2,229 research outputs found
Robust Visual Tracking Based on L1 Expanded Template
Most video tracking algorithms including L1 tracker often fail to track correctly under adverse conditions such as object occlusion, disappearance, etc. To address this issue, we propose an improved L1 tracker algorithm called Tracker-2, based on what we call the expanded template which includes the reference template and trail template. The reference template keeps the original features of the target and prevents errors from being introduced by false tracking results with the template update, which leads to the deviation of the target. The trail template records the trail tracking results to avoid massive use of trivial templates which may result in the false detection of occlusion. The experimental results on a number of standard data sets have proved that our Tracker-2 approach is able to deal with the occlusion problem effectively while maintaining the advantages of L1 tracker
How Accurate Are Blood (or Breath) Tests for Identifying Self-Reported Heavy Drinking Among People with Alcohol Dependence?
AIMS: Managing patients with alcohol dependence includes assessment for heavy drinking, typically by asking patients. Some recommend biomarkers to detect heavy drinking but evidence of accuracy is limited.
METHODS: Among people with dependence, we assessed the performance of disialo-carbohydrate-deficient transferrin (%dCDT, ≥1.7%), gamma-glutamyltransferase (GGT, ≥66 U/l), either %dCDT or GGT positive, and breath alcohol (> 0) for identifying 3 self-reported heavy drinking levels: any heavy drinking (≥4 drinks/day or >7 drinks/week for women, ≥5 drinks/day or >14 drinks/week for men), recurrent (≥5 drinks/day on ≥5 days) and persistent heavy drinking (≥5 drinks/day on ≥7 consecutive days). Subjects (n = 402) with dependence and current heavy drinking were referred to primary care and assessed 6 months later with biomarkers and validated self-reported calendar method assessment of past 30-day alcohol use.
RESULTS: The self-reported prevalence of any, recurrent and persistent heavy drinking was 54, 34 and 17%. Sensitivity of %dCDT for detecting any, recurrent and persistent self-reported heavy drinking was 41, 53 and 66%. Specificity was 96, 90 and 84%, respectively. %dCDT had higher sensitivity than GGT and breath test for each alcohol use level but was not adequately sensitive to detect heavy drinking (missing 34-59% of the cases). Either %dCDT or GGT positive improved sensitivity but not to satisfactory levels, and specificity decreased. Neither a breath test nor GGT was sufficiently sensitive (both tests missed 70-80% of cases).
CONCLUSIONS: Although biomarkers may provide some useful information, their sensitivity is low the incremental value over self-report in clinical settings is questionable
Hadronic Charmed Meson Decays Involving Axial Vector Mesons
Cabibbo-allowed charmed meson decays into a pseudoscalar meson and an
axial-vector meson are studied. The charm to axial-vector meson transition form
factors are evaluated in the Isgur-Scora-Grinstein-Wise quark model. The dipole
momentum dependence of the transition form factor and the presence of
a sizable long-distance -exchange are the two key ingredients for
understanding the data of . The mixing angle of
the strange axial-vector mesons is found to be or
from decays. The study of decays excludes the positive mixing-angle
solutions. It is pointed out that an observation of the decay at the level of will rule out
and favor the solution .
Though the decays are color suppressed, they are
comparable to and even larger than the color-allowed counterparts: and . The finite width effect of the axial-vector resonance is
examined. It becomes important for in particular when its width is
near 600 MeV.Comment: 19 page
Hierarchical Gaussian process mixtures for regression
As a result of their good performance in practice and their desirable analytical properties, Gaussian process regression models are becoming increasingly of interest in statistics, engineering and other fields. However, two major problems arise when the model is applied to a large data-set with repeated measurements. One stems from the systematic heterogeneity among the different replications, and the other is the requirement to invert a covariance matrix which is involved in the implementation of the model. The dimension of this matrix equals the sample size of the training data-set. In this paper, a Gaussian process mixture model for regression is proposed for dealing with the above two problems, and a hybrid Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithm is used for its implementation. Application to a real data-set is reported
Hadronic Charmed Meson Decays Involving Tensor Mesons
Charmed meson decays into a pseudoscalar meson P and a tensor meson T are
studied. The charm to tensor meson transition form factors are evaluated in the
Isgur-Scora-Grinstein-Wise (ISGW) quark model. It is shown that the
Cabibbo-allowed decay is dominated by the
W-annihilation contribution and has the largest branching ratio in
decays. We argue that the Cabibbo-suppressed mode
should be suppressed by one order of magnitude relative to . When the finite width effect of the tensor resonances is taken
into account, the decay rate of is generally enhanced by a factor of
. Except for , the predicted branching ratios
of decays are in general too small by one to two orders of magnitude
compared to experiment. However, it is very unlikely that the
transition form factors can be enhanced by a factor of within the
ISGW quark model to account for the discrepancy between theory and experiment.
