“We Shall Make No Progress Today”

Are we making real progress in computer vision today?

In short: probably not. To explore some of the challenges facing the field today, it helps to start with a thought experiment. Take two images, wherein the second image has many changes relative to the first; objects in the second image have altered illumination and exhibit completely different 3D poses. Concentrate on the correspondence between the points in these images: a point in the first ...

Massive bleeding in polytrauma: how can we make progress?

Trauma is a major cause of death worldwide, with some 30% of deaths associated with hemorrhage. Rapid control of bleeding in such patients is thus an essential aspect of trauma care. Recombinant human factor VIIa is sometimes used off-label in massively bleeding patients and has been demonstrated in two randomized trials to significantly reduce the need for blood transfusions. Whether this tran...

What shall we call them?

When last discussed in Pediatrics in 2002, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) Committee on Psychosocial Aspects of Child and Family Health statement “Coparent or Second-Parent Adoption by Same-Sex Parents”2 (reaffirmed February 2010) and the accompanying technical report written by Ellen Perrin, MD, FAAP,3 drew much attention and engendered controversy both within the AAP and outside of i...

[The truth shall make you free].

"How then shall we live?".

This address did not originate in my neocortex, but in a deeper region of my brain, the one responsible for signaling a sense of warning. The sense I have is that a subtle, distinct change is occurring around me that is not quite right. This sense eventually grew into the perception that society, in general, and medicine, in particular, are devaluing the ideals of service and sacrifice. I did n...