Predicting visible flicker in temporally changing images

Novel display algorithms such as low-persistence displays, black frame insertion, and temporal resolution multiplexing in- troduce temporal change into images at 40-180 Hz, on the bound- ary of the temporal integration of the visual system. This can lead to flicker, a highly-objectionable artifact known to induce viewer discomfort. The critical flicker frequency (CFF) alone does not model this phenomenon well, as flicker sensitivity varies with contrast, and spatial frequency; a content-aware model is re- quired. In this paper, we introduce a visual model for predicting flicker visibility in temporally changing images. The model per- forms a multi-scale analysis on the difference between consecu- tive frames, normalizing values with the spatio-temporal contrast sensitivity function as approximated by the pyramid of visibility. The output of the model is a 2D detection probability map. We ran a subjective flicker marking experiment to fit the model pa- rameters, then analyze the difference between two display algo- rithms, black frame insertion and temporal resolution multiplex- ing, to demonstrate the application of our model

Supervised Learning for Table Tennis Match Prediction

Machine learning, classification and prediction models have applications across a range of fields. Sport analytics is an increasingly popular application, but most existing work is focused on automated refereeing in mainstream sports and injury prevention. Research on other sports, such as table tennis, has only recently started gaining more traction. This paper proposes the use of machine learning to predict the outcome of table tennis single matches. We use player and match statistics as features and evaluate their relative importance in an ablation study. In terms of models, a number of popular models were explored. We found that 5-fold cross-validation and hyperparameter tuning was crucial to improve model performance. We investigated different feature aggregation strategies in our ablation study to demonstrate the robustness of the models. Different models performed comparably, with the accuracy of the results (61-70%) matching state-of-the-art models in comparable sports, such as tennis. The results can serve as a baseline for future table tennis prediction models, and can feed back to prediction research in similar ball sports.Comment: 9 pages, 8 figure

Temporal Resolution Multiplexing: Exploiting the limitations of spatio-temporal vision for more efficient VR rendering.

Rendering in virtual reality (VR) requires substantial computational power to generate 90 frames per second at high resolution with good-quality antialiasing. The video data sent to a VR headset requires high bandwidth, achievable only on dedicated links. In this paper we explain how rendering requirements and transmission bandwidth can be reduced using a conceptually simple technique that integrates well with existing rendering pipelines. Every even-numbered frame is rendered at a lower resolution, and every odd-numbered frame is kept at high resolution but is modified in order to compensate for the previous loss of high spatial frequencies. When the frames are seen at a high frame rate, they are fused and perceived as high-resolution and high-frame-rate animation. The technique relies on the limited ability of the visual system to perceive high spatio-temporal frequencies. Despite its conceptual simplicity, correct execution of the technique requires a number of non-trivial steps: display photometric temporal response must be modeled, flicker and motion artifacts must be avoided, and the generated signal must not exceed the dynamic range of the display. Our experiments, performed on a high-frame-rate LCD monitor and OLED-based VR headsets, explore the parameter space of the proposed technique and demonstrate that its perceived quality is indistinguishable from full-resolution rendering. The technique is an attractive alternative to reprojection and resolution reduction of all frames.European Research Council; European Union Horizon 2020 research and innovation programm

Design and Performance of the Data Acquisition System for the NA61/SHINE Experiment at CERN

This paper describes the hardware, firmware and software systems used in data acquisition for the NA61/SHINE experiment at the CERN SPS accelerator. Special emphasis is given to the design parameters of the readout electronics for the 40m^3 volume Time Projection Chamber detectors, as these give the largest contribution to event data among all the subdetectors: events consisting of 8bit ADC values from 256 timeslices of 200k electronic channels are to be read out with ~100Hz rate. The data acquisition system is organized in "push-data mode", i.e. local systems transmit data asynchronously. Techniques of solving subevent synchronization are also discussed.Comment: 14 pages, 13 figure

Dietary self-efficacy: determinant of compliance behaviours and biochemical outcomes in haemodialysis patients

