1,243 research outputs found
Guided Stereo Matching
Stereo is a prominent technique to infer dense depth maps from images, and
deep learning further pushed forward the state-of-the-art, making end-to-end
architectures unrivaled when enough data is available for training. However,
deep networks suffer from significant drops in accuracy when dealing with new
environments. Therefore, in this paper, we introduce Guided Stereo Matching, a
novel paradigm leveraging a small amount of sparse, yet reliable depth
measurements retrieved from an external source enabling to ameliorate this
weakness. The additional sparse cues required by our method can be obtained
with any strategy (e.g., a LiDAR) and used to enhance features linked to
corresponding disparity hypotheses. Our formulation is general and fully
differentiable, thus enabling to exploit the additional sparse inputs in
pre-trained deep stereo networks as well as for training a new instance from
scratch. Extensive experiments on three standard datasets and two
state-of-the-art deep architectures show that even with a small set of sparse
input cues, i) the proposed paradigm enables significant improvements to
pre-trained networks. Moreover, ii) training from scratch notably increases
accuracy and robustness to domain shifts. Finally, iii) it is suited and
effective even with traditional stereo algorithms such as SGM.Comment: CVPR 201
Doing interlanguage analysis in school contexts
The aim of this chapter is to discuss these issues, by reporting on a project aimed at bringing interlanguage analysis to school. The project involved several teachers at different levels, from kindergarten to middle school, as part of wider teacher-training and action-research schemes. Teachers were involved in collecting data and in their subsequent analysis based on the notion of interlanguage. These procedures were designed so that they could be implemented in everyday school settings. The main goal was formative assessment, in the more usual sense of being oriented to improving didactic strategies, but also in the sense of being part of teacher training
A typology of statements about discourse
The article presents a typology of statements that can be made about discourse
data. The classification is based on two parameters: level of generality and level
of interpretation. Each of these is operationalized into three discrete levels, to
yield a nine-cell table containing types of statements going from the presenta-
tion of a single case to the elaboration of complex general theories. The discus-
sion is based on an extensive review of published research and on an empirical
study on other-repetition in child second language discourse. The proposed clas-
sification aims at clarifying a number of questions and possible misunderstand-
ings about issues of interpretation, generalization, and quantification. It is
shown that in some cases apparently opposed approaches actually make the
same type of statements, simply using different terms and methodologies,
whereas in other cases, the dispute is not on different methodological options,
but rather on different types of statements altogether. Researchers are invited to
be more explicit as regards their position in order to promote interdisciplinary
dialog and facilitate cross-method comparisons
Fatherhood and sperm DNA damage in testicular cancer patients
Testicular cancer (TC) is one of the most treatable of all malignancies and the
management of the quality of life of these patients is increasingly important, especially
with regard to their sexuality and fertility. Survivors must overcome anxiety and fears
about reduced fertility and possible pregnancy-related risks as well as health effects in
offspring. There is thus a growing awareness of the need for reproductive counseling
of cancer survivors. Studies found a high level of sperm DNA damage in TC patients
in comparison with healthy, fertile controls, but no significant difference between these
patients and infertile patients. Sperm DNA alterations due to cancer treatment persist
from 2 to 5 years after the end of the treatment and may be influenced by both the
type of therapy and the stage of the disease. Population studies reported a slightly
reduced overall fertility of TC survivors and a more frequent use of ART than the general
population, with a success rate of around 50%. Paternity after a diagnosis of cancer is
an important issue and reproductive potential is becoming a major quality of life factor.
Sperm chromatin instability associated with genome instability is the most important
reproductive side effect related to the malignancy or its treatment. Studies investigating
the magnitude of this damage could have a considerable translational importance in the
management of cancer patients, as they could identify the time needed for the germ
cell line to repair nuclear damage and thus produce gametes with a reduced risk for the
offspring
Qualitativo/quantitativo: ripensare la distinzione
La distinzione tra \u201cqualitativo\u201d e \u201cquantitativo\u201d appare praticamente in tutti i testi sulla metodologia delle scienze sociali, in alcune collane editoriali, in molti corsi universitari. Questi aggettivi vengono applicati a diverse teste nominali, tra cui \u201cricerca\u201d, \u201capprocci\u201d, \u201cmetodi\u201d, \u201cparadigmi\u201d, \u201cdati\u201d. Tuttavia, come cercher\uf2 di dimostrare in questo saggio, non tutti gli accoppiamenti aggettivo-nome sono felici, e in molti casi essi portano a fraintendimenti e contraddizioni. In particolare, vorrei dimostrare che \u201cqualitativo\u201d e \u201cquantitativo\u201d si possono applicare sensatamente solo a diversi tipi di analisi, mentre ogni altra forma di applicazione risulta problematica
Oncofertility and oncosexualityvin non-Hodgkin lymphoma and testicular cancer survivors
Background – Recently great attention was brought on long-term consequences of antineoplastic treatments, with special focus to reproductive and sexual health. Human testis can be severely damaged by chemo and radiotherapy but, while literature offers plenty of data regarding common malignancies in reproductive age such as testicular cancer and Hodgkin lymphoma, we know little about other neoplasias. Similarly, knowledge of male sexological alterations in cancer derives mainly from prostate cancer, which can hardly be generalized to other pathologies. Since little is known about Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma survivors’ fertility and there is incomplete information for Testicular Cancer survivors sexological counselling, the aim of this work was: (Study 1) to evaluate semen quality and fertility status before and after treatments of patients who underwent semen cryopreservation after the diagnosis of NHL; (Study 2) to evaluate the effect of TC after orchiectomy and provide a complete follow up in order to highlight possible post treatment short and long-term sexological alterations.
