Archives for 2016

Graphic Symbol Recognition using Graph Based Signature and Bayesian Network Classifier

Today I read a published paper titled “Graphic Symbol Recognition using Graph Based Signature and Bayesian  Network Classifier”

Interesting combination of a relational graph and a Bayesian network to recognise non-alphanumeric symbols in technical documents. As this is a reasonably hard problem to solve (or it was when I was doing that sort of thing about 20 years ago) it is encouraging to read new approaches (new for me anyway) to the problem. I wish the recognition rates (acknowledged in the paper) were a little higher.

The abstract:

We present a new approach for recognition of complex graphic symbols in technical documents. Graphic symbol recognition is a well known challenge in the field of document image analysis and is at heart of most graphic recognition systems. Our method uses structural approach for symbol representation and statistical classifier for symbol recognition. In our system we represent symbols by their graph based signatures: a graphic symbol is vectorized and is converted to an attributed relational graph, which is used for computing a feature vector for the symbol. This signature corresponds to geometry and topology of the symbol. We learn a Bayesian network to encode joint probability distribution of symbol signatures and use it in a supervised learning scenario for graphic symbol recognition. We have evaluated our method on synthetically deformed and degraded images of pre-segmented 2D architectural and electronic symbols from GREC databases and have obtained encouraging recognition rates. 

Graphic Symbol Recognition using Graph Based Signature and Bayesian Network Classifier

Today I read a published paper “Graphic Symbol Recognition using Graph Based Signature and Bayesian Network Classifier”

The abstract is:

We present a new approach for recognition of complex graphic symbols in technical documents. Graphic symbol recognition is a well known challenge in the field of document image analysis and is at heart of most graphic recognition systems. Our method uses structural approach for symbol representation and statistical classifier for symbol recognition. In our system we represent symbols by their graph based signatures: a graphic symbol is vectorized and is converted to an attributed relational graph, which is used for computing a feature vector for the symbol. This signature corresponds to geometry and topology of the symbol. We learn a Bayesian network to encode joint probability distribution of symbol signatures and use it in a supervised learning scenario for graphic symbol recognition. We have evaluated our method on synthetically deformed and degraded images of pre-segmented 2D architectural and electronic symbols from GREC databases and have obtained encouraging recognition rates.

Autonomous Vehicles Need Experimental Ethics: Are We Ready for Utilitarian Cars?

Today I read a published paper “Autonomous Vehicles Need Experimental Ethics: Are We Ready for Utilitarian Cars?”

The abstract is:

The wide adoption of self-driving, Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) promises to dramatically reduce the number of traffic accidents. Some accidents, though, will be inevitable, because some situations will require AVs to choose the lesser of two evils. For example, running over a pedestrian on the road or a passer-by on the side; or choosing whether to run over a group of pedestrians or to sacrifice the passenger by driving into a wall. It is a formidable challenge to define the algorithms that will guide AVs confronted with such moral dilemmas. In particular, these moral algorithms will need to accomplish three potentially incompatible objectives: being consistent, not causing public outrage, and not discouraging buyers. We argue to achieve these objectives, manufacturers and regulators will need psychologists to apply the methods of experimental ethics to situations involving AVs and unavoidable harm. To illustrate our claim, we report three surveys showing that laypersons are relatively comfortable with utilitarian AVs, programmed to minimize the death toll in case of unavoidable harm. We give special attention to whether an AV should save lives by sacrificing its owner, and provide insights into (i) the perceived morality of this self-sacrifice, (ii) the willingness to see this self-sacrifice being legally enforced, (iii) the expectations that AVs will be programmed to self-sacrifice, and (iv) the willingness to buy self-sacrificing AVs.

Applications and a Three-dimensional Desktop Environment for an Immersive Virtual Reality System

Today I read a published paper “Applications and a Three-dimensional Desktop Environment for an Immersive Virtual Reality System”

The abstract is:

We developed an application launcher called Multiverse for scientific visualizations in a CAVE-type virtual reality (VR) system. Multiverse can be regarded as a type of three-dimensional (3D) desktop environment. In Multiverse, a user in a CAVE room can browse multiple visualization applications with 3D icons and explore movies that float in the air. Touching one of the movies causes “teleportation” into the application’s VR space. After analyzing the simulation data using the application, the user can jump back into Multiverse’s VR desktop environment in the CAVE.

