Detection of Object Throwing Behavior in Surveillance Videos

Anomalous behavior detection is a challenging research area within computer vision. Progress in this area enables automated detection of dangerous behavior using surveillance camera feeds. A dangerous behavior that is often overlooked in other research is the throwing action in traffic flow, which is one of the unique requirements of our Smart City project to enhance public safety. This paper proposes a solution for throwing action detection in surveillance videos using deep learning. At present, datasets for throwing actions are not publicly available. To address the use-case of our Smart City project, we first generate the novel public 'Throwing Action' dataset, consisting of 271 videos of throwing actions performed by traffic participants, such as pedestrians, bicyclists, and car drivers, and 130 normal videos without throwing actions. Second, we compare the performance of different feature extractors for our anomaly detection method on the UCF-Crime and Throwing-Action datasets. The explored feature extractors are the Convolutional 3D (C3D) network, the Inflated 3D ConvNet (I3D) network, and the Multi-Fiber Network (MFNet). Finally, the performance of the anomaly detection algorithm is improved by applying the Adam optimizer instead of Adadelta, and proposing a mean normal loss function that covers the multitude of normal situations in traffic. Both aspects yield better anomaly detection performance. Besides this, the proposed mean normal loss function lowers the false alarm rate on the combined dataset. The experimental results reach an area under the ROC curve of 86.10 for the Throwing-Action dataset, and 80.13 on the combined dataset, respectively

AI for Everyone? Critical Perspectives

We are entering a new era of technological determinism and solutionism in which governments and business actors are seeking data-driven change, assuming that Artificial Intelligence is now inevitable and ubiquitous. But we have not even started asking the right questions, let alone developed an understanding of the consequences. Urgently needed is debate that asks and answers fundamental questions about power. This book brings together critical interrogations of what constitutes AI, its impact and its inequalities in order to offer an analysis of what it means for AI to deliver benefits for everyone. The book is structured in three parts: Part 1, AI: Humans vs. Machines, presents critical perspectives on human-machine dualism. Part 2, Discourses and Myths About AI, excavates metaphors and policies to ask normative questions about what is ‘desirable’ AI and what conditions make this possible. Part 3, AI Power and Inequalities, discusses how the implementation of AI creates important challenges that urgently need to be addressed. Bringing together scholars from diverse disciplinary backgrounds and regional contexts, this book offers a vital intervention on one of the most hyped concepts of our times

HLA tapasin independence: broader peptide repertoire and HIV control.

Human leukocyte antigen (HLA) class I allotypes vary in their ability to present peptides in the absence of tapasin, an essential component of the peptide loading complex. We quantified tapasin dependence of all allotypes that are common in European and African Americans (n = 97), which revealed a broad continuum of values. Ex vivo examination of cytotoxic T cell responses to the entire HIV-1 proteome from infected subjects indicates that tapasin-dependent allotypes present a more limited set of distinct peptides than do tapasin-independent allotypes, data supported by computational predictions. This suggests that variation in tapasin dependence may impact the strength of the immune responses by altering peptide repertoire size. In support of this model, we observed that individuals carrying HLA class I genotypes characterized by greater tapasin independence progress more slowly to AIDS and maintain lower viral loads, presumably due to increased breadth of peptide presentation. Thus, tapasin dependence level, like HLA zygosity, may serve as a means to restrict or expand breadth of the HLA-I peptide repertoire across humans, ultimately influencing immune responses to pathogens and vaccines

Long term hemodialysis aggravates lipolytic activity reduction and very low density, low density lipoproteins composition in chronic renal failure patients

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Dyslipidemia, particularly hypertriglyceridemia is common in uremia, and represents an independent risk factor for atherosclerosis.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>To investigate the effects of hemodialysis (HD) duration on very low density lipoprotein (VLDL) and low density lipoprotein (LDL) compositions and lipopolytic activities, 20 patients on 5 to 7 years hemodialysis were followed-up during 9 years. Blood samples were drawn at T0 (beginning of the study), T1 (3 years after initiating study), T2 (6 years after initiating study) and T3 (9 years after initiating study). T0 was taken as reference.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Triacylglycerols (TG) values were correlated with HD duration (r = 0.70, P < 0.05). An increase of total cholesterol was noted at T2 and T3. Lowered activity was observed for lipoprotein lipase (LPL) (-44%) at T3 and hepatic lipase (HL) (-29%) at T1, (-64%) at T2 and (-73%) at T3. Inverse relationships were found between HD duration and LPL activity (r = -0.63, P < 0.05), and HL activity (r = -0.71, P < 0.01). At T1, T2 and T3, high VLDL-amounts and VLDL-TG and decreased VLDL-phospholipids values were noted. Increased LDL-cholesteryl esters values were noted at T1 and T2 and in LDL-unesterified cholesterol at T2 and T3.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Despite hemodialysis duration, VLDL-LDL metabolism alterations are aggravated submitting patients to a greater risk of atherosclerosis.</p

Does the unification of health financing affect the distribution pattern of out‐of‐pocket health expenses in Turkey?

