maintenance of the so-called Social Distancing (SD). To comply with this constraint, workplaces, public institutions, transports and schools will likely adopt restrictions over the minimum inter-personal distance between people. Given this actual scenario, it is crucial to massively measure the compliance to such physical constraint in our life, in order to figure out the reasons of the possible breaks of such distance limitations, and understand if this implies a possible threat given the scene context. All of this, complying with privacy policies and making the measurement acceptable. To this end, we introduce the Visual Social Distancing (VSD) problem, defined as the automatic estimation of the inter-personal distance from an image, and the characterization of the related people aggregations. VSD is pivotal for a non-invasive analysis to whether people comply with the SD restriction, and to provide statistics about the level of safety of specific areas whenever this constraint is violated. We then discuss how VSD relates with previous literature in Social Signal Processing and indicate which existing Computer Vision methods can be used to manage such problem. We conclude with future challenges related to the effectiveness of VSD systems, ethical implications and future application scenarios.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures. All the authors equally contributed to this manuscript and they are listed by alphabetical order. Under submissio

CrimeNet: Neural Structured Learning using Vision Transformer for violence detection

The state of the art in violence detection in videos has improved in recent years thanks to deep learning models, but it is still below 90% of average precision in the most complex datasets, which may pose a problem of frequent false alarms in video surveillance environments and may cause security guards to disable the artificial intelligence system. In this study, we propose a new neural network based on Vision Transformer (ViT) and Neural Structured Learning (NSL) with adversarial training. This network, called CrimeNet, outperforms previous works by a large margin and reduces practically to zero the false positives. Our tests on the four most challenging violence-related datasets (binary and multi-class) show the effectiveness of CrimeNet, improving the state of the art from 9.4 to 22.17 percentage points in ROC AUC depending on the dataset. In addition, we present a generalisation study on our model by training and testing it on different datasets. The obtained results show that CrimeNet improves over competing methods with a gain of between 12.39 and 25.22 percentage points, showing remarkable robustness.MCIN/AEI/ 10.13039/501100011033 and by the “European Union NextGenerationEU/PRTR ” HORUS project - Grant n. PID2021-126359OB-I0

A very high frequency radio interferometer for investigating ionospheric disturbances using geostationary satellites. Determination of changes in exospheric electron content by a comparison of group delay and Faraday rotation

The theory and development of a VHF correlation radio interferometer for investigating ionospheric disturbances are discussed. The system was developed to receive signals from the geostationary Applications Technology Satellites. Amplitude and phase variations of the signal passing through the ionosphere can be detected by this instrument. The system consists of two superheterodyne receivers separated by a distance known as the baseline of the system. Since the system is a phase sensitive instrument, the local oscillators of the two receivers must be phase coherent. This is accomplished by using phase-locked loops for generating the local oscillators. The two signals from the separate receivers are cross-correlated by multiplying the two signals together and then time averaging the result. The sensitivity of the instrument is increased by off-setting one of the local oscillators by a small amount

The Fossil Fuel Industry’s Push to Target Climate Protesters in the U.S.

At the very moment when the United Nations has called for profound shifts in social and economic systems to avert climate catastrophe, state and non-state actors in the United States (U.S.) are using a series of tactics to target and stifle climate protesters. Although the move to stifle climate protesters is often framed as a government effort, this Article argues it is critical to draw out the role of the fossil fuel industry in initiating, amplifying, and supporting such tactics. This Article highlights the role the fossil fuel industry has played in supporting the targeting and restricting of climate protesters in the U.S. The strategies for targeting protesters are grouped into three broad categories, with each category relying on distinctive legal tools. The first category is federal and state legislation that heightens penalties for climate protester in myriad ways. The second is the use of violence and surveillance against climate protesters by both state and non-state actors, which is connected to a rhetorical and legal push to label protesters as extremists and terrorists. The third is retaliatory lawsuits filed against climate protesters and organizations that support climate protests. Although such actions often ostensibly target civil disobedience, by imposing immense criminal and financial consequences, they threaten to unconstitutionally chill lawful, protected protest as well. By examining the tactics in concert, it is much easier to see how both individual protesters and organizations that support protesters might be chilled from participating in lawful climate protest. It is also clear that there are important synergistic effects when these tactics are used together, heightening their respective abilities to undermine and chill climate protest. A third insight is how difficult it is for climate protesters to legally challenge these tactics. Finally, the analysis shows the pivotal role fossil fuel industry trade and lobbying groups play in targeting climate protesters, highlighting the breadth and depth of industry support for such tactics

Review of Western Australian drug driving laws

In 2007, the Western Australian Road Traffic Act 1974 was amended to allow for new police enforcement practices designed to reduce the incidence of drug driving. The Road Traffic Amendment (Drugs) Act 2007 made provision for two new offences: driving with the presence of a prescribed illicit drug in oral fluid or blood, and driving while impaired by a drug. The prescribed drugs were methamphetamine, methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA or ecstasy) and delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC, the psychoactive compound in cannabis). As part of the new laws, statute 72A was inserted into the Act requiring that the Western Australian State Government undertake a review of the amended legislation after 12 months of operation. This report provides a review of the amended legislation and the associated drug driving law enforcement. It includes a process review of the roadside oral fluid testing and drug impaired driving enforcement programs; an analysis of testing, offence detection and legal penalty data pertaining to the first year of operation of the new drug enforcement measures; and a report on consultations with various stakeholders. These form the basis for recommendations on possible improvements to the processes and legislation related to the deterrence of driving after drug use among Western Australian drivers.J.E. Woolley and M.R.J. Baldoc

Aerospace medicine and biology: A continuing bibliography with indexes, supplement 183

This bibliography lists 273 reports, articles, and other documents introduced into the NASA scientific and technical information system in July 1978

USSR Space Life Sciences Digest, volume 1, no. 4

An overview of the developments and direction of the USSR Space Life Sciences Program is given. Highlights of launches, program development, and mission planning are given. Results of ground-based research and space flight studies are summarized. Topics covered include: space medicine and physiology; space biology, and life sciences and technology