Deep Learning for Semantic Part Segmentation with High-Level Guidance

In this work we address the task of segmenting an object into its parts, or semantic part segmentation. We start by adapting a state-of-the-art semantic segmentation system to this task, and show that a combination of a fully-convolutional Deep CNN system coupled with Dense CRF labelling provides excellent results for a broad range of object categories. Still, this approach remains agnostic to high-level constraints between object parts. We introduce such prior information by means of the Restricted Boltzmann Machine, adapted to our task and train our model in an discriminative fashion, as a hidden CRF, demonstrating that prior information can yield additional improvements. We also investigate the performance of our approach ``in the wild'', without information concerning the objects' bounding boxes, using an object detector to guide a multi-scale segmentation scheme. We evaluate the performance of our approach on the Penn-Fudan and LFW datasets for the tasks of pedestrian parsing and face labelling respectively. We show superior performance with respect to competitive methods that have been extensively engineered on these benchmarks, as well as realistic qualitative results on part segmentation, even for occluded or deformable objects. We also provide quantitative and extensive qualitative results on three classes from the PASCAL Parts dataset. Finally, we show that our multi-scale segmentation scheme can boost accuracy, recovering segmentations for finer parts.Comment: 11 pages (including references), 3 figures, 2 table

Review of Paraskevi Golia's Υμνώντας το έθνος. Ο ρόλος των σχολικών γιορτών στην εθνική και πολιτική διαπαιδαγώγηση, 1924-2010 [Praising the nation: The role of national day school commemorations in national and political-education policy, 1924-2010]

Paraskevi Golia, Υμνώντας το έθνος. Ο ρόλος των σχολικών γιορτών στην εθνική και πολιτική διαπαιδαγώγηση 1924-2010 [Praising the nation: The role of national day school commemorations in national and political-education policy, 1924-2010], Thessaloniki: Epikentro, 2011, 445 p

Study of Two-Step Mechanisms in Pion Absorption on 6Li, 12C via Deuteron Emission

The (pi+,pd), and (pi+,dd) reactions were investigated with pions of 100 and 165 MeV kinetic energy on 6Li and 12C targets. In comparison with previously published (pi+,pp) data on the same targets and at the same beam energies, kinematic regions were identified in which the neutron pickup process n+p->d dominated the observed deuteron yield. The importance of this mechanism increases with energy, contributing half of the observed cross section at 165 MeV. The contribution of direct quasi-triton absorption is significant only at 100 MeV.Comment: 23 pages, 12 figure

Approaching mythology in the history curriculum of compulsory education in Greece

Myth can be a first step in historicizing the past and at the same time in appreciating ancient cultures and developing the essential skill of empathy. A main objective of the history curriculum for the third grade of primary school in Greece is for children at 8 and 9 years old to familiarize themselves with the basic cultural elements of the origins of Greek, European and global civilization. Ancient Greek myths are taught using references and links to the myths of other peoples and cultures, and by identifying similarities and differences in the interpretation of the world within the framework of a multi-perspective, intercultural approach. Myths also depict the relationship between man and nature. They constitute man’s attempt to interpret the physical and social environment. In addition, myths present the relationship between man and the divine in the early stages of cultural evolution, and at the same time provide evidence of the culture of a historical period. Pupils become aware of the fact that myths used to have a symbolic and ritualistic function, which aimed to initiate younger members into the acceptable practices and values of their community. Myths provided meaningful models of action (exempla) through their allegorical nature. Moreover, myths facilitate the analysis of human behaviour by introducing the schema of cause and effect. Mythical thought seeks to understand causality, which is also the primary aim of science. In this sense, mythical discourse is connected to scientific discourse. Within the framework of a methodological approach based on these theoretical assumptions, this paper also includes a presentation of educational activities and pupils’ perceptions as part of a survey conducted in a third-grade primary school class in Greece

Differences in the Prevalence of Sarcopenia in Community-Dwelling, Nursing Home and Hospitalized Individuals. A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

© 2019, Serdi and Springer-Verlag International SAS, part of Springer Nature. Background: Sarcopenia is an age-related disease which leads to a decline in muscle mass and function and is one of the most important health issues in elderly people with a high rate and variety of adverse outcomes. Objective: The current systematic review and meta-analysis study was carried out to estimate the overall prevalence of sarcopenia in both males and females in different regions around the world and to show the major differences in its occurrence among different populations. Design: A systematic review and metaanalysis of studies published in PubMed (Medline) and Scopus. Participants: Community dwelling, nursing home and hospitalized older adults aged over 60 years. Measurements: Sarcopenia was defined by the major validated diagnostic criteria, such as the European Working Group on Sarcopenia in Older People (EWGSOP), the Asian Working Group for Sarcopenia (AWGS) and the International Working Group on Sarcopenia (IWGS). The model used was the random effect model for estimating the prevalence of sarcopenia. The sex-specific prevalence of sarcopenia as well as 95% CI (Confidence interval) were calculated using MetaXL (version 5.3). Heterogeneity assessment was carried out by subgroup analysis. Results: We included 41 studies with a total of 34955 participants. The prevalence of sarcopenia in community-dwelling individuals in the included studies were 11% (95% CI: 8–13%) in men and 9% (95% CI: 7–11%) in women. The prevalence of sarcopenia in nursing-home individuals in the included studies were 51% (95% CI: 37–66%) in men and 31% (95% CI: 22–42%) in women and in hospitalized individuals were 23% (95%, CI: 15–30%) in men and 24% (95% CI: 14–35%) in women. Conclusions: Despite the differences encountered between the studies, regarding diagnostic tools used to measure of muscle mass, different regions around the world and different populations and clinical settings, this systematic review revealed that a significant proportion of old people has sarcopenia (major in nursing homes), even in populations healthy in general. However, sarcopenia is caused by the aging progress, early diagnosis and individualized care, including physical activity and nutrition, can prevent some adverse outcomes in all populations

BLSM: A Bone-Level Skinned Model of the Human Mesh

We introduce BLSM, a bone-level skinned model of the human body mesh where bone scales are set prior to template synthesis, rather than the common, inverse practice. BLSM first sets bone lengths and joint angles to specify the skeleton, then specifies identity-specific surface variation, and finally bundles them together through linear blend skinning. We design these steps by constraining the joint angles to respect the kinematic constraints of the human body and by using accurate mesh convolution-based networks to capture identity-specific surface variation. We provide quantitative results on the problem of reconstructing a collection of 3D human scans, and show that we obtain improvements in reconstruction accuracy when comparing to a SMPL-type baseline. Our decoupled bone and shape representation also allows for out-of-box integration with standard graphics packages like Unity, facilitating full-body AR effects and image-driven character animation. Additional results and demos are available from the project webpage: http://arielai.com/blsm