Target Training Juvenile False Water Cobras (Hydrodynastes gigas)

Target tracking during venom 'spitting' by cobras.

Spitting cobras, which defend themselves by streaming venom towards the face and/or eyes of a predator, must be highly accurate because the venom they spit is only an effective deterrent if it lands on the predator's cornea. Several factors make this level of accuracy difficult to achieve; the target is moving, is frequently >1 m away from the snake and the venom stream is released in approxima...

Training dilemmas and false dilemmas

Ecology of cobras from southern Africa

Large slender-bodied snakes that forage actively for a generalized array of small vertebrates are conspicuous elements of the terrestrial snake fauna of most continents; the venomous elapid species fill this role in much of Asia, Africa and Australia. Our dissections of eight species of cobras from southern Africa Aspidelaps, Hemachatus, Naja; Serpentes and Elapidae (total of 1290 specimens) pr...

Distinct immune responses of juvenile and adult oysters (Crassostrea gigas) to viral and bacterial infections

Since 2008, massive mortality events of Pacific oysters (Crassostrea gigas) have been reported worldwide and these disease events are often associated with Ostreid herpesvirus type 1 (OsHV-1). Epidemiological field studies have also reported oyster age and other pathogens of the Vibrio genus are contributing factors to this syndrome. We undertook a controlled laboratory experiment to simultaneo...

Robust False Positive Detection for Real-Time Multi-target Tracking

We present a real-time multi-target tracking system that effectively deals with false positive detections. In order to achieve this, we build a novel motion model that treats false positives on background objects and false positives on foreground objects such as shoulders or bags separately. In addition we train a new head detector based on the Aggregated Channel Features (ACF) detector and pro...