Beyond Intra-modality: A Survey of Heterogeneous Person Re-identification

An efficient and effective person re-identification (ReID) system relieves the users from painful and boring video watching and accelerates the process of video analysis. Recently, with the explosive demands of practical applications, a lot of research efforts have been dedicated to heterogeneous person re-identification (Hetero-ReID). In this paper, we provide a comprehensive review of state-of-the-art Hetero-ReID methods that address the challenge of inter-modality discrepancies. According to the application scenario, we classify the methods into four categories -- low-resolution, infrared, sketch, and text. We begin with an introduction of ReID, and make a comparison between Homogeneous ReID (Homo-ReID) and Hetero-ReID tasks. Then, we describe and compare existing datasets for performing evaluations, and survey the models that have been widely employed in Hetero-ReID. We also summarize and compare the representative approaches from two perspectives, i.e., the application scenario and the learning pipeline. We conclude by a discussion of some future research directions. Follow-up updates are avaible at: https://github.com/lightChaserX/Awesome-Hetero-reIDComment: Accepted by IJCAI 2020. Project url: https://github.com/lightChaserX/Awesome-Hetero-reI

GP-SLAM+: real-time 3D lidar SLAM based on improved regionalized Gaussian process map reconstruction

This paper presents a 3D lidar SLAM system based on improved regionalized Gaussian process (GP) map reconstruction to provide both low-drift state estimation and mapping in real-time for robotics applications. We utilize spatial GP regression to model the environment. This tool enables us to recover surfaces including those in sparsely scanned areas and obtain uniform samples with uncertainty. Those properties facilitate robust data association and map updating in our scan-to-map registration scheme, especially when working with sparse range data. Compared with previous GP-SLAM, this work overcomes the prohibitive computational complexity of GP and redesigns the registration strategy to meet the accuracy requirements in 3D scenarios. For large-scale tasks, a two-thread framework is employed to suppress the drift further. Aerial and ground-based experiments demonstrate that our method allows robust odometry and precise mapping in real-time. It also outperforms the state-of-the-art lidar SLAM systems in our tests with light-weight sensors.Comment: Accepted by IROS 202

Neural Global Shutter: Learn to Restore Video from a Rolling Shutter Camera with Global Reset Feature

Most computer vision systems assume distortion-free images as inputs. The widely used rolling-shutter (RS) image sensors, however, suffer from geometric distortion when the camera and object undergo motion during capture. Extensive researches have been conducted on correcting RS distortions. However, most of the existing work relies heavily on the prior assumptions of scenes or motions. Besides, the motion estimation steps are either oversimplified or computationally inefficient due to the heavy flow warping, limiting their applicability. In this paper, we investigate using rolling shutter with a global reset feature (RSGR) to restore clean global shutter (GS) videos. This feature enables us to turn the rectification problem into a deblur-like one, getting rid of inaccurate and costly explicit motion estimation. First, we build an optic system that captures paired RSGR/GS videos. Second, we develop a novel algorithm incorporating spatial and temporal designs to correct the spatial-varying RSGR distortion. Third, we demonstrate that existing image-to-image translation algorithms can recover clean GS videos from distorted RSGR inputs, yet our algorithm achieves the best performance with the specific designs. Our rendered results are not only visually appealing but also beneficial to downstream tasks. Compared to the state-of-the-art RS solution, our RSGR solution is superior in both effectiveness and efficiency. Considering it is easy to realize without changing the hardware, we believe our RSGR solution can potentially replace the RS solution in taking distortion-free videos with low noise and low budget.Comment: CVPR2022, https://github.com/lightChaserX/neural-global-shutte

Influences of mental accounting on consumption decisions: asymmetric effect of a scarcity mindset

A scarcity mindset is considered to impact consumer behaviors. Our research aimed to examine the moderating effect of the scarcity mindset on the relationship between mental accounting and hedonic (vs. utilitarian) consumption. We conducted an online experimental design (mental accounting: windfall gains vs. hard-earning gains; consumption: hedonic products vs. utilitarian products) and verified our hypotheses in two distinct samples: a student sample and an adult sample. Our results showed that consumers who received windfall gains tended to use it for hedonic consumption rather than utilitarian consumption. Intriguingly, such an effect was insignificant under a high level of a scarcity mindset but significant under a low level of the scarcity mindset. Moreover, consumers who received hard-earning gains tended to spend the money on utilitarian (vs. hedonic) consumption. However, we did not detect the impact of the scarcity mindset on such effects. Our research suggested an asymmetric effect of the scarcity mindset on hedonic (vs. utilitarian) consumption under two different mental accounts. It highlights the important role of the scarcity mindset in consumer behaviors, which leaves avenues for future research to understand marketing promotion strategies for distinct products