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/149529/1/ijsw12389_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/149529/2/ijsw12389.pd

Clinical Use and Therapeutic Potential of IVIG/SCIG, Plasma-Derived IgA or IgM, and Other Alternative Immunoglobulin Preparations

Intravenous and subcutaneous immunoglobulin preparations, consisting of IgG class antibodies, are increasingly used to treat a broad range of pathological conditions, including humoral immune deficiencies, as well as acute and chronic inflammatory or autoimmune disorders. A plethora of Fab- or Fc-mediated immune regulatory mechanisms has been described that might act separately or in concert, depending on pathogenesis or stage of clinical condition. Attempts have been undertaken to improve the efficacy of polyclonal IgG preparations, including the identification of relevant subfractions, mild chemical modification of molecules, or modification of carbohydrate side chains. Furthermore, plasma-derived IgA or IgM preparations may exhibit characteristics that might be exploited therapeutically. The need for improved treatment strategies without increase in plasma demand is a goal and might be achieved by more optimal use of plasma-derived proteins, including the IgA and the IgM fractions. This article provides an overview on the current knowledge and future strategies to improve the efficacy of regular IgG preparations and discusses the potential of human plasma-derived IgA, IgM, and preparations composed of mixtures of IgG, IgA, and IgM

Achondrogenesis type 2 in a newborn with a novel mutation on the COL2A1 gene

Achondrogenesis is a group of rare and fatal disorders occurring in approximately one in every 40,000-60,000 newborns. Achondrogenesis is classified in three groups, as Achondrogenesis type 1A (Houston-Harris type or AC-G1A), Achondrogenesis type 1B (Parenti-Fraccaro type or ACG1B) and Achondrogenesis type 2 (Langer-Saldino type or ACG2), depending on clinical and radiological findings. Achondrogenesis Type 2 is a lethal skeletal dysplasia that is typically characterized by short arms and legs, a small chest with short ribs, lung hypoplasia, a prominent forehead, a small chin, and an enlarged abdomen that may accompanied by polydramnios and hydrops. This study contributes to the literature by presenting a patient who was admitted to the Level ΙΙΙ Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), Bursa, Turkey), with extremely short extremities, a small chest, abdominal distention and respiratory distress, who was diagnosed with ACG2. On the COL2A1 gene, genetic analysis with next generation sequencing (NGS), was revealed to have a heterozygous missense variation, c.2546G>A, p.Gly849Asp mutation, which is a different genetic variant that has not been previously described in the literature

Real-time cardiorespiratory motion management for MRI-guided stereotactic arrythmia radioablation

Purpose or Objective Stereotactic arrhythmia radioablation (STAR) serves as a novel alternative approach for the treatment of refractory ventricular tachycardia (VT). Early evidence demonstrates impressive reductions (>90%) in VT burden with a single 25 Gy fraction. Clearly, toxicity is a major concern and should be proactively minimised by cardiorespiratory motion management. While respiratory motion mitigation is widely applied in stereotactic radiotherapy, cardiac motion presents a unique challenge due to its rapid periodicity. In this study, we provide the first experimental demonstration of real-time adaptive MRI-guided STAR. Materials and Methods An MRI-guided real-time adaptive STAR workflow was developed on the 1.5 T Unity MR-linac (Elekta AB, Stockholm, SE) in research mode (Fig. 1). The Quasar MRI4D phantom was used with a cardiorespiratory motion pattern consisting of a respiratory (sine, 12 bpm, 20 mm peak-to-peak) and a cardiac (cos4, 60 bpm, 10 mm peak-to-peak) component. Embedded in the water-filled body oval was a moveable film dosimetry insert with a spherical 3 cm target. An IMRT treatment plan for Unity (1x25 Gy) was created in Monaco v.5.40.01 (Elekta AB). MR-guidance was performed by using 2D cine-MRI (bSSFP, 13 Hz, TR/TE=3/1.48 ms, SENSE=1.5, FOV = 400x207 mm2, voxel size = 3x3x15 mm, PF factor = 0.65). The detected cardiorespiratory motion was deconvoluted by prospective linear Kalman filtering. The respiratory motion was then used as input for MLC tracking, while the cardiac motion was used as input for beam gating (“track+gate”). Alternative delivery scenarios were created either without any motion (“static”), or by ignoring cardiac motion (“track-only”), or by gating independently on both cardiac and respiratory motion (“dual-gate”). To fit the dynamic range of the Gafchromic EBT3 film, MUs were quartered before the delivery. For cardiac motion, a gating window of 3.8 mm was defined to simulate delivery in diastole. For dual-gating, the exhale gating window was set to 10 mm to limit excessive treatment times. System latencies were quantified by using the portal imager on Unity. Results The system latencies of 175 ms (MLC tracking) and 70 ms (gating) were effectively eliminated by using a linear regression predictor. The treatment delivery times were 5.7 mins (static, track-only), 8.8 mins (track+gate), and 20 mins (dual-gate). Dose difference maps confirm that the track+gate scenario best mimics the static dose distribution (Fig. 2). Dose profiles on the 2 (6.25) Gy isolines along the CC direction showed widening of 3.9 (-3.2) mm for track-only, 2.5 (-2.7) mm for dual-gate, and 0.5 (0) mm for track+gate deliveries with respect to the static reference. The gamma pass rates (2%/2mm) were 96.6% (track-only), 96.7% (dual-gate) and 99.4% (track+gate). Conclusion This is the first experimental demonstration of simultaneous cardiorespiratory motion management for MRI- guided STAR resulting in very high dosimetric accuracy

