991 research outputs found
Motion Invariance in Visual Environments
The puzzle of computer vision might find new challenging solutions when we
realize that most successful methods are working at image level, which is
remarkably more difficult than processing directly visual streams, just as
happens in nature. In this paper, we claim that their processing naturally
leads to formulate the motion invariance principle, which enables the
construction of a new theory of visual learning based on convolutional
features. The theory addresses a number of intriguing questions that arise in
natural vision, and offers a well-posed computational scheme for the discovery
of convolutional filters over the retina. They are driven by the Euler-Lagrange
differential equations derived from the principle of least cognitive action,
that parallels laws of mechanics. Unlike traditional convolutional networks,
which need massive supervision, the proposed theory offers a truly new scenario
in which feature learning takes place by unsupervised processing of video
signals. An experimental report of the theory is presented where we show that
features extracted under motion invariance yield an improvement that can be
assessed by measuring information-based indexes.Comment: arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1801.0711
Large-N CP(N-1) sigma model on a finite interval and the renormalized string energy
We continue the analysis started in a recent paper of the large-N
two-dimensional CP(N-1) sigma model, defined on a finite space interval L with
Dirichlet (or Neumann) boundary conditions. Here we focus our attention on the
problem of the renormalized energy density which is
found to be a sum of two terms, a constant term coming from the sum over modes,
and a term proportional to the mass gap. The approach to
at large is
shown, both analytically and numerically, to be exponential: no power
corrections are present and in particular no L\"uscher term appears. This is
consistent with the earlier result which states that the system has a unique
massive phase, which interpolates smoothly between the classical weakly-coupled
limit for and the "confined" phase of the standard CP(N-1)
model in two dimensions for .Comment: LaTeX: 32 pages, 11 figures; V2: appendices E and F added and typos
corrected; V3: grant information adde
CBE Clima Tool: a free and open-source web application for climate analysis tailored to sustainable building design
Buildings that are designed specifically to respond to the local climate can
be more comfortable, energy-efficient, and with a lower environmental impact.
However, there are many social, cultural, and economic obstacles that might
prevent the wide adoption of designing climate-adapted buildings. One of the
said obstacles can be removed by enabling practitioners to easily access and
analyse local climate data. The CBE Clima Tool (Clima) is a free and
open-source web application that offers easy access to publicly available
weather files (in EPW format) specifically created for building energy
simulation and design. It provides a series of interactive visualization of the
variables therein contained and several derived ones. It is aimed at students,
educators, and practitioners in the architecture and engineering fields. Since
its launch has been consistently recording over 3000 monthly unique users from
over 70 countries worldwide, both in professional and educational settings.Comment: Submitted to Software
User indoor localisation system enhances activity recognition: A proof of concept
Older people would like to live independently in their home as long as possible. They want to reduce the risk of domestic accidents because of polypharmacy, physical weakness and other mental illnesses, which could increase the risks of domestic accidents (i.e. a fall). Changes in the behaviour of healthy older people could be correlated with cognitive disorders; consequently, early intervention could delay the deterioration of the disease. Over the last few years, activity recognition systems have been developed to support the management of senior citizensâ\u80\u99 daily life. In this context, this paper aims to go beyond the state-of-the-art presenting a proof of concept where information on body movement, vital signs and userâ\u80\u99s indoor locations are aggregated to improve the activity recognition task. The presented system has been tested in a realistic environment with three users in order to assess the feasibility of the proposed method. These results encouraged the use of this approach in activity recognition applications; indeed, the overall accuracy values, amongst others, are satisfactory increased (+2.67% DT, +7.39% SVM, +147.37% NN)
Wave Propagation of Visual Stimuli in Focus of Attention
Fast reactions to changes in the surrounding visual environment require
efficient attention mechanisms to reallocate computational resources to most
relevant locations in the visual field. While current computational models keep
improving their predictive ability thanks to the increasing availability of
data, they still struggle approximating the effectiveness and efficiency
exhibited by foveated animals. In this paper, we present a
biologically-plausible computational model of focus of attention that exhibits
spatiotemporal locality and that is very well-suited for parallel and
distributed implementations. Attention emerges as a wave propagation process
originated by visual stimuli corresponding to details and motion information.
The resulting field obeys the principle of "inhibition of return" so as not to
get stuck in potential holes. An accurate experimentation of the model shows
that it achieves top level performance in scanpath prediction tasks. This can
easily be understood at the light of a theoretical result that we establish in
the paper, where we prove that as the velocity of wave propagation goes to
infinity, the proposed model reduces to recently proposed state of the art
gravitational models of focus of attention
Large and Dense Swarms: Simulation of a Shortest Path Alarm Propagation
This paper deals with the transmission of alarm messages in large and dense underwater swarms of Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) and describes the verification process of the derived algorithm results by means of two simulation tools realized by the authors. A collision-free communication protocol has been developed, tailored to a case where a single AUV needs to send a message to a specific subset of swarm members regarding a perceived danger. The protocol includes a handshaking procedure that creates a silence region before the transmission of the message obtained through specific acoustic tones out of the normal transmission frequencies or through optical signals. This region will include all members of the swarm involved in the alarm message and their neighbours, preventing collisions between them. The AUV sending messages to a target area computes a delay function on appropriate arcs and runs a Dijkstra-like algorithm obtaining a multicast tree. After an explanation of the whole building of this collision-free multicast tree, a simulation has been carried out assuming different scenarios relevant to swarm density, signal power of the modem and the geometrical configuration of the nodes
Focus of Attention Improves Information Transfer in Visual Features
Unsupervised learning from continuous visual streams is a challenging problem
that cannot be naturally and efficiently managed in the classic batch-mode
setting of computation. The information stream must be carefully processed
accordingly to an appropriate spatio-temporal distribution of the visual data,
while most approaches of learning commonly assume uniform probability density.
In this paper we focus on unsupervised learning for transferring visual
information in a truly online setting by using a computational model that is
inspired to the principle of least action in physics. The maximization of the
mutual information is carried out by a temporal process which yields online
estimation of the entropy terms. The model, which is based on second-order
differential equations, maximizes the information transfer from the input to a
discrete space of symbols related to the visual features of the input, whose
computation is supported by hidden neurons. In order to better structure the
input probability distribution, we use a human-like focus of attention model
that, coherently with the information maximization model, is also based on
second-order differential equations. We provide experimental results to support
the theory by showing that the spatio-temporal filtering induced by the focus
of attention allows the system to globally transfer more information from the
input stream over the focused areas and, in some contexts, over the whole
frames with respect to the unfiltered case that yields uniform probability
distributions
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