Deep Interactive Region Segmentation and Captioning

With recent innovations in dense image captioning, it is now possible to describe every object of the scene with a caption while objects are determined by bounding boxes. However, interpretation of such an output is not trivial due to the existence of many overlapping bounding boxes. Furthermore, in current captioning frameworks, the user is not able to involve personal preferences to exclude out of interest areas. In this paper, we propose a novel hybrid deep learning architecture for interactive region segmentation and captioning where the user is able to specify an arbitrary region of the image that should be processed. To this end, a dedicated Fully Convolutional Network (FCN) named Lyncean FCN (LFCN) is trained using our special training data to isolate the User Intention Region (UIR) as the output of an efficient segmentation. In parallel, a dense image captioning model is utilized to provide a wide variety of captions for that region. Then, the UIR will be explained with the caption of the best match bounding box. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work that provides such a comprehensive output. Our experiments show the superiority of the proposed approach over state-of-the-art interactive segmentation methods on several well-known datasets. In addition, replacement of the bounding boxes with the result of the interactive segmentation leads to a better understanding of the dense image captioning output as well as accuracy enhancement for the object detection in terms of Intersection over Union (IoU).Comment: 17, pages, 9 figure

Photometric stereo for strong specular highlights

Photometric stereo (PS) is a fundamental technique in computer vision known to produce 3-D shape with high accuracy. The setting of PS is defined by using several input images of a static scene taken from one and the same camera position but under varying illumination. The vast majority of studies in this 3-D reconstruction method assume orthographic projection for the camera model. In addition, they mainly consider the Lambertian reflectance model as the way that light scatters at surfaces. So, providing reliable PS results from real world objects still remains a challenging task. We address 3-D reconstruction by PS using a more realistic set of assumptions combining for the first time the complete Blinn-Phong reflectance model and perspective projection. To this end, we will compare two different methods of incorporating the perspective projection into our model. Experiments are performed on both synthetic and real world images. Note that our real-world experiments do not benefit from laboratory conditions. The results show the high potential of our method even for complex real world applications such as medical endoscopy images which may include high amounts of specular highlights

Role and Contribution of A2 Adenosine Receptors in the Regulation of Coronary Flow

One out of three individuals suffer from one form of cardiovascular disease, out of which, about 6,000,000 individuals suffer from coronary heart disease. Adenosine has long been known to play a role in coronary flow (CF) regulation; however, the individual role of A2A and A2B adenosine receptors (AR) and their contribution is yet to be fully elucidated. The purpose of this study was to characterize the pharmacology of both A2 ARs in coronary arteries (CAs), in addition, to identifying their role in reactive hyperemia, and their signaling mechanisms. We hypothesized that A2 ARs mediate an increase in CF, in addition, to being involved in metabolic control of CF. Therefore, in this study, we investigated CF changes due to exogenous activation of A2A and A2B ARs, in addition, to their endogenous activation during coronary reactive hyperemia, when metabolic factors, such as adenosine, play a pivotal role. We used the well established Langendorff isolated heart system as well as selective and non-selective AR agonists and antagonists, and A2A and A2B AR single and double knockout mice. We found that activation of both A2A and A2B ARs induces an increase in CF, albeit with different pharmacological profile. Further, in A2BKO mice, A2AARs are up-regulated in order to compensate for deletion of A2BARs. These findings may suggest that both A2ARs are capable of increasing the CF in conditions when a sufficient level of adenosine is available. However, we also found that only A2AARs contribute to CF changes in coronary reactive hyperemia, which may suggest that A2BARs may be activated in more severe conditions such as longer ischemic conditions, where adenosine levels are significantly augmented. We next investigated signaling pathways involved in A2AR-mediated effects. We found that non-mitochondrial K ATP channels are a major end effectors in A2AR-induced increase in CF. What is more interesting is that we illustrated that H2O 2 mediates adenosine\u27s effect on CF and that is coupled to adenosine-mediated effect on KATP channels. From these data, it can be concluded that A2A and A2B ARs may regulate CF in different conditions, albeit, maybe through the same signaling pathway

The Effect of Teaching Coping Strategies on the Mental Health of 13-17 Male Adolescents Living in Boarding Houses of Tehran

