Context-aware CNNs for person head detection

Person detection is a key problem for many computer vision tasks. While face detection has reached maturity, detecting people under a full variation of camera view-points, human poses, lighting conditions and occlusions is still a difficult challenge. In this work we focus on detecting human heads in natural scenes. Starting from the recent local R-CNN object detector, we extend it with two types of contextual cues. First, we leverage person-scene relations and propose a Global CNN model trained to predict positions and scales of heads directly from the full image. Second, we explicitly model pairwise relations among objects and train a Pairwise CNN model using a structured-output surrogate loss. The Local, Global and Pairwise models are combined into a joint CNN framework. To train and test our full model, we introduce a large dataset composed of 369,846 human heads annotated in 224,740 movie frames. We evaluate our method and demonstrate improvements of person head detection against several recent baselines in three datasets. We also show improvements of the detection speed provided by our model.Comment: To appear in International Conference on Computer Vision (ICCV), 201

TESTING THE INDIVIDUAL EFFECTIVE DOSE HYPOthesis

The assumption of the individual effective dose is the basis for the probit method used for analyzing dose or concentration – response data. According to this assumption, each individual has a uniquely innate tolerance expressed as the individual effective dose (IED) or the smallest dose that is sufficient to kill it. An alternative to IED, stochasticity suggests that individuals do not have uniquely innate tolerance; deaths result from random processes occurring among similar individuals. While the probit method has been used extensively in toxicology the underlying assumption has not been tested rigorously. The goal of this study was to test which assumption, IED or stochasticity, best explained the response of Daphnia magna exposed to multiple pulses of copper sulfate (CuSO4) over 24 – d. Daphnia magna were exposed to subsequent age – dependent 24 – h LC50 Cu concentrations. Age – dependent 24 – h LC50 values were determined prior to the 24 – d bioassay. These LC50 values were inversely related to organism age. A Cu depuration test was conducted to determine time between Cu exposures. Results indicated that five days was sufficient for D. magna to depurate accumulated Cu and recover from previous exposure. Hence, recovery time between Cu exposures during the 24 – d test was five days. The Cu depuration of D. magna did not depend on age or Cu concentration. Daphnia magna were exposed to four 24 – h Cu exposures each separated by five days during the 24 – d bioassay. Surviving organisms were transferred after each exposure to Cu-free culture media for recovery time before the next exposure. Stochasticity best explained the survival and reproduction response of D.magna exposed to Cu

Market Entry Plan For A Vietnamese Industrial Company : case: European Plastic Joint Stock Company

The chemical and plastic industries have been hailed as the saviors for many economies in their current economic downturns. Despite the global recession, the plastic industry still shows its attractive opportunities in both output market and material market. Realizing the promising opportunity of plastic materials trading between the EU and Vietnam, the authors proposed an exploratory market research to a Vietnamese plastic masterbatch manufacturer with Finland as the pilot target market. The main objective of this paper is to assist the case company to decide whether Finland should be in its export market list. The authors, in the interests of the case company, designed their thesis as a market entry plan, which is the step-by-step guide of the case company through most trading barriers so as to reach the customers in the target market without making any tactical mistake. The writers also directed their focus towards the company’s competitive advantages, the market profitability and other influencing factors of the market entry process. Precisely, this work involves: the internal analysis of the case company, in which both its strengths and weaknesses are analyzed; the external analysis of the target market Finland, from which the case company can find its opportunities and also threats in a new environment; and finally the market entry strategies for exporting plastic masterbatch to Finland. There are several revealing findings in the thesis. Firstly, the Finnish plastic market, thanks to its high growth rate and competition, shows a certain amount of attractiveness to the case company, though it is not an appealing choice at the moment. Secondly, despite some legal issues, the case company can easily join the material distribution network by partnering up with the appropriate local distributors. Finally, the most important outcome is a sound set of strategic recommendations for the case company to perfect itself from the inside out

