6 Seconds of Sound and Vision: Creativity in Micro-Videos

The notion of creativity, as opposed to related concepts such as beauty or interestingness, has not been studied from the perspective of automatic analysis of multimedia content. Meanwhile, short online videos shared on social media platforms, or micro-videos, have arisen as a new medium for creative expression. In this paper we study creative micro-videos in an effort to understand the features that make a video creative, and to address the problem of automatic detection of creative content. Defining creative videos as those that are novel and have aesthetic value, we conduct a crowdsourcing experiment to create a dataset of over 3,800 micro-videos labelled as creative and non-creative. We propose a set of computational features that we map to the components of our definition of creativity, and conduct an analysis to determine which of these features correlate most with creative video. Finally, we evaluate a supervised approach to automatically detect creative video, with promising results, showing that it is necessary to model both aesthetic value and novelty to achieve optimal classification accuracy.Comment: 8 pages, 1 figures, conference IEEE CVPR 201

Brain energy metabolism: conserved functions of glycolytic glial cells

The discovery in mammals that axons are metabolically supported by myelinating glial cells explains why neurons can extend meters in length. In this issue, Volkenhoff et al. (2015) show that, in Drosophila, the transfer of lactate from the glial to the neuronal compartment is conserved in evolution, independent of body size

Evaluation of agri-environmental measures in the Venice Lagoon Watershed. Nitrogen budgets and surplus indicators

One of the main concerns of the environmental scientists and policy makers is related to the environmental compatibility of current agricultural systems and, in particular, to the losses of chemical fertilizers and manure in surface and ground-waters, as a consequence of run-off and leaching phenomena. In most cases European recent agrienvironmental schemes envisaged specific measures for the reduction of fertilizer rates and the control of manure applications, in order to limit the releases of nutrients in surface and ground-waters. Substantial financial resources are invested in those measures and therefore the issue raises interest in monitoring and evaluating their effectiveness. Nutrient balance indicators are often used for quantitative assessment of the effectiveness of the measures in limiting the environmental impact of farming activities. N-surplus is one of the most commonly used indicators. The paper refers the results of a research project aimed at assessing the outcomes of agri-environmental measures implemented in the Venice Lagoon Watershed with an approach based upon the gross nitrogen balance, called "Nboxes". The results of applying the Nboxes procedure to a sample of 550 farms set are presented, evidencing the expectations of greater effectiveness in terms of nitrogen surplus reduction from the measure C.5.1.3a and C.5.1.3b (low input farming and buffer strips). Measures supporting improved irrigation systems, controlled drainage and more rational livestock nutritional programmes and technologies, showed instead only limited potential for tangible contributions to the reduction of nitrogen surplus in cultivated soils

Multitemporal Thermal Imagery Acquisition and Data Processing on Historical Masonry: Experimental Application on a Case Study

The recent improvement of infrared image quality has increased the use of thermography as a non-destructive diagnostic technique. Amongst other applications, thermography can be used to monitor historic buildings. The present work was carried out within the framework of the Horizon 2020 European project SHELTER, which aims to create a management plan for cultural heritage subject to environmental and anthropogenic risk. Among the chosen case studies is the Santa Croce Complex in Ravenna (Italy), which is exposed to different hazards, including flooding. The church has a peculiar architecture that develops below the street level, so the internal walls are affected by the deterioration caused by rising humidity. In such a case of advanced degradation, passive thermography cannot be used to its full potential. For this reason, an innovative methodology involving active thermography was first developed and validated with laboratory tests. Secondly, we conducted its first application to a real case study. With this purpose, an active thermography survey with forced ventilation was carried out to enhance different stages of material degradation by means of automatic classification of multitemporal data. These experiments have resulted in a method using an active thermal survey in a high moisture content environment to detect masonry degradation

State of the art and trends of circulating cancer biomarkers.

The role of biomarkers is crucial in oncology for both early diagnosis and the personalization of cancer treatments. Tissue biomarkers have gained a central role as predictors of the response to an increasing number of anticancer agents; conversely, the clinical role of circulating biomarkers (c-TMs) is limited and has remained almost unchanged over the years. The position of guidelines is summarized and discussed with reference to the potential usefulness of c-TMs in those areas of application that cannot be covered by tissue biomarkers. The pipeline of translational research on biomarkers is briefly described; the differences among analytical validation, clinical validation, and clinical utility are discussed, emphasizing that the assessment of clinical utility is the ultimate step toward clinical use. The role of monitoring of appropriateness as a proxy indicator of how the research pipeline has actually worked is discussed, and data and c-TMs overordering rates are reported. The role and limits of guidelines to influence appropriate c-TMs ordering are discussed. The design of primary studies on c-TMs is examined, underlining that they mainly focus on clinical validation rather than on clinical utility. The role of regulatory boards is also briefly presented and discussed

Sviluppo di App per il sistema operativo Android. Caso di studio: gestione di viaggi

