Fast and accurate multi-scale keypoints based on end-stopped cells

Increasingly more applications in computer vision employ interest points. Algorithms like SIFT and SURF are all based on partial derivatives of images smoothed with Gaussian filter kemels. These algorithrns are fast and therefore very popular.

Fast line, arc/circle and leg detection from laser scan data in a player driver

A feature detection system has been developed for real-time identification of lines, circles and people legs from laser range data. A new method sutable for arc/circle detection is proposed: the Inscribed Angle Variance (IAV). Lines are detected using a recursive line fitting method.

Campaign speech of W.D. Mayfield [for re-election as State Superintendent of Education]

This speech was given by Mr. Mayfield while running for re-election to the office of State Superintendent of Education. He gives evidence and reasons that he should be re-elected. He also talks about his future plans for if he does get re-elected.

‘Sport for Yes’? The Precarious Positioning of Scottish Athletes in the Scottish Independence Referendum Campaign.

This paper will critically consider the implications for Scottish athletes who have publicly stated their personal opinion on the Scottish independence referendum. Developments such as the inclusion of sport within the Scottish Government’s White Paper on Scottish independence, the establishment of the ‘Working Group on Scottish Sport’ and the establishment of the ‘Sport for Yes’ campaign group demonstrate the harnessing of sporting issues as an additional, if somewhat peripheral, debate point in the referendum campaigns (Lafferty, 2014; Scottish Government, 2013; Working Group on Scottish Sport, 2013, 2014). The latter of these developments, the establishment of the ‘Sport for Yes’ campaign group, is of particular interest, offering evidence of the explicit political mobilisation of past and present athletes in support of the ‘Yes Scotland’ pro-independence campaign. Whilst the pro-union ‘Better Together’ campaign does not possess a comparable group to the ‘Sport for Yes’ example, examples of athletes discussing the potential negative impact of Scottish independence on the funding and organisation of Scottish sport have been capitalised upon by pro-union campaigners, as exemplified in the comments of Sir Chris Hoy (BBC, 2013; Daily Record, 2013a). Given the negative reaction to Hoy’s comments from certain pro-independence campaigners (Daily Record, 2013b; Swanson, 2013), other Scottish athletes have understandably attempted to avoid controversy by refusing to align with either side of the referendum debate. This paper will therefore consider the potential pitfalls for athletes who publicly announce their political positions, whilst also scrutinising the extent to which such pronouncements are of political significance, drawing upon past academic analyses of the interrelationship between sport and politics (e.g. Coghlan, 1990; Houlihan, 1994; Jeffreys, 2012; Macfarlane, 1986; Whannel, 2008).

An extensible complex fast Fourier transform processor chip for real-time spectrum analysis and measurement

This paper describes in detail the design of a CMOS custom fast Fourier transform (FFT) processor for computing a 256-point complex FFT. The FFT is well-suited for real-time spectrum analysis in instrumentation and measurement applications. The FFT butterfly processor reported here consists of one parallel-parallel multiplier and two adders. It is capable of computing one butterfly computation every 100 ns thus it can compute a 256-point complex FFT in 102.4 μs excluding data input and output processes.

Broadband Green's Function and Applications to Fast Electromagnetic Analysis of High-Speed Interconnects

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2015

Validation of a fast method for quantification of intra-abdominal and subcutaneous adipose tissue for large-scale human studies

Central obesity is the hallmark of a number of non-inheritable disorders. The advent of imaging techniques such asMRI has allowed for a fast and accurate assessment of body fat content and distribution. However, image analysis continues to be one of the major obstacles to the use of MRI in large-scale studies. In this study we assess the validity of the recently proposed fat–muscle quantitation system (AMRATM Profiler) for the quantification of intra-abdominal adipose tissue (IAAT) and abdominal subcutaneous adipose tissue (ASAT) from abdominal MR images. Abdominal MR images were acquired from 23 volunteers with a broad range of BMIs and analysed using sliceOmatic, the current gold-standard, and the AMRATM Profiler based on a non-rigid image registration of a library of segmented atlases. The results show that there was a highly significant correlation between the fat volumes generated by the two analysis methods, (Pearson correlation r = 0.97, p < 0.001), with the AMRATM Profiler analysis being significantly faster (~3 min) than the conventional sliceOmatic approach (~40 min). There was also excellent agreement between the methods for the quantification of IAAT (AMRA 4.73 ± 1.99 versus sliceOmatic 4.73 ± 1.75 l, p = 0.97). For the AMRATM Profiler analysis, the intra-observer coefficient of variation was 1.6% for IAAT and 1.1% for ASAT, the inter-observer coefficient of variationwas 1.4%for IAAT and 1.2%for ASAT, the intra-observer correlationwas 0.998 for IAAT and 0.999 for ASAT, and the inter-observer correlation was 0.999 for both IAAT and ASAT. These results indicate that precise and accurate measures of body fat content and distribution can be obtained in a fast and reliable form by the AMRATM Profiler, opening up the possibility of large-scale human phenotypic studies.