Improving Big Data Visual Analytics with Interactive Virtual Reality

Today I read a published paper “Improving Big Data Visual Analytics with Interactive Virtual Reality”

The abstract is:

For decades, the growth and volume of digital data collection has made it challenging to digest large volumes of information and extract underlying structure. Coined ‘Big Data’, massive amounts of information has quite often been gathered inconsistently (e.g from many sources, of various forms, at different rates, etc.). These factors impede the practices of not only processing data, but also analyzing and displaying it in an efficient manner to the user. Many efforts have been completed in the data mining and visual analytics community to create effective ways to further improve analysis and achieve the knowledge desired for better understanding. Our approach for improved big data visual analytics is two-fold, focusing on both visualization and interaction. Given geo-tagged information, we are exploring the benefits of visualizing datasets in the original geospatial domain by utilizing a virtual reality platform. After running proven analytics on the data, we intend to represent the information in a more realistic 3D setting, where analysts can achieve an enhanced situational awareness and rely on familiar perceptions to draw in-depth conclusions on the dataset. In addition, developing a human-computer interface that responds to natural user actions and inputs creates a more intuitive environment. Tasks can be performed to manipulate the dataset and allow users to dive deeper upon request, adhering to desired demands and intentions. Due to the volume and popularity of social media, we developed a 3D tool visualizing Twitter on MIT’s campus for analysis. Utilizing emerging technologies of today to create a fully immersive tool that promotes visualization and interaction can help ease the process of understanding and representing big data.

Dynamic behavior analysis for a six axis industrial machining robot

Today I read a published paper “Dynamic behavior analysis for a six axis industrial machining robot”

The abstract is:

The six axis robots are widely used in automotive industry for their good repeatability (as defined in the ISO92983) (painting, welding, mastic deposition, handling etc.). In the aerospace industry, robot starts to be used for complex applications such as drilling, riveting, fiber placement, NDT, etc. Given the positioning performance of serial robots, precision applications require usually external measurement device with complexes calibration procedure in order to reach the precision needed. New applications in the machining field of composite material (aerospace, naval, or wind turbine for example) intend to use off line programming of serial robot without the use of calibration or external measurement device. For those applications, the position, orientation and path trajectory precision of the tool center point of the robot are needed to generate the machining operation. This article presents the different conditions that currently limit the development of robots in robotic machining applications. We analyze the dynamical behavior of a robot KUKA KR240-2 (located at the University of Bordeaux 1) equipped with a HSM Spindle (42000 rpm, 18kW). This analysis is done in three stages. The first step is determining the self-excited frequencies of the robot structure for three different configurations of work. The second phase aims to analyze the dynamical vibration of the structure as the spindle is activated without cutting. The third stage consists of vibration analysis during a milling operation.

Touch-less Interactive Augmented Reality Game on Vision Based Wearable Device

Today I read a published paper “Touch-less Interactive Augmented Reality Game on Vision Based Wearable Device”

The abstract is:

There is an increasing interest in creating pervasive games based on emerging interaction technologies. In order to develop touch-less, interactive and augmented reality games on vision-based wearable device, a touch-less motion interaction technology is designed and evaluated in this work. Users interact with the augmented reality games with dynamic hands/feet gestures in front of the camera, which triggers the interaction event to interact with the virtual object in the scene. Three primitive augmented reality games with eleven dynamic gestures are developed based on the proposed touch-less interaction technology as proof. At last, a comparing evaluation is proposed to demonstrate the social acceptability and usability of the touch-less approach, running on a hybrid wearable framework or with Google Glass, as well as workload assessment, user’s emotions and satisfaction.

Today I read a published paper titled “Coordination Games on Graphs”

Nothing to add. I need to dwell on it. Just knowledge for the sake of it.

The abstract is:

We introduce natural strategic games on graphs, which capture the idea of coordination in a local setting. We show that these games have an exact potential and have strong equilibria when the graph is a pseudoforest. We also exhibit some other classes of graphs for which a strong equilibrium exists. However, in general strong equilibria do not need to exist. Further, we study the (strong) price of stability and anarchy. Finally, we consider the problems of computing strong equilibria and of determining whether a joint strategy is a strong equilibrium.

