A deep learning ball tracking system in soccer videos

Increasing interest, enthusiasm of sport lovers, and economics involved offer high importance to sports video recording and analysis. Being crucial for decision making, ball detection and tracking in soccer has become a challenging research area. This paper presents a novel deep learning approach for 2D ball detection and tracking (DLBT) in soccer videos posing various challenges. A new 2-stage buffer median filtering background modelling is used for moving objects blob detection. A deep learning approach for classification of an image patch into three classes, i.e. ball, player, and background is initially proposed. Probabilistic bounding box overlapping technique is proposed further for robust ball track validation. Novel full and boundary grid concepts resume tracking in ball_track_lost and ball_out_of_frame situations. DLBT does not require human intervention to identify ball from the initial frames unlike the most published algorithms. DLBT yields extraordinary accurate and robust tracking results compared to the other contemporary 2D trackers even in presence of various challenges including very small ball size and fast movements.     

Alcoholic solvent‐assisted ligand‐free room temperature Suzuki–Miyaura cross‐coupling reaction

We have observed the enhancing effect of alcoholic solvents in palladium‐catalysed ligand‐free Suzuki–Miyaura reactions. No extra additives or ligands are required for the Suzuki–Miyaura reaction of aryl bromides with arylboronic acids when we carried out the reaction in alcoholic or aqueous alcoholic solvents. Moreover, ethanol or aqueous ethanol is found to be a very good solvent for the Suzuki–Miyaura reaction involving electronically diverse aryl bromides and arylboronic acids under mild and ligand‐free conditions with low catalyst loading. It is observed from Hg(0) poisoning tests that the in situ generated palladium(0) species is the actual catalytic species for the reaction. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Energy decomposition analysis of cation–π, metal ion–lone pair,hydrogen bonded,charge‐assisted hydrogen bonded,and π–π interactions

This study probes the nature of noncovalent interactions, such as cation–π, metal ion–lone pair (M–LP), hydrogen bonding (HB), charge‐assisted hydrogen bonding (CAHB), and π–π interactions, using energy decomposition schemes—density functional theory (DFT)–symmetry‐adapted perturbation theory and reduced variational space. Among cation–π complexes, the polarization and electrostatic components are the major contributors to the interaction energy (IE) for metal ion–π complexes, while for onium ion–π complexes ( , , , and ) the dispersion component is prominent. For M–LP complexes, the electrostatic component contributes more to the IE except the dicationic metal ion complexes with H₂S and PH₃ where the polarization component dominates. Although electrostatic component dominates for the HB and CAHB complexes, dispersion is predominant in π–π complexes.Copyright © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

High Yielding Synthesis of Carboranes Under Mild Reaction Conditions Using a Homogeneous Silver(I) Catalyst: Direct Evidence of a Bimetallic Intermediate

Methods used to prepare functionalized carboranes generally require heating to high temperatures, and thus limits the range of derivatives which can be prepared directly from alkynes. We show here that by using a homogeneous silver(I) catalyst it is now possible to prepare carboranes in good to excellent yield at temperatures below 40 °C, including at room temperature. The process is general and provides an important new synthetic strategy for the preparation of functionalized boron clusters.     

Cascade synthesis of dihydrobenzofuran via Claisen rearrangement of allyl aryl ethers using FeCl3/MCM-41 catalyst

Dihydrobenzofuran as one of the active ingredients of the naturally occurring motif is synthesized by using in situ generation of ortho allyl phenols. Aryl allyl ethers on reacting with catalytic amounts of non noble metal iron (III) chloride supported on MCM-41 under moderate reaction conditions yield dihydrobenzofuran. First step via Claisen rearrangement gives ortho allyl phenol followed by its in situ cyclization to yield dihydrobenzofuran in very good yields. Both Lewis as well as Brønsted acidity of the catalyst as evidenced by Py-FTIR studies was found to catalyze the cascade synthesis of dihydrobenzofuran. The scope of the present strategy was successfully demonstrated for several substrates with varying electronic effects for the synthesis of corresponding dihydrobenzofuran with high yields in a range of 71–86%.     

