HoughNet: Integrating Near and Long-Range Evidence for Bottom-Up Object Detection

© 2020, Springer Nature Switzerland AG.This paper presents HoughNet, a one-stage, anchor-free, voting-based, bottom-up object detection method. Inspired by the Generalized Hough Transform, HoughNet determines the presence of an object at a certain location by the sum of the votes cast on that location. Votes are collected from both near and long-distance locations based on a log-polar vote field. Thanks to this voting mechanism, HoughNet is able to integrate both near and long-range, class-conditional evidence for visual recognition, thereby generalizing and enhancing current object detection methodology, which typically relies on only local evidence. On the COCO dataset, HoughNet’s best model achieves 46.4 AP (and 65.1 AP50), performing on par with the state-of-the-art in bottom-up object detection and outperforming most major one-stage and two-stage methods. We further validate the effectiveness of our proposal in another task, namely, “labels to photo” image generation by integrating the voting module of HoughNet to two different GAN models and showing that the accuracy is significantly improved in both cases. Code is available at https://github.com/nerminsamet/houghnet

The CMS Tracker Readout Front End Driver

The Front End Driver, FED, is a 9U 400mm VME64x card designed for reading out the Compact Muon Solenoid, CMS, silicon tracker signals transmitted by the APV25 analogue pipeline Application Specific Integrated Circuits. The FED receives the signals via 96 optical fibers at a total input rate of 3.4 GB/sec. The signals are digitized and processed by applying algorithms for pedestal and common mode noise subtraction. Algorithms that search for clusters of hits are used to further reduce the input rate. Only the cluster data along with trigger information of the event are transmitted to the CMS data acquisition system using the S-LINK64 protocol at a maximum rate of 400 MB/sec. All data processing algorithms on the FED are executed in large on-board Field Programmable Gate Arrays. Results on the design, performance, testing and quality control of the FED are presented and discussed

Efficient Project Delivery Using Lean Principles - An Indian Case Study

Construction industry in India is growing at a rapid pace. Along with this growth, the industry is facing numerous challenges that are making delivery of projects inefficient. Experts believe that capacity constraints in the industry need to be addressed immediately. Government has recommended ‘introduction of efficient technologies and modern management techniques’ to increase the productivity of the industry. In this context, lean principles can act as a lever to make project delivery more efficient and provide the much needed impetus to the Indian construction sector. Around the globe lean principles are showing positive results on the projects. Project teams are reporting improvements in construction time, cost and quality along with softer benefits of enhanced collaboration, coordination and trust in project teams. Can adoption of lean principles provide similar benefits in the Indian construction sector? This research was conducted to answer this question. Using an action research approach a key lean construction tool called Last Planner System (LPS) was tested on a large Indian construction project. The work described in this work investigates the improvements achieved in project delivery by adopting LPS in Indian construction sector. Comparison in pre- and post-implementation data demonstrates increase in the certainty of work-flow and improves schedule compliance. This is measured through a simple LPS metric called percent plan complete. Explicit improvements in schedule performance are seen during 8 week LPS implementation along with implicit improvements in coordination, collaboration and trust in the project team. This work reports the findings of LPS implementation on the case study project outlining the barriers and drivers to adoption, strategies needed to ensure successful implementation and roadmap for implementation. Based on the findings the authors envision that lean construction can make project delivery more efficient in India

Isolation, small population size, and management influence inbreeding and reduced genetic variation in K’gari dingoes

Small island populations are vulnerable to genetic decline via demographic and environmental stochasticity. In the absence of immigration, founder effects, inbreeding and genetic drift are likely to contribute to local extinction risk. Management actions may also have a greater impact on small, closed populations. The demographic and social characteristics of a species can, however, delay the impact of threats. K’gari, a ~ 1 660 km2 island off the Australian east coast and UNESCO World Heritage Site (Fraser Island 1842–2023), supports an isolated population of approximately 70–200 dingoes that represent an ideal opportunity to explore the small island paradigm. To examine temporal and spatial patterns of genetic diversity in this population we analysed single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) genotype data (72 454 SNPS) for 112 K’gari dingoes collected over a 25-year period (1996 to 2020). Genetic diversity was lower in K’gari dingoes than mainland dingoes at the earliest time point in our study and declined significantly following a management cull in 2001. We did not find any spatial genetic patterns on the island, suggesting high levels of genetic connectivity between socially discrete packs. This connectivity, combined with the social structure and behaviour of dingoes, may act in concert to buffer the population from the impacts of genetic drift in the short term. Nevertheless, a general decline in genetic variation via inbreeding and drift has occurred over the past 20 years which we suggest should be considered in any future management planning for the population. Monitoring patterns of genetic variation, together with a clearer understanding of the social ecology of K’gari dingoes, will aid in the development of measurable genetic targets set over ecologically meaningful timelines, and help ensure continued survival of this culturally important population

Causal attribution of mental illness in south-eastern Nigeria

Background: Understanding of mental illness in sub-Saharan Africa has remained under-researched in spite of the high and increasing neuropsychiatric burden of disease in the region. Aims: This study investigated the causal beliefs that the Igbo people of south-eastern Nigeria hold about schizophrenia, with a view to establishing the extent to which the population makes psychosocial, biological and supernatural attributions. Method: Multi-stage sampling was used to select participants (N = 200) to which questionnaires were administered. Results: Mean comparison of the three causal models revealed a significant endorsement of supernatural causation. Logistic regressions revealed significant contributions of old age and female gender to supernatural attribution; old age, high education and Catholic religious denomination to psychosocial attributions; and high education to biological attributions. Conclusions: It is hoped that the findings would enlighten, augment literature and enhance mental health care service delivery

Hyperbolic planforms in relation to visual edges and textures perception

We propose to use bifurcation theory and pattern formation as theoretical probes for various hypotheses about the neural organization of the brain. This allows us to make predictions about the kinds of patterns that should be observed in the activity of real brains through, e.g. optical imaging, and opens the door to the design of experiments to test these hypotheses. We study the specific problem of visual edges and textures perception and suggest that these features may be represented at the population level in the visual cortex as a specific second-order tensor, the structure tensor, perhaps within a hypercolumn. We then extend the classical ring model to this case and show that its natural framework is the non-Euclidean hyperbolic geometry. This brings in the beautiful structure of its group of isometries and certain of its subgroups which have a direct interpretation in terms of the organization of the neural populations that are assumed to encode the structure tensor. By studying the bifurcations of the solutions of the structure tensor equations, the analog of the classical Wilson and Cowan equations, under the assumption of invariance with respect to the action of these subgroups, we predict the appearance of characteristic patterns. These patterns can be described by what we call hyperbolic or H-planforms that are reminiscent of Euclidean planar waves and of the planforms that were used in [1, 2] to account for some visual hallucinations. If these patterns could be observed through brain imaging techniques they would reveal the built-in or acquired invariance of the neural organization to the action of the corresponding subgroups.Comment: 34 pages, 11 figures, 2 table

A consideration of the challenges involved in supervising international masters students

This paper explores the challenges facing supervisors of international postgraduate students at the dissertation stage of the masters programme. The central problems of time pressure, language difficulties, a lack of critical analysis and a prevalence of personal problems among international students are discussed. This paper makes recommendations for the improvement of language and critical thinking skills, and questions the future policy of language requirements at HE for international Masters students

Comparisons of host mitochondrial, nuclear and endosymbiont bacterial genes reveal cryptic fig wasp species and the effects of Wolbachia on host mtDNA evolution and diversity

Background Figs and fig-pollinating wasp species usually display a highly specific one-to-one association. However, more and more studies have revealed that the "one-to-one" rule has been broken. Co-pollinators have been reported, but we do not yet know how they evolve. They may evolve from insect speciation induced or facilitated by Wolbachia which can manipulate host reproduction and induce reproductive isolation. In addition, Wolbachia can affect host mitochondrial DNA evolution, because of the linkage between Wolbachia and associated mitochondrial haplotypes, and thus confound host phylogeny based on mtDNA. Previous research has shown that fig wasps have the highest incidence of Wolbachia infection in all insect taxa, and Wolbachia may have great influence on fig wasp biology. Therefore, we look forward to understanding the influence of Wolbachia on mitochondrial DNA evolution and speciation in fig wasps. Results We surveyed 76 pollinator wasp specimens from nine Ficus microcarpa trees each growing at a different location in Hainan and Fujian Provinces, China. We found that all wasps were morphologically identified as Eupristina verticillata, but diverged into three clades with 4.22-5.28% mtDNA divergence and 2.29-20.72% nuclear gene divergence. We also found very strong concordance between E. verticillata clades and Wolbachia infection status, and the predicted effects of Wolbachia on both mtDNA diversity and evolution by decreasing mitochondrial haplotypes. Conclusions Our study reveals that the pollinating wasp E. verticillata on F. microcarpa has diverged into three cryptic species, and Wolbachia may have a role in this divergence. The results also indicate that Wolbachia strains infecting E. verticillata have likely resulted in selective sweeps on host mitochondrial DNA