As many of the current data are still preliminary and lack sufficient statistic
significance, more accurate measurements are needed to pin down the issue.Comment: 11 page
Axion-photon Couplings in Invisible Axion Models
We reexamine the axion-photon couplings in various invisible axion models
motivated by the recent proposal of using optical interferometry at the ASST
facility in the SSCL to search for axion. We illustrate that the assignment of
charges for the fermion fields plays an important role in
determining the couplings. Several simple non-minimal invisible axion models
with suppressed and enhanced axion-photon couplings are constructed,
respectively. We also discuss the implications of possible new experiments to
detect solar axions by conversion to -rays in a static magnetic apparatus
tracking the sun.Comment: 14 pages, LaTeX fil
Hsp70 in mitochondrial biogenesis
The family of hsp70 (70 kilodalton heat shock protein) molecular chaperones plays an essential and diverse role in cellular physiology, Hsp70 proteins appear to elicit their effects by interacting with polypeptides that present domains which exhibit non-native conformations at distinct stages during their life in the cell. In this paper we review work pertaining to the functions of hsp70 proteins in chaperoning mitochondrial protein biogenesis. Hsp70 proteins function in protein synthesis, protein translocation across mitochondrial membranes, protein folding and finally the delivery of misfolded proteins to proteolytic enzymes in the mitochondrial matrix
Sodium atoms and clusters on graphite: a density functional study
Sodium atoms and clusters (N<5) on graphite (0001) are studied using density
functional theory, pseudopotentials and periodic boundary conditions. A single
Na atom is observed to bind at a hollow site 2.45 A above the surface with an
adsorption energy of 0.51 eV. The small diffusion barrier of 0.06 eV indicates
a flat potential energy surface. Increased Na coverage results in a weak
adsorbate-substrate interaction, which is evident in the larger separation from
the surface in the cases of Na_3, Na_4, Na_5, and the (2x2) Na overlayer. The
binding is weak for Na_2, which has a full valence electron shell. The presence
of substrate modifies the structures of Na_3, Na_4, and Na_5 significantly, and
both Na_4 and Na_5 are distorted from planarity. The calculated formation
energies suggest that clustering of atoms is energetically favorable, and that
the open shell clusters (e.g. Na_3 and Na_5) can be more abundant on graphite
than in the gas phase. Analysis of the lateral charge density distributions of
Na and Na_3 shows a charge transfer of about 0.5 electrons in both cases.Comment: 20 pages, 6 figure
Sub-Riemannian Calculus on Hypersurfaces in Carnot Groups
We develope basic geometric quantities and properties of hypersurfaces in
Carnot groups
Well-posedness of Hydrodynamics on the Moving Elastic Surface
The dynamics of a membrane is a coupled system comprising a moving elastic
surface and an incompressible membrane fluid. We will consider a reduced
elastic surface model, which involves the evolution equations of the moving
surface, the dynamic equations of the two-dimensional fluid, and the
incompressible equation, all of which operate within a curved geometry. In this
paper, we prove the local existence and uniqueness of the solution to the
reduced elastic surface model by reformulating the model into a new system in
the isothermal coordinates. One major difficulty is that of constructing an
appropriate iterative scheme such that the limit system is consistent with the
original system.Comment: The introduction is rewritte
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