近年来，文本发现的主要范例是将文本检测和识别的任务结合到一个端到端的框架中。在此范式下，这两个任务都是通过从输入图像中提取的共享全局特征图操作来完成的。端到端方法面临的主要挑战之一是识别跨音阶变化（较小或较大的文本）和任意单词旋转角的文本时的性能退化。在这项工作中，我们通过提出一种新型的全球到本地关注机制来解决这些挑战，用于文本斑点，称为玻璃，将全球和本地特征融合在一起。全局功能是从共享骨干线中提取的，从整个图像中保留上下文信息，而本地功能则在调整大小的高分辨率旋转的单词作物上单独计算。从当地农作物中提取的信息减轻了尺度和单词旋转的许多固有困难。我们显示了跨音阶和角度的性能分析，突出了尺度和角度的肢体的改善。此外，我们引入了一个方向感知的损失项，以监督检测任务，并显示其对所有角度的检测和识别性能的贡献。最后，我们通过将玻璃纳入其他领先的文本发现架构，改善其文本斑点性能来表明玻璃是一般的。我们的方法在包括新发布的Textocr在内的多个基准上实现了最新的结果。

我们提出了一种用于场景文本视觉问题的新型多模式架构（STVQA），命名为布局感知变压器（LatR）。 STVQA的任务需要模型以推理不同的方式。因此，我们首先调查每种方式的影响，并揭示语言模块的重要性，尤其是在丰富布局信息时。考虑到这一点，我们提出了一种客观预培训计划，只需要文本和空间线索。我们表明，尽管域间隙差距，但仍然对扫描文件进行了对扫描文件的培训方案具有某些优点。扫描的文档易于采购，文本密集并具有各种布局，帮助模型通过捆绑语言和布局信息来学习各种空间线索（例如，下面等等）。与现有方法相比，我们的方法执行无词汇解码，如图所示，概括到超出培训词汇。我们进一步证明Latr改善了对OCR错误的鲁棒性，在STVQA失败的常见原因。另外，通过利用视觉变压器，我们消除了对外部物体检测器的需求。 Latr在多个数据集上赢得最先进的STVQA方法。特别是+ 7.6％的TextVQA，ST-VQA上的10.8％，+ 4.0％在OCR-VQA（所有绝对精度数字）。

Deep embeddings answer one simple question: How similar are two images? Learning these embeddings is the bedrock of verification, zero-shot learning, and visual search. The most prominent approaches optimize a deep convolutional network with a suitable loss function, such as contrastive loss or triplet loss. While a rich line of work focuses solely on the loss functions, we show in this paper that selecting training examples plays an equally important role. We propose distance weighted sampling, which selects more informative and stable examples than traditional approaches. In addition, we show that a simple margin based loss is sufficient to outperform all other loss functions. We evaluate our approach on the Stanford Online Products, CAR196, and the CUB200-2011 datasets for image retrieval and clustering, and on the LFW dataset for face verification. Our method achieves state-of-the-art performance on all of them.

The recent increase in public and academic interest in preserving biodiversity has led to the growth of the field of conservation technology. This field involves designing and constructing tools that utilize technology to aid in the conservation of wildlife. In this article, we will use case studies to demonstrate the importance of designing conservation tools with human-wildlife interaction in mind and provide a framework for creating successful tools. These case studies include a range of complexities, from simple cat collars to machine learning and game theory methodologies. Our goal is to introduce and inform current and future researchers in the field of conservation technology and provide references for educating the next generation of conservation technologists. Conservation technology not only has the potential to benefit biodiversity but also has broader impacts on fields such as sustainability and environmental protection. By using innovative technologies to address conservation challenges, we can find more effective and efficient solutions to protect and preserve our planet's resources.

A Digital Twin (DT) is a simulation of a physical system that provides information to make decisions that add economic, social or commercial value. The behaviour of a physical system changes over time, a DT must therefore be continually updated with data from the physical systems to reflect its changing behaviour. For resource-constrained systems, updating a DT is non-trivial because of challenges such as on-board learning and the off-board data transfer. This paper presents a framework for updating data-driven DTs of resource-constrained systems geared towards system health monitoring. The proposed solution consists of: (1) an on-board system running a light-weight DT allowing the prioritisation and parsimonious transfer of data generated by the physical system; and (2) off-board robust updating of the DT and detection of anomalous behaviours. Two case studies are considered using a production gas turbine engine system to demonstrate the digital representation accuracy for real-world, time-varying physical systems.

