PPCU Sam: Open-source face recognition framework

In recent years by the popularization of AI, an increasing number of enterprises deployed machine learning algorithms in real life settings. This trend shed light on leaking spots of the Deep Learning bubble, namely the catastrophic decrease in quality when the distribution of the test data shifts from the training data. It is of utmost importance that we treat the promises of novel algorithms with caution and discourage reporting near perfect experimental results by fine-tuning on fixed test sets and finding metrics that hide weak points of the proposed methods. To support the wider acceptance of computer vision solutions we share our findings through a case-study in which we built a face-recognition system from scratch using consumer grade devices only, collected a database of 100k images from 150 subjects and carried out extensive validation of the most prominent approaches in single-frame face recognition literature. We show that the reported worst-case score, 74.3% true-positive ratio drops below 46.8% on real data. To overcome this barrier, after careful error analysis of the single-frame baselines we propose a low complexity solution to cover the failure cases of the single-frame recognition methods which yields an increased stability in multi-frame recognition during test time. We validate the effectiveness of the proposal by an extensive survey among our users which evaluates to 89.5% true-positive ratio

Microsimulation based quantitative analysis of COVID-19 management strategies

Pandemic management requires reliable and efficient dynamical simulation to predict and control disease spreading. The COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic is mitigated by several non-pharmaceutical interventions, but it is hard to predict which of these are the most effective for a given population. We developed the computationally effective and scalable, agent-based microsimulation framework PanSim, allowing us to test control measures in multiple infection waves caused by the spread of a new virus variant in a city-sized societal environment using a unified framework fitted to realistic data. We show that vaccination strategies prioritising occupational risk groups minimise the number of infections but allow higher mortality while prioritising vulnerable groups minimises mortality but implies an increased infection rate. We also found that intensive vaccination along with non-pharmaceutical interventions can substantially suppress the spread of the virus, while low levels of vaccination, premature reopening may easily revert the epidemic to an uncontrolled state. Our analysis highlights that while vaccination protects the elderly from COVID-19, a large percentage of children will contract the virus, and we also show the benefits and limitations of various quarantine and testing scenarios. The uniquely detailed spatio-temporal resolution of PanSim allows the design and testing of complex, specifically targeted interventions with a large number of agents under dynamically changing conditions