Background. Despite the diversity of proposed theories, researchers are still unable to fully explain dietary compliance behaviours of dialysis patients. Dietary self-efficacy, a concept less studied in dialysis, has been linked to positive compliance outcomes in the chronic illness literature. Therefore, the aim of the present research was to determine how dietary self-efficacy is related to selected biochemical markers and self-reported behavioural outcomes in haemodialysis patients. Methods. 107 subjects participated in a cross-sectional study. Four questionnaires assessed dietary self-efficacy, compliance attitudes and behaviours, and staff-patient relationships. Laboratory outcomes were retrospectively obtained from patients' medical records and averaged for the previous 6 months. Results. Of the behavioural measures, only dietary self-efficacy was associated with laboratory outcomes. Dietary self-efficacy was also positively related to staff-patient relationships and to patients' self-reported assessment of compliance behaviours. Women had greater dietary self-efficacy than men. The number of family members living with the respondent was inversely related to dietary self-efficacy. Conclusions. Results indicated that dietary self-efficacy determined both behaviours and laboratory outcomes. Patients with greater dietary self-efficacy had lower serum potassium and weight gain, showed favourable compliance attitudes and behaviours toward prescribed regimens and fostered better relationships with staff. Based on these findings we recommend an experimental approach to clarify whether maximizing dietary self-efficacy efforts is without psychological burden to patients and whether the positive effect of increased dietary self-efficacy is maintained in long-term dialysis patient

Stress and Traumatic Brain Injury: A Behavioral, Proteomics, and Histological Study

Psychological stress and traumatic brain injury (TBI) can both result in lasting neurobehavioral abnormalities. Post-traumatic stress disorder and blast induced TBI (bTBI) have become the most significant health issues in current military conflicts. Importantly, military bTBI virtually never occurs without stress. In this experiment, we assessed anxiety and spatial memory of rats at different time points after repeated exposure to stress alone or in combination with a single mild blast. At 2 months after injury or sham we analyzed the serum, prefrontal cortex (PFC), and hippocampus (HC) of all animals by proteomics and immunohistochemistry. Stressed sham animals showed an early increase in anxiety but no memory impairment at any measured time point. They had elevated levels of serum corticosterone (CORT) and hippocampal IL-6 but no other cellular or protein changes. Stressed injured animals had increased anxiety that returned to normal at 2 months and significant spatial memory impairment that lasted up to 2 months. They had elevated serum levels of CORT, CK-BB, NF-H, NSE, GFAP, and VEGF. Moreover, all of the measured protein markers were elevated in the HC and the PFC; rats had an increased number of TUNEL-positive cells in the HC and elevated GFAP and Iba1 immunoreactivity in the HC and the PFC. Our findings suggest that exposure to repeated stress alone causes a transient increase in anxiety and no significant memory impairment or cellular and molecular changes. In contrast, repeated stress and blast results in lasting behavioral, molecular, and cellular abnormalities characterized by memory impairment, neuronal and glial cell loss, inflammation, and gliosis. These findings may have implications in the development of diagnostic and therapeutic measures for conditions caused by stress or a combination of stress and bTBI

The Effect of Enriched Environment on the Outcome of Traumatic Brain Injury; A Behavioral, Proteomics, and Histological Study

De novo hippocampal neurogenesis contributes to functional recovery following traumatic brain injury (TBI). Enriched environment (EEN) can improve the outcome of TBI by positively affecting neurogenesis. Blast induced traumatic brain injury (bTBI) characterized by memory impairment and increased anxiety levels, is a leading cause of chronic disability among soldiers. Using a rodent model of bTBI we asked: (a) whether long-term exposure to EEN after injury can ameliorate behavioral abnormalities and (b) what the effects of EEN are at the molecular and cellular levels and on de novo neurogenesis. We found that housing injured animals in EEN resulted in significantly improved spatial memory while animals in normal housing (NH) showed persistent memory impairment. VEGF and Tau protein but not Interleukin-6 (IL-6) levels were normalized in the dorsal hippocampus (DHC) of EEN rats while all three markers remained elevated in NH rats. Interestingly, after peaking at 6 weeks post-injury, anxiety returned to normal levels at 2 months independent of housing conditions. Housing animals in EEN had no significant effect on VEGF and Tau protein levels in the ventral hippocampus (VHC) and the amygdala (AD). We also found that EEN reduced IL-6 and IFNγ levels in the VHC; these markers remained elevated following NH. We observed an increase in GFAP and DCX immunoreactivities in the VHC of NH animals at 2 months post-injury. Conversely, injured animals housed in EEN showed no increase in GFAP or DCX immunoreactivity in their VHC. In summary, long-term exposure of injured animals to EEN appears to play a positive role in the restoration of memory functions but not on anxiety, which returned to normal levels after a significant period of time. Cellular and molecular changes in response to EEN appear to be a part of neurogenesis-independent as well as dependent recovery processes triggered by bTBI

