Multi-Action Recognition via Stochastic Modelling of Optical Flow and Gradients

In this paper we propose a novel approach to multi-action recognition that performs joint segmentation and classification. This approach models each action using a Gaussian mixture using robust low-dimensional action features. Segmentation is achieved by performing classification on overlapping temporal windows, which are then merged to produce the final result. This approach is considerably less complicated than previous methods which use dynamic programming or computationally expensive hidden Markov models (HMMs). Initial experiments on a stitched version of the KTH dataset show that the proposed approach achieves an accuracy of 78.3%, outperforming a recent HMM-based approach which obtained 71.2%

Nachhaltige Mobilität im ländlichen Raum - Status quo und Entwicklungspotentiale bereits verfolgter Projekte in der Modellregion Schwarzwald-Baar-Heuberg

Seit einigen Jahrzehnten wächst die Erkenntnis, dass das vorhandene Mobilitätssystem nicht nachhaltig ist. Durch die kontinuierliche Zunahme des Verkehrsaufkommens und die Steigerung der Verkehrsleistung sind die verkehrsbedingten Umweltbelastungen und der Ressourcenverbrauch immer mehr ins Bewusstsein gerückt, wodurch das Leitbild Nachhaltige Mobilität insbesondere im Personenverkehr zunehmend an Bedeutung gewinnt. Zudem stellen die Verlagerung der Mobilitätsbedürfnisse aufgrund soziodemografischer Veränderungsprozesse und die zunehmende Konzentration des gesellschaftlichen Lebens und der geschäftlichen Aktivitäten in den Städten mit einhergehendem Bevölkerungsrückgang im ländlichen Raum große Herausforderungen dar, welche das Themenfeld Mobilität stark beeinflussen. Als Folge dieser Prozesse existieren heute große Unterschiede zwischen städtischen und ländlichen Regionen. Die Masterarbeit untersucht die Nachhaltige Mobilität im ländlichen Raum am Beispiel der Modellregion Schwarzwald-Baar-Heuberg. Hierbei wurden einzelne Projekte, wie der ‚Bürgerbus Furtwangen‘, das Projekt ‚Spurwechsel‘ in Dauchingen, Deißlingen und Niedereschach sowie das Projekt ‚Sportlich für die Wissenschaft – Campus Tuttlingen goes Pedelec‘ im Detail analysiert und auf ihre Wirksamkeit überprüft.During the last decades there is a growing awareness that the existing mobility system is not sustainable. Due to the continuous increase in traffic load and transportation performance, the transport-related pollution and the consumption of resources have increasingly gained focus letting the concept of sustainable mobility become even more important. Especially with regards to the transportation of passengers. In addition, the shift in mobility needs due to socio-demographic changes and the increasing concentration of social life and business activities in urban areas with a supplementary population decline in rural areas represent major challenges which affect the topic area mobility in a major way. As a result of these processes there exist large differences between urban and rural areas. The master thesis examines the sustainable mobility in rural areas using the example of the model region Schwarzwald-Baar-Heuberg in southern Germany. Individual projects like ‘Bürgerbus Furtwangen’ in Furtwangen, ‘Spurwechsel’ in Dauchingen, Deißlingen and Niedereschach and a project called ‘Sportlich für die Wissenschaft – Campus Tuttlingen goes Pedelec‘ are analysed in detail and checked for effectiveness

Resolving Photon Numbers Using Ultra-High-Resolution Timing of a Single Low-Jitter Superconducting Nanowire Detector

Photon-number-resolving (PNR) detectors are a key enabling technology in photonic quantum information processing. Here, we demonstrate the PNR capacity of conventional superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors by performing ultra-high-resolution time-tagging of the detector-generated electrical pulses. This method provides a viable approach for PNR with high detection efficiency and a high operational repetition rate. We present the implementation of such a PNR detector in the telecom C-band and its characterization by measuring the photon-number statistics of coherent light with tunable intensity. Additionally, we demonstrate the capabilities of the detection method by measuring photon-number correlations of non-classical states.Comment: 6 pages, 8 figure

