BranchConnect: Large-Scale Visual Recognition with Learned Branch Connections

We introduce an architecture for large-scale image categorization that enables the end-to-end learning of separate visual features for the different classes to distinguish. The proposed model consists of a deep CNN shaped like a tree. The stem of the tree includes a sequence of convolutional layers common to all classes. The stem then splits into multiple branches implementing parallel feature extractors, which are ultimately connected to the final classification layer via learned gated connections. These learned gates determine for each individual class the subset of features to use. Such a scheme naturally encourages the learning of a heterogeneous set of specialized features through the separate branches and it allows each class to use the subset of features that are optimal for its recognition. We show the generality of our proposed method by reshaping several popular CNNs from the literature into our proposed architecture. Our experiments on the CIFAR100, CIFAR10, and Synth datasets show that in each case our resulting model yields a substantial improvement in accuracy over the original CNN. Our empirical analysis also suggests that our scheme acts as a form of beneficial regularization improving generalization performance.Comment: WACV 201

Enterprise creation & anti-commons in developing economies: evidence from World Bank doing business data

Abstract: This paper looks at the tragedy of anti-commons and its implications on enterprise creation in developing economies. The most important features of the anti-commons are captured under a simplified theoretical economic model. The empirical part uses the data from “Doing Business” of the World Bank, to test for the high costs implied by scattered and fragmented decisions related to enterprise creation in developing economies. The attained results show the prevalence of anti-commons in relation to the development of new enterprises in developing economies relative to more developed countries. This points out how anti-commons can limit development and market economies through reducing business and enterprise creation and expansion. Awareness and development of appropriate remedies to anti-commons are among the means to ensure higher economic and social achievements.Anti-commons, Enterprise Creation, Licensing and Costs

The Demand for International Reserves: A Case Study of Pakistan

Reserves-holding policy has been a main area of concern for policy-makers, researchers, and planners since the beginning of the Bretton Woods system. As a result, issues related to the equilibrium of international reserves, its determinants, and the departure from equilibrium have been widely discussed in the debates of economic policy-making. In spite of its importance, no serious attempt has been made to work on the determinants of international reserves in the case of Pakistan. Therefore, we have made an endeavour to determine the long-run and short-run determinants of Pakistan’s international reserves-holding and, hence, we hope to contribute to the literature on reserves in the case of Pakistan. We have also considered the role of monetary disequilibrium in the short-run, along with the other determinants in the explanation of international reserves-holding. In the context of cointegration-error correction framework, we have analysed Pakistan’s reserve demand using the quarterly data over the period 1982:1-2003-2 and found that there exists a stable long-run reserves demand function in the case of Pakistan. The results also confirm the role of domestic monetary disequilibrium for changes in reserves in the short-run

Transforming Uncertainties into Risks and Poverty Alleviation: Lessons Learnt from the Successful Rescuing of Miners in Chile

Abstract: The objective of this paper is to suggest how the Chilean model used to rescue the 33 miners trapped underground, can be used to accelerate the development of new means for poverty alleviation mainly in developing economies. For that, the Chilean model is described and analyzed within the framework of uncertainty and risk with emphasis on the success of all operations, under time constraints. The attained results underline that this “point in time” process can be used to extract poor individuals and households and sustain their inclusion in normal economic and social activities. But, this is conditioned on the development of further participative research-actions, innovations and monitoring processes applied to multiple small scales, well localized and targeted poverty alleviation projectsUncertainty, risks, miners, Chili, poverty alleviation

Moving Object Trajectories Meta-Model And Spatio-Temporal Queries

In this paper, a general moving object trajectories framework is put forward to allow independent applications processing trajectories data benefit from a high level of interoperability, information sharing as well as an efficient answer for a wide range of complex trajectory queries. Our proposed meta-model is based on ontology and event approach, incorporates existing presentations of trajectory and integrates new patterns like space-time path to describe activities in geographical space-time. We introduce recursive Region of Interest concepts and deal mobile objects trajectories with diverse spatio-temporal sampling protocols and different sensors available that traditional data model alone are incapable for this purpose.Comment: International Journal of Database Management Systems (IJDMS) Vol.4, No.2, April 201

General Metasurface Synthesis Based on Susceptibility Tensors

A general method, based on susceptibility tensors, is proposed for the synthesis of metasurfaces transforming arbitrary incident waves into arbitrary reflected and transmitted waves. The proposed method exhibits two advantages: 1)it is inherently vectorial, and therefore better suited for full vectorial (beyond paraxial) electromagnetic problems, 2) it provides closed-form solutions, and is therefore extremely fast. Incidentally, the method reveals that a metasurface is fundamentally capable to transform up to four independent wave triplets (incident, reflected and refracted waves). In addition, the paper provides the closed-form expressions relating the synthesized susceptibilities and the scattering parameters simulated within periodic boundary conditions, which allows one to design the scattering particles realizing the desired susceptibilities. The versatility of the method is illustrated by examples of metasurfaces achieving the following transformations: generalized refraction, reciprocal and non-reciprocal polarization rotation, Bessel vortex beam generation, and orbital angular momentum multiplexing

Phase Field Modeling of Grain Growth in Porous Polycrystalline Solids

The concurrent evolution of grain size and porosity in porous polycrystalline solids is a technically important problem. All the physical properties of such materials depend strongly on pore fraction and pore and grain sizes and distributions. Theoretical models for the pore-grain boundary interactions during grain growth usually employ restrictive, unrealistic assumptions on the pore and grain shapes and motions to render the problem tractable. However, these assumptions limit the models to be only of qualitative nature and hence cannot be used for predictions. This has motivated us to develop a novel phase field model to investigate the process of grain growth in porous polycrystalline solids. Based on a dynamical system of coupled Cahn-Hilliard and Allen-Cahn equations, the model couples the curvature-driven grain boundary motion and the migration of pores via surface diffusion. As such, the model accounts for all possible interactions between the pore and grain boundary, which highly influence the grain growth kinetics. Through a formal asymptotic analysis, the current work demonstrates that the phase field model recovers the corresponding sharp-interface dynamics of the co-evolution of grain boundaries and pores; this analysis also fixes the model kinetic parameters in terms of real materials properties. The model was used to investigate the effect of porosity on the kinetics of grain growth in UO2 and CeO2 in 2D and 3D. It is shown that the model captures the phenomenon of pore breakaway often observed in experiments. Pores on three- and four- grain junctions were found to transform to edge pores (pores on two-grain junction) before complete separation. The simulations demonstrated that inhomogeneous distribution of pores and pore breakaway lead to abnormal grain growth. The simulations also showed that grain growth kinetics in these materials changes from boundary-controlled to pore-controlled as the amount of porosity increases. The kinetic growth parameters such as the growth exponent and the rate constant (or equivalently the activation energy) were found to depend strongly on the precise amount and distribution of porosity, which reconciles the different experimental results reported for grain growth in such materials