No-frills Temporal Video Grounding: Multi-Scale Neighboring Attention and Zoom-in Boundary Detection

Temporal video grounding (TVG) aims to retrieve the time interval of a language query from an untrimmed video. A significant challenge in TVG is the low "Semantic Noise Ratio (SNR)", which results in worse performance with lower SNR. Prior works have addressed this challenge using sophisticated techniques. In this paper, we propose a no-frills TVG model that consists of two core modules, namely multi-scale neighboring attention and zoom-in boundary detection. The multi-scale neighboring attention restricts each video token to only aggregate visual contexts from its neighbor, enabling the extraction of the most distinguishing information with multi-scale feature hierarchies from high-ratio noises. The zoom-in boundary detection then focuses on local-wise discrimination of the selected top candidates for fine-grained grounding adjustment. With an end-to-end training strategy, our model achieves competitive performance on different TVG benchmarks, while also having the advantage of faster inference speed and lighter model parameters, thanks to its lightweight architecture

The development of clothing concepts in response to analysis of changing gendered social attitudes

The relationship of gender and clothing were widely discussed by theorists, and fashion collections illustrated this thinking. This study aimed to address one area of this relationship, by conducting practice-based research to develop garments for women who wear men’s clothing. The study responds to real insights from the women themselves through qualitative interviews. This study aimed to understand why women choose to wear men’s clothing and to use this to question gender assignment in clothing, in order to develop design concepts for the development of clothing for this specific group of women. This interdisciplinary practice-based study combined phenomenological thinking and practice with theory to engage more deeply with why women choose to wear men’s clothing. The Victorian square cut shirt became pivotal to the process of design and accorded with preferences for large shapes and interesting proportion. The Pit brow study highlighted how historical gender roles can aid in the understanding of gendered clothing now. Surveys asking about the gendered perception of clothing on and off the body found significantly that clothing is perceived differently when not on a body. Qualitative interviews were conducted with 10 women answering a call for women who wear men’s clothing. Experimental design concepts were developed though combining, research inputs and an output culminating in a selection of garments was produced. The practice found that space between the body and clothing provides feelings of well-being, through comfort, space and coverage of the body. This study contributes to knowledge of garment design practice, by recording and analysing the complex thinking behind garment design for women who wear men’s clothing for fashion. Experimental responsive making, can create new and effective design methods through an intra-active relationship with fabric and an openness to the haphazard. The process of research and design combined with theory has defined preferences for the development of clothing for the group of women. The conceptual model, Women’s clothing preferences. Wellbeing in relation to gender and body image, records the final preferences and is a resource for future use for the design of clothing for all people. Gender assignment in clothing from the perspective of the viewer was found to be variable and influenced by personal and situational aspects, which were 4 | P a g e changeable. For the women participants, gendered clothing for the wearer, was found to be selected primarily by merit of wear properties. Women who wear men’s clothing do not wish to be defined by their gendered body, but by a sense of who they are

Paradigm shift: the aesthetic of the automobile in the age of sustainability

A great challenge for a future sustainable society is to create a new design culture protecting environmental value. A new product’s language is determinant not only for marketing success and public acceptance, but also for a new understanding of the conflict between aesthetics and ethics that haunts the development of this new design language. The designer’s approach to the new trends will certainly deal with the relationship between industry and society, form and function, package and architecture, and it is an opportunity to create new and coherent design

Integration + Innovation: Proceedings of the 2019 Building Technology Educators\u27 Society Conference

This volume contains papers, abstracts, and posters from the 2019 Building Technology Educators\u27 Society (BTES) Conference, which focused on Integration and Innovation as the theme. Innovation can begin with conjecture, with a searching for more effective solutions, or with an application to currently unknown or unarticulated needs. Innovation scholarship examines the personal intellectual habits that support new ideas, such as openness and exploratory behavior, as well as the circumstances behind the places in which creativity flourishes, such as support for cross-disciplinary fertilization and access to resources. The 2019 BTES conference explored the role of technology education and curriculum in cultivating these intellectual habits in our students (and ourselves) and in creating the organizational spaces in which the future of practice will be shaped. Sessions shared exemplary proposals of research and pedagogical applications that explore innovative practices and integrative thinking in the academy and profession

Fifth Conference on Artificial Intelligence for Space Applications

The Fifth Conference on Artificial Intelligence for Space Applications brings together diverse technical and scientific work in order to help those who employ AI methods in space applications to identify common goals and to address issues of general interest in the AI community. Topics include the following: automation for Space Station; intelligent control, testing, and fault diagnosis; robotics and vision; planning and scheduling; simulation, modeling, and tutoring; development tools and automatic programming; knowledge representation and acquisition; and knowledge base/data base integration

NASA Tech Briefs, July 1996

Topics covered include: Mechanical Components; Electronic Components and Circuits; Electronic Systems; Physical Sciences; Materials; Computer Programs; Mechanics; Machinery/Automation; Manufacturing/Fabrication; Mathematics and Information Sciences; Life Sciences; Books and Report

Building Consensus using a Collaborative Spatial Multi-Criteria Analysis System

This thesis studies the use of a collaborative spatial Multi-Criteria Analysis tool in site evaluation with multiple participants. The approach is situated within the context of three concepts of space, choice and participation, and is informed by fields as diverse as Decision-Making, Participatory Planning, Geographical Information Systems, Decision Support Systems, Voting, and Group Collaboration. A collaborative spatial Multi-Criteria Analysis software tool called MapChoice was designed for this thesis, built upon open source components and featuring easy-to-use decision support functionality in both single-user and collaborative modes. MapChoice was then evaluated in a real-world site selection situation with a case study on the location of much-needed affordable housing in the Town of Collingwood, Ontario. Based on previous discussions and workshops on the project, a workshop was held with a group of community housing advocates to compare a set of possible sites for an affordable housing project according to a set of spatial and aspatial criteria. The study indicates that a collaborative spatial MCA approach can be used in dealing with complex planning problems, and that it has the potential to contribute to improved consensus between participants

Key characteristics and attitudes of airline passengers, with particular emphasis upon the low-cost sector: implications for pre-trip decision-making and airline choice

The inception of the low-cost carrier (LCC) into the UK in the early 1990s revolutionised passenger aviation. The now saturated short-haul market finds airlines increasingly manipulative of their business model, seeking to further differentiate their product offering from their rivals. With an abundance of airlines to choose from, the consumer is faced with what at times can be a complex decision-making process as to which airline to fly with. This research seeks through empirical research to identify key characteristics and attitudes of airline passengers (with particular emphasis upon LCCs) and the implications for pre-trip decision-making and airline choice. The study begins with an overview of the airline business models that dominate the UK passenger aviation sector, before introducing Birmingham Airport (BHX) as a case study airport on which part of the main findings of this research are based. A detailed literature review then seeks to offer insight to attitude formation and the decision-making process that facilitates behaviour, before examining the implications for airline choice. The fieldwork was undertaken in two stages with passenger decision-making explored through structured-interviews conducted with passengers in the airside departure lounges at BHX (n = 490). In addition, the attitudes of airline passengers were explored using an online attitudinal survey, distributed internationally to a self-selected sample (n = 307). The quantitative analysis of both strands of research suggests key differences exist in the decision-making processes and research methods employed by passengers’ of airlines operating different business models, but particularly for passengers of LCCs. Both socio-demographic and situational factors are identified as influential in decision-making and choice processes. Attitudes, based upon actual experience and social representation are also considered significant. The findings present a classification of airline passengers based upon the primary research and suggest further quantitative research should explore decision-making over time and in different situational contexts