Understanding Natural Disaster Scenes from Mobile Images Using Deep Learning

With the ubiquitous use of mobile imaging devices, the collection of perishable disaster-scene data has become unprecedentedly easy. However, computing methods are unable to understand these images with significant complexity and uncertainties. In this paper, the authors investigate the problem of disaster-scene understanding through a deep-learning approach. Two attributes of images are concerned, including hazard types and damage levels. Three deep-learning models are trained, and their performance is assessed. Specifically, the best model for hazard-type prediction has an overall accuracy (OA) of 90.1%, and the best damage-level classification model has an explainable OA of 62.6%, upon which both models adopt the Faster R-CNN architecture with a ResNet50 network as a feature extractor. It is concluded that hazard types are more identifiable than damage levels in disaster-scene images. Insights are revealed, including that damage-level recognition suffers more from inter- and intra-class variations, and the treatment of hazard-agnostic damage leveling further contributes to the underlying uncertainties.

Improved Identification of Portraiture of the Julio-Claudian Period with Mobile Apps

We present the results of our image analysis of portrait art from the Roman Empire’s Julio-Claudian dynastic period. Our novel approach involves processing pictures of ancient statues, cameos, altar friezes, bas-reliefs, frescoes, and coins using modern mobile apps, such as Reface and FaceApp, to improve identification of the historical subjects depicted. In particular, we have discovered that the Reface app has limited, but useful capability to restore the approximate appearance of damaged noses of the statues. We confirm many traditional identifications, propose a few identification corrections for items located in museums and private collections around the world, and discuss the advantages and limitations of our approach. For example, Reface may make aquiline noses appear wider or shorter than they should be. This deficiency can be partially corrected if multiple views are available. We demonstrate that our approach can be extended to analyze portraiture from other cultures and historical periods. The article is intended for a broad section of the readers interested in how the modern AI-based solutions for mobile imaging merge with humanities to help improve our understanding of the modern civilization’s ancient past and increase appreciation of our diverse cultural heritage.

Mobile imaging platform for digital influenza virus counting

A compact and simple smartphone-based mobile imaging platform realized swift single influenza virus counting of clinical samples.