Visual Gaze Estimation by Joint Head and Eye Information

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Generalised Pose Estimation Using Depth

Estimating the pose of an object, be it articulated, deformable or rigid, is an important task, with applications ranging from Human-Computer Interaction to environmental understanding. The idea of a general pose estimation framework, capable of being rapidly retrained to suit a variety of tasks, is appealing. In this paper a solution isproposed requiring only a set of labelled training images in order to be applied to many pose estimation tasks. This is achieved bytreating pose estimation as a classification problem, with particle filtering used to provide non-discretised estimates. Depth information extracted from a calibrated stereo sequence, is used for background suppression and object scale estimation. The appearance and shape channels are then transformed to Local Binary Pattern histograms, and pose classification is performed via a randomised decision forest. To demonstrate flexibility, the approach is applied to two different situations, articulated hand pose and rigid head orientation, achieving 97% and 84% accurate estimation rates, respectively

GPR30, the Non-Classical Membrane G Protein Related Estrogen Receptor, Is Overexpressed in Human Seminoma and Promotes Seminoma Cell Proliferation

BACKGROUND: Testicular germ cell tumours are the most frequent cancer of young men with an increasing incidence all over the world. Pathogenesis and reasons of this increase remain unknown but epidemiological and clinical data have suggested that fetal exposure to environmental endocrine disruptors (EEDs) with estrogenic effects, could participate to testicular germ cell carcinogenesis. However, these EEDs (like bisphenol A) are often weak ligands for classical nuclear estrogen receptors. Several research groups recently showed that the non classical membrane G-protein coupled estrogen receptor (GPER/GPR30) mediates the effects of estrogens and several xenoestrogens through rapid non genomic activation of signal transduction pathways in various human estrogen dependent cancer cells (breast, ovary, endometrium). The aim of this study was to demonstrate that GPER was overexpressed in testicular tumours and was able to trigger JKT-1 seminoma cell proliferation. RESULTS: We report here for the first time a complete morphological and functional characterization of GPER in normal and malignant human testicular germ cells. In normal adult human testes, GPER was expressed by somatic (Sertoli cells) and germ cells (spermatogonia and spermatocytes). GPER was exclusively overexpressed in seminomas, the most frequent testicular germ cell cancer, localized at the cell membrane and triggered a proliferative effect on JKT-1 cells in vitro, which was completely abolished by G15 (a GPER selective antagonist) and by siRNA invalidation. CONCLUSION: These results demonstrate that GPER is expressed by human normal adult testicular germ cells, specifically overexpressed in seminoma tumours and able to trigger seminoma cell proliferation in vitro. It should therefore be considered rather than classical ERs when xeno-estrogens or other endocrine disruptors are assessed in testicular germ cell cancers. It may also represent a prognosis marker and/or a therapeutic target for seminomas