13,421 research outputs found
Pedestrian Trajectory Prediction with Structured Memory Hierarchies
This paper presents a novel framework for human trajectory prediction based
on multimodal data (video and radar). Motivated by recent neuroscience
discoveries, we propose incorporating a structured memory component in the
human trajectory prediction pipeline to capture historical information to
improve performance. We introduce structured LSTM cells for modelling the
memory content hierarchically, preserving the spatiotemporal structure of the
information and enabling us to capture both short-term and long-term context.
We demonstrate how this architecture can be extended to integrate salient
information from multiple modalities to automatically store and retrieve
important information for decision making without any supervision. We evaluate
the effectiveness of the proposed models on a novel multimodal dataset that we
introduce, consisting of 40,000 pedestrian trajectories, acquired jointly from
a radar system and a CCTV camera system installed in a public place. The
performance is also evaluated on the publicly available New York Grand Central
pedestrian database. In both settings, the proposed models demonstrate their
capability to better anticipate future pedestrian motion compared to existing
state of the art.Comment: To appear in ECML-PKDD 201
Measuring public perceptions of sex offenders: reimagining the Community Attitudes Toward Sex Offenders (CATSO) scale
The Community Attitudes Toward Sex Offenders (CATSO) scale is an 18-item self-report questionnaire designed to measure respondentsâ attitudes toward sex offenders. Its original factor structure has been questioned by a number of previous studies, and so this paper sought to reimagine the scale as an outcome measure, as opposed to a scale of attitudes. A face validity analysis produced a provisional three-factor structure underlying the CATSO: âpunitiveness,â âstereotype endorsement,â and ârisk perception.â A sample of 400 British members of the public completed a modified version of the CATSO, the Attitudes Toward Sex Offenders scale, the General Punitiveness Scale, and the Rational-Experiential Inventory. A three-factor structure of a 22-item modified CATSO was supported using half of the sample, with factors being labeled âsentencing and management,â âstereotype endorsement,â and ârisk perception.â Confirmatory factor analysis on data from the other half of the sample endorsed the three-factor structure; however, two items were removed in order to improve ratings of model fit. This new 20-item âPerceptions of Sex Offenders scaleâ has practical utility beyond the measurement of attitudes, and suggestions for its future use are provided
Two decades of pulsar timing of Vela
Pulsar timing at the Mt Pleasant observatory has focused on Vela, which can
be tracked for 18 hours of the day. These nearly continuous timing records
extend over 24 years allowing a greater insight into details of timing noise,
micro glitches and other more exotic effects. In particular we report the
glitch parameters of the 2004 event, along with the reconfirmation that the
spin up for the Vela pulsar occurs instantaneously to the accuracy of the data.
This places a lower limit of about 30 seconds for the acceleration of the
pulsar to the new rotational frequency. We also confirm of the low braking
index for Vela, and the continued fall in the DM for this pulsar.Comment: Isolated Neutron Stars conference, London, April 24-28 200
Energy Density-Flux Correlations in an Unusual Quantum State and in the Vacuum
In this paper we consider the question of the degree to which negative and
positive energy are intertwined. We examine in more detail a previously studied
quantum state of the massless minimally coupled scalar field, which we call a
``Helfer state''. This is a state in which the energy density can be made
arbitrarily negative over an arbitrarily large region of space, but only at one
instant in time. In the Helfer state, the negative energy density is
accompanied by rapidly time-varying energy fluxes. It is the latter feature
which allows the quantum inequalities, bounds which restrict the magnitude and
duration of negative energy, to hold for this class of states. An observer who
initially passes through the negative energy region will quickly encounter
fluxes of positive energy which subsequently enter the region. We examine in
detail the correlation between the energy density and flux in the Helfer state
in terms of their expectation values. We then study the correlation function
between energy density and flux in the Minkowski vacuum state, for a massless
minimally coupled scalar field in both two and four dimensions. In this latter
analysis we examine correlation functions rather than expectation values.
Remarkably, we see qualitatively similar behavior to that in the Helfer state.
More specifically, an initial negative energy vacuum fluctuation in some region
of space is correlated with a subsequent flux fluctuation of positive energy
into the region. We speculate that the mechanism which ensures that the quantum
inequalities hold in the Helfer state, as well as in other quantum states
associated with negative energy, is, at least in some sense, already
``encoded'' in the fluctuations of the vacuum.Comment: 21 pages, 7 figures; published version with typos corrected and one
added referenc
Gravitational waves from inspiralling compact binaries: Energy loss and waveform to second--post-Newtonian order
Gravitational waves generated by inspiralling compact binaries are
investigated to the second--post-Newtonian (2PN) approximation of general
relativity. Using a recently developed 2PN-accurate wave generation formalism,
we compute the gravitational waveform and associated energy loss rate from a
binary system of point-masses moving on a quasi-circular orbit. The crucial new
input is our computation of the 2PN-accurate ``source'' quadrupole moment of
the binary. Tails in both the waveform and energy loss rate at infinity are
explicitly computed. Gravitational radiation reaction effects on the orbital
frequency and phase of the binary are deduced from the energy loss. In the
limiting case of a very small mass ratio between the two bodies we recover the
results obtained by black hole perturbation methods. We find that finite mass
ratio effects are very significant as they increase the 2PN contribution to the
phase by up to 52\%. The results of this paper should be of use when
deciphering the signals observed by the future LIGO/VIRGO network of
gravitational-wave detectors.Comment: 43 pages, LaTeX-ReVTeX, no figures
The influence of the Lande -factor in the classical general relativistic description of atomic and subatomic systems
We study the electromagnetic and gravitational fields of the proton and
electron in terms of the Einstenian gravity via the introduction of an
arbitrary Lande -factor in the Kerr-Newman solution. We show that at length
scales of the order of the reduced Compton wavelength, corrections from
different values of the -factor are not negligible and discuss the presence
of general relativistic effects in highly ionized heavy atoms. On the other
hand, since at the Compton-wavelength scale the gravitational field becomes
spin dominated rather than mass dominated, we also point out the necessity of
including angular momentum as a source of corrections to Newtonian gravity in
the quantum description of gravity at this scale.Comment: 11 pages, 2 figure
Gravitational field and equations of motion of spinning compact binaries to 2.5 post-Newtonian order
We derive spin-orbit coupling effects on the gravitational field and
equations of motion of compact binaries in the 2.5 post-Newtonian approximation
to general relativity, one PN order beyond where spin effects first appear. Our
method is based on that of Blanchet, Faye, and Ponsot, who use a post-Newtonian
metric valid for general (continuous) fluids and represent pointlike compact
objects with a delta-function stress-energy tensor, regularizing divergent
terms by taking the Hadamard finite part. To obtain post-Newtonian spin
effects, we use a different delta-function stress-energy tensor introduced by
Bailey and Israel. In a future paper we will use the 2.5PN equations of motion
for spinning bodies to derive the gravitational-wave luminosity and phase
evolution of binary inspirals, which will be useful in constructing matched
filters for signal analysis. The gravitational field derived here may help in
posing initial data for numerical evolutions of binary black hole mergers.Comment: 18 pages, no figur
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