La tesina tratta le basi per la programmazione di App per Android: struttura logica e del progetto, interfaccia grafica, interazione con le API e integrazione di un database. La trattazione si conclude con la presentazione di un caso di studio specifico: un'App per la gestione dei viaggi, in cui sono confluiti tutti i concetti presentati nei vari Capitoli. Seconda parte di un progetto sviluppato con Fabio Forcolinope

An Object-Oriented Approach to the Classification of Roofing Materials Using Very High-Resolution Satellite Stereo-Pairs

The availability of multispectral images, with both high spatial and spectral resolution, makes it possible to obtain valuable information about complex urban environment, reducing the need for more expensive surveying techniques. Here, a methodology is tested for the semi-automatic extraction of buildings and the mapping of the main roofing materials over a urban area of approximately 100 km², including the entire city of Bologna (Italy). The methodology follows an object-oriented approach and exploits a limited number of training samples. After a validation based on field inspections and close-range photos acquired by a drone, the final map achieved an overall accuracy of 94% (producer accuracy 79%) regarding the building extraction and of 91% for the classification of the roofing materials. The proposed approach proved to be flexible enough to catch the strong variability of the urban texture in different districts and can be easily reproducible in other contexts, as only satellite imagery is required for the mapping

Implementazione di un programma di riabilitazione cognitiva pc-based in un gruppo di soggetti con mild cognitive impairment

2008/2009Negli ultimi anni, grazie allo sviluppo di nuove tecnologie, sono stati progressivamente introdotti a supporto dei pazienti con MCI programmi computerizzati di stimolazione cognitiva. Programmi computerizzati indirizzati specificatamente alla demenza sono stati sviluppati a supporto della riabilitazione di aree cognitive specifiche e delle attività della vita quotidiana. Il training cognitivo computerizzato ha il vantaggio di utilizzare programmi riabilitativi individualizzati, indirizzati a supportare le funzioni che sono ancora preservate o a migliorare quelle danneggiate (Hoffmann et al., 1996; 2003; Schreiber et al., 1999; Cipriani et al., 2006; Talassi et al., 2007). Da questi studi si è evidenziato come un training computerizzato ha il vantaggio di individuare il trattamento sulla base del pattern neuropsicologici del paziente, in modo tale da riuscire a stimolare le aree danneggiate ed ad avere un beneficio anche sulle attività quotidiane del paziente. Lo scopo dello studio è stato quello di esaminare l’efficacia di un programma di riabilitazione cognitiva pc-based che prevedeva l’utilizzo di esercizi di stimolazione della memoria su presentazione visiva, uditiva e visuo-spaziale in un gruppo di soggetti con Mild Cognitive Impairment Amnesico. Lo studio è stato condotto su un gruppo 40 soggetti selezionati da un gruppo iniziale di 140 soggetti che si sono rivolti all’Unità Valutazione Alzheimer della Clinica Psichiatrica di Trieste per deficit soggettivi di memoria. Sono stati esclusi dallo studio i soggetti con patologie concomitanti che potevano interferire con il livello di funzionamento cognitivo, con gravi patologie somatiche, con concomitanti patologie psichiatriche e con fattori di rischio cerebrovascolare (ipertensione, dislipidemia, diabete). Al momento del reclutamento nello studio ogni soggetto è stato sottoposto ad una batteria neuropsicologica per verificare quali pazienti rientrassero nei criteri di Petersen et al.,(2001) per la diagnosi di MCI di tipo amnesico. Sono stati inclusi nello studio 40 soggetti che rientravano nei criteri aMCI, ai quali è stato somministrato un test computerizzato al baseline e dopo 6 mesi. La batteria computerizzata comprendeva una serie di subtest atti alla valutazione specifica delle diverse sessioni del training cognitivo (la memoria visiva, la memoria verbale e la memoria visuo-spaziale). 20 soggetti hanno fatto parte del gruppo di controllo e non hanno ricevuto alcun tipo di trattamento. I restanti 20 soggetti, appartenenti al gruppo di Training, hanno partecipato a due sessione settimanali di circa 30 minuti ciascuna per un periodo di 6 mesi. Dai risultati del nostro studio si evidenzia come il Training Cognitivo si sia dimostrato efficace in tutte le diverse aree cognitive della memoria (visiva, verbale e visuo-spaziale). Infatti i risultati della valutazione finale al T6 del gruppo di Training sono risultati tutti statisticamente significativi e si possono notare delle ricadute sulle attività della vita quotidiana. Il gruppo di controllo, che non ha avuto nessun tipo di trattamento invece risulta stabile, non ha avuto né miglioramenti né peggioramenti durante i 6 mesi dello studio. In conclusione, il nostro studio ha evidenziato come un training cognitivo computerizzato sia molto efficace in pazienti con MCI di tipo amnesico. Infatti tutti i partecipanti allo studio hanno migliorato la loro prestazione sia a livello di risultati alla valutazione finale sia nelle attività della vita quotidiana.XXI Cicl