National Pride of the Filipino Youth

The main purpose of this study was to know how proud the youth are of being a Filipino. Socio-demographic characteristics also play a role in determining the national pride of Filipino youth. The level of pride similarly varied among domain-specific aspects. We used a structured survey questionnaire adopted and modified from the International Social Survey Programme from their National Identity study. For this study, a four-stage sampling was observed to get the sample. Sports was the top source of the Filipino youth's national pride, among the 12 domain-specific aspects. However, Politics and Democracy got the lowest level of national pride. Differences among sexes significantly varied in the aspect of Sports, Economy and Social Security, and Environment. Pride in Arts and Literature, Sports, Armed Forces, and History differ among religions. The difference in Educational Attainment affects the level of national pride of the youth in the aspect of Fair and Equal Treatment in All Groups. Moreover, the socio-demographic characteristics play a role in determining the national pride of the Filipino youth. The study used quantitative research approach, specifically descriptive. A self-administered survey was distributed to 400 randomly selected youth respondents of 15-29 years old in the National Capital Region, Philippines

Coastal hypoxia and the importance of benthic macrofauna communities for ecosystem functioning

Coastal ecosystems are important because of the vital ecosystem functions and services they provide, but many are threatened by eutrophication and hypoxia. This results in loss of biodiversity and subsequent changes in ecosystem functioning. Consequently, the need for empirical field studies regarding biodiversity-ecosystem functioning in coastal areas has been emphasized. The present field study quantified the links between benthic macrofaunal communities (abundance, biomass, and species richness), sediment oxygen consumption, and solute fluxes (NO3- + NO2-, NH4+, PO43-, SiO4, Fe, Mn) along a 7.5-km natural gradient of seasonal hypoxia in the coastal northern Baltic Sea. Sampling was done in late August 2010 in the middle archipelago zone of the Hanko peninsula, Finland. As predicted, the macrofaunal communities were decimated with increasing hypoxia, and the nutrient transformation processes were changed at the sediment-water interface, with notably higher effluxes of phosphate and ammonium from the sediment. Solute fluxes varied even during normoxia, which implies a high context-dependency, and could be explained by even small variations in environmental variables such as organic matter and C/N ratios. Importantly, the low diversity benthic macrofaunal communities, which were dominated by Macoma balthica and the invasive Marenzelleria spp., had a large influence on the solute fluxes, especially under normoxia, but also under hypoxia.Peer reviewe

Novel mutation in TNPO3 causes congenital limb-girdle myopathy with slow progression

Objective We report a second family with autosomal dominant transportinopathy presenting with congenital or early-onset myopathy and slow progression, causing proximal and less pronounced distal muscle weakness. Methods Patients had clinical examinations, muscle MRI, EMG, and muscle biopsy studies. The MYOcap gene panel was used to identify the gene defect in the family. Muscle biopsies were used for histopathologic and protein expression studies, and TNPO3 constructs were used to study the effect of the mutations in transfected cells. Results We identified a novel heterozygous mutation, c.2757delC, in the last part of the transportin-3 (TNPO3) gene in the affected family members. The mutation causes an almost identical frameshift affecting the stop codon and elongating the C-term protein product of the TNPO3 transcript, as was previously reported in the first large Spanish-Italian LGMD1F kindred. TNPO3 protein was increased in the patient muscle and accumulated in the subsarcolemmal and perinuclear areas. At least one of the cargo proteins, the splicing factor SRRM2 was normally located in the nucleus. Transiently transfected mutant TNPO3 constructs failed to localize to cytoplasmic annulate lamellae pore complexes in cells. Conclusions We report the clinical, molecular genetic, and histopathologic features of the second transportinopathy family. The variability of the clinical phenotype together with histopathologic findings suggests that several molecular pathways may be involved in the disease pathomechanism, such as nucleocytoplasmic shuttling, protein aggregation, and defective protein turnover.Peer reviewe

Modeling Severe Fever with Thrombocytopenia Syndrome Virus Infection in Golden Syrian Hamsters: Importance of STAT2 in Preventing Disease and Effective Treatment with Favipiravir

Severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome (SFTS) is an emerging tick-borne disease endemic in parts of Asia. The etiologic agent, SFTS virus (SFTSV; family Bunyaviridae, genus Phlebovirus) has caused significant morbidity and mortality in China, South Korea, and Japan, with key features of disease being intense fever, thrombocytopenia, and leukopenia. Case fatality rates are estimated to be in the 30% range, and no antivirals or vaccines are approved for use for treatment and prevention of SFTS. There is evidence that in human cells, SFTSV sequesters STAT proteins in replication complexes, thereby inhibiting type I interferon signaling. Here, we demonstrate that hamsters devoid of functional STAT2 are highly susceptible to as few as 10 PFU of SFTSV, with animals generally succumbing within 5 to 6 days after subcutaneous challenge. The disease included marked thrombocytopenia and inflammatory disease characteristic of the condition in humans. Infectious virus titers were present in the blood and most tissues 3 days after virus challenge, and severe inflammatory lesions were found in the spleen and liver samples of SFTSV-infected hamsters. We also show that SFTSV infection in STAT2 knockout (KO) hamsters is responsive to favipiravir treatment, which protected all animals from lethal disease and reduced serum and tissue viral loads by 3 to 6 orders of magnitude. Taken together, our results provide additional insights into the pathogenesis of SFTSV infection and support the use of the newly described STAT2 KO hamster model for evaluation of promising antiviral therapies. IMPORTANCE Severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome (SFTS) is an emerging viral disease for which there are currently no therapeutic options or available vaccines. The causative agent, SFTS virus (SFTSV), is present in China, South Korea, and Japan, and infections requiring medical attention result in death in as many as 30% of the cases. Here, we describe a novel model of SFTS in hamsters genetically engineered to be deficient in a protein that helps protect humans and animals against viral infections. These hamsters were found to be susceptible to SFTSV and share disease features associated with the disease in humans. Importantly, we also show that SFTSV infection in hamsters can be effectively treated with a broad-spectrum antiviral drug approved for use in Japan. Our findings suggest that the new SFTS model will be an excellent resource to better understand SFTSV infection and disease as well as a valuable tool for evaluating promising antiviral drugs

Perspective: a conceptual framework for adaptive personalized nutrition advice systems (APNASs)

Nearly all approaches to personalized nutrition (PN) use information such as the gene variants of individuals to deliver advice that is more beneficial than a generic one-size-fits-all recommendation. Despite great enthusiasm and the increased availability of commercial services, thus far, scientific studies have only revealed small to negligible effects on the efficacy and effectiveness of personalized dietary recommendations, even when using genetic or other individual information. In addition, from a public health perspective, scholars are critical of PN because it primarily targets socially privileged groups rather than the general population, thereby potentially widening health inequality. Therefore, in this perspective, we propose to extend current PN approaches by creating adaptive personalized nutrition advice systems (APNASs) that are tailored to the type and timing of personalized advice for individual needs, capacities, and receptivity in real-life food environments. These systems encompass a broadening of current PN goals (i.e., what should be achieved) to incorporate individual goal preferences beyond currently advocated biomedical targets (e.g., making sustainable food choices). Moreover, they cover the personalization processes of behavior change by providing in situ, just-in-time information in real-life environments (how and when to change), which accounts for individual capacities and constraints (e.g., economic resources). Finally, they are concerned with a participatory dialogue between individuals and experts (e.g., actual or virtual dieticians, nutritionists, and advisors), when setting goals and deriving measures of adaption. Within this framework, emerging digital nutrition ecosystems enable continuous, real-time monitoring, advice, and support in food environments from exposure to consumption. We present this vision of a novel PN framework along with scenarios and arguments that describe its potential to efficiently address individual and population needs and target groups that would benefit most from its implementation

Mutations in the J domain of DNAJB6 cause dominant distal myopathy

Eight patients from five families with undiagnosed dominant distal myopathy underwent clinical, neurophysiological and muscle biopsy examinations. Molecular genetic studies were performed using targeted sequencing of all known myopathy genes followed by segregation of the identified mutations in the affected families using Sanger sequencing. Two novel mutations in DNAJB6 J domain, c.149C>T (p.A50V) and c.161A>C (p.E54A), were identified as the cause of disease. The muscle involvement with p.A50V was distal calf-predominant, and the p.E54A was more proximo-distal. Histological findings were similar to those previously reported in DNAJB6 myopathy. In line with reported pathogenic mutations in the glycine/phenylalanine (G/F) domain of DNAJB6, both the novel mutations showed reduced anti-aggregation capacity by filter trap assay and TDP-43 disaggregation assays. Modeling of the protein showed close proximity of the mutated residues with the G/F domain. Myopathy-causing mutations in DNAJB6 are not only located in the G/F domain, but also in the J domain. The identified mutations in the J domain cause dominant distal and proximo-distal myopathy, confirming that mutations in DNAJB6 should be considered in distal myopathy cases.Peer reviewe