Preconditioning 2D Integer Data for Fast Convex Hull Computations

In order to accelerate computing the convex hull on a set of n points, a heuristic procedure is often applied to reduce the number of points to a set of s points, s ≤ n, which also contains the same hull. We present an algorithm to precondition 2D data with integer coordinates bounded by a box of size p × q before building a 2D convex hull, with three distinct advantages. First, we prove that under the condition min(p, q) ≤ n the algorithm executes in time within O(n); second, no explicit sorting of data is required; and third, the reduced set of s points forms a simple polygonal chain and thus can be directly pipelined into an O(n) time convex hull algorithm. This paper empirically evaluates and quantifies the speed up gained by preconditioning a set of points by a method based on the proposed algorithm before using common convex hull algorithms to build the final hull. A speedup factor of at least four is consistently found from experiments on various datasets when the condition min(p, q) ≤ n holds; the smaller the ratio min(p, q)/n is in the dataset, the greater the speedup factor achieved.

Reliable and Fast Hand-Offs in Low-Power Wireless Networks

Hand-off (or hand-over), the process where mobile nodes select the best access point available to transfer data, has been well studied in wireless networks. The performance of a hand-off process depends on the specific characteristics of the wireless links. In the case of low-power wireless networks, hand-off decisions must be carefully taken by considering the unique properties of inexpensive low-power radios. This paper addresses the design, implementation and evaluation of smart-HOP, a hand-off mechanism tailored for low-power wireless networks. This work has three main contributions. First, it formulates the hard hand-off process for low-power networks (such as typical wireless sensor networks - WSNs) with a probabilistic model, to investigate the impact of the most relevant channel parameters through an analytical approach. Second, it confirms the probabilistic model through simulation and further elaborates on the impact of several hand-off parameters. Third, it fine-tunes the most relevant hand-off parameters via an extended set of experiments, in a realistic experimental scenario. The evaluation shows that smart-HOP performs well in the transitional region while achieving more than 98 percent relative delivery ratio and hand-off delays in the order of a few tens of a milliseconds.

Zara: Marketing in Fast Fashion: A case-study

Zara was founded in 1975 by Amancio Ortega Gaona, soon becoming the largest and most successful chain of the Galician group Inditex (Industria de Diseño Textil) and a pioneer of the rising fashion category of Fast Fashion. Its innovative vertically-integrated strategies, combined with its emphasis on quality and demand-based offer have shaped the world of fashion and brought forth many questions on its future sustainability and growth. Zara has always relied on its store network for advertising its product offer; allowing its garments to “speak for themselves”. With the continued pressure felt in the industry, management has pressed some concerns about future company growth and creative, innovating solutions must be implemented to guarantee Zara’s future growth. The case-study narrative focuses on these issues and leaves readers with an open question regarding what decision to implement.

Surviving Sepsis Campaign: international guidelines for management of severe sepsis and septic shock: 2008.