Left-ventricular MRI navigation: a novel approach for motion-free thoracic and cardiac radiotherapy

Purpose or Objective Cardiac motion adversely affects the accuracy of thoracic and cardiac radiotherapy. Depending on the target location, cardiac motion in excess of 1 cm may pose a larger challenge than respiratory motion. Ideally, radiotherapy treatment delivery is tailored to minimize the effect of both types of motion. A 1D navigator is commonly used to minimize respiratory motion in MR images by measuring the liver/lung interface position to gate each MRI acquisition. Here, we hypothesize that the left-ventricular (LV)/lung interface can be used to capture both cardiac and respiratory motion and that this interface can be used as a 1D navigator structure to obtain motion free end-exhale/diastolic images of the thorax. This would allow cardiac gated imaging without the need for additional cardiac imaging hardware. This is especially appealing for MR-linac treatments, in which integration of the cardiac hardware is not standard and raises concerns about radiation interaction (e.g. hardware malfunctioning). We will quantify the potential benefit of LV navigation over the conventionally used liver/lung navigation with respect to obtaining a motion-free thoracic MRI. Materials and Methods First, real-time (10 Hz) free-breathing 2D coronal TFE images of the heart were acquired on a 1.5T Ingenia (Philips) or a 1.5T Unity MR-linac (Elekta) for 3 healthy volunteers. Next, LV-navigator gated coronal TFE images (2 mm gating window) were acquired of the same plane of the cine scans (Figure 1, top). For benchmarking, a liver/lung navigated gated scans were performed. Residual motion between the dynamics was quantified using rigid registration based on normalized cross correlation on the liver dome and the LV wall. Additionally, the frequency spectrum of the MR-derived navigation-position was computed to verify the presence of both cardiac and respiratory motion components. This was compared to the cardiac and respiratory frequency recorded using MR-compatible physiology monitoring (ECG and respiratory bellow) as independent reference. Results Spectral analysis showed that both respiratory and cardiac frequency components were present in the LV navigator, while only the respiratory motion was sensed by the liver navigator (figure 1). Non-navigated scans had an average motion (20-80% amplitude CC) of the liver dome and LV wall of 8.8 and 6.5 mm, liver navigated scans 1.7 and 7.6 mm and LV navigated scans 1.1 and 2.8 mm, respectively (see figure 2). Conclusion We show that a 1D MRI navigator on the heart can detect simultaneously respiratory and cardiac motion and can be used to reduce both cardiac and respiratory motion during MRI scans. As these navigators are readily available, we envision that this principle can be used to improve pre-beam imaging as well as MR-linac gated treatment strategies in the thorax without the use of external hardware. Using the LV navigator could ensure direct coupling of the image and treatment geometry

Analysing an Academic Field through the Lenses of Internet Science: Digital Humanities as a Virtual Community

Digital humanities (dh) has been depicted as an innovative engine for humanities, as a challenge for data science, and as an area where libraries, archives and providers of e-research infrastructures join forces with research pioneers. However dh is defined, one thing is certain: dh is a new community which manifests and identifies itself via the internet and social media. In this paper we propose to describe dh as a virtual community (vc), and discuss the implications of such an epistemic approach. We start with a (re)inspection of the scholarly discourse about vcs, and the analytic frameworks which have been applied to study them. We discuss the aspects that are highlighted by taking such a stance, and use the guidelines proposed by the fp7 european network of excellence in internet science (eins) in our investigation