2,345 research outputs found
Unsupervised Segmentation of Action Segments in Egocentric Videos using Gaze
Unsupervised segmentation of action segments in egocentric videos is a
desirable feature in tasks such as activity recognition and content-based video
retrieval. Reducing the search space into a finite set of action segments
facilitates a faster and less noisy matching. However, there exist a
substantial gap in machine understanding of natural temporal cuts during a
continuous human activity. This work reports on a novel gaze-based approach for
segmenting action segments in videos captured using an egocentric camera. Gaze
is used to locate the region-of-interest inside a frame. By tracking two simple
motion-based parameters inside successive regions-of-interest, we discover a
finite set of temporal cuts. We present several results using combinations (of
the two parameters) on a dataset, i.e., BRISGAZE-ACTIONS. The dataset contains
egocentric videos depicting several daily-living activities. The quality of the
temporal cuts is further improved by implementing two entropy measures.Comment: To appear in 2017 IEEE International Conference On Signal and Image
Processing Application
Observation of vortex dipoles in an oblate Bose-Einstein condensate
We report experimental observations and numerical simulations of the
formation, dynamics, and lifetimes of single and multiply charged quantized
vortex dipoles in highly oblate dilute-gas Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs). We
nucleate pairs of vortices of opposite charge (vortex dipoles) by forcing
superfluid flow around a repulsive gaussian obstacle within the BEC. By
controlling the flow velocity we determine the critical velocity for the
nucleation of a single vortex dipole, with excellent agreement between
experimental and numerical results. We present measurements of vortex dipole
dynamics, finding that the vortex cores of opposite charge can exist for many
seconds and that annihilation is inhibited in our highly oblate trap geometry.
For sufficiently rapid flow velocities we find that clusters of like-charge
vortices aggregate into long-lived dipolar flow structures.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, 1 EPAPS fil
A Systematic Review of Mathematical Models of Dengue Transmission and Vector Control: 2010–2020
Vector control methods are considered effective in averting dengue transmission. However, several factors may modify their impact. Of these controls, chemical methods, in the long run, may increase mosquitoes’ resistance to chemicides, thereby decreasing control efficacy. The biological methods, which may be self-sustaining and very effective, could be hampered by seasonality or heatwaves (resulting in, e.g., loss of Wolbachia infection). The environmental methods that could be more effective than the chemical methods are under-investigated. In this study, a systematic review is conducted to explore the present understanding of the effectiveness of vector control approaches via dengue transmission models
Transmit power policies for stochastic stabilisation of multi-link wireless networked control systems
Transmit power control is one of the most important issues in wireless
networks, where nodes typically operate on limited battery power. Reducing
communicating power consumption is essential for both economic and ecologic
reasons. In fact, transmitting at unnecessarily high power not only reduces
node lifetime, but also introduces excessive interference and electromagnetic
pollution. Existing work in the wireless community mostly focus on designing
transmit power policies by taking into account communication aspects like
quality of service or network capacity. Wireless networked control systems
(WNCSs), on the other hand, have different and specific needs such as
stability, which require transmit power policies adapted to the control
context. Transmit power design in the control community has recently attracted
much attention, and available works mostly consider linear systems or specific
classes of non-linear systems with a single-link view of the system. In this
paper, we propose a framework for the design of stabilising transmit power
levels that applies to much larger classes of non-linear plants, controllers,
and multi-link setting. By exploiting the fact that channel success
probabilities are related to transmit power in a non-linear fashion, we first
derive closed-loop stability conditions that relate channel probabilities with
transmission rate. Next, we combine these results together with well-known and
realistic interference models to provide a design methodology for stabilising
transmit power in non-linear and multi-link WNCSs.Comment: 18 pages, 3 figure
Modelling the ecological dynamics of mosquito populations with multiple co-circulating Wolbachia strains