Coordination Games on Graphs

Today I read a published paper “Coordination Games on Graphs”

The abstract is:

We introduce natural strategic games on graphs, which capture the idea of coordination in a local setting. We show that these games have an exact potential and have strong equilibria when the graph is a pseudoforest. We also exhibit some other classes of graphs for which a strong equilibrium exists. However, in general strong equilibria do not need to exist. Further, we study the (strong) price of stability and anarchy. Finally, we consider the problems of computing strong equilibria and of determining whether a joint strategy is a strong equilibrium.

Multi-agent Path Planning and Network Flow

Today I read a published paper “Multi-agent Path Planning and Network Flow”

The abstract is:

This paper connects multi-agent path planning on graphs (roadmaps) to network flow problems, showing that the former can be reduced to the latter, therefore enabling the application of combinatorial network flow algorithms, as well as general linear program techniques, to multi-agent path planning problems on graphs. Exploiting this connection, we show that when the goals are permutation invariant, the problem always has a feasible solution path set with a longest finish time of no more than $n + V – 1$ steps, in which $n$ is the number of agents and $V$ is the number of vertices of the underlying graph. We then give a complete algorithm that finds such a solution in $O(nVE)$ time, with $E$ being the number of edges of the graph. Taking a further step, we study time and distance optimality of the feasible solutions, show that they have a pairwise Pareto optimal structure, and again provide efficient algorithms for optimizing two of these practical objectives.

Markerless Motion Capture in the Crowd

Today I read a published paper “Markerless Motion Capture in the Crowd”

The abstract is:

This work uses crowdsourcing to obtain motion capture data from video recordings. The data is obtained by information workers who click repeatedly to indicate body configurations in the frames of a video, resulting in a model of 2D structure over time. We discuss techniques to optimize the tracking task and strategies for maximizing accuracy and efficiency. We show visualizations of a variety of motions captured with our pipeline then apply reconstruction techniques to derive 3D structure.

Fractal Fluctuations in Human Walking: Comparison between Auditory and Visually Guided Stepping

Today I read a published paper “Fractal Fluctuations in Human Walking: Comparison between Auditory and Visually Guided Stepping”

The abstract is:

In human locomotion, sensorimotor synchronization of gait consists of the coordination of stepping with rhythmic auditory cues (auditory cueing, AC). AC changes the long-range correlations among consecutive strides (fractal dynamics) into anti-correlations. Visual cueing (VC) is the alignment of step lengths with marks on the floor. The effects of VC on the fluctuation structure of walking have not been investigated. Therefore, the objective was to compare the effects of AC and VC on the fluctuation pattern of basic spatiotemporal gait parameters. Thirty-six healthy individuals walked 3 x 500 strides on an instrumented treadmill with augmented reality capabilities. The conditions were no cueing (NC), AC, and VC. AC included an isochronous metronome. In VC, projected stepping stones were synchronized with the treadmill speed. Detrended fluctuation analysis assessed the correlation structure. The coefficient of variation (CV) was also assessed. The results showed that AC and VC similarly induced a strong anti-correlated pattern in the gait parameters. The CVs were similar between the NC and AC conditions but substantially higher in the VC condition. AC and VC probably mobilize similar motor control pathways and can be used alternatively in gait rehabilitation. However, the increased gait variability induced by VC should be considered.

Today I read a published paper entitled “Fractal Fluctuations in Human Walking: Comparison between Auditory and Visually Guided Stepping”

I have no idea what I am going to do with this knowledge. However, it has given me an idea for two pieces of augmented reality exercise equipment that could be used to motivate people to work out more.

A punching bag with AR projection that designates targets to hit, rapid punches to throw, etc.

An AR treadmill that can project where you should put your foot and coupled with gait analysis, can predict your overall cardio fitness and making estimates of how fast you could run a marathon.

