Video Registration in Egocentric Vision under Day and Night Illumination Changes

With the spread of wearable devices and head mounted cameras, a wide range of application requiring precise user localization is now possible. In this paper we propose to treat the problem of obtaining the user position with respect to a known environment as a video registration problem. Video registration, i.e. the task of aligning an input video sequence to a pre-built 3D model, relies on a matching process of local keypoints extracted on the query sequence to a 3D point cloud. The overall registration performance is strictly tied to the actual quality of this 2D-3D matching, and can degrade if environmental conditions such as steep changes in lighting like the ones between day and night occur. To effectively register an egocentric video sequence under these conditions, we propose to tackle the source of the problem: the matching process. To overcome the shortcomings of standard matching techniques, we introduce a novel embedding space that allows us to obtain robust matches by jointly taking into account local descriptors, their spatial arrangement and their temporal robustness. The proposal is evaluated using unconstrained egocentric video sequences both in terms of matching quality and resulting registration performance using different 3D models of historical landmarks. The results show that the proposed method can outperform state of the art registration algorithms, in particular when dealing with the challenges of night and day sequences

A new insight into the oxidative mechanism of caffeine and related methylxanthines in aprotic medium: May caffeine be really considered as an antioxidant?

Background: Antioxidant properties have been recently suggested for caffeine that seems showing protective effects against damages caused by oxidative stress. In particular, a HO% scavenging activity has been ascribed to caffeine. Even if the oxidation of caffeine has been widely studied, the antioxidant mechanism is still far to be understood. Methods: The electrochemical behavior of caffeine, theobromine and theophylline was studied in aprotic medium by cyclic voltammetry and electrolysis in UV–vis cell; a computational analysis of the molecular structures based on the Density Functional Theory was performed; the reactivity of all substrates towards lead dioxide, superoxide and galvinoxyl radical was followed by UV–vis spectrophotometry. Results: Results supported the mono-electronic oxidation of the C4]C5 bond for all substrates at high oxidation potentials, the electron-transfer process leading to a radical cation or a neutral radical according to the starting methylxanthine N7-substituted (caffeine and theobromine) or N7-unsubstituted (theophylline), respectively. A different following chemical fate might be predicted for the radical cation or the neutral radical. No interaction was evidenced towards the tested reactive oxygen species. Conclusions: No reactivity via H-atom transfer was evidenced for all studied compounds, suggesting that an antiradical activity should be excluded. Some reactivity only with strong oxidants could be predicted via electron- transfer. The acclaimed HO% scavenging activity should be interpreted in these terms. The study suggested that CAF might be hardly considered an antioxidant. General significance: Beyond the experimental methods used, the discussion of the present results might provide food for thought to the wide audience working on antioxidants

BUSCA: An integrative web server to predict subcellular localization of proteins

Here, we present BUSCA (http://busca.biocomp.unibo.it), a novel web server that integrates different computational tools for predicting protein subcellular localization. BUSCA combines methods for identifying signal and transit peptides (DeepSig and TPpred3), GPI-anchors (PredGPI) and transmembrane domains (ENSEMBLE3.0 and BetAware) with tools for discriminating subcellular localization of both globular and membrane proteins (BaCelLo, MemLoci and SChloro). Outcomes from the different tools are processed and integrated for annotating subcellular localization of both eukaryotic and bacterial protein sequences. We benchmark BUSCA against protein targets derived from recent CAFA experiments and other specific data sets, reporting performance at the state-of-the-art. BUSCA scores better than all other evaluated methods on 2732 targets from CAFA2, with a F1 value equal to 0.49 and among the best methods when predicting targets from CAFA3. We propose BUSCA as an integrated and accurate resource for the annotation of protein subcellular localization

HyperSpectral Imaging based approach for monitoring of micro-plastics from marine environment

The possibility to develop a sensor based procedure in order to monitor plastic presence in the marine environment was explored in this work. More in detail, this study was addressed to detect and to recognize different types of microplastics coming from sampling in different sea areas adopting a new approach, based on HyperSpectral Imaging (HSI) sensors. Moreover, a morphological and morphometrical particle characterization was carried by digital image processing. Morphological and morphometrical parameters, combined with hyperspectral imaging information, give a full characterization of each investigated particle, concurring to explain all the transportation, alteration and degradation phenomena suffered by each different polymer particle. Obtained results can represent an important starting point to develop, implement and set up monitor strategies to characterize marine microplastics. Moreover, the procedure developed in this work is fast, not expensive and reliable, making its utilization very profitable

The Biophilic Quality Index. A Tool to Improve a Building from “Green” to Restorative.

