6,234 research outputs found
A vision-based fully automated approach to robust image cropping detection
The definition of valid and robust methodologies for assessing the authenticity of digital information is nowadays critical to contrast social manipulation through the media. A key research topic in multimedia forensics is the development of methods for detecting tampered content in large image collections without any human intervention. This paper introduces AMARCORD (Automatic Manhattan-scene AsymmetRically CrOpped imageRy Detector), a fully automated detector for exposing evidences of asymmetrical image cropping on Manhattan-World scenes. The proposed solution estimates and exploits the camera principal point, i.e., a physical feature extracted directly from the image content that is quite insensitive to image processing operations, such as compression and resizing, typical of social media platforms. Robust computer vision techniques are employed throughout, so as to cope with large sources of noise in the data and improve detection performance. The method leverages a novel metric based on robust statistics, and is also capable to decide autonomously whether the image at hand is tractable or not. The results of an extensive experimental evaluation covering several cropping scenarios demonstrate the effectiveness and robustness of our approac
Collective Bargaining and the Evolution of Wage Inequality in Italy
Italian male wage inequality has increased at a relatively fast pace from the mid-1980s until the early 2000s, while it has been persistently flat since then. We analyse this trend, focusing on the period of most rapid growth in pay dispersion. By accounting for worker and firm fixed effects, it is shown that workers' heterogeneity has been a major determinant of increased wage inequalities, while variability in firm wage policies has declined over time. We also show that the growth in pay dispersion has entirely occurred between livelli di inquadramento, that is, job titles defined by national industry-wide collective bargaining institutions, for which specific minimum wages apply. We conclude that the underlying market forces determining wage inequality have been largely channelled into the tight tracks set by the centralized system of industrial relations
Peritoneal carcinosis of ovarian origin
Epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) is the second most common
genital malignancy in women and is the most lethal
gynecological malignancy, with an estimated five-year
survival rate of 39%. Despite efforts to develop an effective
ovarian cancer screening method, 60% of patients still
present with advanced disease. Comprehensive management
using surgical cytoreduction to decrease the tumor
load to a minimum, and intraperitoneal chemotherapy to
eliminate microscopic disease on peritoneal surface, has
the potential to greatly improve quality of life and to have
an impact on survival in ovarian cancer patients. Despite
achieving clinical remission after completion of initial treatment,
most patients (60%) with advanced EOC will ultimately
develop recurrent disease or show drug resistance;
the eventual rate of curability is less than 30%. Given the
poor outcome of women with advanced EOC, it is imperative
to continue to explore novel therapies.
Robotic treatment of colorectal endometriosis: technique, feasibility and short-term results
background: Deep infiltrating endometriosis (DIE) is a complex disease that impairs the quality of life and the fertility of women. Since
a medical approach is often insufficient, a minimally invasive approach is considered the gold standard for complete disease excision. Roboticassisted
surgery is a revolutionary approach, with several advantages compared with traditional laparoscopic surgery.
methods: From March 2010 to May 2011, we performed 22 consecutive robotic-assisted complete laparoscopic excisions of DIE endometriosis
with colorectal involvement. All clinical data were collected by our team and all patients were interviewed preoperatively and 3 and
6 months post-operatively and yearly thereafter regarding endometriosis-related symptoms. Dysmenorrhoea, dyschezia, dyspareunia and
dysuria were evaluated with a 10-point analog rating scale.
results: There were 12 patients, with a median larger endometriotic nodule of 35 mm, who underwent segmental resection, and 10
patients, with a median larger endometriotic nodule of 30 mm, who underwent complete nodule debulking by colorectal wall-shaving technique.
No laparotomic conversions were performed, nor was any blood transfusion necessary. No intra-operative complications were
observed and, in particular, there were no inadvertent rectal perforations in any of the cases treated by the shaving technique. None of
the patients had ileostomy or colostomy. No major post-operative complications were observed, except one small bowel occlusion 14
days post-surgery that was resolved in 3 days with medical treatment. Post-operatively, a statistically significant improvement of patient symptoms
was shown for all the investigated parameters.
conclusions: To our knowledge, this is the first study reporting the feasibility and short-term results and complications of laparoscopic
robotic-assisted treatment of DIE with colorectal involvement.We demonstrate that this approach is feasible and safe, without conversion to
laparotomy
Governance del territorio agro forestale, sviluppo rurale e paesaggio. Possibilità e strumenti per una integrazione
ATLAS and CMS applications on the WorldGrid testbed
WorldGrid is an intercontinental testbed spanning Europe and the US
integrating architecturally different Grid implementations based on the Globus
toolkit. It has been developed in the context of the DataTAG and iVDGL
projects, and successfully demonstrated during the WorldGrid demos at IST2002
(Copenhagen) and SC2002 (Baltimore). Two HEP experiments, ATLAS and CMS,
successful exploited the WorldGrid testbed for executing jobs simulating the
response of their detectors to physics eve nts produced by real collisions
expected at the LHC accelerator starting from 2007. This data intensive
activity has been run since many years on local dedicated computing farms
consisting of hundreds of nodes and Terabytes of disk and tape storage. Within
the WorldGrid testbed, for the first time HEP simulation jobs were submitted
and run indifferently on US and European resources, despite of their underlying
different Grid implementations, and produced data which could be retrieved and
further analysed on the submitting machine, or simply stored on the remote
resources and registered on a Replica Catalogue which made them available to
the Grid for further processing. In this contribution we describe the job
submission from Europe for both ATLAS and CMS applications, performed through
the GENIUS portal operating on top of an EDG User Interface submitting to an
EDG Resource Broker, pointing out the chosen interoperability solutions which
made US and European resources equivalent from the applications point of view,
the data management in the WorldGrid environment, and the CMS specific
production tools which were interfaced to the GENIUS portal.Comment: Poster paper from the 2003 Computing in High Energy and Nuclear
Physics (CHEP03), La Jolla, Ca, USA, March 2003, 10 pages, PDF. PSN TUCP004;
added credit to funding agenc
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