Hybrid Focal Stereo Networks for Pattern Analysis in Homogeneous Scenes

In this paper we address the problem of multiple camera calibration in the presence of a homogeneous scene, and without the possibility of employing calibration object based methods. The proposed solution exploits salient features present in a larger field of view, but instead of employing active vision we replace the cameras with stereo rigs featuring a long focal analysis camera, as well as a short focal registration camera. Thus, we are able to propose an accurate solution which does not require intrinsic variation models as in the case of zooming cameras. Moreover, the availability of the two views simultaneously in each rig allows for pose re-estimation between rigs as often as necessary. The algorithm has been successfully validated in an indoor setting, as well as on a difficult scene featuring a highly dense pilgrim crowd in Makkah.Comment: 13 pages, 6 figures, submitted to Machine Vision and Application

Promoting Active Living in Rural Communities

This brief summarizes current research on elements of the rural built environment that may be related to obesity or physical activity. Much of this research is qualitative in nature, including evidence and conclusions drawn from rural focus groups, PhotoVoice studies, policy statements, observations from the field, and lessons learned from rural active living interventions

Autocalibration with the Minimum Number of Cameras with Known Pixel Shape

In 3D reconstruction, the recovery of the calibration parameters of the cameras is paramount since it provides metric information about the observed scene, e.g., measures of angles and ratios of distances. Autocalibration enables the estimation of the camera parameters without using a calibration device, but by enforcing simple constraints on the camera parameters. In the absence of information about the internal camera parameters such as the focal length and the principal point, the knowledge of the camera pixel shape is usually the only available constraint. Given a projective reconstruction of a rigid scene, we address the problem of the autocalibration of a minimal set of cameras with known pixel shape and otherwise arbitrarily varying intrinsic and extrinsic parameters. We propose an algorithm that only requires 5 cameras (the theoretical minimum), thus halving the number of cameras required by previous algorithms based on the same constraint. To this purpose, we introduce as our basic geometric tool the six-line conic variety (SLCV), consisting in the set of planes intersecting six given lines of 3D space in points of a conic. We show that the set of solutions of the Euclidean upgrading problem for three cameras with known pixel shape can be parameterized in a computationally efficient way. This parameterization is then used to solve autocalibration from five or more cameras, reducing the three-dimensional search space to a two-dimensional one. We provide experiments with real images showing the good performance of the technique.Comment: 19 pages, 14 figures, 7 tables, J. Math. Imaging Vi

Common Practices of Australian Speech-Language Pathologists in the Management of Paediatric Vocal Health

Speech-Language Pathology Session IBConference Theme: Care of the Professional VoiceObjective: This study aimed to determine the common approaches taken by Australian speech language pathologists (SLPs) in the management of paediatric voice caseloads. Methods & Results: Forty-eight Australian SLPs with a current paediatric voice caseload completed an online questionnaire containing 38-items related to assessment, treatment and discharge procedures used in managing a paediatric voice caseload. Paediatric voice comprised between 1-100% of the respondents’ caseloads (M = 8.27%, SD = 17.71). Eight respondents (16.6%) considered themselves to be a voice specialist. Perceptual ratings of voice disorders were used more frequently than instrumental assessment tools throughout the management process. Respondents considered instrumental assessment by an Ear Nose and Throat (ENT) specialist to be important however reported barriers related to ENT service constraints (e.g., ENT availability and long waiting lists) and the associated cost to the client. A range of direct and indirect voice therapy approaches (often in combination) were employed by the respondents, usually determined by client specific factors. Respondents reported that it was more common for patients to be formally discharged (M= 42.32%; SD=41.1) than to self-discharge (M=24.71%; SD=31.78). The most commonly used outcome measures were clinician judgement, pre/post voice recording comparison, and review of results from a follow-up ENT assessment. Quality of life scales were rarely used as outcome measures. The majority of clinicians (56.25%, n = 27/48) indicated that they did not feel confident when managing children with voice disorders, and would welcome further training in the area. Conclusion: This investigation captured current practice of Australian SLPs managing paediatric voice caseloads. This data allows for comparison with management approaches in other countries. The findings highlight a need for further training in this area, particularly to enhance translation of recent research evidence into clinical practice.published_or_final_versio

