50 research outputs found
Mind The Edge: Refining Depth Edges in Sparsely-Supervised Monocular Depth Estimation
Monocular Depth Estimation (MDE) is a fundamental problem in computer vision
with numerous applications. Recently, LIDAR-supervised methods have achieved
remarkable per-pixel depth accuracy in outdoor scenes. However, significant
errors are typically found in the proximity of depth discontinuities, i.e.,
depth edges, which often hinder the performance of depth-dependent applications
that are sensitive to such inaccuracies, e.g., novel view synthesis and
augmented reality. Since direct supervision for the location of depth edges is
typically unavailable in sparse LIDAR-based scenes, encouraging the MDE model
to produce correct depth edges is not straightforward. In this work we propose
to learn to detect the location of depth edges from densely-supervised
synthetic data, and use it to generate supervision for the depth edges in the
MDE training. %Despite the 'domain gap' between synthetic and real data, we
show that depth edges that are estimated directly are significantly more
accurate than the ones that emerge indirectly from the MDE training. To
quantitatively evaluate our approach, and due to the lack of depth edges ground
truth in LIDAR-based scenes, we manually annotated subsets of the KITTI and the
DDAD datasets with depth edges ground truth. We demonstrate significant gains
in the accuracy of the depth edges with comparable per-pixel depth accuracy on
several challenging datasets
The Ohio State University Dispute Resolution in Special Education Symposium Panel
Published in cooperation with the American Bar Association Section of Dispute Resolutio
Training of Instrumentalists and Development of New Technologies on SOFIA
This white paper is submitted to the Astronomy and Astrophysics 2010 Decadal
Survey (Astro2010)1 Committee on the State of the Profession to emphasize the
potential of the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) to
contribute to the training of instrumentalists and observers, and to related
technology developments. This potential goes beyond the primary mission of
SOFIA, which is to carry out unique, high priority astronomical research.
SOFIA is a Boeing 747SP aircraft with a 2.5 meter telescope. It will enable
astronomical observations anywhere, any time, and at most wavelengths between
0.3 microns and 1.6 mm not accessible from ground-based observatories. These
attributes, accruing from the mobility and flight altitude of SOFIA, guarantee
a wealth of scientific return. Its instrument teams (nine in the first
generation) and guest investigators will do suborbital astronomy in a
shirt-sleeve environment. The project will invest $10M per year in science
instrument development over a lifetime of 20 years. This, frequent flight
opportunities, and operation that enables rapid changes of science instruments
and hands-on in-flight access to the instruments, assure a unique and extensive
potential - both for training young instrumentalists and for encouraging and
deploying nascent technologies. Novel instruments covering optical, infrared,
and submillimeter bands can be developed for and tested on SOFIA by their
developers (including apprentices) for their own observations and for those of
guest observers, to validate technologies and maximize observational
effectiveness.Comment: 10 pages, no figures, White Paper for Astro 2010 Survey Committee on
State of the Professio
Infrared Emission of Normal Galaxies from 2.5 to 12 Microns: ISO Spectra, Near-Infrared Continuum and Mid-Infrared Emission Features
We present ISO-PHOT spectra of the regions 2.5-4.9um and 5.8-11.6um for a
sample of 45 disk galaxies from the U.S. ISO Key Project on Normal Galaxies.
The spectra can be decomposed into three spectral components: (1) continuum
emission from stellar photospheres, which dominates the near-infrared (2.5-
4.9um; NIR) spectral region; (2) a weak NIR excess continuum, which has a color
temperature of ~ 1000K, carries a luminosity of a few percent of the total
far-infrared luminosity L(FIR), and most likely arises from the ISM; and (3)
the well-known broad emission features at 6.2, 7.7, 8.6 and 11.3 um, which are
generally attributed to aromatic carbon particles. These aromatic features in
emission (AFEs) dominate the mid-infrared (5.8-11.6 um; MIR) part of the
spectrum, and resemble the so-called Type-A spectra observed in many
non-stellar sources and the diffuse ISM in our own Galaxy. The relative
strengths of the AFEs vary by 15-25% among the galaxies. However, little
correlation is seen between these variations and either IRAS 60um-to-100um flux
density ratio R(60/100) or the FIR-to-blue luminosity ratio L(FIR)/L(B),
suggesting that the observed variations are not a direct consequence of the
radiation field differences among the galaxies. We demonstrate that the NIR
excess continuum and AFE emission are correlated, suggesting that they are
produced by similar mechanisms and similar (or the same) material. On the other
hand, as the current star-formation activity increases, the overall strengths
of the AFEs and the NIR excess continuum drop significantly with respect to
that of the far-infrared emission from large dust grains. This is likely a
consequence of the preferential destruction in intense radiation fields of the
small carriers responsible for the NIR/AFE emission.Comment: With 8 tables and 12 figures; to appear in the Astrophysical Journa
The labour debate: an investigation into the theory and reality of capitalist work
In a world dominated by capitalist work (labour), working for a wage is the central unavoidable reality of modern social life, and yet, the category of labour remains underdeveloped in social sciences. While waged labour in all its forms, including unemployment and mass poverty, has now invaded all aspects of social life, labour appears to have disappeared as a practice that constitutes modern society. This book revitalises labour as the fundamental constitutive principle of the social world, through a radical reinterpretation of Marx's social theory. Each chapter develops a central Marxist theme; the continuing centrality of work; class and classification; commodity fetishism and primitive accumulation; labour movements and the way in which labour moves; unemployment, subjectivity and class consciousness, and the new forms of resistance developed in Europe, Latin America and East Asia. In conclusion, the editors give an account of what they consider to be the main critical and practical problems and possibilities confronting the concept and reality of labour in the 21st century. [from book jacket
The Equilibrium Effects of Public Provision in Education Markets: Evidence from a Public School Expansion Policy
In markets with private options, the optimal level of public provision may require balancing a tradeoff between reducing private options’ market power with the possibility of crowding out potentially high-quality products. These considerations are particularly relevant in many developing countries’ education systems where state capacity is increasing but low levels of past public provision mean many private schools already exist. We study the equilibrium effects of public provision in the context of a large expansion of public schools in the Dominican Republic. Over a five-year period, the government aimed to increase the number of public school classrooms by 78%. Using an event study framework, we estimate the effect of a new public school on neighborhood outcomes and competing private schools, where we instrument for how
quickly the public school construction project finished with the characteristics of the contractor randomly assigned to build the project. We find that a new public school increased public sector enrollment significantly. As public enrollment increased, a large number of private schools closed while the surviving schools lowered prices and increased school quality. To study how the level of public provision affects the overall level of quality in the market, we specify and estimate an empirical model of demand (students choosing schools) and supply (schools choosing whether to enter, stay open and what price to charge). We use the model estimates to calculate the level of public provision that maximizes learning. Due to equilibrium competitive effects, we find that the optimal level is non-monotonic in the quality of the increased public schooling