A perceptual model of motion quality for rendering with adaptive refresh-rate and resolution

Limited GPU performance budgets and transmission bandwidths mean that real-time rendering often has to compromise on the spatial resolution or temporal resolution (refresh rate). A common practice is to keep either the resolution or the refresh rate constant and dynamically control the other variable. But this strategy is non-optimal when the velocity of displayed content varies. To find the best trade-off between the spatial resolution and refresh rate, we propose a perceptual visual model that predicts the quality of motion given an object velocity and predictability of motion. The model considers two motion artifacts to establish an overall quality score: non-smooth (juddery) motion, and blur. Blur is modeled as a combined effect of eye motion, finite refresh rate and display resolution. To fit the free parameters of the proposed visual model, we measured eye movement for predictable and unpredictable motion, and conducted psychophysical experiments to measure the quality of motion from 50 Hz to 165 Hz. We demonstrate the utility of the model with our on-the-fly motion-adaptive rendering algorithm that adjusts the refresh rate of a G-Sync-capable monitor based on a given rendering budget and observed object motion. Our psychophysical validation experiments demonstrate that the proposed algorithm performs better than constant-refresh-rate solutions, showing that motion-adaptive rendering is an attractive technique for driving variable-refresh-rate displays.</jats:p

Interplay of Structural Disorder and Short Binding Elements in the Cellular Chaperone Function of Plant Dehydrin ERD14.

Details of the functional mechanisms of intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs) in living cells is an area not frequently investigated. Here, we dissect the molecular mechanism of action of an IDP in cells by detailed structural analyses based on an in-cell nuclear magnetic resonance experiment. We show that the ID stress protein (IDSP) A. thaliana Early Response to Dehydration (ERD14) is capable of protecting E. coli cells under heat stress. The overexpression of ERD14 increases the viability of E. coli cells from 38.9% to 73.9% following heat stress (50 °C × 15 min). We also provide evidence that the protection is mainly achieved by protecting the proteome of the cells. In-cell NMR experiments performed in E. coli cells show that the protective activity is associated with a largely disordered structural state with conserved, short sequence motifs (K- and H-segments), which transiently sample helical conformations in vitro and engage in partner binding in vivo. Other regions of the protein, such as its S segment and its regions linking and flanking the binding motifs, remain unbound and disordered in the cell. Our data suggest that the cellular function of ERD14 is compatible with its residual structural disorder in vivo

Endoscopic sphincterotomy for delaying choLecystectomy in mild acute biliarY pancreatitis (EMILY study): Protocol of a multicentre randomised clinical trial

Introduction: According to the literature, early cholecystectomy is necessary to avoid complications related to gallstones after an initial episode of acute biliary pancreatitis (ABP). A randomised, controlled multicentre trial (the PONCHO trial) revealed that in the case of gallstone-induced pancreatitis, early cholecystectomy was safe in patients with mild gallstone pancreatitis and reduced the risk of recurrent gallstone-related complications, as compared with interval cholecystectomy. We hypothesise that carrying out a sphincterotomy (ES) allows us to delay cholecystectomy, thus making it logistically easier to perform and potentially increasing the efficacy and safety of the procedure. Methods/Design: EMILY is a prospective, randomised, controlled multicentre trial. All patients with mild ABP, who underwent ES during the index admission or in the medical history will be informed to take part in EMILY study. The patients will be randomised into two groups: (1) early cholecystectomy (within 6 days after discharge) and (2) patients with delayed (interval) cholecystectomy (between 45 and 60 days after discharge). During a 12-month period, 93 patients will be enrolled from participating clinics. The primary endpoint is a composite endpoint of mortality and recurrent acute biliary events (that is, recurrent ABP, acute cholecystitis, uncomplicated biliary colic and cholangitis). The secondary endpoints are organ failure, biliary leakage, technical difficulty of the cholecystectomy, surgical and other complications