University of Adelaide

About: University of Adelaide is a education organization based out in Adelaide, South Australia, Australia. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Pregnancy. The organization has 27251 authors who have published 79167 publications receiving 2671128 citations. The organization is also known as: The University of Adelaide & Adelaide University.

CREST: Convolutional Residual Learning for Visual Tracking

Abstract: Discriminative correlation filters (DCFs) have been shown to perform superiorly in visual tracking. They only need a small set of training samples from the initial frame to generate an appearance model. However, existing DCFs learn the filters separately from feature extraction, and update these filters using a moving average operation with an empirical weight. These DCF trackers hardly benefit from the end-to-end training. In this paper, we propose the CREST algorithm to reformulate DCFs as a one-layer convolutional neural network. Our method integrates feature extraction, response map generation as well as model update into the neural networks for an end-to-end training. To reduce model degradation during online update, we apply residual learning to take appearance changes into account. Extensive experiments on the benchmark datasets demonstrate that our CREST tracker performs favorably against state-of-the-art trackers.

Ancient DNA, pig domestication, and the spread of the Neolithic into Europe

Abstract: The Neolithic Revolution began 11,000 years ago in the Near East and preceded a westward migration into Europe of distinctive cultural groups and their agricultural economies, including domesticated animals and plants. Despite decades of research, no consensus has emerged about the extent of admixture between the indigenous and exotic populations or the degree to which the appearance of specific components of the "Neolithic cultural package" in Europe reflects truly independent development. Here, through the use of mitochondrial DNA from 323 modern and 221 ancient pig specimens sampled across western Eurasia, we demonstrate that domestic pigs of Near Eastern ancestry were definitely introduced into Europe during the Neolithic (potentially along two separate routes), reaching the Paris Basin by at least the early 4th millennium B.C. Local European wild boar were also domesticated by this time, possibly as a direct consequence of the introduction of Near Eastern domestic pigs. Once domesticated, European pigs rapidly replaced the introduced domestic pigs of Near Eastern origin throughout Europe. Domestic pigs formed a key component of the Neolithic Revolution, and this detailed genetic record of their origins reveals a complex set of interactions and processes during the spread of early farmers into Europe.

Nonindigenous biota on artificial structures: could habitat creation facilitate biological invasions?

Abstract: We identified different distributions of marine nonindigenous species (NIS) and native species on some artificial structures versus natural reefs and using experimental manipulations, revealed some possible causal mechanisms. In well-established subtidal assemblages, numbers of NIS were 1.5–2.5 times greater on pontoons or pilings than on rocky reefs, despite the local species pool of natives being up to 2.5 times greater than that of NIS. Conversely, on reefs and seawalls, numbers of native species were up to three times greater than numbers of NIS. Differential recruitment to different positions and types of surfaces appeared to influence distribution patterns. NIS recruited well to most surfaces, particularly concrete surfaces near the surface of the water, whilst natives occurred infrequently on wooden surfaces. The position of rocky reefs and seawalls close to the shore and to the seabed appeared to make them favourable for the recruitment of natives, but this positioning alone does not hinder the recruitment of NIS. We argue that pontoons and pilings represent beachheads (i.e. entry points for invasion) for many nonindigenous epibiota and so enhance the spread and establishment of NIS in estuaries. Habitat creation in estuaries may, therefore, be a serious threat to native biodiversity.