Et hamskifte i den norske kinobransjen: en empirisk analyse av billettpriser

I Norge har det siden de første filmene ble vist offentlig tidlig på 1900-tallet vært viktig å danne et skille mellom kommunale og private kinoer. Der kommunale kinoer følger kulturpolitiske mål, søker private kinoer etter profittmaksimering. Norske konsumenter har historisk dratt stor nytte av et kvalitativt filmtilbud til lave priser under det særnorske kommunale kinosystemet. De siste femten årene har kapitalsterke private kinokjeder tatt over stadig flere kommunale kinoer, og i media deles det en utbredt bekymring for denne utviklingen. Vi har i lys av privatiseringen ønsket å se nærmere på hvordan eierskap- og konkurranseforholdene for bedriftene i kinobransjen påvirker billettpriser. Utredningen baserer seg på årlige data i perioden 2001-2014 for de 57 største kinobedriftene i Norge per 2013, der disse data er hentet fra Film & Kino og SSB. Vi har benyttet oss av regresjonsanalyser og komparative trendanalyser for å komme frem til våre funn. Resultatene viser at en kinos eierskaps- og konkurranseforhold kan være av betydning for kinoenes priser. Der ser vi at private kinoersetter signifikant høyere pris enn andre kommunale kinoer. Vi kommer videre frem til at kommunale kinoer som overtas av private aktører har en høyere prisøkning relativt til kommunale kinoer i perioden etter eierskapsskiftet. Når det gjelder konkurranse, finner vi at konkurrerende kinoer generelt setter lavere pris enn kinoer som ikke møter konkurranse. Nærmere undersøkelser viser at private kinoer med og uten konkurranse setter tilnærmet lik pris, mens konkurrerende kommunale kinoer setter merkbart lavere pris i forhold til kommunale kinoer uten konkurranse. Oppgaven konkluderer med at privatiseringen har elementer som bidrar til både høyere og lavere pris på sikt, men at dette vil kun holde under antakelse om at kinolandskapet er under liknende forhold som det er i dagnhhma

Thrombin-induced events in non-platelet cells are mediated by the unique proteolytic mechanism established for the cloned platelet thrombin receptor.

We recently isolated a cDNA clone encoding a functional platelet thrombin receptor that defined a unique mechanism of receptor activation. Thrombin cleaves its receptor's extracellular amino terminal extension, unmasking a new amino terminus that functions as a tethered peptide ligand and activates the receptor. A novel peptide mimicking this new amino terminus was a full agonist for platelet secretion and aggregation, suggesting that this unusual mechanism accounts for platelet activation by thrombin. Does this mechanism also mediate thrombin's assorted actions on non-platelet cells? We now report that the novel thrombin receptor agonist peptide reproduces thrombin-induced events (specifically, phosphoinositide hydrolysis and mitogenesis) in CCL-39 hamster lung fibroblasts, a naturally thrombin-responsive cell line. Moreover, these thrombin-induced events could be recapitulated in CV-1 cells, normally poorly responsive to thrombin, after transfection with human platelet thrombin receptor cDNA. Our data show that important thrombin-induced cellular events are mediated by the same unusual mechanism of receptor activation in both platelets and fibroblasts, very likely via the same or very similar receptors

Gradual transformation of Forest Plantations into Close-to-Nature Forests in NE Vietnam

This research was carried out at Pinus massoniana Lamb. and Acacia auriculiformis Benth plantation sites of between nine to eleven years old in Luc Ngan Distric, Bac Giang Province, Vietnam. Its purpose is to contribute to the knowledge of the dynamics of site conditions beneath the plantation canopy and the growth of indigenous species in local species trials, and to propose silvicultural management options for the gradual transformation of forest plantations into close-to-nature forest. The research indicated that ten years after the establishment of the forest plantation on bare hill, site condition under plantation canopy including soil properties, temperature, humidity, and natural regeneration ability of indigenous species under canopy was significant and positive change. Moreover, the plantation canopy closure varying from 0.4 to 0.6 is the most suitable for the growth and development of indigenous tree species in the first three years after planting. In this study, four species consisting Canarium album, Erythrophleum fordii, Cinnamomum obtusifolium, and Michelia mediocris were selected for planting under plantation canopy

Video anomaly detection using deep generative models

Video anomaly detection faces three challenges: a) no explicit definition of abnormality; b) scarce labelled data and c) dependence on hand-crafted features. This thesis introduces novel detection systems using unsupervised generative models, which can address the first two challenges. By working directly on raw pixels, they also bypass the last