17,656 research outputs found
ModDrop: adaptive multi-modal gesture recognition
We present a method for gesture detection and localisation based on
multi-scale and multi-modal deep learning. Each visual modality captures
spatial information at a particular spatial scale (such as motion of the upper
body or a hand), and the whole system operates at three temporal scales. Key to
our technique is a training strategy which exploits: i) careful initialization
of individual modalities; and ii) gradual fusion involving random dropping of
separate channels (dubbed ModDrop) for learning cross-modality correlations
while preserving uniqueness of each modality-specific representation. We
present experiments on the ChaLearn 2014 Looking at People Challenge gesture
recognition track, in which we placed first out of 17 teams. Fusing multiple
modalities at several spatial and temporal scales leads to a significant
increase in recognition rates, allowing the model to compensate for errors of
the individual classifiers as well as noise in the separate channels.
Futhermore, the proposed ModDrop training technique ensures robustness of the
classifier to missing signals in one or several channels to produce meaningful
predictions from any number of available modalities. In addition, we
demonstrate the applicability of the proposed fusion scheme to modalities of
arbitrary nature by experiments on the same dataset augmented with audio.Comment: 14 pages, 7 figure
Past, Present, and Future of Simultaneous Localization And Mapping: Towards the Robust-Perception Age
Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM)consists in the concurrent
construction of a model of the environment (the map), and the estimation of the
state of the robot moving within it. The SLAM community has made astonishing
progress over the last 30 years, enabling large-scale real-world applications,
and witnessing a steady transition of this technology to industry. We survey
the current state of SLAM. We start by presenting what is now the de-facto
standard formulation for SLAM. We then review related work, covering a broad
set of topics including robustness and scalability in long-term mapping, metric
and semantic representations for mapping, theoretical performance guarantees,
active SLAM and exploration, and other new frontiers. This paper simultaneously
serves as a position paper and tutorial to those who are users of SLAM. By
looking at the published research with a critical eye, we delineate open
challenges and new research issues, that still deserve careful scientific
investigation. The paper also contains the authors' take on two questions that
often animate discussions during robotics conferences: Do robots need SLAM? and
Is SLAM solved
Agriculture and Co-operativism, a Persistent Duality: The Case of Denmark
The paper argues that co-operativism in Danish agriculture represents both continuity and strong changes from the start of the movement as the economic branch of a comprehensive social and political movement to the large agro-industrial enterprises of today, and that co-operativism still is a necessary tool for both large scale production and for innovation within the agro-industrial sector. After a short description of the role of co-operative thinking and organising in the Danish context historically, the paper presents a statistical overview of the current position of co-operative societies in Danish agriculture on the background of the structural changes that have occurred in primary agriculture and agro-industry during the last generation and a half. The third section presents historical conditions and experiences of co-operativism that have paved the way for the characteristics of the current relation between agriculture and co-operativism. Finally, challenges to this relation are discussed in the context of market trends within the established sectors and new areas of agricultural activities â using the example of organic production.Agribusiness,
Emergence and Correspondence for String Theory Black Holes
This is one of a pair of papers that give a
historical-\emph{cum}-philosophical analysis of the endeavour to understand
black hole entropy as a statistical mechanical entropy obtained by counting
string-theoretic microstates. Both papers focus on Andrew Strominger and Cumrun
Vafa's ground-breaking 1996 calculation, which analysed the black hole in terms
of D-branes. The first paper gives a conceptual analysis of the Strominger-Vafa
argument, and of several research efforts that it engendered. In this paper, we
assess whether the black hole should be considered as emergent from the D-brane
system, particularly in light of the role that duality plays in the argument.
We further identify uses of the quantum-to-classical correspondence principle
in string theory discussions of black holes, and compare these to the
heuristics of earlier efforts in theory construction, in particular those of
the old quantum theory.Comment: 40 page
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Introduction to adapting the nineteenth century: Revisiting, revising and rewriting the past
Copyright @ 2010 Neo-Victorian Studies. This is an open access journal. The journal's open access policy is restricted to educational and non-commercial use in accordance with Creative Commons: Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives license.No abstract available
The action of obestatin in skeletal muscle repair: stem cell expansion, muscle growth, and microenvironment remodeling
The development of therapeutic strategies for skeletal muscle diseases, such as physical injuries and myopathies, depends on the knowledge of regulatory signals that control the myogenic process. The obestatin/GPR39 system operates as an autocrine signal in the regulation of skeletal myogenesis. Using a mouse model of skeletal muscle regeneration after injury and several cellular strategies, we explored the potential use of obestatin as a therapeutic agent for the treatment of trauma-induced muscle injuries. Our results evidenced that the overexpression of the preproghrelin, and thus obestatin, and GPR39 in skeletal muscle increased regeneration after muscle injury. More importantly, the intramuscular injection of
obestatin significantly enhanced muscle regeneration by simulating satellite stem cell expansion as well as myofiber hypertrophy through a kinase hierarchy. Added to the myogenic action, the obestatin administration resulted in an increased expression of VEGF/VEGFR2 and the consequent microvascularization, with no effect on collagen deposition in skeletal muscle. Furthermore, the potential inhibition of myostatin during obestatin treatment might contribute to its myogenic action improving muscle growth and regeneration. Taken together, our data demonstrate successful improvement of muscle regeneration, indicating obestatin is a potential therapeutic agent for skeletal muscle injury and would
benefit other myopathies related to muscle regeneration
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