Robust hierarchical multiple hypothesis tracker for multiple-object tracking

Multiple object tracking is a fundamental subsystem of many higher level applications such as traffic monitoring, people counting, robotic vision and many more. This paper explains in details the methodology of building a robust hierarchical multiple hypothesis tracker for tracking multiple objects in the videos. The main novelties of our approach are anchor-based track initialization, prediction assistance for unconfirmed track and two virtual measurements for confirmed track. The system is built mainly to deal with the problems of merge, split, fragments and occlusion. The system is divided into two levels where the first level obtains the measurement input from foreground segmentation and clustered optical flow. Only K-best hypothesis and one-to-one association are considered. Two more virtual measurements are constructed to help track retention rate for the second level, which are based on predicted state and division of occluded foreground segments. Track based K-best hypothesis with multiple associations are considered for more comprehensive observation assignment. Histogram intersection testing is performed to limit the tracker bounding box expansion. Simulation results show that all our algorithms perform well in the surroundings mentioned above. Two performance metrics are used; multiple-object tracking accuracy (MOTA) and multiple-object tracking precision (MOTP). Our tracker have performed the best compared to the benchmark trackers in both performance evaluation metrics. The main weakness of our algorithms is the heavy processing requirement.     

Networking,Storytelling and Knowledge Production in First-Year Writing

As writing teachers, we seek to validate the knowledge that students bring to the classroom while introducing and cultivating new methods, strategies, techniques and technologies that may serve them now and in the future. In this article we describe an approach we take that integrates curricular and extracurricular co-apprenticeship strategies using public writing models in conjunction with social networking tools. With publication as a final goal, we urge students to move from expressing personal problems to addressing social issues, using a private, non-commercial learning network NoDiff <http://NoDiff.com> as a safe zone for skills development, knowledge production and social inquiry. In taking this approach, we resist dichotomies that place professional skills training in strict opposition to critical pedagogy. We argue that many of the so-called “extracurricular” composing activities that most of today's students engage in lay the groundwork for both professional and civic participation. Acknowledging that we as composition teachers are also beginners in the world of 21^st century communication, we emphasize both (1) the continual transference of skills and knowledge among teachers and learners; and (2) the importance of providing what is often lacking in skills-based ‘new literacy’ training, namely a critical pedagogical approach to learning as social engagement and critical intervention.     

Genomic mining for complex disease traits with “random chemistry”

Our rapidly growing knowledge regarding genetic variation in the human genome offers great potential for understanding the genetic etiology of disease. This, in turn, could revolutionize detection, treatment, and in some cases prevention of disease. While genes for most of the rare monogenic diseases have already been discovered, most common diseases are complex traits, resulting from multiple gene–gene and gene-environment interactions. Detecting epistatic genetic interactions that predispose for disease is an important, but computationally daunting, task currently facing bioinformaticists. Here, we propose a new evolutionary approach that attempts to hill-climb from large sets of candidate epistatic genetic features to smaller sets, inspired by Kauffman’s “random chemistry” approach to detecting small auto-catalytic sets of molecules from within large sets. Although the algorithm is conceptually straightforward, its success hinges upon the creation of a fitness function able to discriminate large sets that contain subsets of interacting genetic features from those that don’t. Here, we employ an approximate and noisy fitness function based on the ReliefF data mining algorithm. We establish proof-of-concept using synthetic data sets, where individual features have no marginal effects. We show that the resulting algorithm can successfully detect epistatic pairs from up to 1,000 candidate single nucleotide polymorphisms in time that is linear in the size of the initial set, although success rate degrades as heritability declines. Research continues into seeking a more accurate fitness approximator for large sets and other algorithmic improvements that will enable us to extend the approach to larger data sets and to lower heritabilities.     

基于Delphi的微机数据采集监测系统开发

计算机对化学实验数据进行实时采集和处理具有效率高和可靠性好等优点 ,以往采用单片机、PLC系统的较多 ,为了改进系统的设计 ,采用自行设计的小信号调理接口板、智能数据采集模块、RS - 485网络与微机连接的硬件设计 ,以及先进的Delphi语言和面向对象的软件开发技术 ,成功地开发出一种通用、任意通道的微机数据采集监测系统。该系统通用性和扩展性好 ,可以进行多通道、远距离的数据采集。系统硬件、软件和网络结构设计灵活 ,功能强大 ,首先在 72 1型分光光度计上得以成功应用 ,并可广泛应用于多种化学实验和相关科学研究与教学中     

Type inference in stack based languages

We consider a language of operations which pass parameters by means of a stack. An algebra over the set of type signatures is introduced, which allows the type signature of a program to be obtained from the type signatures of its constituent operations.Although the theories apply in principle to any stack based language, they have been evolved with particular regard to the proposed ANSI Standard Forth language, which is currently implemented in a type free manner. We hope this work will stimulate an interest in Forth amongst those applying algebraic techniques in software engineering, and we hope to lay the theoretical foundations for implementing practical type checkers to support Forth.     

Toward continued independent living for older Americans.

The author describes his US Senate bill (S. 1244), the Senior Citizens Independent Community Care Act, which would expand the scope of benefits in the Medicare program to include individual assessment and treatment plans, homemaker/home-health aid, adult daycare services, interim care, and any other services that the US Health and Human Resources Department deems necessary. The goal of the bill is to provide home health care to allow individuals to stay with their families or in their communities. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

An Integrated Approach to High Integrity Software Verification

Using automated reasoning techniques, we tackle the niche activity of proving that a program is free from run-time exceptions. Such a property is particularly valuable in high integrity software, for example, safety- or security-critical applications. The context for our work is the SPARK Approach for the development of high integrity software. The SPARK Approach provides a significant degree of automation in proving exception freedom. Where this automation fails, however, the programmer is burdened with the task of interactively constructing a proof and possibly also having to supply auxiliary program annotations. We minimize this burden by increasing the automation, through an integration of proof planning and a program analysis oracle. We advocate a ‘cooperative’ integration, where proof-failure analysis directly constrains the search for auxiliary program annotations. The approach has been successfully tested on industrial data.     

A scalable architecture for concurrent online auctions

Online auction systems are characterised by a number of functional and performance management requirements, caused by the potentially very large numbers of distributed concurrent bidders, as well as by the auction rules. Such systems are typically implemented as three tier, thread‐based architectures, whose performance does not scale up well with an increase in the number of concurrent bidders. Nor such systems can take advantage of new Cloud based environments. In this paper, we propose an architectural framework for online auctions developed on top of a soft real‐time platform (Open Telecom Platform) using a concurrent language (Erlang) and an embedded Web server (Yaws). The proposed framework can scale up to hundreds of thousands of concurrent users while its performance can benefit from multicore and symmetric multiprocessing computer architectures. We demonstrate the capabilities of the framework by developing prototypes for two auction types known as ‘unique bid’ and ‘penny’, analyse their performance characteristics and compare them with that of existing auction systems. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Stop that E-mail! You are probably breaking the law!

The author has become very concerned that many sites are not properly adhering to US export regulations in the area of technical data and restricted technical science as prescribed by US law. The author strongly recommends that legal counsel be contacted with the above information and components and documents be put into place at customers to ensure that violation of any export law is not possible and that proper maintenance of restricted entities is maintained.