Cascaded Segmentation-Detection Networks for Word-Level Text Spotting

We introduce an algorithm for word-level text spotting that is able to accurately and reliably determine the bounding regions of individual words of text "in the wild". Our system is formed by the cascade of two convolutional neural networks. The first network is fully convolutional and is in charge of detecting areas containing text. This results in a very reliable but possibly inaccurate segmentation of the input image. The second network (inspired by the popular YOLO architecture) analyzes each segment produced in the first stage, and predicts oriented rectangular regions containing individual words. No post-processing (e.g. text line grouping) is necessary. With execution time of 450 ms for a 1000-by-560 image on a Titan X GPU, our system achieves the highest score to date among published algorithms on the ICDAR 2015 Incidental Scene Text dataset benchmark.Comment: 7 pages, 8 figure

Un militante antifascista in Tunisia: Velio Spano a Tunisi

Nella lunga e ricca storia dei rapporti intercorsi fra italiani e tunisini, un periodo di particolare interesse è quello fra la metà degli anni ’30 del XX secolo e la fine della seconda guerra mondiale, quando decine e decine di oppositori politici al regime fascista trovarono rifugio in Tunisia e organizzarono lì una rete di lotta. Il contesto in cui si trovarono a vivere e operare era quello di una Tunisia protettorato francese, già scossa da forti fermenti anticoloniali e nazionalistici (nel 1934 Habib Burghiba fonda il partito del Neo-Destur), ed il ruolo che gli italiani svolsero fu non irrilevante, sia nel settore della stampa (e della stampa di sinistra in particolare) sia nelle organizzazioni politiche e sindacali locali. In questo contesto il mio intervento si focalizzerà sulla figura di Velio Spano, nato a Teulada in Sardegna nel 1905, espatriato clandestinamente in Francia, dove entrò nell’apparato esteri del PCI, poi condannato a sei anni di reclusione dal Tribunale speciale fascista, successivamente inviato dal partito comunista in Tunisia per organizzare la resistenza. Qui rimase cinque anni, sfuggendo a ben due condanne a morte da parte dei nazisti. Proprio in Tunisia, nel 1939, sposò Nadia Gallico, che come lui farà parte della Costituente. Il rapporto fra gli italiani e francesi che operavano per il PCF e il PCI e i nazionalisti tunisini non fu sempre idilliaco, ma l’incontro fra le diverse sensibilità fu assolutamente fecondo per gli uni e per gli altri. Ne è testimonianza il fatto che nel 1941 Velio Spano riorganizzò il Partito Comunista Tunisino divenendone di fatto il principale dirigente.In the long and rich history of ongoing relations between Italian and Tunisian people, a period of particular interest is that between the mid-30s of the twentieth century and the end of World War II, when dozens of political opponents of the fascist regime found shelter in Tunisia and they organized there a fight network. The context in which they found themselves to live and work was the French protectorate. Tunis ia was already shaken by strong anti-colonial and nationalist ferment (Habib Bourguiba in 1934 founded the Neo-Destour Party), and the role that Italians had in that period was not irrelevant, in the press (and the Left press in particular) in the political organizations and the local trade unions. In this context, my essay will focus on the figure of Velio Spano, b orn in 1905 in Teulada, in Sardinia, clandestinely fled to France, where he entered in the foreign apparatus of PCI. Sentenced to six years' imprisonment by the Special Fascist Cour t, subsequently sent in Tunisia from the Communist party to organize the resistance. He has been living in Tunisi for five years, escaping two death sentences by the Nazis. In Tunis ia, in 1939, he married Nadia Gallico (who, like him, will be a member of the Constituent Assembly in Italy in 1946). The relationship between Italians and French who worked for the PCF and the PCI and the Tunisian nationalists was not always idyllic, but the contacts among the various sensibilities were very fruitful. This is attested by the fact that in 1941 Velio Spano reorganized the Tunisian Communist Party and became actually its main leader

Finding Your Way Back: Comparing Path Odometry Algorithms for Assisted Return.

We present a comparative analysis of inertial-based odometry algorithms for the purpose of assisted return. An assisted return system facilitates backtracking of a path previously taken, and can be particularly useful for blind pedestrians. We present a new algorithm for path matching, and test it in simulated assisted return tasks with data from WeAllWalk, the only existing data set with inertial data recorded from blind walkers. We consider two odometry systems, one based on deep learning (RoNIN), and the second based on robust turn detection and step counting. Our results show that the best path matching results are obtained using the turns/steps odometry system

Annotation-based meta-analysis of microarray experiments

We are developing software applications to perform meta-analysis of microarray experiments based on standardized experiment annotations aiming to identify similar experiments and cluster experiments. The applications were tested on files obtained from the ArrayExpress public repository. Annotation terms were used to compute experiment dissimilarities to find experiments related to a query experiment. These applications may motivate efforts of bench biologists to better annotate experiments