HRFuser: A Multi-resolution Sensor Fusion Architecture for 2D Object Detection

Besides standard cameras, autonomous vehicles typically include multipleadditional sensors, such as lidars and radars, which help acquire richerinformation for perceiving the content of the driving scene. While severalrecent works focus on fusing certain pairs of sensors - such as camera andlidar or camera and radar - by using architectural components specific to theexamined setting, a generic and modular sensor fusion architecture is missingfrom the literature. In this work, we focus on 2D object detection, afundamental high-level task which is defined on the 2D image domain, andpropose HRFuser, a multi-resolution sensor fusion architecture that scalesstraightforwardly to an arbitrary number of input modalities. The design ofHRFuser is based on state-of-the-art high-resolution networks for image-onlydense prediction and incorporates a novel multi-window cross-attention block asthe means to perform fusion of multiple modalities at multiple resolutions.Even though cameras alone provide very informative features for 2D detection,we demonstrate via extensive experiments on the nuScenes and Seeing Through Fogdatasets that our model effectively leverages complementary features fromadditional modalities, substantially improving upon camera-only performance andconsistently outperforming state-of-the-art fusion methods for 2D detectionboth in normal and adverse conditions. The source code will be made publiclyavailable.<br

Natural Illumination from Multiple Materials Using Deep Learning

Recovering natural illumination from a single Low-Dynamic Range (LDR) image is a challenging task. To remedy this situation we exploit two properties often found in everyday images. First, images rarely show a single material, but rather multiple ones that all reflect the same illumination. However, the appearance of each material is observed only for some surface orientations, not all. Second, parts of the illumination are often directly observed in the background, without being affected by reflection. Typically, this directly observed part of the illumination is even smaller. We propose a deep Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) that combines prior knowledge about the statistics of illumination and reflectance with an input that makes explicit use of these two observations. Our approach maps multiple partial LDR material observations represented as reflectance maps and a background image to a spherical High-Dynamic Range (HDR) illumination map. For training and testing we propose a new data set comprising of synthetic and real images with multiple materials observed under the same illumination. Qualitative and quantitative evidence shows how both multi-material and using a background are essential to improve illumination estimations

Numerical determination of iron dust laminar flame speeds with the counter-flow twin-flame technique

Iron dust counter-flow flames have been studied with the low-Mach-number combustion approximation. The model considers full coupling between the two phases, including particle/droplet drag. The dispersed phase flow strain relations are derived in the Stokes regime (Reynolds number much smaller than unity). The importance of solving a particle flow strain model is demonstrated by comparing three different cases: a free unstrained flame, a counter-flow flame where slip effects are neglected and a counter-flow flame where slip effects are included. All three cases show preferential diffusion effects, due to the lack of diffusion of iron in the fuel mixture, e.g. DFe,m= 0. The preferential diffusion effect causes a peak in the fuel equivalence ratio in the preheat zone. On the burned side, the combined effect of strain and preferential diffusion shows a decrease in fuel equivalence ratio. Inertia effects, which are only at play in the counter-flow case with slip, counteract this effect and result in an increase of the fuel equivalence ratio on the burned side. A laminar flame speed analysis is performed and a recommendation is given on how to experimentally determine the flame speed in a counter-flow set-up. Novelty &amp; Significance We introduce a novel model to include particle flow strain in a dispersed counter-flow set-up. For the first time, the impact of particle flow strain on the flame structure of iron dust is studied with a one-dimensional (1D) model. Two major effects that modify the flame structure and burning velocity are identified: preferential diffusion and inertia of the particles. Preferential diffusion effects are found to be always present in (iron) dust flames. Inertia effects play a role in the counter-flow case with slip. Due to the inertia of the particles, the particle flow strain is lower than the gas flow strain. As a consequence, higher particle concentrations are reached compared to the other cases. Furthermore, it is shown that each particle size experiences a different particle flow strain rate, which is important when doing experiments as it implies that the PSD at the flame front will be different than at the inlet.</p

Melatonin treatment in children with therapy-resistant monosymptomatic nocturnal enuresis

Objective: To evaluate the effects of exogenous melatonin on the frequency of wet nights, on the sleep-wake cycle, and on the melatonin profile in children with therapy-resistant MNE. Patients and methods: 24 patients were included. Patients had to maintain a diary including time of sleep and arousal, and whether they had a dry or a wet bed in the morning. We measured baseline melatonin profiles in saliva. Hereafter, patients were randomized to synthetic melatonin or placebo. After 3 and 6 months we evaluated the frequency of enuresis and the melatonin profiles. Results: 11 patients were randomized to melatonin, 13 to placebo. We evaluated melatonin profiles of 7 patients in the melatonin group and of 8 in the placebo group. We observed a change in profile in the melatonin group, but we did not observe a difference in the sleep-wake cycle or the frequency of wet nights in either group. Conclusion: This is the first time exogenous melatonin has been evaluated in the treatment of MNE. Although we observed a change in melatonin profile after the use of exogenous melatonin, we did not observe a change in enuresis frequency or in the sleep-wake cycle of this select group of patients. (C) 2011 Journal of Pediatric Urology Company. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved