Joint Individual-Group Modeling for Tracking

We present a novel probabilistic framework that jointly models individuals and groups for tracking. Managing groups is challenging, primarily because of their nonlinear dynamics and complex layout which lead to repeated splitting and merging events. The proposed approach assumes a tight relation of mutual support between the modeling of individuals and groups, promoting the idea that groups are better modeled if individuals are considered and vice versa. This concept is translated in a mathematical model using a decentralized particle filtering framework which deals with a joint individual-group state space. The model factorizes the joint space into two dependent subspaces, where individuals and groups share the knowledge of the joint individual-group distribution. The assignment of people to the different groups (and thus group initialization, split and merge) is implemented by two alternative strategies: using classifiers trained beforehand on statistics of group configurations, and through online learning of a Dirichlet process mixture model, assuming that no training data is available before tracking. These strategies lead to two different methods that can be used on top of any person detector (simulated using the ground truth in our experiments). We provide convincing results on two recent challenging tracking benchmarks

Novice identification of melanoma:not quite as straightforward as the ABCDs

The “ABCD” mnemonic to assist non-experts’ diagnosis of melanoma is widely promoted; however, there are good reasons to be sceptical about public education strategies based on analytical, rule-based approaches – such as ABCD (i.e. Asymmetry, Border Irregularity, Colour Uniformity and Diameter). Evidence suggests that accurate diagnosis of skin lesions is achieved predominately through non-analytical pattern recognition (via training examples) and not by rule-based algorithms. If the ABCD are to function as a useful public education tool they must be used reliably by untrained novices, with low inter-observer and intra-diagnosis variation, but with maximal inter-diagnosis differences. The three subjective properties (the ABCs of the ABCD) were investigated experimentally: 33 laypersons scored 40 randomly selected lesions (10 lesions × 4 diagnoses: benign naevi, dysplastic naevi, melanomas, seborrhoeic keratoses) for the three properties on visual analogue scales. The results (n=3,960) suggest that novices cannot use the ABCs reliably to discern benign from malignant lesions

REducing INFectiOns thRough Cardiac device Envelope: insight from real world data. The REINFORCE Project

Background: Infections resulting from cardiac implantable electronic device (CIED) implantation are severely impacting on patients' and on health care systems. The use of TYRXTM absorbable antibiotic-eluting envelope has proven to decrease major CIED infections within 12 months of CIED surgery. Aims: to evaluate the impact of the envelope use on infection-related clinical events in a real-world contemporary patient population. Methods: Data on patients undergoing CIED surgery were collected prospectively by participating centers of the One Hospital ClinicalService project. Patients were divided into two groups according to whether TYRXTM absorbable antibiotic-eluting envelope was used or not. Results: Out of 1819 patients, 872 (47.9%) were implanted with an absorbable antibiotic-eluting envelope and included in the Envelope group and 947 (52.1%) patients who did not receive an envelope were included in the Control group. Compared to control, patients in the Envelope group had higher thrombo-embolic or hemorrhagic risk, higher BMI, lower LVEF and more comorbidities. During a mean follow-up of 1.4 years, the incidence of infection-related events was significantly higher in the control compared to the Envelope group (2.4% vs 0.8%, p = 0.007). The 5-year cumulative incidence of infection-related events was 8.1% in the control and 2.1% in the Envelope group (HR: 0.34, 95%CI: 0.14-0.80, p = 0.010). Conclusions: In our analysis, the use of an absorbable antibiotic-eluting envelope in the general CIED population was associated with a lower risk of systemic and pocket infection

