SFNet: Learning Object-aware Semantic Correspondence

We address the problem of semantic correspondence, that is, establishing a dense flow field between images depicting different instances of the same object or scene category. We propose to use images annotated with binary foreground masks and subjected to synthetic geometric deformations to train a convolutional neural network (CNN) for this task. Using these masks as part of the supervisory signal offers a good compromise between semantic flow methods, where the amount of training data is limited by the cost of manually selecting point correspondences, and semantic alignment ones, where the regression of a single global geometric transformation between images may be sensitive to image-specific details such as background clutter. We propose a new CNN architecture, dubbed SFNet, which implements this idea. It leverages a new and differentiable version of the argmax function for end-to-end training, with a loss that combines mask and flow consistency with smoothness terms. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach, which significantly outperforms the state of the art on standard benchmarks.Comment: cvpr 2019 oral pape

A Guide to Navigating Existing and Emerging Sources of Local VMT and Travel Data

As the crisis of climate change looms, transportation policy in California continues to emphasize sustainability in land-use and transportation decisions. This report evaluates the implementation of two sustainability-focused policies (Senate Bill 375 and 743) by local governments and the current-state-of-the-practices by metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) in assisting them in California. The research focuses on local governments’ access and use of vehicle miles traveled (VMT) and transportation data for achieving VMT and greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction by land-use planning. The research also examines the role of MPOs in providing needed transportation data, training, and technical support to its local members to help them quantify VMT impacts of land-use plans and projects. Through surveys and interviews of 539 city and county governments and 18 MPOs in California, the research team analyzes current practices. Findings include that local governments utilize automobile data more frequently than alternative modes, and do not heavily rely on MPOs for obtaining transportation data. Local governments recognized the need for more transportation data and were particularly interested in publicly available sources. The MPOs reported that VMT/annual average daily traffic data and origin-destination matrix were most frequently requested. More sophisticated data such as travel-time matrix and mode-share scheme were considered useful by the MPOs, while requests were very low. Based on the results of the conducted surveys, interviews, and our analyses, we developed a transportation data guide for local governments that could help them access data for achieving VMT/GHG emission reduction via land-use planning. The guide has two parts, one for general plan update and any land-use plans along with SB 375 and the other for VMT analysis for project-level California Environmental Quality Act reviews. The guide includes several different approaches that can be chosen and tried by local governments depending on their resource level and geographic, social, and physical characteristics. These findings can facilitate the access and use of transportation data to aid in sustainable land-use planning for the betterment of local communities and the planet

Health Capacity to Work at Older Ages in South Korea: Estimates and Implications for Public Pension Policies

Health capacity to work for the elderly is an essential piece of information for designing social policies in an aging society. Here, we assess the health capacity to work of older men in South Korea and provide a cross-country comparison. Following the methodology proposed by Milligan and Wise (2012), which uses the cohort mortality rate as a proxy for overall health status, we quantify the additional employment capacity of current older men in reference to the mortality-employment relationship of a generation ago. Despite the high employment rate of older men in South Korea, we find substantial additional employment capacity among older men (those aged 55 or more) as of 2016 comparable in size to those found in other advanced countries. We also find evidence that older men are not merely capable of working but are also willing to work, and many of them are increasingly combining pension income and work. These findings suggest that labor supply disincentives for older men embedded in public pension systems in South Korea need to be thoroughly reexamined and adjusted accordingly lest they should inhibit the labor supply of older workers

Estimation of Pan-Tropical Deforestation and Implications for Conservation

Reducing tropical deforestation has been a primary focus for the implementation of policies that are aimed at biodiversity conservation, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions, as tropical forests have, biologically, the richest ecosystem on Earth, tropical deforestation is one of the largest sources of anthropogenic carbon emission into the atmosphere, and preventing it is the most inexpensive option, in order to reduce carbon emissions and conserve biodiversity. To set the effective policies and conservation plans to reduce emission from tropical deforestation, the evaluation of effectiveness of both the current and previous efforts for conservation is critical. The three studies in this dissertation describe the development of the methods to accurately monitor pan-tropical forest cover change, using satellite remote sensing data, and their integration with the econometrics approach, to evaluate the effectiveness of the tropical forest conservation practices. The dissertation contributes a method for long-term, global forest cover change estimation from Landsat, and the methods are applied to report the first, pan-tropical forest cover change trends, between the 1990s and the 2000s. The global forest cover change product from 1990 to 2000, which was produced, based on the developed methods which are evaluated to have an overall accuracy of 88%. The results demonstrate that tropical deforestation has accelerated between the 1990s and the 2000s by 62%, which contradicts the assertions of it being decelerating. The results further show that the increased deforestation rate between the 1990s and the 2000s is significantly correlated with the increases in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rate, agricultural production growth, and urban population growth between the two decades. Protected Areas (PA), throughout the tropics, avoided 83,000 ± 22,000 km2 of the deforestation during the 2000s. The effectiveness of international aid can be suppressed by weak governance and the lack of forest change monitoring capacity of each country. The conclusions of this dissertation provide a historical baseline for the estimates of tropical forest cover change, and for the evaluation of effectiveness of such conservation efforts

A literary-critical analysis of the role of Genesis 38 within Genesis 37-50 as part of the primary narrative (Genesis - 2 Kings) of the Hebrew Bible.