The abstract is:

In human locomotion, sensorimotor synchronization of gait consists of the coordination of stepping with rhythmic auditory cues (auditory cueing, AC). AC changes the long-range correlations among consecutive strides (fractal dynamics) into anti-correlations. Visual cueing (VC) is the alignment of step lengths with marks on the floor. The effects of VC on the fluctuation structure of walking have not been investigated. Therefore, the objective was to compare the effects of AC and VC on the fluctuation pattern of basic spatiotemporal gait parameters. Thirty-six healthy individuals walked 3 x 500 strides on an instrumented treadmill with augmented reality capabilities. The conditions were no cueing (NC), AC, and VC. AC included an isochronous metronome. In VC, projected stepping stones were synchronized with the treadmill speed. Detrended fluctuation analysis assessed the correlation structure. The coefficient of variation (CV) was also assessed. The results showed that AC and VC similarly induced a strong anti-correlated pattern in the gait parameters. The CVs were similar between the NC and AC conditions but substantially higher in the VC condition. AC and VC probably mobilize similar motor control pathways and can be used alternatively in gait rehabilitation. However, the increased gait variability induced by VC should be considered. 

Emotion Detection from Text

Today I read a published paper “Emotion Detection from Text”

The abstract is:

Emotion can be expressed in many ways that can be seen such as facial expression and gestures, speech and by written text. Emotion Detection in text documents is essentially a content – based classification problem involving concepts from the domains of Natural Language Processing as well as Machine Learning. In this paper emotion recognition based on textual data and the techniques used in emotion detection are discussed.

Calculation reduction method for color computer-generated hologram using color space conversion

Today I read a published paper “Calculation reduction method for color computer-generated hologram using color space conversion”

The abstract is:

We report a calculation reduction method for color computer-generated holograms (CGHs) using color space conversion. Color CGHs are generally calculated on RGB space. In this paper, we calculate color CGHs in other color spaces: for example, YCbCr color space. In YCbCr color space, a RGB image is converted to the luminance component (Y), blue-difference chroma (Cb) and red-difference chroma (Cr) components. In terms of the human eye, although the negligible difference of the luminance component is well-recognized, the difference of the other components is not. In this method, the luminance component is normal sampled and the chroma components are down-sampled. The down-sampling allows us to accelerate the calculation of the color CGHs. We compute diffraction calculations from the components, and then we convert the diffracted results in YCbCr color space to RGB color space.

Time manipulation technique for speeding up reinforcement learning in simulations

Today I read a published paper “Time manipulation technique for speeding up reinforcement learning in simulations”

The abstract is:

A technique for speeding up reinforcement learning algorithms by using time manipulation is proposed. It is applicable to failure-avoidance control problems running in a computer simulation. Turning the time of the simulation backwards on failure events is shown to speed up the learning by 260% and improve the state space exploration by 12% on the cart-pole balancing task, compared to the conventional Q-learning and Actor-Critic algorithms.

Procams-Based Cybernetics

Today I read a published paper “Procams-Based Cybernetics”

The abstract is:

Procams-based cybernetics is a unique, emerging research field, which aims at enhancing and supporting our activities by naturally connecting human and computers/machines as a cooperative integrated system via projector-camera systems (procams). It rests on various research domains such as virtual/augmented reality, computer vision, computer graphics, projection display, human computer interface, human robot interaction and so on. This laboratory presentation provides a brief history including recent achievements of our procams-based cybernetics project.

Parking Space Management via Dynamic Performance-Based Pricing

Today I read a published paper “Parking Space Management via Dynamic Performance-Based Pricing”

The abstract is:

In congested urban areas, it remains a pressing challenge to reduce unnecessary vehicle circling for parking while at the same time maximize parking space utilization. In observance of new information technologies that have become readily accessible to drivers and parking agencies, we develop a dynamic non-cooperative bi-level model (i.e. Stackelberg leader-follower game) to set parking prices in real-time for effective parking access and space utilization. The model is expected to fit into an integrated parking pricing and management system, where parking reservations and transactions are facilitated by sensing and informatics infrastructures, that ensures the availability of convenient spaces at equilibrium market prices. It is shown with numerical examples that the proposed dynamic parking pricing model has the potential to virtually eliminate vehicle circling for parking, which results in significant reduction in adverse socioeconomic externalities such as traffic congestion and emissions.