Simple vs complex temporal recurrences for video saliency prediction

This paper investigates modifying an existing neural network architecture for static saliency prediction using two types of recurrences that integrate information from the temporal domain. The first modification is the addition of a ConvLSTM within the architecture, while the second is a conceptually simple exponential moving average of an internal convolutional state. We use weights pre-trained on the SALICON dataset and fine-tune our model on DHF1K. Our results show that both modifications achieve state-of-the-art results and produce similar saliency maps. Source code is available at https://git.io/fjPiB

Cascaded Boundary Regression for Temporal Action Detection

Temporal action detection in long videos is an important problem. State-of-the-art methods address this problem by applying action classifiers on sliding windows. Although sliding windows may contain an identifiable portion of the actions, they may not necessarily cover the entire action instance, which would lead to inferior performance. We adapt a two-stage temporal action detection pipeline with Cascaded Boundary Regression (CBR) model. Class-agnostic proposals and specific actions are detected respectively in the first and the second stage. CBR uses temporal coordinate regression to refine the temporal boundaries of the sliding windows. The salient aspect of the refinement process is that, inside each stage, the temporal boundaries are adjusted in a cascaded way by feeding the refined windows back to the system for further boundary refinement. We test CBR on THUMOS-14 and TVSeries, and achieve state-of-the-art performance on both datasets. The performance gain is especially remarkable under high IoU thresholds, e.g. map@tIoU=0.5 on THUMOS-14 is improved from 19.0% to 31.0%

Regulation and Competition in Mobile Telephony in Latin America

This paper addresses three areas of regulatory policy involving mobile telephony in Latin America. These questions are examined in relation to case studies on Colombia, Bolivia, and the Dominican Republic, followed by policy recommendations. First, in the area of access regulation, government regulation and the adoption of private-sector agreements on the basis of a model contract are preferable to voluntary negotiations. Second, local fixed-line service providers should ideally be excluded from mobile telephony. When this is not possible, they should only participate in geographic areas where they do not dominate local fixed-line service, and they should be required to maintain strict managerial, accounting, and legal separation of mobile and fixed-line activities. Third, unlimited entry into mobile phone markets is preferable to concessions through exclusive licenses or auctions.

[n]cycloparaphenylenes with charges

Oligophenylenes (polyphenylenes) are constituted by an array of conjugated benzenes where inter-ring electron delocalization tends to extend over the whole chain (linear conjugation) being intrinsically limited, among other factors, by terminal effects. Alternatively, cyclic conjugation is envisaged as the unlimited free-boundary versionofconjugation which will impact the structure of molecules in rather unknown ways. The cyclic version of oligophenylenes, cycloparaphenylenes ([n]CPPs with n the number of phenyl rings) were first synthesized in 2008 by Beztozzi and Jasti.1 Today the whole [n]CPP series from [5]CPP to [18]CPP has been prepared. [n]CPPs represent ideal models to investigate new insights of the electronic structure of molecules and cyclic conjugation when electrons or charges circulate in a closed circuit without boundaries. Radical cations and dications of [n]CPP from n=5 to n=12 have been prepared and studied by Raman spectroscopy.2 Small [n]CPP dications own their stability to the closed-shell electronic configuration imposed by cyclic conjugation. However, in large [n]CPP dications cyclic conjugation is minimal and these divalent species form open-shell biradicals. The Raman spectra reflect the effect of cyclic conjugation in competition with cyclic strain and biradicaloid aromatic stabilization. Cyclic conjugation provokes the existence of a turning point or V-shape behavior of the frequencies of the G bands as a function of n. In this communication we will show the vibrational spectroscopic fingerprint of this rare form of conjugation. [1] R. Jasti, J. Bhattacharjee, J. B. Neaton, C. R. Bertozzi, “Synthesis, Characterization, and Theory of [9]-, [12]-, and [18]Cycloparaphenylene: Carbon Nanohoop Structures”, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 130 (2008), 17646–17647. [2] M. P. Alvarez, P. M. Burrezo, M. Kertesz, T. Iwamoto, S. Yamago, J. Xia, R. Jasti, J. T. L. Navarrete, M. Taravillo, V. G. Baonza, J. Casado, “Properties of Sizeable [n]CycloParaPhenylenes As Molecular Models of Single-Wall Carbon Nanotubes By Raman Spectroscopy: Structural and Electron-Transfer Responses Under Mechanical Stress”, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 53, (2014), 7033−7037.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

