Real-to-Virtual Domain Unification for End-to-End Autonomous Driving

In the spectrum of vision-based autonomous driving, vanilla end-to-end models are not interpretable and suboptimal in performance, while mediated perception models require additional intermediate representations such as segmentation masks or detection bounding boxes, whose annotation can be prohibitively expensive as we move to a larger scale. More critically, all prior works fail to deal with the notorious domain shift if we were to merge data collected from different sources, which greatly hinders the model generalization ability. In this work, we address the above limitations by taking advantage of virtual data collected from driving simulators, and present DU-drive, an unsupervised real-to-virtual domain unification framework for end-to-end autonomous driving. It first transforms real driving data to its less complex counterpart in the virtual domain and then predicts vehicle control commands from the generated virtual image. Our framework has three unique advantages: 1) it maps driving data collected from a variety of source distributions into a unified domain, effectively eliminating domain shift; 2) the learned virtual representation is simpler than the input real image and closer in form to the "minimum sufficient statistic" for the prediction task, which relieves the burden of the compression phase while optimizing the information bottleneck tradeoff and leads to superior prediction performance; 3) it takes advantage of annotated virtual data which is unlimited and free to obtain. Extensive experiments on two public driving datasets and two driving simulators demonstrate the performance superiority and interpretive capability of DU-drive

Transition Competencies: Secondary Special Education Teachers\u27 Perceptions of Their Frequency of Performance

Millions of high school students are receiving special education services from teachers who may be inconsistently performing competencies during transition planning that leads to sustainable, postsecondary success. Secondary special education teachers’ frequency of performance of transition competencies during transition service delivery are essential to fulfilling their duties and responsibilities towards effectively implementing the Individualized Education Program of students with disabilities. The purpose of this descriptive study is to examine the correlation among secondary special education teachers’ perceptions of their transition competencies’ frequency of performance, during annual transition services. This study employed a quantitative methods approach involving an adapted version of the Secondary Teachers Transition Survey to examine the association or relationships among the variables. This study’s participants consisted of 80 purposefully selected, secondary (high school) special education teachers of students with high incidence disabilities, receiving special education services within an urban, north Georgia school district. The data analyses revealed significant relationships among teachers’ perceptions of their frequency of performance across the transition domains. Additionally, the findings revealed a difference between teachers’ reported levels of self-efficacy and their frequency of performance of transition competencies across the domains. The findings of this study were anticipated to have a manifold impact on transition competencies acquisition, frequency of performance and, evaluation resulting in improved quality in the provision of transition planning services, an aspect of the provision of special education services. This study serves as a fundamental decision-making component in the systems-change process within the special education leadership framework and adds to the body of empirical research to inform the practice of special education teachers’ preparation to positively affect teachers’ perceptions of their own self-efficacy as transition planning facilitator. As well, this study serves as a reference for professional development offerings regarding transition competencies across the local, state and federal educational arenas towards improving the quality of life outcomes for students with disabilities, as they transition into postsecondary educational, competitive employment, independent living, and preferred leisure/ social settings as young adults

Grievances

[First Paragraph] The Virginia Board of Education has adopted a procedure for resolving disputes concerning the application of local board policies, rules, and regulations as they impact the work or disciplinary actions of teachers. It is vital that the principal be aware of the process and the timeline involved in the grievance procedure since the solution should be secured at the lowest administrative level in the process. It is beyond the scope of this article to provide every detail of the grievance process. For a complete detailing of procedure, please refer to Chapter 15, Article 3, Sections 22.1-306 through 22.1-314 of the Code of Virginia

Take Me To Roseland, My Beautiful Rose

https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mmb-vp/6653/thumbnail.jp

Trauma of the Past: The Impact of Adverse Childhood Experiences on Adult Attachment, Money Beliefs and Behaviors, and Financial Transparency

Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) can have a strong, lasting impact on our mental and relational outcomes as adults. They may also impact how we address financial beliefs and behaviors. The current study utilizes 500 participants from Amazon MTurk and structural equation modeling (SEM) to explore the relationships between ACEs and relational financial transparency behaviors through attachment style and money beliefs and behaviors. Findings indicated significant direct and indirect associations across these pathways, particularly for experiences of reported neglect, verbal, and sexual abuse on less security in adult attachment styles. In turn, insecure attachment styles were linked to increased maladaptive financial beliefs and behaviors which were significantly associated with less financial transparency in the relationship. The findings provide support for the impact of childhood trauma on inter-and intra-financial behaviors. Practice implications are discussed for financial practitioners in utilizing a narrative financial therapy modality while still adhering to ethical considerations

Striatal dopamine D1-type receptor availability: no difference from control but association with cortical thickness in methamphetamine users.

