A multi-branch separable convolution neural network for pedestrian attribute recognition

© 2020 The Authors Computer science; Computer Vision; Image processing; Deep learning; Pedestrian attribute recognitio

Depthwise Separable Convolutional Neural Networks for Pedestrian Attribute Recognition

Video surveillance is ubiquitous. In addition to understanding various scene objects, extracting human visual attributes from the scene has attracted tremendous traction over the past many years. This is a challenging problem even for human observers. This is a multi-label problem, i.e., a subject in a scene can have multiple attributes that we are hoping to recognize, such as shoes types, clothing type, wearing some accessory, or carrying some object or not, etc. Solutions have been presented over the years and many researchers have employed convolutional neural networks (CNNs). In this work, we propose using Depthwise Separable Convolution Neural Network (DS-CNN) to solve the pedestrian attribute recognition problem. The network employs depthwise separable convolution layers (DSCL), instead of the regular 2D convolution layers. DS-CNN performs extremely well, especially with smaller datasets. In addition, with a compact network, DS-CNN reduces the number of trainable parameters while making learning efficient. We evaluated our method on two benchmark pedestrian datasets and results show improvements over the state of the art

Timing and correction of stepping movements with a virtual reality avatar

Research into the ability to coordinate one’s movements with external cues has focussed on the use of simple rhythmic, auditory and visual stimuli, or interpersonal coordination with another person. Coordinating movements with a virtual avatar has not been explored, in the context of responses to temporal cues. To determine whether cueing of movements using a virtual avatar is effective, people’s ability to accurately coordinate with the stimuli needs to be investigated. Here we focus on temporal cues, as we know from timing studies that visual cues can be difficult to follow in the timing context. Real stepping movements were mapped onto an avatar using motion capture data. Healthy participants were then motion captured whilst stepping in time with the avatar’s movements, as viewed through a virtual reality headset. The timing of one of the avatar step cycles was accelerated or decelerated by 15% to create a temporal perturbation, for which participants would need to correct to, in order to remain in time. Step onset times of participants relative to the corresponding step-onsets of the avatar were used to measure the timing errors (asynchronies) between them. Participants completed either a visual-only condition, or auditory-visual with footstep sounds included, at two stepping tempo conditions (Fast: 400ms interval, Slow: 800ms interval). Participants’ asynchronies exhibited slow drift in the Visual-Only condition, but became stable in the Auditory-Visual condition. Moreover, we observed a clear corrective response to the phase perturbation in both the fast and slow tempo auditory-visual conditions. We conclude that an avatar’s movements can be used to influence a person’s own motion, but should include relevant auditory cues congruent with the movement to ensure a suitable level of entrainment is achieved. This approach has applications in physiotherapy, where virtual avatars present an opportunity to provide the guidance to assist patients in adhering to prescribed exercises

Crowd Modeling using Temporal Association Rules

Understanding crowd behavior has attracted tremendous attention from researchers over the years. In this work, we propose an unsupervised approach for crowd scene modeling and anomaly detection using association rules mining. Using object tracklets, we identify events occurring in the scene, demonstrated by the paths or routes objects take while traversing the scene. Allen\u27s interval-based temporal logic is used to extract frequent temporal patterns from the scene. Temporal association rules are generated from these frequent temporal patterns. Our goal is to understand the scene grammar, which is encoded in both the spatial and spatio-temporal patterns. We perform anomaly detection and test the method on a well-known public data

Newborn screening for congenital hypothyroidism: Improvement in short-term follow-up by audit and monitoring

Objective: Newborn screening for congenital hypothyroidism (CH) at our hospital during this study was by measurement of thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH) in serum samples. This audit was conducted over a 2 year period, to determine the compliance of reporting of results greater than the screening cutoffs for serum TSH. Gaps of non-compliance were identified, and re-audit was undertaken after the corrective actions were taken.Results: The critical limit was defined as serum TSH (≥ 20 µIU/ml) following consultation with a pediatric endocrinologist. All results above this limit were reported urgently to physicians. During the audit period, 27,407 tests were performed, 0.7% had a value of ≥ 20 µIU/ml, of those only 62% were reported to the general paediatrician or neonatologist. Reasons for not reporting results included non-availability of contact information, lack of policy awareness by technologists, critical results not highlighted on the computer display, and absence of regular monitoring. Corrective measures were taken, and re-audit was done. During the re-audit period, a total of 22,985 tests was performed, 0.6% had a value of ≥ 20 µIU/ml. Of these, 77% were reported to the general paediatrician or neonatologist. Critical result reporting was improved after the audit, and further enhanced the laboratory service of CH screening

Establishing reference interval for thyroid-stimulating hormone in children below two-year ages in Pakistani population

Introduction: Reference intervals (RIs) of thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) and free thyroxine (FT4) are age, assay and population specific. Currently, the age and assay-specific RIs for TSH are not available for children under two years of age. This study aimed to establish reference intervals for serum concentrations of TSH and FT4 in healthy children aged 1-24 months as per CLSI C28-A3 guidelines.Methods: This prospective cross-sectional study was conducted in children from 1 to 24 months visiting the clinical laboratory for serum vitamin D testing but without any recent illness, hospitalization, medication and history of maternal thyroid diseases from August 2018 to March 2019 were invited to participate in the study.Serum TSH and FT4 were measured on ADVIA Centaur (Siemens Diagnostics, US), using chemiluminescence immunoassay. Kolmogorov-Smirnov test assessed normality of the data and RIs based on central 95% of the population were established using the non-parametric approach.Results: After excluding one subject with confirmed congenital hypothyroidism, a total of 131 children were included in the study. The median (IQR) age of the study subjects was 12 months (11), and majority 78 (59.5%) were boys. The RIs were established using non-parametric approach as the data was not normally distributed. Reference interval for TSH was 0.73-4.94 μIU/mL and for FT4 was 0.81-1.51 ng/dl.Conclusion: We established assay-specific RIs for serum TSH and FT4 in children aged 1-24 months in our population. The RIs were slightly lower from RIs developed on other platforms in different population

MORPHOLOGIC SPECTRUM AND CLINICO-PATHOLOGICAL CORRELATION OF GASTROINTESTINAL STROMAL TUMOURS: AN EXPERIENCE OF SIX YEARS AT A TERTIARY CARE HOSPITAL.

Objective: The objective of this study was to determine the morphologic spectrum and risk category of gastrointestinal stromal tumour (GIST) and compare with overall patient survival.Materials and Methods: It is a descriptive observational study. The study was carried at Shifa International Hospital, Islamabad. Duration of the study was from January 2009 to January 2015. A total of 31 patients with the diagnosis of GIST were included, irrespective of age and gender. Data were retrieved from laboratory information system. Results were analysed by statistical software, Statistical Package of the Social Sciences. Morphologic type, site of tumour, risk category and overall survival were determined and mean, standard deviation, frequencies and percentages were calculated for age site and risk category. Results: Of 31 patients, 21 (67.7%) were male and 10 (32.3%) were female. Site of tumour was as follows: Gastric 13 (41.9%), extra visceral 6 (19.4%), small intestine 9 (29.0%), rectum 2 (6.5%) and pancreas 1 (3.2%). According to risk categorisation, one was categorised as (3.2%) very low risk, 3 (9.7%) low risk, 5 (16.1%) intermediate risk and 22 (71%) high risk. Follow-up was available in 21 patients. 7 patients (22.5%) lost to follow-up. 8 (25%) had recurrence and 4 (12.9%) died. Conclusion: Majority of cases diagnosed at our centre were gastric in origin followed by small intestine, and as per risk categorisation, most were high risk. Patient survival with high-risk tumours was dismal. Key words: Gastrointestinal stromal tumour, immunohistochemistry, risk categorisation

Evaluation of Essential and Toxic Elements in Blood Samples of Male Smokers Having Different Types of Cancers with Reference to Healthy Male Smokers

Immense epidemiologic studies have been reported about the role of essential trace and toxic elements as risk factors for incidence of different type of cancers in population of developed and developing countries. In present work the levels of carcinogenic, Arsenic, Cadmium, and Nickel (As, Cd and Ni) and anti-carcinogenic, Zinc and Selenium (Zn and Se) elements were measured in blood of male cancer patients (urinary bladder, lung, mouth and esophageal) and healthy referents. The all patients and referents were smoker. The blood samples were analysed with atomic absorption spectrometry after microwave assisted acid digestion. The resulted data indicated that the levels of toxic elements As, Ni and Cd were considerably elevated whereas essential elements, Zn and Se were lower in blood samples of all cancer cases as compared to those values found in noncancerous subjects. As the levels of essential trace elements were low in blood samples of male cancerous patients but difference was highly significant in lung and mouth cancer subjects (p<0.001), whereas sequence of decreasing order was not uniform. The levels of Zn in blood samples of different cancerous patients were found in decreasing order as: esophagus< mouth< urinary bladder<lung, whereas in case of Se as mouth<lung<urinary bladder<esophagus.The study revealed that the carcinogenic processes are significantly affecting the essential and toxic elements levels in biological samples of cancerous patients as related to those obtained for controls/referents

The use of triclosan-coated sutures to prevent surgical site infections : a systematic review and meta-analysis of the literature

Introduction and objectives Surgical site infections (SSIs) represent a common and serious complication of all surgical interventions. Microorganisms are able to colonise sutures that are implanted in the skin, which is a causative factor of SSIs. Triclosan-coated sutures are antibacterial sutures aimed at reducing SSIs. Our objective is to update the existing literature by systematically reviewing available evidence to assess the effectiveness of triclosan-coated sutures in the prevention of SSIs. Methods A systematic review of EMBASE, MEDLINE, AMED (Allied and complementary medicine database) and CENTRAL was performed to identify full text randomised controlled trials (RCTs) on 31 May 2019. Intervention Triclosan-coated sutures versus non-triclosan-coated sutures. Primary outcome Our primary outcome was the development of SSIs at 30 days postoperatively. A meta-analysis was performed using a fixed-effects model. Results Twenty-five RCTs were included involving 11 957 participants. Triclosan-coated sutures were used in 6008 participants and non triclosan-coated sutures were used in 5949. Triclosan-coated sutures significantly reduced the risk of SSIs at 30 days (relative risk 0.73, 95% CI 0.65 to 0.82). Further sensitivity analysis demonstrated that triclosan-coated sutures significantly reduced the risk of SSIs in both clean and contaminated surgery. Conclusion Triclosan-coated sutures have been shown to significantly reduced the risk of SSIs when compared with standard sutures. This is in agreement with previous work in this area. This study represented the largest review to date in this area. This moderate quality evidence recommends the use of triclosan-coated sutures in order to reduce the risk of SSIs particularly in clean and contaminated surgical procedures