22 research outputs found
Active Collaborative Ensemble Tracking
A discriminative ensemble tracker employs multiple classifiers, each of which
casts a vote on all of the obtained samples. The votes are then aggregated in
an attempt to localize the target object. Such method relies on collective
competence and the diversity of the ensemble to approach the target/non-target
classification task from different views. However, by updating all of the
ensemble using a shared set of samples and their final labels, such diversity
is lost or reduced to the diversity provided by the underlying features or
internal classifiers' dynamics. Additionally, the classifiers do not exchange
information with each other while striving to serve the collective goal, i.e.,
better classification. In this study, we propose an active collaborative
information exchange scheme for ensemble tracking. This, not only orchestrates
different classifier towards a common goal but also provides an intelligent
update mechanism to keep the diversity of classifiers and to mitigate the
shortcomings of one with the others. The data exchange is optimized with regard
to an ensemble uncertainty utility function, and the ensemble is updated via
co-training. The evaluations demonstrate promising results realized by the
proposed algorithm for the real-world online tracking.Comment: AVSS 2017 Submissio
Efficient Asymmetric Co-Tracking using Uncertainty Sampling
Adaptive tracking-by-detection approaches are popular for tracking arbitrary
objects. They treat the tracking problem as a classification task and use
online learning techniques to update the object model. However, these
approaches are heavily invested in the efficiency and effectiveness of their
detectors. Evaluating a massive number of samples for each frame (e.g.,
obtained by a sliding window) forces the detector to trade the accuracy in
favor of speed. Furthermore, misclassification of borderline samples in the
detector introduce accumulating errors in tracking. In this study, we propose a
co-tracking based on the efficient cooperation of two detectors: a rapid
adaptive exemplar-based detector and another more sophisticated but slower
detector with a long-term memory. The sampling labeling and co-learning of the
detectors are conducted by an uncertainty sampling unit, which improves the
speed and accuracy of the system. We also introduce a budgeting mechanism which
prevents the unbounded growth in the number of examples in the first detector
to maintain its rapid response. Experiments demonstrate the efficiency and
effectiveness of the proposed tracker against its baselines and its superior
performance against state-of-the-art trackers on various benchmark videos.Comment: Submitted to IEEE ICSIPA'201
Effect of combining estradiol valerate with sildenafil in increasing the thickness of the endometrium in infertile women before intrauterine insemination: a randomized clinical trial
Background: Therapies available for thin endometrium are limited and are mostly performed experimentally which most of these treatments have a similar function and increase blood flow to the endometrium, causing it to thicken and develop. The aim of the study was to compare the effect of estradiol valerate in combination with sildenafil on endometrial thickness in infertile women before intrauterine insemination.
Methods: In this randomized clinical trial 100 infertile women referred to Reyhaneh Infertility Center in Ardabil were randomly divided into two groups. Patients' endometrial thickness was assessed by vaginal ultrasound before treatment and then on day 9 of the cycle. The intervention group received one tablet of estradiol valerate every 12 h from the ninth day of menstruation for 4 days and sildenafil as 25 mg orally daily from day 9 to 12, but in the control group, patients received placebo tablets orally in addition to estradiol.
Results: There was no statistically significant difference between the intervention and control groups before and after the intervention in term of endometrial thickness. The rate of increase in endometrial thickness was 1.35 mm in the intervention group and 1.37 mm in the control group, but the difference was not statistically significant.