Wolbachia intracellular bacteria successfully reduce the transmissibility of arthropod-borne viruses (arboviruses) when introduced into virus-carrying vectors such as mosquitoes. Despite the progress made by introducing Wolbachia bacteria into the Aedes aegypti wild-type population to control arboviral infections, reports suggest that heat-induced loss-of-Wolbachia-infection as a result of climate change may reverse these gains. Novel, supplemental Wolbachia strains that are more resilient to increased temperatures may circumvent these concerns, and could potentially act synergistically with existing variants. In this article, we model the ecological dynamics among three distinct mosquito (sub)populations: a wild-type population free of any Wolbachia infection; an invading population infected with a particular Wolbachia strain; and a second invading population infected with a distinct Wolbachia strain from that of the first invader. We explore how the range of possible characteristics of each Wolbachia strain impacts mosquito prevalence. Further, we analyse the differential system governing the mosquito populations and the Wolbachia infection dynamics by computing the full set of basic and invasive reproduction numbers and use these to establish stability of identified equilibria. Our results show that releasing mosquitoes with two different strains of Wolbachia did not increase their prevalence, compared with a single-strain Wolbachia-infected mosquito introduction and only delayed Wolbachia dominance
Superconductivity in a Hubbard-Froehlich Model and in cuprates
Using the variational Monte-Carlo method we find that a relatively weak
long-range electron-phonon interaction induces a d-wave superconducting state
of doped Mott-Hubbard insulators and/or strongly-correlated metals with a
condensation energy significantly larger than can be obtained with Coulomb
repulsion only. Moreover, the superconductivity is shown to exist for infinite
on-site Coulomb repulsion, removing the requirement for additional mechanisms
such as spin fluctuations to mediate d-wave superconductivity. We argue that
the superconducting state is robust with respect to a more intricate choice of
the trial function and that the true origin of high-temperature
superconductivity lies in a proper combination of strong electron-electron
correlations with poorly screened Froehlich electron-phonon interaction.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Superlight small bipolarons
Recent angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) has identified that
a finite-range Fr\"ohlich electron-phonon interaction (EPI) with c-axis
polarized optical phonons is important in cuprate superconductors, in agreement
with an earlier proposal by Alexandrov and Kornilovitch. The estimated
unscreened EPI is so strong that it could easily transform doped holes into
mobile lattice bipolarons in narrow-band Mott insulators such as cuprates.
Applying a continuous-time quantum Monte-Carlo algorithm (CTQMC) we compute the
total energy, effective mass, pair radius, number of phonons and isotope
exponent of lattice bipolarons in the region of parameters where any
approximation might fail taking into account the Coulomb repulsion and the
finite-range EPI. The effects of modifying the interaction range and different
lattice geometries are discussed with regards to analytical
strong-coupling/non-adiabatic results. We demonstrate that bipolarons can be
simultaneously small and light, provided suitable conditions on the
electron-phonon and electron-electron interaction are satisfied. Such light
small bipolarons are a necessary precursor to high-temperature Bose-Einstein
condensation in solids. The light bipolaron mass is shown to be universal in
systems made of triangular plaquettes, due to a novel crab-like motion. Another
surprising result is that the triplet-singlet exchange energy is of the first
order in the hopping integral and triplet bipolarons are heavier than singlets
in certain lattice structures at variance with intuitive expectations. Finally,
we identify a range of lattices where superlight small bipolarons may be
formed, and give estimates for their masses in the anti-adiabatic
approximation.Comment: 31 pages. To appear in J. Phys.: Condens. Matter, Special Issue
'Mott's Physics
A review: Aedes-borne arboviral infections, controls and Wolbachia-based strategies
