Facial Paralysis Detection in Infrared Thermal Images Using Asymmetry Analysis of Temperature and Texture Features

Facial temperature distribution in healthy people shows contralateral symmetry, which is generally disrupted by facial paralysis. This study aims to develop a quantitative thermal asymmetry analysis method for early diagnosis of facial paralysis in infrared thermal images. First, to improve the reliability of thermal image analysis, the facial regions of interest (ROIs) were segmented using corner and edge detection. A new temperature feature was then defined using the maximum and minimum temperature, and it was combined with the texture feature to represent temperature distribution of facial ROIs. Finally, Minkowski distance was used to measure feature symmetry of bilateral ROIs. The feature symmetry vectors were input into support vector machine to evaluate the degree of facial thermal symmetry. The results showed that there were significant differences in thermal symmetry between patients with facial paralysis and healthy people. The accuracy of the proposed method for early diagnosis of facial paralysis was 0.933, and the area under the ROC curve was 0.947. In conclusion, temperature and texture features can effectively quantify thermal asymmetry caused by facial paralysis, and the application of machine learning in early detection of facial paralysis in thermal images is feasible.

Exploring Customers’ Luxury Consumption in Restaurants: A Combined Method of Topic Modeling and Three-Factor Theory

This study explores customers’ perceptions and underlying factors related to luxury consumption in restaurants. Although many studies have explored customers’ consumption of luxury goods, very few of these studies involved luxury hospitality services. Furthermore, hospitality literature has rarely discussed the emerging identification of inconspicuous consumption in luxury. By applying topic modeling to analyze online customer reviews, the current study identifies the essential elements of visiting luxury restaurants. Moreover, it elicits the asymmetric role of the identified factors in accelerating overall customer satisfaction or dissatisfaction through impact-asymmetry analysis, which adopts the three-factor theory. Findings suggest that many inconspicuous factors exist in luxury consumption and that the mechanisms that affect satisfaction differ among a satisfier, a dissatisfier, and a hybrid. The acknowledgment of the asymmetric effects will help practitioners in luxury restaurants enhance their understandings of customer perceptions and efficiently improve service management and marketing.

Using Ultrasonic Haptics Within an Immersive Spider Exposure Environment to Provide a Multi-Sensorial Experience

A proof of concept virtual reality system is presented that integrates ultrasonic feedback sensations to provide a demonstrative virtual reality exposure therapy environment containing multiple scenarios with virtual spiders. This system and environment were utilised to conduct a study containing 35 participants with the goal of investigating the effect the environment could have on their level of anxiety. This level of anxiety was measured in three different forms: changes in frontal asymmetry analysis of EEG data, changes in skin conductance levels and subjective units of distress. The Fear of Spiders Questionnaire was used to determine which participants in the study reported to be moderately afraid of spiders. For these participants all three measurement forms for anxiety showed statistically significant increases in a comparison between baseline and scenarios with the virtual spiders. A statistically significant correlation between scores on the Fear of Spiders Questionnaire and changes in anxiety shows the system to have had a greater effect on the anxiety levels of those who were more afraid of spiders, than those who were not. There was also a statistically significant correlation discovered between immersion and increase in anxiety, highlighting the significance of immersion in future virtual reality exposure therapy applications.

THERMAL ASYMMETRY ANALYSIS OF MOTORIZED SPINDLES

This paper presents a method to quantify and reduce thermal asymmetry of motorized spindles. Thermal asymmetry leads to angular and radial deflections at the tool center point. In contrast to simple thermal expansion issues, these effects are harder to compensate. Therefore, the causes of the asymmetries should preferably be evident in the construction phase. This paper introduces a newly developed mathematical formulation to quantify thermal asymmetry. Thermal asymmetry is observed along the longitudinal axis of a motorized spindle. The formulation quantifies thermal asymmetries as a difference of a geometrical centroid and a newly introduced thermal centroid. For this analysis, several motor spindles with different fluid cooling circulation systems were observed. In order to show the legitimacy of the formulation, the spindle’s calculated thermal asymmetries are compared with their respective radial tool center point displacements. The results show that the asymmetries correlate with the displacements. Furthermore, the quantification of the thermal asymmetry actually allows to locate its causes. In motor spindles the asymmetry is mostly caused by the complex fluid circulation system. The spindle with the worst cooling circulation showed a radial displacement of 26,32 µm. Through thermal asymmetry optimization of the circulation’s heat transfer, the displacement could be reduced to 0,66 µm. The developed method is not limited to motorized spindles. It will be investigated further to develop a generally valid formulation.

NEW DEVELOPMENTS IN CROP ROTATION

Climate change is already affecting agriculture, with effects unevenly distributed across the world. These changes will undoubtedly lead to a reconsideration of the question of the necessary crop rotations on the territory of the individual continents and sub-regions. Many researchers have conducted field experiments with different crop rotations on several soil types and have received determined results, but still lack concrete unified numerical estimates of the influence of different crops in them. This article presents several new developments of the problem in crop rotation. Different approaches to assessing the influences of predecessors are illustrated. Therefore, it is necessary to apply advanced mathematical-statistical methods and models for obtaining more precise estimates. The application of asymmetry analysis and Procrustes analysis in the evaluation of different crop rotations are given in details. Some results about favorable and unfavorable rotation pairs are given.