OBJECTIVE: To provide an update to the original Surviving Sepsis Campaign clinical management guidelines, "Surviving Sepsis Campaign Guidelines for Management of Severe Sepsis and Septic Shock," published in 2004. DESIGN: Modified Delphi method with a consensus conference of 55 international experts, several subsequent meetings of subgroups and key individuals, teleconferences, and electronic-based discussion among subgroups and among the entire committee. This process was conducted independently of any industry funding. METHODS: We used the Grades of Recommendation, Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) system to guide assessment of quality of evidence from high (A) to very low (D) and to determine the strength of recommendations. A strong recommendation (1) indicates that an intervention's desirable effects clearly outweigh its undesirable effects (risk, burden, cost) or clearly do not. Weak recommendations (2) indicate that the tradeoff between desirable and undesirable effects is less clear. The grade of strong or weak is considered of greater clinical importance than a difference in letter level of quality of evidence. In areas without complete agreement, a formal process of resolution was developed and applied. Recommendations are grouped into those directly targeting severe sepsis, recommendations targeting general care of the critically ill patient that are considered high priority in severe sepsis, and pediatric considerations. RESULTS: Key recommendations, listed by category, include early goal-directed resuscitation of the septic patient during the first 6 hrs after recognition (1C); blood cultures before antibiotic therapy (1C); imaging studies performed promptly to confirm potential source of infection (1C); administration of broad-spectrum antibiotic therapy within 1 hr of diagnosis of septic shock (1B) and severe sepsis without septic shock (1D); reassessment of antibiotic therapy with microbiology and clinical data to narrow coverage, when appropriate (1C); a usual 7-10 days of antibiotic therapy guided by clinical response (1D); source control with attention to the balance of risks and benefits of the chosen method (1C); administration of either crystalloid or colloid fluid resuscitation (1B); fluid challenge to restore mean circulating filling pressure (1C); reduction in rate of fluid administration with rising filing pressures and no improvement in tissue perfusion (1D); vasopressor preference for norepinephrine or dopamine to maintain an initial target of mean arterial pressure > or = 65 mm Hg (1C); dobutamine inotropic therapy when cardiac output remains low despite fluid resuscitation and combined inotropic/vasopressor therapy (1C); stress-dose steroid therapy given only in septic shock after blood pressure is identified to be poorly responsive to fluid and vasopressor therapy (2C); recombinant activated protein C in patients with severe sepsis and clinical assessment of high risk for death (2B except 2C for postoperative patients). In the absence of tissue hypoperfusion, coronary artery disease, or acute hemorrhage, target a hemoglobin of 7-9 g/dL (1B); a low tidal volume (1B) and limitation of inspiratory plateau pressure strategy (1C) for acute lung injury (ALI)/acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS); application of at least a minimal amount of positive end-expiratory pressure in acute lung injury (1C); head of bed elevation in mechanically ventilated patients unless contraindicated (1B); avoiding routine use of pulmonary artery catheters in ALI/ARDS (1A); to decrease days of mechanical ventilation and ICU length of stay, a conservative fluid strategy for patients with established ALI/ARDS who are not in shock (1C); protocols for weaning and sedation/analgesia (1B); using either intermittent bolus sedation or continuous infusion sedation with daily interruptions or lightening (1B); avoidance of neuromuscular blockers, if at all possible (1B); institution of glycemic control (1B), targeting a blood glucose < 150 mg/dL after initial stabilization (2C); equivalency of continuous veno-veno hemofiltration or intermittent hemodialysis (2B); prophylaxis for deep vein thrombosis (1A); use of stress ulcer prophylaxis to prevent upper gastrointestinal bleeding using H2 blockers (1A) or proton pump inhibitors (1B); and consideration of limitation of support where appropriate (1D). Recommendations specific to pediatric severe sepsis include greater use of physical examination therapeutic end points (2C); dopamine as the first drug of choice for hypotension (2C); steroids only in children with suspected or proven adrenal insufficiency (2C); and a recommendation against the use of recombinant activated protein C in children (1B). CONCLUSIONS: There was strong agreement among a large cohort of international experts regarding many level 1 recommendations for the best current care of patients with severe sepsis. Evidenced-based recommendations regarding the acute management of sepsis and septic shock are the first step toward improved outcomes for this important group of critically ill patients.

Fast subplasma membrane Ca2+ transients control exo-endocytosis of synaptic-like microvesicles in astrocytes