We consider infinite horizon Markov decision processes (MDPs) with fast-slow structure, meaning that certain parts of the state space move "fast" (and in a sense, are more influential) while other parts transition more "slowly." Such structure is common in real-world problems where sequential decisions need to be made at high frequencies, yet information that varies at a slower timescale also influences the optimal policy. Examples include: (1) service allocation for a multi-class queue with (slowly varying) stochastic costs, (2) a restless multi-armed bandit with an environmental state, and (3) energy demand response, where both day-ahead and real-time prices play a role in the firm's revenue. Models that fully capture these problems often result in MDPs with large state spaces and large effective time horizons (due to frequent decisions), rendering them computationally intractable. We propose an approximate dynamic programming algorithmic framework based on the idea of "freezing" the slow states, solving a set of simpler finite-horizon MDPs (the lower-level MDPs), and applying value iteration (VI) to an auxiliary MDP that transitions on a slower timescale (the upper-level MDP). We also extend the technique to a function approximation setting, where a feature-based linear architecture is used. On the theoretical side, we analyze the regret incurred by each variant of our frozen-state approach. Finally, we give empirical evidence that the frozen-state approach generates effective policies using just a fraction of the computational cost, while illustrating that simply omitting slow states from the decision modeling is often not a viable heuristic.

While the capabilities of autonomous systems have been steadily improving in recent years, these systems still struggle to rapidly explore previously unknown environments without the aid of GPS-assisted navigation. The DARPA Subterranean (SubT) Challenge aimed to fast track the development of autonomous exploration systems by evaluating their performance in real-world underground search-and-rescue scenarios. Subterranean environments present a plethora of challenges for robotic systems, such as limited communications, complex topology, visually-degraded sensing, and harsh terrain. The presented solution enables long-term autonomy with minimal human supervision by combining a powerful and independent single-agent autonomy stack, with higher level mission management operating over a flexible mesh network. The autonomy suite deployed on quadruped and wheeled robots was fully independent, freeing the human supervision to loosely supervise the mission and make high-impact strategic decisions. We also discuss lessons learned from fielding our system at the SubT Final Event, relating to vehicle versatility, system adaptability, and re-configurable communications.

Machine learning is the dominant approach to artificial intelligence, through which computers learn from data and experience. In the framework of supervised learning, for a computer to learn from data accurately and efficiently, some auxiliary information about the data distribution and target function should be provided to it through the learning model. This notion of auxiliary information relates to the concept of regularization in statistical learning theory. A common feature among real-world datasets is that data domains are multiscale and target functions are well-behaved and smooth. In this paper, we propose a learning model that exploits this multiscale data structure and discuss its statistical and computational benefits. The hierarchical learning model is inspired by the logical and progressive easy-to-hard learning mechanism of human beings and has interpretable levels. The model apportions computational resources according to the complexity of data instances and target functions. This property can have multiple benefits, including higher inference speed and computational savings in training a model for many users or when training is interrupted. We provide a statistical analysis of the learning mechanism using multiscale entropies and show that it can yield significantly stronger guarantees than uniform convergence bounds.

Implicit Neural Representations (INR) have recently shown to be powerful tool for high-quality video compression. However, existing works are limiting as they do not explicitly exploit the temporal redundancy in videos, leading to a long encoding time. Additionally, these methods have fixed architectures which do not scale to longer videos or higher resolutions. To address these issues, we propose NIRVANA, which treats videos as groups of frames and fits separate networks to each group performing patch-wise prediction. This design shares computation within each group, in the spatial and temporal dimensions, resulting in reduced encoding time of the video. The video representation is modeled autoregressively, with networks fit on a current group initialized using weights from the previous group's model. To further enhance efficiency, we perform quantization of the network parameters during training, requiring no post-hoc pruning or quantization. When compared with previous works on the benchmark UVG dataset, NIRVANA improves encoding quality from 37.36 to 37.70 (in terms of PSNR) and the encoding speed by 12X, while maintaining the same compression rate. In contrast to prior video INR works which struggle with larger resolution and longer videos, we show that our algorithm is highly flexible and scales naturally due to its patch-wise and autoregressive designs. Moreover, our method achieves variable bitrate compression by adapting to videos with varying inter-frame motion. NIRVANA achieves 6X decoding speed and scales well with more GPUs, making it practical for various deployment scenarios.

Recent advances in upper limb prostheses have led to significant improvements in the number of movements provided by the robotic limb. However, the method for controlling multiple degrees of freedom via user-generated signals remains challenging. To address this issue, various machine learning controllers have been developed to better predict movement intent. As these controllers become more intelligent and take on more autonomy in the system, the traditional approach of representing the human-machine interface as a human controlling a tool becomes limiting. One possible approach to improve the understanding of these interfaces is to model them as collaborative, multi-agent systems through the lens of joint action. The field of joint action has been commonly applied to two human partners who are trying to work jointly together to achieve a task, such as singing or moving a table together, by effecting coordinated change in their shared environment. In this work, we compare different prosthesis controllers (proportional electromyography with sequential switching, pattern recognition, and adaptive switching) in terms of how they present the hallmarks of joint action. The results of the comparison lead to a new perspective for understanding how existing myoelectric systems relate to each other, along with recommendations for how to improve these systems by increasing the collaborative communication between each partner.