The Visual Object Tracking challenge VOT2019 is the seventh annual tracker benchmarking activity organized by the VOT initiative. Results of 81 trackers are presented; many are state-of-the-art trackers published at major computer vision conferences or in journals in the recent years. The evaluation included the standard VOT and other popular methodologies for short-term tracking analysis as well as the standard VOT methodology for long-term tracking analysis. The VOT2019 challenge was composed of five challenges focusing on different tracking domains: (i) VOT-ST2019 challenge focused on short-term tracking in RGB, (ii) VOT-RT2019 challenge focused on "real-time" shortterm tracking in RGB, (iii) VOT-LT2019 focused on longterm tracking namely coping with target disappearance and reappearance. Two new challenges have been introduced: (iv) VOT-RGBT2019 challenge focused on short-term tracking in RGB and thermal imagery and (v) VOT-RGBD2019 challenge focused on long-term tracking in RGB and depth imagery. The VOT-ST2019, VOT-RT2019 and VOT-LT2019 datasets were refreshed while new datasets were introduced for VOT-RGBT2019 and VOT-RGBD2019. The VOT toolkit has been updated to support both standard shortterm, long-term tracking and tracking with multi-channel imagery. Performance of the tested trackers typically by far exceeds standard baselines. The source code for most of the trackers is publicly available from the VOT page. The dataset, the evaluation kit and the results are publicly available at the challenge website 1 .

Highlights d Five structures of Neisseria meningitidis Cas9s show distinct reaction states d An Nme1Cas9 structure reveals the catalytically activated HNH domain conformation d The HNH catalytic conformation promotes activation of the RuvC domain d AcrIIC3 inhibits Nme1Cas9 by tethering 2 Nme1Cas9 complexes together

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U ntil recently, brand identities were built by firms via brand image advertising. However, the flourishing consumer communication weakened the firms' grip on their brands. The interaction between advertising and consumer communications and their joint impact on brand identity is the focal point of this paper. We present a model in which consumer preference for functional attributes may correlate with the identity they desire to project of themselves. This correlation is known to the firm but not to the consumers. Both the firm and the consumers can communicate their desired brand identity, although the actual brand identity is determined endogeneously by the composition of consumers who purchase it (i.e., what types of people consume the brand). We find that sometimes the firm can strengthen the identity of its brand by refraining from advertising. This result is based on the following intermediate finding: advertising can diminish the endogeneous informativeness of consumer communications by making it one-sided. Furthermore, it turns out that refraining from brand image advertising may be optimal for the firm when the product is especially well positioned to create a strong identity-i.e., when consumer preferences for functional and self-expressive attributes are highly correlated.

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Erythropoietin (Epo) promotes functional recovery following spinal cord injury (SCI); however, the exact underlying mechanisms are yet to be determined. Although endogenous neural stem cells (NSCs) in the adult spinal cord are a therapeutic target in SCI models, the effect of Epo on this NSC population remains unknown. The present study investigated the effects of Epo on endogenous NSCs in the adult spinal cord both in vitro and in vivo. For the in vivo analyses, normal rats (Normal) and SCI contusion model rats (SCI) received either recombinant human Epo or saline treatment for 7 days (5,000 U/kg), and spinal cords were subsequently analyzed at 2, 8, and 14 days. For in vitro analyses, NSCs harvested from adult rat spinal cords were exposed to Epo (10 U/ml). A significant increase in β-tubulin+ new neurons (P<0.01) was observed at all three time points and O4+ new oligodendrocytes (P<0.05) at days 8 and 14 in the SCI+Epo group compared with the SCI+Saline group. This was concomitant with a prolonged activation of Epo signaling; however, no effect on NSCs proliferation was observed. Similar results were also obtained in vitro. Motor functional recovery was also noted at days 8 and 14 only in the Epo-treated SCI rats. Although the expression of Epo and EpoR significantly increased in Normal+Epo rats compared with Normal+Saline rats (P<0.05), the cell numbers and phenotype were comparable between the two groups. To the best of the author's knowledge, this is the first study to demonstrate that Epo signaling promotes both neurogenesis and oligodendrogenesis following SCI and that these may represent the underlying mechanisms for the functional recovery and therapeutic effects of Epo following SCI.