Astrocytes are the most abundant glial cell type in the brain. Although not apposite for long-range rapid electrical communication, astrocytes share with neurons the capacity of chemical signaling via Ca(2+)-dependent transmitter exocytosis. Despite this recent finding, little is known about the specific properties of regulated secretion and vesicle recycling in astrocytes. Important differences may exist with the neuronal exocytosis, starting from the fact that stimulus-secretion coupling in astrocytes is voltage independent, mediated by G-protein-coupled receptors and the release of Ca(2+) from internal stores. Elucidating the spatiotemporal properties of astrocytic exo-endocytosis is, therefore, of primary importance for understanding the mode of communication of these cells and their role in brain signaling. We here take advantage of fluorescent tools recently developed for studying recycling of glutamatergic vesicles at synapses (Voglmaier et al., 2006; Balaji and Ryan, 2007); we combine epifluorescence and total internal reflection fluorescence imaging to investigate with unprecedented temporal and spatial resolution, the stimulus-secretion coupling underlying exo-endocytosis of glutamatergic synaptic-like microvesicles (SLMVs) in astrocytes. Our main findings indicate that (1) exo-endocytosis in astrocytes proceeds with a time course on the millisecond time scale (tau(exocytosis) = 0.24 +/- 0.017 s; tau(endocytosis) = 0.26 +/- 0.03 s) and (2) exocytosis is controlled by local Ca(2+) microdomains. We identified submicrometer cytosolic compartments delimited by endoplasmic reticulum tubuli reaching beneath the plasma membrane and containing SLMVs at which fast (time-to-peak, approximately 50 ms) Ca(2+) events occurred in precise spatial-temporal correlation with exocytic fusion events. Overall, the above characteristics of transmitter exocytosis from astrocytes support a role of this process in fast synaptic modulation.

Fast Geodesic Active Fields for Image Registration Based on Splitting and Augmented Lagrangian Approaches.

In this paper, we present an efficient numerical scheme for the recently introduced geodesic active fields (GAF) framework for geometric image registration. This framework considers the registration task as a weighted minimal surface problem. Hence, the data-term and the regularization-term are combined through multiplication in a single, parametrization invariant and geometric cost functional. The multiplicative coupling provides an intrinsic, spatially varying and data-dependent tuning of the regularization strength, and the parametrization invariance allows working with images of nonflat geometry, generally defined on any smoothly parametrizable manifold. The resulting energy-minimizing flow, however, has poor numerical properties. Here, we provide an efficient numerical scheme that uses a splitting approach; data and regularity terms are optimized over two distinct deformation fields that are constrained to be equal via an augmented Lagrangian approach. Our approach is more flexible than standard Gaussian regularization, since one can interpolate freely between isotropic Gaussian and anisotropic TV-like smoothing. In this paper, we compare the geodesic active fields method with the popular Demons method and three more recent state-of-the-art algorithms: NL-optical flow, MRF image registration, and landmark-enhanced large displacement optical flow. Thus, we can show the advantages of the proposed FastGAF method. It compares favorably against Demons, both in terms of registration speed and quality. Over the range of example applications, it also consistently produces results not far from more dedicated state-of-the-art methods, illustrating the flexibility of the proposed framework.

Associative Issue Ownership as a Determinant of Voters' Campaign Attention

Campaigns raise public interest in politics and allow parties to convey their messages to voters. However, voters' exposure and attention during campaigns are biased towards parties and candidates they like. This hinders parties' ability to reach new voters. This paper theorises and empirically tests a simple way in which parties can break partisan selective attention: owning an issue. When parties own issues that are important for a voter, that voter is more likely to notice them. Using survey data collected prior to the 2009 Belgian regional elections it is shown that this effect exists independent of partisan preferences and while controlling for the absolute visibility of a party in the media. This indicates that issue ownership has an independent impact on voters' attention to campaigns. This finding shows that owning salient issues yields (potential) advantages for parties, since getting noticed is a prerequisite for conveying electoral messages and increasing electoral success.

Stock Market reaction to the CSR announcements of American fast food companies

The purpose of this study is to examine whether Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) announcements of the three biggest American fast food companies (McDonald’s, YUM! Brands and Wendy’s) have any effect on their stock returns as well as on the returns of the industry index (Dow Jones Restaurants and Bars). The time period under consideration starts on 1st of May 2001 and ends on 17th of October 2013. The stock market reaction is tested with an event study utilizing CAPM. The research employs the daily stock returns of the companies, the index and the benchmarks (NASDAQ and NYSE). The test of combined announcements did not reveal any significant effect on the index and McDonald’s. However the stock returns of Wendy’s and YUM! Brands reacted negatively. Moreover, the company level analyses showed that to their own CSR releases McDonald’s stock returns respond positively, YUM! Brands reacts negatively and Wendy’s does not have any reaction. Plus, it was found that the competitors of the announcing company tend to react negatively to all the events. Furthermore, the division of the events into sustainability categories showed statistically significant negative reaction from the Index, McDonald’s and YUM! Brands towards social announcements. At the same time only the index was positively affected by to the economic and environmental CSR news releases.