Material and Methods – Patients attending the Laboratory of Seminology – Sperm Bank “Loredana Gandini” for sperm cryopreservation were selected for both studies after a careful medical history collection. Exclusion criteria were any comorbidity and any other known factor interfering with sperm parameters. For Study 1, 224 patients (mean age 32.7 ± 8.6 years) with diagnosis of Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma were selected, and semen analysis was performed at baseline (T0) and at least one follow up visit at 12 (T1), 24 (T2) or more than 24 months (T3; median 52 months); fertility status was ascertained with a dedicated questionnaire. For Study 2, 241 sexually active consecutive patients (mean age 31.3 ± 6.9 years) with recent diagnosis of testicular cancer were selected. IIEF questionnaire was completed for sexual function evaluation at baseline post-orchiectomy (T0) and at least one follow up control at 6 (T1), 12 (T2), 18 (T3), 24 (T4), 48 months (T5) and after 5 years (T6, median 96 months) after chemotherapy; 223 healthy controls were also recruited for IIEF scores comparisons. Moreover, both TC patient and controls underwent blood hormones analysis (FSH, LH, total Testosterone).
Results – Study 1 – Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma patients showed pre-therapy mean semen parameters within WHO 2010 normal range. Longitudinal post-therapy evaluation showed that sperm parameters significantly worsened at T1 compared to T0 (p < 0.001). Total sperm number at T2 remained significantly worse than T0 (p = 0.040) whereas it returned to values comparable to baseline at T3. Progressive motility and abnormal forms returned comparable to baseline at T2. 13.7% of survivors were azoospermic at T3. Permanent spermatogenesis impairment was associated with pelvic radiotherapy (OR 14.54, 95% CI 1.90 – 111.28) and treatment intensification for bone marrow transplant (33% azoospermia at T3). Regarding fertility, 14/22 pts who desired children were able to achieve fatherhood either through natural fertility (2 pts) or through ART (12 pts). Study 2 – Baseline prevalence of erectile dysfunction is 37.8% in TC pts vs 9.9% in healthy controls (p < 0.001). IIEF-15 baseline scores were significantly worse in TC group compared to controls (p < 0.001), with the exception of the orgasmic function domain (p = 0.334). Post-chemotherapy evaluation showed that erectile function improves significantly at T2 (T0 vs T2; p < 0.001) with further improvements at T3 and T4 compared to baseline (T0 vs T3: p = 0.014; T0 vs T4: p = 0.002). However, we detected an increase in erectile dysfunction prevalence at T5 with a significant reduction of erectile function domain scores, which seemed to persist at T6. Compared to controls, erectile function remains significantly worse at T1 then return comparable to healthy controls. Sexual desire, intercourse satisfaction and general satisfaction showed trends of improvement from baseline but remained significantly worse compared to controls for the whole duration of the study. No significant variation of the orgasmic function was detected against both baseline values and controls. The evaluation of sexual hormones revealed that prevalence of biochemical hypogonadism was 5.4% in the TC group. There were no hypogonadal patients in CTR group. Total testosterone in post-orchidectomy patients (T0) is significantly lower than controls (p < 0.001), but no significant variation was detected at T1 and T2. Finally, no significant correlation was detected between total testosterone levels and scores of any IIEF15 domain.
Discussion – Study 1 demonstrates that Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma survivors undergoing intensive treatments and pelvic radiotherapy risk severe and permanent impairment of spermatogenesis. However, routine NHL chemotherapy regimens are compatible with spermatogenesis recovery after 2 years from the end of treatments and, while average sperm parameters may not fully return to pretreatment values, more than a half (63%) of patient who actively desire fatherhood can conceive either through natural conception or ART. Similarly, for Testicular Cancer survivors we confirm the presence of erectile dysfunction and impairment of sexual desire and satisfaction compared to a healthy population with improvements expected within one year from the end of the treatments. Absence of clear correlations with biochemical hypogonadism suggests that psychological burden following cancer diagnosis and treatments may play an important role. Information from these studies is of extreme importance since it will allow to increase the effectiveness of patients’ counseling interventions in an oncofertility service
An Approach to Assessing the Linguistic Difficulty of Tasks
This article proposes an approach to assessing the linguistic difficulty of tasks, that is, the linguistic
features involved in performing a communicative task that may make it more or less challenging for
language learners. The procedure follows the methodology proposed by Pallotti (2019) for operationalizing
task interactional difficulty. This consists, firstly, in identifying what linguistic-communicative features are
particularly difficult for language learners, based on previous research showing that they appear late in
the course of acquisition. Secondly, native speakers\u2019 performance is observed in order to determine which
tasks most involve these difficult linguistic features. The dimensions observed in this study concern lexical
diversity and sophistication, morphological complexity, and length and depth of syntactic constructions.
Data come from 10 native speakers of Italian performing 5 communicative tasks. Results show that
different dimensions of linguistic difficulty are relatively independent of each other, and that inter-
individual variation is rather limited as regards the lexicon and morphology, but more pronounced for
syntax. Implications for SLA research, Task-Based Language Teaching and Task-Based Language Assessment
are discussed
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