Overview on electrical issues faced during the SPIDER experimental campaigns

SPIDER is the full-scale prototype of the ion source of the ITER Heating Neutral Beam Injector, where negative ions of Hydrogen or Deuterium are produced by a RF generated plasma and accelerated with a set of grids up to ~100 keV. The Power Supply System is composed of high voltage dc power supplies capable of handling frequent grid breakdowns, high current dc generators for the magnetic filter field and RF generators for the plasma generation. During the first 3 years of SPIDER operation different electrical issues were discovered, understood and addressed thanks to deep analyses of the experimental results supported by modelling activities. The paper gives an overview on the observed phenomena and relevant analyses to understand them, on the effectiveness of the short-term modifications provided to SPIDER to face the encountered issues and on the design principle of long-term solutions to be introduced during the currently ongoing long shutdown.Comment: 8 pages, 12 figures. Presented at SOFT 202

Effectiveness of cardiac resynchronization therapy in heart failure patients with valvular heart disease: comparison with patients affected by ischaemic heart disease or dilated cardiomyopathy. The InSync/InSync ICD Italian Registry

AimsTo analyse the effectiveness of cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) in patients with valvular heart disease (a subset not specifically investigated in randomized controlled trials) in comparison with ischaemic heart disease or dilated cardiomyopathy patients.Methods and resultsPatients enrolled in a national registry were evaluated during a median follow-up of 16 months after CRT implant. Patients with valvular heart disease treated with CRT (n = 108) in comparison with ischaemic heart disease (n = 737) and dilated cardiomyopathy (n = 635) patients presented: (i) a higher prevalence of chronic atrial fibrillation, with atrioventricular node ablation performed in around half of the cases; (ii) a similar clinical and echocardiographic profile at baseline; (iii) a similar improvement of LVEF and a similar reduction in ventricular volumes at 6-12 months; (iv) a favourable clinical response at 12 months with an improvement of the clinical composite score similar to that occurring in patients with dilated cardiomyopathy and more pronounced than that observed in patients with ischaemic heart disease; (v) a long-term outcome, in term of freedom from death or heart transplantation, similar to patients affected by ischaemic heart disease and basically more severe than that of patients affected by dilated cardiomyopathy.ConclusionIn 'real world' clinical practice, CRT appears to be effective also in patients with valvular heart disease. However, in this group of patients the outcome after CRT does not precisely overlap any of the two other groups of patients, for which much more data are currently available

An informed decision-making tool to decarbonise the heating sector: comparison between centralised and decentralised heating technologies in the Holbæk municipality, Denmark

Nowadays, the growing efforts to provide a fossil-free society by 2050 are within the top priorities of European countries. Decarbonising energy-intensive sectors is the key towards a rapid reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. In particular, the residential heating sector is one of the major contributors to CO2 emissions and therefore is facing an increasing attractiveness for low-carbon heating technologies and energy efficiency measures. In this thesis, an innovative model that combines Geographic Information System (GIS) tools and energy systems optimisation is developed. The thesis aims at providing an effective methodology to place heat demand sources through spatial analysis for Danish Municipalities. Consequently, it investigates whether a urban area is more economically suitable for district heating (DH) or individual local heat generation. We choose Holbæk Municipality as case study for the GIS part. The results show that cities and villages are the greatest sources of heat, and the heat density is higher in these areas than in the countryside. The total residential heating demand for the Municipality is estimated to be around 520 GWh/year. The optimisation cost model, then, is focused on the village of Regstrup. We assess two scenarios: an individual heating scenario where all households are equipped with individual technologies and a district heating scenario that can supply the entire city heat demand. GIS potentialities allow to retrieve necessary data to establish the length of DH network pipes. The results reveal that individual heating is less expensive compared to DH, but the latter demonstrated to be a power system integration and flexibility enabler

Online Bayesian Non-parametrics for Social Group Detection

Group detection represents an emerging Computer Vision research topic, motivated by the increasing interest in the modelling of the social behaviour of people. This paper presents an unsupervised method for group detection which is based on an on-line inference process over Dirichlet Process Mixture Models. Formally, groups are modelled as components of an infinite mixture and individuals are seen as observations generated from them. A sequential variational framework allows to perform the inference in real-time, while social psychology constraints of proxemics ensure the production of proper group hypotheses, consistent with the human perception. The results obtained on different compare favorably with state-of-the-art approaches, setting the best performance in some of them