AbstractThe aim of this study is to investigate the effect of teaching coping strategies on the mental health of male adolescents of 13-17 years old, living in boarding houses. The sample group was chosen randomly and mental health questionnaire (GHQ) was administered to both groups as pre-test. After scoring the questionnaires, those with lower mental health were chosen and divided randomly into control and experimental groups. 10 sessions were allocated to teaching coping strategies. Finally, post-test was administered to both groups. T-test was used to analyze the data and findings showed that teaching coping strategies to adolescents was effective on enhancing their mental health. Moreover, this study showed that teaching coping strategies to adolescents reduced their depression and anxiety and enhanced their social functions

Fixed-Time Convergent Control Barrier Functions for Coupled Multi-Agent Systems Under STL Tasks

This paper presents a control strategy based on a new notion of time-varying fixed-time convergent control barrier functions (TFCBFs) for a class of coupled multi-agent systems under signal temporal logic (STL) tasks. In this framework, each agent is assigned a local STL task regradless of the tasks of other agents. Each task may be dependent on the behavior of other agents which may cause conflicts on the satisfaction of all tasks. Our approach finds a robust solution to guarantee the fixed-time satisfaction of STL tasks in a least violating way and independent of the agents' initial condition in the presence of undesired violation effects of the neighbor agents. Particularly, the robust performance of the task satisfactions can be adjusted in a user-specified way.Comment: Accepted in ECC 202

The effectiveness of group problem-solving training on burnout in women caregivers of family patient member in Falavarjan, Isfahan, I.R. Iran

زمینه و هدف: با توجه به پیامدهای زیانبار مراقبت خانوادگی از بیماران مزمن بر بهداشت روان و بهزیستی این مراقبین و ضرورت تدوین مداخلات موثر در این زمینه، پژوهش حاضر به بررسی میزان اثربخشی آموزش گروهی حل مسأله بر فرسودگی زنان مراقبت کننده از عضو بیمار خانواده می پردازد. روش بررسی: این پژوهش ،یک مطالعه نیمه تجربی دو گروهی با طرح پیش آزمون-پس آزمون و پیگیری می باشد. نمونه آماری شامل 40 زن مراقبت کننده از عضو بیمار خانواده می باشد که به شیوه نمونه گیری مبتنی بر هدف از بین مراقبین خانوادگی مراجعه کننده به مراکز درمانی شهر فلاورجان انتخاب و در دو گروه مورد و شاهد (هر گروه 20 نفر) جایگیری شدند. گروه مورد در 8 جلسه هفتگی آموزش گروهی حل مسأله شرکت نمودند. هر دو گروه پرسشنامه فرسودگی مسلاچ (MBI-Maslach Burnout Inventory)، را در مراحل پیش آزمون، پس آزمون و پیگیری (دو ماه بعد از اتمام برنامه آموزشی) تکمیل نمودند. داده ها با استفاده از آزمون آنالیز واریانس با اندازه گیری مکرر تجزیه و تحلیل شدند. یافته ها: نتایج بدست آمده نشان می دهد که در مراحل پس آزمون و پیگیری، گروه مورد در مقایسه با گروه شاهد میانگین نمرات کمتری در خستگی هیجانی و شخصیت زدایی و میانگین نمرات بیشتری در تحقق شخصی گزارش نموده اند (001/0

A Prospective Cohort Study of Cutaneous Leishmaniasis Risk and Opium Addiction in South Eastern Iran

Opium addiction and cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) are endemic in different parts of Iran, particularly in Bam, where a massive earthquake occurred. This study was designed to compare the incidence rate and severity of CL cases among opium addicted and non-addicted individuals in south-eastern Iran. This study was carried out as a prospective cohort by active house-to-house visits of 1,481 habitants in Bam. CL cases were confirmed by smear and identification of Leishmania species was performed using nested-PCR. The data was analyzed by x2 and t-tests, using SPSS software and also KaplanMeier survival curve and long-rank test in Stata 11.2 and P,0.05 was considered as significant. A total of 904 individuals consisting of 226 opium addicted and 678 non-addicted individuals were followed-up for a period of seven years. The two cohorts were similar in terms of age, sex and place of residency. A similar pattern of incidence was observed among the two cohort groups. In contrast, the severity of CL in terms of the number, duration and the size of the lesions in opium addicted individuals was significantly (P,0.001) higher than non-opium addicted individuals. In conclusion, the present findings indicate that there is no relationship between the incidence of CL and opium addiction