Phase I study of TP300 in patients with advanced solid tumors with pharmacokinetic, pharmacogenetic and pharmacodynamic analyses

Background: A Phase I dose escalation first in man study assessed maximum tolerated dose (MTD), dose-limiting toxicity (DLT) and recommended Phase II dose of TP300, a water soluble prodrug of the Topo-1 inhibitor TP3076, and active metabolite, TP3011. <p/>Methods: Eligible patients with refractory advanced solid tumors, adequate performance status, haematologic, renal, and hepatic function. TP300 was given as a 1-hour i.v. infusion 3-weekly and pharmacokinetic (PK) profiles of TP300, TP3076 and TP3011 were analysed. Polymorphisms in CYP2D6, AOX1 and UGT1A1 were studied and DNA strand-breaks measured in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs). <p/>Results: 32 patients received TP300 at 1, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12 mg/m2. MTD was 10 mg/m2; DLTs at 12 (2/4 patients) and 10 mg/m2 (3/12) included thrombocytopenia and febrile neutropenia; diarrhea was uncommon. Six patients (five had received irinotecan), had stable disease for 1.5-5 months. TP3076 showed dose proportionality in AUC and Cmax from 1--10 mg/m2. Genetic polymorphisms had no apparent influence on exposure. DNA strand-breaks were detected after TP300 infusion. <p/>Conclusions: TP300 had predictable hematologic toxicity, and diarrhea was uncommon. AUC at MTD is substantially greater than for SN38. TP3076 and TP3011 are equi-potent with SN38, suggesting a PK advantage

High fluxes of deep volatiles from ocean island volcanoes: Insights from El Hierro, Canary Islands

Basaltic volcanism contributes significant fluxes of volatiles (CO2, H2O, S, F, Cl) to the Earth’s surface environment. Quantifying volatile fluxes requires initial melt volatile concentrations to be determined, which can be accessed through crystal-hosted melt inclusions. However, melt inclusions in volatile-rich mafic alkaline basalts, such as those erupted at ocean islands, often trap partially degassed melts, meaning that magmatic volatile fluxes from these tectonic settings are often significantly underestimated. We have measured major, trace element and volatile concentrations in melt inclusions from a series of young (<20 ka) basanites from El Hierro, Canary Islands. Our melt inclusions show some of the highest CO2 (up to 3600 ppm) and S (up to 4290 ppm) concentrations measured in ocean island basalts to date, in agreement with data from the recent 2011-2012 eruption. Volatile enrichment is observed in melt inclusions with crystallisation-controlled major element compositions and highly variable trace element ratios such as La/Yb. We use volatile-trace element ratios to calculate original magmatic CO2 contents up to 4.2 wt%, which indicates at least 65% of the original CO2 was degassed prior to melt inclusion trapping. The trace element contents and ratios of El Hierro magmas are best reproduced by 1-8% partial melting of a garnet lherzolite mantle source. Our projected CO2 (200-680 ppm) and S (265-450 ppm) concentrations for the source are consistent with upper estimates for primitive mantle. However, El Hierro magmas have elevated F/Nd and F/Cl in comparison with melts from a primitive mantle, indicating that the mantle must also contain a component enriched in F and other volatiles, most probably recycled oceanic lithosphere. Our modelled original magmatic CO2 contents indicates that, per mass unit, volatile fluxes from El Hierro magmas are up to two orders of magnitude greater than from typical mid-ocean ridge basalts and 1.5 to 7 times greater than from recent Icelandic eruptions, indicating large variability in the primary volatile content of magmas formed in di fferent geodynamic settings, or even within di fferent ocean islands. Our results highlight the importance of characterising mantle heterogeneity in order to accurately constrain both short- and long-term magmatic volatile emissions and fluxes from ocean island volcanoes.NERC studentship NE/L002469/1 NERC grant 526 IMF600/101

