Detecting the Unexpected via Image Resynthesis

Classical semantic segmentation methods, including the recent deep learning ones, assume that all classes observed at test time have been seen during training. In this paper, we tackle the more realistic scenario where unexpected objects of unknown classes can appear at test time. The main trends in this area either leverage the notion of prediction uncertainty to flag the regions with low confidence as unknown, or rely on autoencoders and highlight poorly-decoded regions. Having observed that, in both cases, the detected regions typically do not correspond to unexpected objects, in this paper, we introduce a drastically different strategy: It relies on the intuition that the network will produce spurious labels in regions depicting unexpected objects. Therefore, resynthesizing the image from the resulting semantic map will yield significant appearance differences with respect to the input image. In other words, we translate the problem of detecting unknown classes to one of identifying poorly-resynthesized image regions. We show that this outperforms both uncertainty- and autoencoder-based methods

Power Angle Control Scheme for Integration of UPQC in Grid Connected PV System

The quality of electric power is greatly affected by the proliferation of non-linear loads in electrical energy processing applications like switched mode power supplies, electric motor drives, battery chargers, etc., The custom power devices like UPQC has gained more importance in power quality arena as it gives the best solution for all power quality issues. UPQC is the combination of both shunt and series active power filters connected through a common DC link capacitor. The shunt active power filter is the most corrective measure to remove the current related problems, power factor improvement by supplying reactive power and regulates DC link voltage. The series APF acts as controlled voltage source and corrects voltage related problems, like sag or swell, flickering, harmonics, etc.,. As a combination of both of these, UPQC improves service reliability. In the present work, shunt inverter control is based on modified active- reactive (p-q) power theory, uses High selectivity filter (HSF) for reference current generation. The series APF uses Power Angle Control (PAC) scheme for compensating sag/swell, interruption and voltage related problems along with sharing a part of load reactive power demand with shunt APF and thus ease its loading and makes the utilization of UPQC to be optimal. The topology uses three phase three leg inverters for both shunt APF and series APF. The gating signals were generated using Hysteresis controller. The output of High step-Up DC-DC Converter is used to work as DC voltage source for both APFs. The input voltage for the converter is provided by Photo Voltaic array incorporated with P&O MPPT technique. The use of high step-up DC-DC converter is for high voltage gain with better efficiency. The present topology avoids the PLL in shunt active power filter. The simulation results are presented to show the effectiveness of the three phase, three-wire PV-UPQC and here obtained an acceptable THD for source current and kept load voltag

Studies on the stability of plasma proteins and their fragments

“The stability of a protein-based biological drug is an important concern during processing, storage or patient administration. There are various forces which contribute to the stabilizing of proteins. Both hydrogen bonds and hydrophobic interactions play an important role in protein stability. Improper folding or misfolding of proteins leads to aggregation, which is a major problem found in the bioprocessing industry. The objectives of this research are: 1) to determine the effect of environmental factors such as pH, temperature, additives or salts, and cosolvents on the stability human serum albumin (HAS), which is the most abundant protein in plasma, 2) to determine the effect of environmental factors on the propensity to aggregate of insulin fragments, and 3) to determine the effect of post-translational modifications such as glycosylation on the propensity to aggregate of insulin fragments. Small-Angle Neutron Scattering (SANS) was used to explore the effect of environmental factors on the intra and inter molecular interactions of HSA. The effect of cosolvents, pH and temperature on the protein conformation and on protein-protein interactions was explored. The propensity to aggregate, particularly the propensity to form amyloid fibrils of the region of the insulin A-chain (where amino acid sequence for bovine and human insulins is different) was then studied. Aggregation was monitored by fluorescence and infrared spectroscopy and optical microscopy. Both fragments formed fibrils at pH 1.6 and a temperature of 60°C. These peptides were glycosylated with D-glucose by the Maillard reaction to increase their stability. Glycosylated peptides were highly stable and they did not show signs of fibril formation during the course of the experiment”--Abstract, page iv

Charge collection mechanisms in a sub-micron grated MSM photodector: field analysis

The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file.Title from title screen of research.pdf file viewed on (July 14, 2006)Includes bibliographical references.Thesis (M.S.) University of Missouri-Columbia 2005.Dissertations, Academic -- University of Missouri--Columbia -- Electrical engineering.Enhanced charge collection mechanisms due to sub-micron wall-like silicon structures on the active surface of a metal-semiconductor-metal (MSM) photodetector were studied through the analysis of transmitted electromagnetic energy with and without the structural changes. Analysis shows that rearranging the walls to a square lattice (cubic or rectangular shaped structures) could improve the charge collection efficiency further. Further studies were done to show that there exists a certain critical percentage of the area covered by the gratings over the detector after which the charge collection efficiency starts to decrease