Beyond the success in classification, neural networks have recently shown strong results on pixel-wise prediction tasks like image semantic segmentation on RGBD data. However, the commonly used deconvolutional layers for upsampling intermediate representations to the full-resolution output still show different failure modes, like imprecise segmentation boundaries and label mistakes in particula...

Obesity is one of the most serious public health challenges of the 21st century and it is a threat to the life of people according to World Health Organization. In this scenario, family environment is important to establish healthy habits which help to reduce levels of obesity and control overweight in children. However, little efforts have been focused on helping parents to promote and have he...

The future is said to belong to information appliances, specialized and easy to use devices that will have the car tell the coffee pot to brew a cup of coffee just in time for our arrival home. These gadgets are supposed to eliminate the complexity and resulting frustration of the PC. The thesis of this essay is that while information appliances will proliferate, they will not lessen the percep...

Placing is a necessary skill for a personal robot to have in order to perform tasks such as arranging objects in a disorganized room. The object placements should not only be stable but also be in their semantically preferred placing areas and orientations. This is challenging because an environment can have a large variety of objects and placing areas that may not have been seen by the robot b...

Household IoT devices are intended to collect information in the home, and interact with each other, to create powerful new applications that support our day-to-day activities. For example, a smart fridge detects when certain groceries are running out, and triggers a shopping console to order fresh supplies. Technical solutions can ascertain that the data used for such functionality are minimiz...

This paper investigates the potentially non-linear relation between households' indebtedness and their consumption 2010 2014 in Belgium, using panel data from two waves of Household Finance Consumption Survey. Unlike previous studies, we find a negative effect on consumption, even absence shock assets. Our findings suggest that, without such shock, it is day-to-day sustainability debt, rather t...

Potassium is the principal intracellular cation with sodium being the principal extracellular cation. Maintenance of the distribution of potassium and sodium between the intracellular and the extracellular compartments relies on several homeostatic mechanisms. This study analysed the effect of blood storage on the concentrations of potassium and sodium in stored blood and also determine any var...

BACKGROUND Food preparation skills may encourage healthy eating. Traditional assessment of child food preparation employs self- or parent proxy-reporting methods, which are prone to error. The eButton is a wearable all-day camera that has promise as an objective, passive method for measuring child food preparation practices. PURPOSE This paper explores the feasibility of the eButton to reliab...

The method described in this study is a robust and sensitive method for the simultaneous determination of trivalent and hexavalent chromium (Cr(III) and Cr(VI)) in an exhaled breath condensate (EBC) sample and drinking water proficiency testing material sample. The method uses a hyphenated micro liquid chromatography (mLC) system coupled to inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS)....

A battery storage system provides an independent source of power. This is essential for off-grid living where battery storage holds all energy produced by your solar, wind or hydro system. Note also that grid-connected solar power doesn't automatically provide you with an independent power supply if the grid goes down then you lose supply completely. However, it is possible to add a battery sto...