S4Net: Single Stage Salient-Instance Segmentation

We consider an interesting problem-salient instance segmentation in this paper. Other than producing bounding boxes, our network also outputs high-quality instance-level segments. Taking into account the category-independent property of each target, we design a single stage salient instance segmentation framework, with a novel segmentation branch. Our new branch regards not only local context inside each detection window but also its surrounding context, enabling us to distinguish the instances in the same scope even with obstruction. Our network is end-to-end trainable and runs at a fast speed (40 fps when processing an image with resolution 320x320). We evaluate our approach on a publicly available benchmark and show that it outperforms other alternative solutions. We also provide a thorough analysis of the design choices to help readers better understand the functions of each part of our network. The source code can be found at \url{https://github.com/RuochenFan/S4Net}

Back-action Induced Non-equilibrium Effect in Electron Charge Counting Statistics

We report our study of the real-time charge counting statistics measured by a quantum point contact (QPC) coupled to a single quantum dot (QD) under different back-action strength. By tuning the QD-QPC coupling or QPC bias, we controlled the QPC back-action which drives the QD electrons out of thermal equilibrium. The random telegraph signal (RTS) statistics showed strong and tunable non-thermal-equilibrium saturation effect, which can be quantitatively characterized as a back-action induced tunneling out rate. We found that the QD-QPC coupling and QPC bias voltage played different roles on the back-action strength and cut-off energy.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, 1 tabl

Nonparametric Mean Shift Functional Detection in the Functional Space for Task and Resting-state fMRI

International audienceIn functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) data analysis, normalization of time series is an important and sometimes necessary preprocessing step in many widely used methods. The space of normalized time series with n time points is the unit sphere S^{n-2}, named the functional space. Riemannian framework on the sphere, including the geodesic, the exponential map, and the logarithmic map, has been well studied in Riemannian geometry. In this paper, by introducing the Riemannian framework in the functional space, we propose a novel nonparametric robust method, namely Mean Shift Functional Detection (MSFD), to explore the functional space. The first merit of the MSFD is that it does not need many assumptions on data which are assumed in many existing method, e.g. linear addition (GLM, PCA, ICA), uncorrelation (PCA), independence (ICA), the number and the shape of clusters (FCM). Second, MSFD takes into account the spatial information and can be seen as a multivariate extension of the functional connectivity analysis method. It is robust and works well for activation detection in task study even with a biased activation reference. It is also able to find the functional networks in resting-state study without a user-selected "seed" region. Third, it can enhance the boundary between different functional networks. Experiments were conducted on synthetic and real data to compare the performance of the proposed method with GLM and ICA. The experimental results validated the accuracy and robustness of MSFD, not only for activation detection in task study but also for functional network exploration in resting-state study