View Independent Vehicle Make, Model and Color Recognition Using Convolutional Neural Network

This paper describes the details of Sighthound's fully automated vehicle make, model and color recognition system. The backbone of our system is a deep convolutional neural network that is not only computationally inexpensive, but also provides state-of-the-art results on several competitive benchmarks. Additionally, our deep network is trained on a large dataset of several million images which are labeled through a semi-automated process. Finally we test our system on several public datasets as well as our own internal test dataset. Our results show that we outperform other methods on all benchmarks by significant margins. Our model is available to developers through the Sighthound Cloud API at https://www.sighthound.com/products/cloudComment: 7 Page

Enhanced Bioavailability and Dissolution of Atorvastatin Calcium from Floating Microcapsules using Minimum Additives

Atorvastatin calcium, a lipid-lowering drug, is much less bioavailable because of reduced solubility in acidic media. Multiple-unit floating microcapsules of Atorvastatin calcium (ATC) were developed to expand the gastric residence time of the drug, as ATC has maximum rate of absorption in the upper GI tract. Floating microcapsules were prepared by Emulsion-solvent evaporation technique through incorporation of dioctyl sodium sulphosuccinate (DSS) as a dissolution enhancer. The microcapsules were assessed for shape, size, drug entrapment efficiency, stability and in-vitro drug dissolution rate and were subjected to SEM, DSC and PXRD studies. The ATC-loaded floating microcapsules were spherical in shape and had the particle size of about 28.10 μm and drug-loading efficiency of about 96.55 %. The floating microspheres containing DSS had significantly higher drug dissolution rates than those without DSS. The best formulation, AT4, consisting of Ethyl cellulose, DSS and Poly Ox®, had a maximum drug dissolution rate of 97.86 %, as compared to Storvas 80 mg (Ranbaxy Ltd, as a reference) which had a rate of only 54% during a period of 12 h in acidic media. A pharmacokinetic study performed on albino rabbits illustrates that the bioavailability of AT4 floating microcapsules significantly increased to nearly 1.7 times that of Storvas 80 mg. The present study indicates that the use of multi-unit floating microcapsules for delivery of ATC can improve its bioavailability

Some biochemical properties of guaiacol peroxidases as modified by salt stress in leaves of salt-tolerant and salt-sensitive safflower (Carthamus tinctorius L.cv.) cultivars

The kinetics properties of guaiacol peroxidase (GP) and its isozymic pattern, and lipid peroxidation product were comparatively analyzed in two varieties of safflower (cv. M-CC-190 as salt-tolerant and cv. IL-111 as salt-sensitive cultivars) under normal and different concentrations of NaCl. The pH profile of GP activity in leaves extract of two cultivars in control and salt stressed plants showed different pattern of pH dependency with three maxima peaks at pH 4.5, 6.5 and 8 in salt-tolerant cultivar and two maxima peaks at pH 4.5 and 6.5 in salt-sensitive cultivar. Comparison of catalytic efficiency for GP between two cultivars at respective pH, showed that, salt-tolerant cultivar in both control and salt stressed conditionhad higher catalytic efficiency than salt-susceptible cultivar. The GP activity on the gels revealed four and two isoforms of peroxidases in salt-tolerant and salt-sensitive cultivars, respectively. GPs increased their expression with higher levels of salinity. However, in salt-sensitive cultivar GPs expression exhibited threshold behavior, with increase expressions in isoenzymes up to a certain level of salinity (25 mM NaCl), followed by decrease to a level of expressions corresponding to the control groups. The levels of lipid peroxidation as indicated by thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS) were higher in the sensitive variety than the tolerant under control and NaCl salinity. The overall results obtained in this study suggest that, oxidative stress may play an important role in salt-stressedsafflower plants and that the greater protection of M-CC-190 leaves from salt-induced oxidative damage results, at least in part, through the increase of the GPs activity, catalytic efficiency and induction of specific isoenzymes (P1 and P4).Key words: Safflower, guaiacol peroxidase, kinetics, isoenzymes, salt stress

Extra Dimensions: A View from the Top

In models with compact extra dimensions, where the Standard Model fields are confined to a 3+1 dimensional hyperplane, the $t \bar t$ production cross-section at a hadron collider can receive significant contributions from multiple exchange of KK modes of the graviton. These are carefully computed in the well-known ADD and RS scenarios, taking the energy dependence of the sum over graviton propagators into account. Using data from Run-I of the Tevatron, 95% C.L. bounds on the parameter space of both models are derived. For Run-II of the Tevatron and LHC, discovery limits are estimated.Comment: Typos corrected, references added. 12 pages, LaTeX, 2 ps figure

Whole-system value of electrified district heating networks in decarbonising heat sector in the UK

The UK's heat sector predominantly relies on natural gas and is responsible for about one-third of overall carbon emissions. Heating in domestic and commercial buildings contributes to about 20% of annual carbon emissions. Although the heat sector is one of the most challenging to decarbonise, electrifying the heat delivery in domestic and commercial buildings could significantly reduce carbon emissions in line with the UK Government's climate targets. This transition could also deliver significant reductions in overall energy system costs due to higher cross-vector flexibility in the electricity and heat sectors enabled by centralised and decentralised electric heating with thermal energy storage. While implementing electrified district heating networks will be prone to geographic limitations, centralised electric heating may potentially save significant costs due to efficiency benefits compared to decentralised solutions. The aim of this paper is to assess the whole-system value of using centralised heating technologies, including heat pumps, electric boilers, and thermal storage, to supply a proportion of heat demand in the UK in 2035, in contrast to decentralised electrified heat supply. The results of quantitative modelling presented in the paper demonstrate that using centralised electric heating can lead to significant annual system cost savings when compared to a decentralised electric heating paradigm.Innovate UK through grant number 105843 (REMeDY)