Arthropod-borne viruses (Arboviruses) continue to generate significant health and economic burdens for people living in endemic regions. Of these viruses, some of the most important (e.g., dengue, Zika, chikungunya, and yellow fever virus), are transmitted mainly by Aedes mosquitoes. Over the years, viral infection control has targeted vector population reduction and inhibition of arboviral replication and transmission. This control includes the vector control methods which are classified into chemical, environmental, and biological methods. Some of these control methods may be largely experimental (both field and laboratory investigations) or widely practised. Perceptively, one of the biological methods of vector control, in particular, Wolbachia-based control, shows a promising control strategy for eradicating Aedes-borne arboviruses. This can either be through the artificial introduction of Wolbachia, a naturally present bacterium that impedes viral growth in mosquitoes into heterologous Aedes aegypti mosquito vectors (vectors that are not natural hosts of Wolbachia) thereby limiting arboviral transmission or via Aedes albopictus mosquitoes, which naturally harbour Wolbachia infection. These strategies are potentially undermined by the tendency of mosquitoes to lose Wolbachia infection in unfavourable weather conditions (e.g., high temperature) and the inhibitory competitive dynamics among co-circulating Wolbachia strains. The main objective of this review was to critically appraise published articles on vector control strategies and specifically highlight the use of Wolbachia-based control to suppress vector population growth or disrupt viral transmission. We retrieved studies on the control strategies for arboviral transmissions via arthropod vectors and discussed the use of Wolbachia control strategies for eradicating arboviral diseases to identify literature gaps that will be instrumental in developing models to estimate the impact of these control strategies and, in essence, the use of different Wolbachia strains and feature
Effect of electron-phonon interaction range on lattice polaron dynamics: a continuous-time quantum Monte Carlo study
We present the numerically exact ground state energy, effective mass, and
isotope exponents of a one-dimensional lattice polaron, valid for any range of
electron-phonon interaction, applying a new continuous-time Quantum Monte Carlo
(QMC) technique in a wide range of coupling strength and adiabatic ratio. The
QMC method is free from any systematic finite-size and finite-time-step errors.
We compare our numerically exact results with analytical weak-coupling theory
and with the strong-coupling expansion. We show that the exact
results agree well with the canonical Fr\"ohlich and Holstein-Lang-Firsov
theories in the weak and strong coupling limits, respectively, for any range of
interaction. We find a strong dependence of the polaron dynamics on the range
of interaction. An increased range of interaction has a similar effect to an
increased (less adiabatic) phonon frequency: specifically, a reduction in the
effective mass.Comment: 27 pages, 16 figures, to appear Phys Rev B. Introduction rewritten,
comparison with other authors extended, description of method shortened,
improved treatment of weak coupling theor
Neural Circuitry of Novelty Salience Processing in Psychosis Risk: Association With Clinical Outcome
Psychosis has been proposed to develop from dysfunction in a hippocampal-striatal-midbrain circuit, leading to aberrant salience processing. Here, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during novelty salience processing to investigate this model in people at clinical high risk (CHR) for psychosis according to their subsequent clinical outcomes. Seventy-six CHR participants as defined using the Comprehensive Assessment of At-Risk Mental States (CAARMS) and 31 healthy controls (HC) were studied while performing a novelty salience fMRI task that engaged an a priori hippocampal-striatal-midbrain circuit of interest. The CHR sample was then followed clinically for a mean of 59.7 months (~5 y), when clinical outcomes were assessed in terms of transition (CHR-T) or non-transition (CHR-NT) to psychosis (CAARMS criteria): during this period, 13 individuals (17%) developed a psychotic disorder (CHR-T) and 63 did not. Functional activation and effective connectivity within a hippocampal-striatal-midbrain circuit were compared between groups. In CHR individuals compared to HC, hippocampal response to novel stimuli was significantly attenuated (P = .041 family-wise error corrected). Dynamic Causal Modelling revealed that stimulus novelty modulated effective connectivity from the hippocampus to the striatum, and from the midbrain to the hippocampus, significantly more in CHR participants than in HC. Conversely, stimulus novelty modulated connectivity from the midbrain to the striatum significantly less in CHR participants than in HC, and less in CHR participants who subsequently developed psychosis than in CHR individuals who did not become psychotic. Our findings are consistent with preclinical evidence implicating hippocampal-striatal-midbrain circuit dysfunction in altered salience processing and the onset of psychosis
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