Visual tracking with online assessment and improved sampling strategy

The kernelized correlation filter (KCF) is one of the most successful trackers in computer vision today. However its performance may be significantly degraded in a wide range of challenging conditions such as occlusion and out of view. For many applications, particularly safety critical applications (e.g. autonomous driving), it is of profound importance to have consistent and reliable performance during all the operation conditions. This paper addresses this issue of the KCF based trackers by the introduction of two novel modules, namely online assessment of response map, and a strategy of combining cyclically shifted sampling with random sampling in deep feature space. A method of online assessment of response map is proposed to evaluate the tracking performance by constructing a 2-D Gaussian estimation model. Then a strategy of combining cyclically shifted sampling with random sampling in deep feature space is presented to improve the tracking performance when the tracking performance is assessed to be unreliable based on the response map. Therefore, the module of online assessment can be regarded as the trigger for the second module. Experiments verify the tracking performance is significantly improved particularly in challenging conditions as demonstrated by both quantitative and qualitative comparisons of the proposed tracking algorithm with the state-of-the-art tracking algorithms on OTB-2013 and OTB-2015 datasets

Design and management of lighting in modern workplace

Change is omnipresent in the modern workplace. Property and infrastructure inherited from the past is therefore increasingly constraint businesses and building users, and requires the provision of higher flexible arrangement to alleviate the impact of change on the workplace. Flexible measures for property and infrastructure usually requires a vast amount of capital investments. And greater emphasis is placed on the capital cost rather than operating cost. Consequently, innovative solutions for improving the degree of flexibility in the workplace and their long-term benefits to organisations and their employees are always overlooked. Space planning and management is a core competence of facility managers. The concept of flexibility has been widened in this respect in order to achieve an effective space utilisation. Reconciling with the changing space arrangement, flexible building services designs are also essential in the workplace. Although there are a number of flexible building services designs that have been extensively adopted in the modern workplace, the utilisation of flexible lighting system is standstill. Exceptionally high capital cost is the main reason that building owners and investors evade to innovate their obsolete lighting system. For many years, building owners and investors placed too much emphasis on the energy issue of the lighting system. As facility management is a profession that brings together a wide range of property- and user-related functions, facility managers should provide a strategic lighting system which can improve individual well-being and economic interest. Flexibility and manageability are also important issues on designing a strategic lighting system. Three lighting systems models are compared based upon a commercial building in terms of their physical, functional and financial performances. The two innovative lighting systems, C-Bus and Digital Addressable Lighting Interface (DALI) lighting management systems, are conspicuously superior to the conventional lighting system. With the use of these two innovative systems, both manageability and flexibility are significantly improved with desirable payback period. Furthermore, DALI system is the best choice that can maximally satisfy building owners, investors and building occupants. Facility managers, who have a sound management experience and knowledge, should participate in the briefing and design stages so as to establish a strategic lighting regime for the better management of lighting. To reduce constraints and open up opportunities, facility managers should inform the stringency of manageability and flexibility to the design process and meanwhile ensure that the clients and investors recognise this essentiality

The gas chromatograms of every treatment process effluents.

<p>The gas chromatograms of every treatment process effluents.</p

Rarefaction analysis of the different samples.

<p>a) Rarefaction curves are depicted at 3%, 5% and 10% dissimilarity level; b) Rank-abundances show pyrosequencing abundances of different samples.</p

Characteristics of the NFC taken from a petrochemical industry.

<p>Characteristics of the NFC taken from a petrochemical industry.</p

Schematic diagram of the UV/O₃-A/O integrated process.

<p>Schematic diagram of the UV/O₃-A/O integrated process.</p

Relative abundance of genera in Sample A and Sample O.

<p>The heatmap color-coded bar plot depicts the relative abundance of each sample. The relative abundance for microbial genera are indicated by color intensity from low (blue) to high (red) with the legend indicated at the bottom.</p

Microbial composition at the phylum and class level.

<p>Color-coded bar plot showing the microbial phylum relative abundance across Sample A and Sample O.</p

Table_3_Bidirectional associations between eosinophils, basophils, and lymphocytes with atopic dermatitis: A multivariable Mendelian randomization study.xlsx

BackgroundDespite being prone to reverse causation and having unmeasured confounding factors, many clinical observational studies have highlighted the critical association between basophils, eosinophils, and lymphocytes and atopic dermatitis (AD). Whether these cells play a causal role in AD development remains uncertain.MethodsData were obtained from the UK Biobank and the Blood Cell Consortium, from a large publicly available genome-wide association study (GWAS) with more than 500,000 subjects of European ancestry and for AD from three independent cohorts with more than 700,000 subjects of European ancestry. We performed single-variable Mendelian randomization (SVMR), followed by multivariable Mendelian randomization (MVMR) to assess the total and direct effects of immune cell counts on AD risk.ResultsSVMR estimates showed that genetically predicted higher eosinophil [odds ratio (OR): 1.23, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.17–1.29, p = 5.85E−16] and basophil counts (OR: 1.11, 95% CI: 1.03–1.19, p = 0.004) had an adverse effect on the risk of AD, while a higher lymphocyte count (OR: 0.93, 95% CI: 0.89–0.98, p = 0.006) decreased the risk. Reverse MR analysis showed higher basophil (beta: 0.04, 95% CI: 0.01–0.07, p = 0.014) and lower lymphocyte counts (beta: −0.05, 95% CI: −0.09 to −0.01, p = 0.021) in patients with AD. In MVMR, the effects of eosinophils (OR: 1.19, 95% CI: 1.09–1.29, p = 8.98E−05), basophils (OR: 1.19, 95% CI: 1.14–1.24, p = 3.72E−15), and lymphocytes (OR: 0.93, 95% CI: 0.89–0.98, p = 0.006) were still significant.DiscussionMendelian randomization (MR) findings suggest that an increase in the eosinophil and basophil counts and a decrease in the lymphocyte counts are potential causal risk factors for AD. These risk factors are independent of each other.</p

The performance of the integrated process.

<p>COD, TOC, ammonia nitrogen and TN removal efficiencies of the integrated process were shown in A), B), C) and D), respectively.</p