Conclusions: Estradiol valerate alone or in combination with sildenafil resulted in a significant increase in endometrial thickness and increasing oral sildenafil supplementation with oral estradiol valerate had no significant effect on increasing endometrial thickness
AnimGAN: A Spatiotemporally-Conditioned Generative Adversarial Network for Character Animation
Producing realistic character animations is one of the essential tasks in
human-AI interactions. Considered as a sequence of poses of a humanoid, the
task can be considered as a sequence generation problem with spatiotemporal
smoothness and realism constraints. Additionally, we wish to control the
behavior of AI agents by giving them what to do and, more specifically, how to
do it. We proposed a spatiotemporally-conditioned GAN that generates a sequence
that is similar to a given sequence in terms of semantics and spatiotemporal
dynamics. Using LSTM-based generator and graph ConvNet discriminator, this
system is trained end-to-end on a large gathered dataset of gestures,
expressions, and actions. Experiments showed that compared to traditional
conditional GAN, our method creates plausible, realistic, and semantically
relevant humanoid animation sequences that match user expectations.Comment: Submitted to ICIP 202
Mapping local patterns of childhood overweight and wasting in low- and middle-income countries between 2000 and 2017
A double burden of malnutrition occurs when individuals, household members or communities experience both undernutrition and overweight. Here, we show geospatial estimates of overweight and wasting prevalence among children under 5 years of age in 105 low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) from 2000 to 2017 and aggregate these to policy-relevant administrative units. Wasting decreased overall across LMICs between 2000 and 2017, from 8.4% (62.3 (55.1–70.8) million) to 6.4% (58.3 (47.6–70.7) million), but is predicted to remain above the World Health Organization’s Global Nutrition Target of <5% in over half of LMICs by 2025. Prevalence of overweight increased from 5.2% (30 (22.8–38.5) million) in 2000 to 6.0% (55.5 (44.8–67.9) million) children aged under 5 years in 2017. Areas most affected by double burden of malnutrition were located in Indonesia, Thailand, southeastern China, Botswana, Cameroon and central Nigeria. Our estimates provide a new perspective to researchers, policy makers and public health agencies in their efforts to address this global childhood syndemic
Global burden of 369 diseases and injuries in 204 countries and territories, 1990–2019: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019
Background: In an era of shifting global agendas and expanded emphasis on non-communicable diseases and injuries along with communicable diseases, sound evidence on trends by cause at the national level is essential. The Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) provides a systematic scientific assessment of published, publicly available, and contributed data on incidence, prevalence, and mortality for a mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive list of diseases and injuries. Methods: GBD estimates incidence, prevalence, mortality, years of life lost (YLLs), years lived with disability (YLDs), and disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) due to 369 diseases and injuries, for two sexes, and for 204 countries and territories. Input data were extracted from censuses, household surveys, civil registration and vital statistics, disease registries, health service use, air pollution monitors, satellite imaging, disease notifications, and other sources. Cause-specific death rates and cause fractions were calculated using the Cause of Death Ensemble model and spatiotemporal Gaussian process regression. Cause-specific deaths were adjusted to match the total all-cause deaths calculated as part of the GBD population, fertility, and mortality estimates. Deaths were multiplied by standard life expectancy at each age to calculate YLLs. A Bayesian meta-regression modelling tool, DisMod-MR 2.1, was used to ensure consistency between incidence, prevalence, remission, excess mortality, and cause-specific mortality for most causes. Prevalence estimates were multiplied by disability weights for mutually exclusive sequelae of diseases and injuries to calculate YLDs. We considered results in the context of the Socio-demographic Index (SDI), a composite indicator of income per capita, years of schooling, and fertility rate in females younger than 25 years. Uncertainty intervals (UIs) were generated for every metric using the 25th and 975th ordered 1000 draw values of the posterior distribution. Findings: Global health has steadily improved over the past 30 years as measured by age-standardised DALY rates. After taking into account population growth and ageing, the absolute number of DALYs has remained stable. Since 2010, the pace of decline in global age-standardised DALY rates has accelerated in age groups younger than 50 years compared with the 1990–2010 time period, with the greatest annualised rate of decline occurring in the 0–9-year age group. Six infectious diseases were among the top ten causes of DALYs in children younger than 10 years in 2019: lower respiratory infections (ranked second), diarrhoeal diseases (third), malaria (fifth), meningitis (sixth), whooping cough (ninth), and sexually transmitted infections (which, in this age group, is fully accounted for by congenital syphilis; ranked tenth). In adolescents aged 10–24 years, three injury causes were among the top causes of DALYs: road injuries (ranked first), self-harm (third), and interpersonal violence (fifth). Five of the causes that were in the top ten for ages 10–24 years were also in the top ten in the 25–49-year age group: road injuries (ranked first), HIV/AIDS (second), low back pain (fourth), headache disorders (fifth), and depressive disorders (sixth). In 2019, ischaemic heart disease and stroke were the top-ranked causes of DALYs in both the 50–74-year and 75-years-and-older age groups. Since 1990, there has been a marked shift towards a greater proportion of burden due to YLDs from non-communicable diseases and injuries. In 2019, there were 11 countries where non-communicable disease and injury YLDs constituted more than half of all disease burden. Decreases in age-standardised DALY rates have accelerated over the past decade in countries at the lower end of the SDI range, while improvements have started to stagnate or even reverse in countries with higher SDI. Interpretation: As disability becomes an increasingly large component of disease burden and a larger component of health expenditure, greater research and developm nt investment is needed to identify new, more effective intervention strategies. With a rapidly ageing global population, the demands on health services to deal with disabling outcomes, which increase with age, will require policy makers to anticipate these changes. The mix of universal and more geographically specific influences on health reinforces the need for regular reporting on population health in detail and by underlying cause to help decision makers to identify success stories of disease control to emulate, as well as opportunities to improve. Funding: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. © 2020 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an Open Access article under the CC BY 4.0 licens