[Review of] Pastora Sanjuan Cafferty and William C. McReady Hispanics in the United States: A New Social Agenda

This book is an unrevised third printing of eleven inspiring essays written by twelve social scientists who have devoted years of research to their respective fields. The book opens with an enlightening introduction by the editors, Pastora San Juan Cafferty and William McReady

Oligomers of thieno[3,4-c]pyrrole-4,6-dione: Raman spectra

Oligothiophenes are π-conjugated compounds made by concatenation of thiophenes. [1] Due to the low aromaticity of thiophene, inter-ring π-electron delocalization is favored which has strong implication in their electro-optical properties and in their applications in organic electronic devices. [2] In despite of the plenty of oligothiophenes reported so far, new derivatives are welcome which would enhance these properties in regard of their exploitation in new devices. [3] In this presentation, we will show our latest development of oligothiophenes based on the thieno[3,4-c]pyrrole-4,6-dione (TPD, See Figure 1) units, and with different size, from a dimer to a hexamer. In particular, thieno[3,4-c]pyrrole-4,6-dione (TPD) motifs are of great interest due to their high power conversion efficiency (PCE) and its moderate short-circuit current (Jsc) in organic photovoltaic (OPV) devices, [4] when implemented in donor-acceptor polymers, making them excellent candidates for their application in polymer solar cells.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Towards Vulnerability Discovery Using Staged Program Analysis

Eliminating vulnerabilities from low-level code is vital for securing software. Static analysis is a promising approach for discovering vulnerabilities since it can provide developers early feedback on the code they write. But, it presents multiple challenges not the least of which is understanding what makes a bug exploitable and conveying this information to the developer. In this paper, we present the design and implementation of a practical vulnerability assessment framework, called Melange. Melange performs data and control flow analysis to diagnose potential security bugs, and outputs well-formatted bug reports that help developers understand and fix security bugs. Based on the intuition that real-world vulnerabilities manifest themselves across multiple parts of a program, Melange performs both local and global analyses. To scale up to large programs, global analysis is demand-driven. Our prototype detects multiple vulnerability classes in C and C++ code including type confusion, and garbage memory reads. We have evaluated Melange extensively. Our case studies show that Melange scales up to large codebases such as Chromium, is easy-to-use, and most importantly, capable of discovering vulnerabilities in real-world code. Our findings indicate that static analysis is a viable reinforcement to the software testing tool set.Comment: A revised version to appear in the proceedings of the 13th conference on Detection of Intrusions and Malware & Vulnerability Assessment (DIMVA), July 201

Tilting Rightward: C-SPAN's Coverage of Think Tanks

This study's main finding is that C-SPAN coverage of think tanks overwhelmingly favors conservative think tanks while left-of-center think tanks are under-represented. In 2006, conservative think tanks received 43.76 percent of total think tank coverage. Conservative/ libertarian and centrist think tanks received 6.94 percent and 31.76 percent respectively. Center-left and progressive think tanks, on the other hand, only received 12.73 percent and 4.86 percent respectively. Thus, the combined conservative and conservative/libertarian think tanks got an absolute majority of 50.7 percent representation on C-SPAN. Everything left of center got only 17.59 percent, just one third of the coverage received by the Right

Composers' Forum Student Works, November 20, 1984

This is the concert program of the Composers' Forum Student Works performance on Tuesday, November 20, 1984 at 12:30 p.m., at the Concert Hall, 855 Commonwealth Avenue. Works performed were Sonata by David Francis Urrows and Duet for Violin and Cello by Juan C. Palacios. Digitization for Boston University Concert Programs was supported by the Boston University Humanities Library Endowed Fund

Two choice African <i>Sansevierias: S. hargeisana</i> and <i>S. hallii</i>

Sansevieria hargeisana (from Somalia) and S. hallii (from Zimbabwe and probably elsewhere in SE Africa) are described and compared. Both are relatively slow growing and are therefore choice collectors' items. Both are exceptionally reluctant to flower. Both were described by the Sansevieria expert Juan Chahinian in the Sansevieria Journal (Chahinian 1994, 1996) and neither is especially common in cultivation, with S. hargeisana considered rare both in the wild and in cultivation