Systems-Disconjugacy of a Fourth-Order Differential Equation with a Middle Term

Systems-conjugate points have been introduced and studied by John Barrett \cite{barr} in relation with the self-adjoint fourth order differential equation $$(r(x)y")"-(q(x)y')'= p(x)y,$$ where $r(x)>0$, $p(x)>0$ and $q\equiv0$. In this paper we extend some of his results to more general cases, when $q(x)$ is free of any sign restrictions.Comment: 13 pages, 0 figure

Le «Frontières du Comparatisme» de Anne Tomiche

In response to the report by Anne Tomiche on the frequent overlap between comparative literature and European literature, this paper aims to deal with some of the questions asked by Tomiche without any claim to reach definitive answers, but rather to highlight new questions and new considerations about the role of comparative literature today. Essential to the achievement of a "new humanism", as a compass needed to guide us in a concert of discordant voices, in a time when new frontiers are being established, comparative literature at this time requires an epistemological shift. In contrast to the universalist ideology, the role of the comparatist must now be reconsidered on an ethical level, aimed at overcoming certain forms of exclusion and marginalization that too often the concept of culture generates. The comparative literature, should be understood as a non-category literature, a literature of expatriation, landless, that refuses language barriers and / or cultural borders, open to all literatures of the world, in a constant exchange that can lead to the creation of a comprehensive system of interactions, which must not be identified with a theory, but should opt for a space, a desert where the theoretical reflection becomes objective and universalizes in differentiation.In response to the report by Anne Tomiche on the frequent overlap between comparative literature and European literature, this paper aims to deal with some of the questions asked by Tomiche without any claim to reach definitive answers, but rather to highlight new questions and new considerations about the role of comparative literature today. Essential to the achievement of a "new humanism", as a compass needed to guide us in a concert of discordant voices, in a time when new frontiers are being established, comparative literature at this time requires an epistemological shift. In contrast to the universalist ideology, the role of the comparatist must now be reconsidered on an ethical level, aimed at overcoming certain forms of exclusion and marginalization that too often the concept of culture generates. The comparative literature, should be understood as a non-category literature, a literature of expatriation, landless, that refuses language barriers and/or cultural borders, open to all literatures of the world, in a constant exchange that can lead to the creation of a comprehensive system of interactions, which must not be identified with a theory, but should opt for a space, a desert where the theoretical reflection becomes objective and universalizes in differentiation

End-to-End Multiview Gesture Recognition for Autonomous Car Parking System

The use of hand gestures can be the most intuitive human-machine interaction medium. The early approaches for hand gesture recognition used device-based methods. These methods use mechanical or optical sensors attached to a glove or markers, which hinders the natural human-machine communication. On the other hand, vision-based methods are not restrictive and allow for a more spontaneous communication without the need of an intermediary between human and machine. Therefore, vision gesture recognition has been a popular area of research for the past thirty years. Hand gesture recognition finds its application in many areas, particularly the automotive industry where advanced automotive human-machine interface (HMI) designers are using gesture recognition to improve driver and vehicle safety. However, technology advances go beyond active/passive safety and into convenience and comfort. In this context, one of America’s big three automakers has partnered with the Centre of Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence (CPAMI) at the University of Waterloo to investigate expanding their product segment through machine learning to provide an increased driver convenience and comfort with the particular application of hand gesture recognition for autonomous car parking. In this thesis, we leverage the state-of-the-art deep learning and optimization techniques to develop a vision-based multiview dynamic hand gesture recognizer for self-parking system. We propose a 3DCNN gesture model architecture that we train on a publicly available hand gesture database. We apply transfer learning methods to fine-tune the pre-trained gesture model on a custom-made data, which significantly improved the proposed system performance in real world environment. We adapt the architecture of the end-to-end solution to expand the state of the art video classifier from a single image as input (fed by monocular camera) to a multiview 360 feed, offered by a six cameras module. Finally, we optimize the proposed solution to work on a limited resources embedded platform (Nvidia Jetson TX2) that is used by automakers for vehicle-based features, without sacrificing the accuracy robustness and real time functionality of the system