Quadratic Projection Based Feature Extraction with Its Application to Biometric Recognition

This paper presents a novel quadratic projection based feature extraction framework, where a set of quadratic matrices is learned to distinguish each class from all other classes. We formulate quadratic matrix learning (QML) as a standard semidefinite programming (SDP) problem. However, the con- ventional interior-point SDP solvers do not scale well to the problem of QML for high-dimensional data. To solve the scalability of QML, we develop an efficient algorithm, termed DualQML, based on the Lagrange duality theory, to extract nonlinear features. To evaluate the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed framework, we conduct extensive experiments on biometric recognition. Experimental results on three representative biometric recogni- tion tasks, including face, palmprint, and ear recognition, demonstrate the superiority of the DualQML-based feature extraction algorithm compared to the current state-of-the-art algorithm

Learn-to-Decompose: Cascaded Decomposition Network for Cross-Domain Few-Shot Facial Expression Recognition

Most existing compound facial expression recognition (FER) methods rely on large-scale labeled compound expression data for training. However, collecting such data is labor-intensive and time-consuming. In this paper, we address the compound FER task in the cross-domain few-shot learning (FSL) setting, which requires only a few samples of compound expressions in the target domain. Specifically, we propose a novel cascaded decomposition network (CDNet), which cascades several learn-to-decompose modules with shared parameters based on a sequential decomposition mechanism, to obtain a transferable feature space. To alleviate the overfitting problem caused by limited base classes in our task, a partial regularization strategy is designed to effectively exploit the best of both episodic training and batch training. By training across similar tasks on multiple basic expression datasets, CDNet learns the ability of learn-to-decompose that can be easily adapted to identify unseen compound expressions. Extensive experiments on both in-the-lab and in-the-wild compound expression datasets demonstrate the superiority of our proposed CDNet against several state-of-the-art FSL methods

The origin of the illustrated albums. Educational resource for the proposal of improvement of the personal identity through coeducation and development for the literary taste

Con el presente trabajo lo que se pretende demostrar es que los álbumes ilustrados son una serie de recursos educativos que gracias a las características de las mismas, es decir, el nexo entre el texto literario y la imagen produce una satisfacción directa hacia el alumnado de infantil y, sobre todo, en la actualidad puesto que, predomina el uso de las TIC tanto en el ámbito familiar como en el ámbito escolar. Además de esto, se pretende fomentar la creatividad del alumnado así como, la educación en valores sociales, la coeducación y hábitos, a fin de, transformar los gustos literarios de nuestros futuros lectores. De igual manera, me gustaría resaltar el uso de canciones acompañadas de baile aprendidas con el profesor Juan Rafael Muñoz (profesor de música en la Universidad de Almería) como elemento motivador (animación lectora) para el alumnado

Neuroprotective effects of Ellagic acid on Neonatal Hypoxic Brain Injury via Inhibition of Inflammatory Mediators and Down-regulation of JNK/p38 MAPK Activation

Purpose: To investigate if ellagic acid exerts neuroprotective effects in hypoxic ischemic (HI) brain injury by inhibiting apoptosis and inflammatory responses.Methods: Separate groups of rat pups from post-natal day 4 (D4) were administered with ellagic acid (10, 20 or 40 mg/kg body weight) orally till post- natal day 10 (D10). On D10, the rats were subjected to HI brain injury. Following HI injury, infarct size, weight and volume of the brain were measured. Apoptosis was assessed by Fluoro-Jade C staining. Expression of caspases (caspase-3, 8 and 9), apoptotic pathway proteins (Bax, Bad, Bcl-2 and Bcl-xL), MAPKs, NF κB(p65) and p-IK-Bα were assessed by western blotting. mRNA levels of inflammatory mediators (TNF-α, IL-1α, IL-1β, iNOS, COX-2) were analyzed.Results: Ellagic acidmarkedly (p < 0.05) reduced infarct size, volume and tissue loss. Significant (p < 0.05) reduction in neuroapoptosis was observed on pre treatment with ellagic acid. Expression levels of caspases, apoptotic pathway proteins and MAPK proteins were down-regulated with marked (p < 0.05) suppression of inflammatory mediators, NF-κB(p65) and p-IK-Bα.Conclusion: Ellagic acid affords neuroprotection in HI brain injury by inhibiting apoptosis, inflammatory responses and modulating the proteins of apoptotic and MAPK pathways. Thus, ellagic acid may be a potent candidate for the treatment of HI injury.Keywords: Brain injury, Ellagic acid, Hypoxia, Inflammatory mediators, Mitogen activated protein kinases, Neuroprotectiv