The present thesis argues that the story of Judah and Tamar in Genesis 38 is to be read as the type narrative of the genealogical tensions within Genesis 37-50 and the Primary Narrative (Genesis- 2 Kings). Historical interpreters and literary critics have disagreed over whether this chapter is to be read as a disconnected episode or as a story integral to the surrounding narratives, often given the title 'the Joseph Story'. The argument here is that Genesis 38 does not simply belong to the socalled' Joseph Story' but is an essential partner to the surrounding chapters in the larger narrative running from Genesis to 2 Kings; the history of David's Judahite lineage. Genesis 38 indeed is about building Judah's and Tamar's family, which turns out to be at once Abraham's family and David's. From a narratological perspective, the main characters, Judah and Tamar, both play pivotal roles in this chapter and also in the wider story. Judah's character in Genesis 38 at a micro level represents him as the reluctant and despotic father of his family who is brought to accept his own failings. On the macro level, that is within Genesis 37-50, this transformation of Judah's character allows for his role to become that of family spokesman and leader of his brothers. While Joseph seems to be more powerful as the governor in Egypt, Judah ultimately has the more significant role as the deputy of Jacob's family in Canaan. Judah's character develops through the sequence 'Departure-Transition-Return'. In the end, Jacob's blessing of Judah (Gen. 49:8-12) is the most favourable he gives to any of his twelve sons. In retrospect, this creates for Judah the status of a fourth patriarch succeeding Jacob. As such, the argument is presented that the novella of Genesis 37-50 should not be labelled as it is traditionally 'the Joseph Story' or 'the Jacob Story'. Instead, it would be more accurate to call this unit The Story of Jacob and his Sons. Genesis 38 is situated in the novella as the epitome of the genealogical ambivalences that are the context for the whole Primary Narrative. Tamar, the sparring partner of her father-in-law Judah, shows a twofold role in her story in Genesis 38; she is both a matriarch within the Abrahamic lineage and at the same time the type of the marginal and widowed woman as mother in Israel. Surviving a period of trial as a childless widow, she finally succeeds in giving birth to the heirs of Judah by means of a plan that she herself devises. Tamar embodies all the key features of the role of the previous four matriarchs (Sarah, Rebekah, Leah and Rachel) and foreshadows the characteristics of women such as Ruth and Bathsheba who become the mothers of the Davidic line; they too are widows and marginal women within the Primary Narrative. Tamar can thus be presented as both the fifth matriarch. and also the representative of the later marginalised mothers of the Davidic line. Tamar is the crucial link. The characterisation of Judah and Tamar in Genesis 38 can be understood using the binary thematic-symmetrical structure and what I called the huckel-.lhajJed structure with its three themes: family building (+), shame (-) and deceit (-). These structures give this family a genealogical function which is typical in the Primary Narrative. Genesis 38, far from being some rather awkward insertion into the story of Joseph, is an integral part of ·the story of Jacob and his Sons'. Through the kind of genealogical twists which Genesis 38 epitomises, this wider story turns out, unexpectedly, not so much to be the story of Abraham's descendants, as the story of the Davidic line

Synthesis of multi-walled carbon nanotubes by combining hot-wire and dc plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition

International audienceMulti-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) have been grown on 7 nm Ni-coated substrates consisting of crystalline silicon covered with a thin layer (10 nm) of TiN, by combining hot-wire chemical vapor deposition (HWCVD) and direct current plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (dc PECVD), at 620 °C. Acetylene (C2H2) gas is used as the carbon source and ammonia (NH3) and hydrogen (H2) are used either for dilution or etching. The carbon nanotubes range from 20 to 100 nm in diameter and 0.3 to 5 μm in length, depending on growth conditions: plasma intensity, filament current, pressure, C2H2, NH3, H2 flow rates, C2H2/NH3 and C2H2/H2 mass flow ratios. By combining the HWCVD and the dc PECVD processes, uniform growth of oriented MWCNTs was obtained, whereas by using only the HWCVD process, tangled MWCNTs were obtained. By patterning the nickel catalyst, with the use of the HW dc PECVD process, uniform arrays of nanotubes have been grown as well as single free-standing aligned nanotubes, depending on the catalyst patterning (optical lithography or electron-beam lithography). In the latter case, electron field emission from the MWCNTs was obtained with a maximum emission current density of 0.6 A/cm2 for a field of 16 V/μm