Chronic methamphetamine use poses potentially devastating consequences for directly affected individuals and for society. Lower dopamine D2-type receptor availability has been observed in striata of methamphetamine users as compared with controls, but an analogous comparison of D1-type receptors has been conducted only on post-mortem material, with no differences in methamphetamine users from controls in the caudate nucleus and putamen and higher D1-receptor density in the nucleus accumbens. Released from neurons when methamphetamine is self-administered, dopamine binds to both D1- and D2-type receptors in the striatum, with downstream effects on cortical activity. Thus, both receptor subtypes may contribute to methamphetamine-induced alterations in cortical morphology and behavior. In this study, 21 methamphetamine-dependent subjects and 23 healthy controls participated in positron emission tomography and structural magnetic resonance imaging for assessment of striatal D1- and D2-type receptor availability and cortical gray-matter thickness, respectively. Although D2-type receptor availability (BPnd) was lower in the methamphetamine group, as shown previously, the groups did not differ in D1-type BPnd. In the methamphetamine group, mean cortical gray-matter thickness was negatively associated with cumulative methamphetamine use and craving for the drug. Striatal D1-type but not D2-type BPnd was negatively associated with global mean cortical gray-matter thickness in the methamphetamine group, but no association was found between gray-matter thickness and BPnd for either dopamine receptor subtype in the control group. These results suggest a role of striatal D1-type receptors in cortical adaptation to chronic methamphetamine use

Mobile Free-Electron Laser for Remote Atmospheric Survey

Reliable atmospheric surveys for carbon distributions will be essential to building an understanding of the Earth\u27s carbon cycle and the role it plays in climate change. One of the core needs of NASA \u27s Active Sensing of CO2 Over Nights, Days and Seasons (ASCENDS) Mission is to advance the range and precision of current remote atmospheric survey techniques. The feasibility of using accelerator-based sources of infrared light to improve current airborne lidar systems has been explored. A literary review has been conducted to asses the needs of ASCENDS versus the current capabilities of modern atmospheric survey technology, and the parameters of a free electron laser (FEL) source were calculated for a lidar system that will meet these needs. By using the Next Linear Collider from the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC), a mobile FEL-based lidar may be constructed for airborne surveillance. The calculated energy of the lidar pulse is 0.1 joule: this output is a two orders of magnitude gain over current lidar systems, so in principle, the mobile FEL will exceed the needs of ASCENDS. Further research will be required to asses other challenges to mobilizing the FEL technology

In The Old Town Hall : A Comedy Waltz Song

https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mmb-vp/1879/thumbnail.jp

Wastewater Challenges in Small Minnesota Communities: Wastewater Treatment Operator Survey Results and Affordability Analysis

Well-maintained and properly functioning wastewater systems are critical infrastructure because they protect public health and make local economic development possible in small communities. Such systems, however, can also be expensive and difficult for small communities to keep up with. The purpose of this study was to assess regulatory, structural, operational, and affordability challenges associated with municipal wastewater infrastructure in small Minnesota communities. The findings of this study are based on data from three major sources: 1) a survey of wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) operators, 2) the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency’s Water Infrastructure Needs Survey (MPCA WINS), and 3) the 2011-2015 American Community Survey (U.S. Census Bureau).https://digitalcommons.morris.umn.edu/cst/1080/thumbnail.jp

Components of Effective Leadership

[First paragraph] The effective schools literature demonstrates that the principal\u27s leadership is key to the revitalization of schools. The purpose of this article is to feature those components of leadership on which principals need to place attention and to provide suggested activities to enhance these components