Rectification from Radially-Distorted Scales

This paper introduces the first minimal solvers that jointly estimate lens distortion and affine rectification from repetitions of rigidly transformed coplanar local features. The proposed solvers incorporate lens distortion into the camera model and extend accurate rectification to wide-angle images that contain nearly any type of coplanar repeated content. We demonstrate a principled approach to generating stable minimal solvers by the Grobner basis method, which is accomplished by sampling feasible monomial bases to maximize numerical stability. Synthetic and real-image experiments confirm that the solvers give accurate rectifications from noisy measurements when used in a RANSAC-based estimator. The proposed solvers demonstrate superior robustness to noise compared to the state-of-the-art. The solvers work on scenes without straight lines and, in general, relax the strong assumptions on scene content made by the state-of-the-art. Accurate rectifications on imagery that was taken with narrow focal length to near fish-eye lenses demonstrate the wide applicability of the proposed method. The method is fully automated, and the code is publicly available at https://github.com/prittjam/repeats.Comment: pre-prin

Mitochondrial superoxide generation induces a parkinsonian phenotype in zebrafish and huntingtin aggregation in human cells.

Superoxide generation by mitochondria respiratory complexes is a major source of reactive oxygen species (ROS) which are capable of initiating redox signaling and oxidative damage. Current understanding of the role of mitochondrial ROS in health and disease has been limited by the lack of experimental strategies to selectively induce mitochondrial superoxide production. The recently-developed mitochondria-targeted redox cycler MitoParaquat (MitoPQ) overcomes this limitation, and has proven effective in vitro and in Drosophila. Here we present an in vivo study of MitoPQ in the vertebrate zebrafish model in the context of Parkinson's disease (PD), and in a human cell model of Huntington's disease (HD). We show that MitoPQ is 100-fold more potent than non-targeted paraquat in both cells and in zebrafish in vivo. Treatment with MitoPQ induced a parkinsonian phenotype in zebrafish larvae, with decreased sensorimotor reflexes, spontaneous movement and brain tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) levels, without detectable effects on heart rate or atrioventricular coordination. Motor phenotypes and TH levels were partly rescued with antioxidant or monoaminergic potentiation strategies. In a HD cell model, MitoPQ promoted mutant huntingtin aggregation without increasing cell death, contrasting with the complex I inhibitor rotenone that increased death in cells expressing either wild-type or mutant huntingtin. These results show that MitoPQ is a valuable tool for cellular and in vivo studies of the role of mitochondrial superoxide generation in redox biology, and as a trigger or co-stressor to model metabolic and neurodegenerative disease phenotypes

Joint Optical Flow and Temporally Consistent Semantic Segmentation

The importance and demands of visual scene understanding have been steadily increasing along with the active development of autonomous systems. Consequently, there has been a large amount of research dedicated to semantic segmentation and dense motion estimation. In this paper, we propose a method for jointly estimating optical flow and temporally consistent semantic segmentation, which closely connects these two problem domains and leverages each other. Semantic segmentation provides information on plausible physical motion to its associated pixels, and accurate pixel-level temporal correspondences enhance the accuracy of semantic segmentation in the temporal domain. We demonstrate the benefits of our approach on the KITTI benchmark, where we observe performance gains for flow and segmentation. We achieve state-of-the-art optical flow results, and outperform all published algorithms by a large margin on challenging, but crucial dynamic objects.Comment: 14 pages, Accepted for CVRSUAD workshop at ECCV 201

Active Living for Rural Youth [Policy Brief]

Childhood obesity and inactivity are significant and growing problems in many rural areas where the prevalence of obesity and overweight has been shown to be 25 percent higher than urban rates, even after controlling for income, race, physical activity and other known risk factors. While rural areas are often viewed as an ideal setting for an active childhood, kids face a variety of obstacles to incorporating physical activity in their daily lives. Active living research to date has focused largely on urban and suburban environments. This study investigates the complex web of determinants that support or undermine physical activity in rural youth. We visited three very different small Maine towns (Waldoboro, Dover-Foxcroft and Houlton), where we led youth focus groups and interviewed key informants including rural town planners, school personnel, recreation directors and parents. We also conducted townscape surveys of the physical characteristics of each community. Obesity and inactivity have roots in many aspects of rural life, from the physical environment, to social, policy and programmatic factors