Groovy drops: effect of groove curvature on spontaneous capillary flow

Spontaneous capillary flow (SCF) of a drop in a groove with an ideally sharp corner is possible when the Concus-Fin (CF) condition is fulfilled. However, since ideally sharp corners do not exist in reality, it is important to understand the effect of finite corner curvature on SCF. This effect is analytically studied for long drops in a V-shaped groove with a curved corner, leading to a generalization of the CF condition for such drops. The generalized condition implies that SCF depends on the geometry of the corner as well as on the dimensionless length of the drop, in addition to its dependence on the opening angle and contact angle that is covered by the CF condition. Specific calculations are presented for rounded corners. In addition, this effect is numerically calculated for short drops in V-shaped grooves with rounded corners, using the Surface Evolver software. The results of both types of calculations show that even a relatively small corner radius strongly affects the possibility of SCF: when the corner is not ideally sharp, SCF requires conditions that are more difficult to achieve than predicted by the CF condition; also, the spreading of the drop stops at a finite length and does not proceed indefinitely.     

Acetanilide palladacycle: an efficient catalyst for room‐temperature Suzuki–Miyaura cross‐coupling reaction

The catalytic activity of three acetanilide palladacycles derived from easily accessible and commercially available acetanilide derivatives, viz. N‐phenylacetamide ( L1 ), N‐(4‐chlorophenyl)acetamide ( L2 ) and N‐(4‐methylphenyl)acetamide ( L3 ) has been examined in Pd‐catalyzed Suzuki–Miyaura reaction of arylboronic acid with aryl bromides at room temperature. The complex 1L3 exhibited efficient activity in the Suzuki–Miyaura reaction (up to 99% isolated yield) under mild reaction conditions. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Descent principle in modular Galois theory

We propound a descent principle by which previously constructed equations over GF(q _n)(X) may be deformed to have incarnations over GF(q)(X) without changing their Galois groups. Currently this is achieved by starting with a vectorial (= additive)q-polynomial ofq-degreem with Galois group GL(m, q) and then, under suitable conditions, enlarging its Galois group to GL(m, q _n) by forming its generalized iterate relative to an auxiliary irreducible polynomial of degreen. Elsewhere this was proved under certain conditions by using the classification of finite simple groups, and under some other conditions by using Kantor’s classification of linear groups containing a Singer cycle. Now under different conditions we prove it by using Cameron-Kantor’s classification of two-transitive linear groups.     

Kinetics and mechanism of electron transfer reactions. Osmium(VIII) catalyzed oxidation of mannitol by hexacyanoferrate(III) in aqueous alkaline medium

The kinetics of electron transfer from mannitol to hexacyanoferrate(III), catalyzed by osmium(VIII), has been studied in alkaline medium. The substrate order is complex, whereas it is one with respect to the catalyst. The rate is independent of the concentration of oxidant. Also, the rate increases with increasing concentration of hydroxide ion in a complex manner. A kinetic rate law corresponding to the proposed mechanism has been suggested as follows:

Absorption and emission of light in red emissive carbon nanodots

The structure–function relationship, especially the origin of absorption and emission of light in carbon nanodots (CNDs), has baffled scientists. The multilevel complexity arises due to the large number of by-products synthesized during the bottom-up approach. By performing systematic purification and characterization, we reveal the presence of a molecular fluorophore, quinoxalino[2,3-b]phenazine-2,3-diamine (QXPDA), in a large amount (∼80% of the total mass) in red emissive CNDs synthesized from o-phenylenediamine (OPDA), which is one of the well-known precursor molecules used for CND synthesis. The recorded NMR and mass spectra tentatively confirm the structure of QXPDA. The close resemblance of the experimental vibronic progression and the mirror symmetry of the absorption and emission spectra with the theoretically simulated spectra confirm an extended conjugated structure of QXPDA. Interestingly, QXPDA dictates the complete emission characteristics of the CNDs; in particular, it showed a striking similarity of its excitation independent emission spectra with that of the original synthesized red emissive CND solution. On the other hand, the CND like structure with a typical size of ∼4 nm was observed under a transmission electron microscope for a blue emissive species, which showed both excitation dependent and independent emission spectra. Interestingly, Raman spectroscopic data showed the similarity between QXPDA and the dot structure thus suggesting the formation of the QXPDA aggregated core structure in CNDs. We further demonstrated the parallelism in trends of absorption and emission of light from a few other red emissive CNDs, which were synthesized using different experimental conditions.

Herein we unveil the presence of a molecular fluorophore quinoxalino[2,3-b]phenazine-2,3-diamine (QXPDA) in a colossal amount in red emissive CNDs synthesized from o-phenylenediamine, a well-known precursor molecule used for CND synthesis.