Study on Typhoon Characteristic Based on Bridge Health Monitoring System

Through the wind velocity and direction monitoring system installed on Jiubao Bridge of Qiantang River, Hangzhou city, Zhejiang province, China, a full range of wind velocity and direction data was collected during typhoon HAIKUI in 2012. Based on these data, it was found that, at higher observed elevation, turbulence intensity is lower, and the variation tendency of longitudinal and lateral turbulence intensities with mean wind speeds is basically the same. Gust factor goes higher with increasing mean wind speed, and the change rate obviously decreases as wind speed goes down and an inconspicuous increase occurs when wind speed is high. The change of peak factor is inconspicuous with increasing time and mean wind speed. The probability density function (PDF) of fluctuating wind speed follows Gaussian distribution. Turbulence integral scale increases with mean wind speed, and its PDF does not follow Gaussian distribution. The power spectrum of observation fluctuating velocity is in accordance with Von Karman spectrum

Synergistic Effects of Apigenin and Paclitaxel on Apoptosis of Cancer Cells

BACKGROUND: It was well known that the clinical use of chemotherapeutic drugs is restricted by severe adverse reactions and drug resistances. Thus it is necessary to figure out a strategy to increase the specific anti-tumor efficiency of chemotherapeutic drugs. Apigenin, a kind of flavonoids, has been reported to possess anticancer activities with very low cytotoxicity to normal tissue. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Our results from cell viability assay, western-blots and TdT-mediated dUTP-biotin nick end labeling (TUNEL) assay demonstrated the synergistic pro-apoptotic effects of a low dose of apigenin and paclitaxel in human cancer cell lines. To analyze the underlying mechanism, we examined reactive oxygen species (ROS) staining after cells were treated with a combination of apigenin and paclitaxel, or each of them alone. Data from flow-cytometry showed that superoxides but not reduction of peroxides accumulated in HeLa cells treated with apigenin or a combination of apigenin and paclitaxel. Apigenin and paclitaxel-induced HeLa cell apoptosis was related to the level of ROS in cells. We further evaluated activity and protein level of superoxide dismutase (SOD). Apigenin significantly inhibited SOD activity but did not alter the SOD protein level suggesting that apigenin promoted ROS accumulation through suppressing enzyme activity of SOD. Addition of Zn(2+), Cu(2+) and Mn(2+) to cell lysates inhibited apigenin's effects on SOD activity. At the same time, data from caspase-2 over-expression and knocked-down experiments demonstrated that caspase-2 participated in apigenin and paclitaxel-induced HeLa cell apoptosis. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Taken together, our study demonstrated that apigenin can sensitize cancer cells to paclitaxel induced apoptosis through suppressing SOD activity, which then led to accumulation of ROS and cleavage of caspase-2, suggesting that the combined use of apigenin and paclitaxel was an effective way to decrease the dose of paclitaxel taken

HOTCOLD Block: Fooling Thermal Infrared Detectors with a Novel Wearable Design

Adversarial attacks on thermal infrared imaging expose the risk of related applications. Estimating the security of these systems is essential for safely deploying them in the real world. In many cases, realizing the attacks in the physical space requires elaborate special perturbations. These solutions are often impractical and attention-grabbing. To address the need for a physically practical and stealthy adversarial attack, we introduce HotCold Block, a novel physical attack for infrared detectors that hide persons utilizing the wearable Warming Paste and Cooling Paste. By attaching these readily available temperature-controlled materials to the body, HotCold Block evades human eyes efficiently. Moreover, unlike existing methods that build adversarial patches with complex texture and structure features, HotCold Block utilizes an SSP-oriented adversarial optimization algorithm that enables attacks with pure color blocks and explores the influence of size, shape, and position on attack performance. Extensive experimental results in both digital and physical environments demonstrate the performance of our proposed HotCold Block. Code is available: https://github.com/weihui1308/HOTCOLDBlock

Myc pathway-guided alternative splicing events predict the overall survival of lung squamous cell carcinoma

Oncogenic signaling pathways-guided alternative splicing events and their clinical prognostic values were investigated in lung squamous cell carcinoma (LUSC). RNAseq and AS data of LUSC were obtained from TCGA and SpliceSeq database, respectively. Pathway enrichment-guided activity study of alternative splicing (PEGASAS) analysis was performed to evaluate the activity of oncogenic pathways. We identified 4229 AS events in 2311 genes significantly associated with the Hallmark_Myc_Targets_V1 pathway. Twenty-nine prognostic Myc guided-AS events classified LUSC into 3 subtypes, of which Cluster 1 subtype showed the worst prognosis, while cluster 2 subtype showed a favorable prognosis. A prognostic model based on 10 most contributive prognostic AS events identified by LASSO could effectively stratify LUSC patients into high- and low-risk groups. The high-risk group was associated with worse survival and contained more samples in poor prognostic subtype (cluster 1). GSEA revealed that cell adhesion and immune response pathways were significantly enriched in the high-risk group, and AS pathways in the low-risk group. Fifty-nine regulatory SFs were identified to regulate these 10 AS events. Myc-guided AS events could classify LUSC samples into subtypes with significantly different survival. A prognostic model based on 10 Myc-guided AS events could predict the survival of LUSC