Despite the name, current “green” architecture pays exclusive attention to being environmental friendly rather than being biophilic as well. Disregarding Nature in design is not just a matter of aesthetics but concerns also the quality of people’s lives. In order to achieve this, there is a need for a paradigm shift from “green” to “restorative” in order to really accomplish biophilic design. In the light of our experience in Human-Environment research we have devised the Biophilic Quality Index (BQI), a reliable instrument that allows us to calculate to what extent a building is biophilic. The rationale behind the BQI is simple: Biophilia is innate and affects attention through a proper operationalization of restorativeness and biophilic design is good when it enhances a restorative environment. The BQI can be used both as a guide to follow for a building-to-be, and as a rating system for an existing building, where the final score represents the space for improvement. The BQI will help architects integrate Nature in design and promote understanding that to plan restorative environments is not only an aesthetic need but a necessity for human’s efficient cognitive functioning

Mindful silence produces long lasting attentional performance in children

Biophilia is affected by the ability to focus on natural stimuli effortlessly, actually to be fascinated by Nature. Exposure to natural environments allows one's directed attention to rest and to restore from a state of mental fatigue. As we have reliably demonstrated in a precedent study (Visions for Sustainability 1, 31-38) mindfulness meditation is an effective intervention that improves children sustained attention through Active Silence Training (AST), a mindfulness-based educational proposal specifically tailored for children of primary school age. The AST is made up of Cooperative Play and Mindful Silence, namely activities to engage children’s involuntary attention. This study investigated which component of AST (i.e. Cooperative Play or Mindful Silence) was more effective in improving children’s attention. In a mixed research study 72 children (9-11 years) of a primary school in Aosta (Italy) were randomly assigned to one of three different training: i) Mindful Silence only, ii) Cooperative Play only, iii) both Cooperative Play and Mindful Silence, the original AST. At four time-points, sustained attention and physiological parameters were assessed. Results didn’t show any change in physiological parameters whereas it emerged that Mindful Silence training alone produced greater and longer-lasting improvements in children’s sustained attention than Cooperative Play or Play and Silence; Cooperative Play produced immediate but short-lasting changes. Mindful Silence training was identified as being able to improve children attentional capacities and an effective tool for stimulating biophilia

Il restauro dei dipinti "olio su tela"

none3Il testo condensa la lunga ed eterogenea attività didattica relativa all’argomento, innanzitutto quella svolta dai tre autori, a vario titolo, presso l’Università di Bologna. Molte affermazioni, cos’ come tutta l’iconografia, derivano direttamente dalla poliedrica e trentennale attività dello “Studio di Restauro G.M.Costanini”. nel tempo, cambiano i materiali e le tecniche di restauro, ma ciò che dovrebbe rimanere saldo per chi è coinvolto in problemi di restauro è la capacità di una lettura sistematica dell’opera d’arte e del suo stato di conservazione e la possibilità di elaborare o valutare gli interventi adatti per rallentare l’inevitabile degrado dei materiali. Per queste ragioni, tutto quello che qui riguarda direttamente i dipinti olio su tela, nella sua articolazione e sistemazione, risulta certamente proficuo anche nell’approccio al restauro di altre categorie di opere d’arte.noneCostantini G.M.; Costato Costantini R.; Fiori C.Costantini G.M.; Costato Costantini R.; Fiori C

Malignant Fibrous Histiocytoma of the Kidney Treated with Nephrectomy and Adjuvant Radiotherapy: A Case Report

Malignant fibrous histiocytoma (MFH) usually presents in the extremities or retroperitoneum. Cases involving the kidney are rare and portend a poor prognosis. Although radical nephrectomy is the most beneficial curative choice for this neoplasm, patients are often treated with adjuvant chemotherapy due to high risk of local recurrence and distant metastases. We describe a case of a 68-year-old woman affected by MFH, treated with both nephrectomy and radiotherapy without systemic therapy showing an unexpected twenty-four-month postsurgery survival outcome

Butterfly's wings. Women entrance into the labor market.

The entrance of young people in the labour market at older ages than in the past is correlated to the increased trend in education. Both these changes, the delay in entrances and the increase in the number of years spent at school, are much more marked in the case of women. One additional school year has a larger return in the case of women than in the case of men as a better education is associated with the possible choice of a job ‘nice, clean and respectable’, and this is more relevant for women than for men, in particular in the Veneto small firms milieu, and because education performs an ‘insurance’ role which palys a major role in the case of women. The study is based on a longitudinal panel built on the Italian Social Security Archives of employees in the two provinces of Treviso and Vicenza from 1975 to 1997. Such a huge set of data allows the study of first entrances of young people in the labour market. First entrances are studied for age and year of birth cohorts and are meaningfully correlated with parameters relative to the enrollment trend in primary and secondary education. The different gender behaviour is underlined and discussed.Labor market, Young women

Egocentric Video Summarization of Cultural Tour based on User Preferences

In this paper, we propose a new method to obtain customized video summarization according to specific user preferences. Our approach is tailored on Cultural Heritage scenario and is designed on identifying candidate shots, selecting from the original streams only the scenes with behavior patterns related to the presence of relevant experiences, and further filtering them in order to obtain a summary matching the requested user's preferences. Our preliminary results show that the proposed approach is able to leverage user's preferences in order to obtain a customized summary, so that different users may extract from the same stream different summaries