A Hybrid Sparse Representation Model for Image Restoration

Group-based sparse representation (GSR) uses image nonlocal self-similarity (NSS) prior to grouping similar image patches, and then performs sparse representation. However, the traditional GSR model restores the image by training degraded images, which leads to the inevitable over-fitting of the data in the training model, resulting in poor image restoration results. In this paper, we propose a new hybrid sparse representation model (HSR) for image restoration. The proposed HSR model is improved in two aspects. On the one hand, the proposed HSR model exploits the NSS priors of both degraded images and external image datasets, making the model complementary in feature space and the plane. On the other hand, we introduce a joint sparse representation model to make better use of local sparsity and NSS characteristics of the images. This joint model integrates the patch-based sparse representation (PSR) model and GSR model, while retaining the advantages of the GSR model and the PSR model, so that the sparse representation model is unified. Extensive experimental results show that the proposed hybrid model outperforms several existing image recovery algorithms in both objective and subjective evaluations.

Physiological and Psychological Responses to Coding Combined with Horticultural Activity

This study was conducted to determine the physiological and psychological benefits of integrating software coding and horticultural activity. Participants included 30 adults in their 20s. The subjects randomly engaged in activities—namely, connecting Arduino components, coding, planting, and a combined coding and horticultural activities. During the activity, two subjective evaluations were conducted at the end of each activity, and participants’ brain waves were measured. The spectral edge frequency 50% of alpha spectrum band (ASEF50) and ratio of sensorimotor rhythm from mid beta to theta (RSMT) were activated in the prefrontal lobe as participants performed combined coding and horticultural activities. When performing these combined activities, relative beta (RB) increased, and relative theta (RT) decreased in the prefrontal lobe. In addition, ASEF50, relative low beta (RLB), and relative mid beta (RMB) were activated during plant-based activities (planting and a combined coding and horticultural activities). The subjective evaluations revealed that the plant-based activities had a positive effect on participants’ emotions. This study shows that activities combining coding and horticulture had a positive impact on physiological relaxation and increased concentration in adults compared with other activities and was also linked with positive subjectively reported emotions.

Rear boot swing door closing effort: Calculations, objective and subjective evaluations in an LCV model

The prediction model for the energy contributors is studied to define the effect of door components. The model is validated by experimental measurements on produced vehicles. The correlation of the control results and the evaluation methods among the representative customers, appraisers and senior experts are performed and compared by objective energy measurements. The subjective evaluation aims to clarify real customer expectations in door closing process and carry it to new product development phase. This will also improve the competency of appraisers in final assembly approval zones. The energy contributors for boot swing door is numerically calculated and validated by experimental measurements in easy and hard-closing doors. Subjective evaluations in 45 vehicles with different closing energies were performed by three different groups as representative customers, appraisers, and senior experts. The results were evaluated by statistical tools. The major energy contributors were found as air binding, seal resistance and check strap both in the calculations and in the experiments. The results demonstrated good correlation between numerical model and objective measurements. Besides, the subjective evaluations showed parallel trends with objective energy measurements. The variation in customer evaluations is more than appraisers and experts. Customers are severer in the evaluations of hard-closing doors and more sensitive in 10° door closing angle. This is a unique study for rear boot swing door closing effort in an LCV model. The study contains both definitions of factors, components that contributes in door closing energy and subjective evaluations to correlate the closing behaviors of representative customers, appraisers, and senior experts. The output of the study would be used to improve the vehicle control plan (VCP) and design standards in new model development phase.

Near-Infrared Fluorescence Imaging for the Intraoperative Detection of Endometriosis: A Pilot Study

Introduction: Endometriosis surgery is associated with a high risk of reoperation due to an insufficient recognition of endometriotic lesions. Our aim was to explore the role of near-infrared fluorescence (NIRF) imaging for the visualization and identification of endometriotic lesions next to conventional white light (WL) laparoscopy. Materials and methods: Fifteen women scheduled for diagnostic laparoscopy in whom peritoneal endometriosis was suspected were included. Peritoneal exploration was performed in WL, followed by NIRF imaging after ICG administration. Biopsies of all the suspected lesions were taken for histological examination. Subjective evaluations of the equipment and NIRF imaging were also performed. Results: Only 61% (44) of the biopsied lesions contained endometriosis. The positive predictive value (PPV) for the lesions found in WL was 64%. The PPV for the lesions found under NIRF was 69% and the PPV for the lesions found in both modes was 61%. The mean satisfaction of surgeons regarding the surgical procedure and equipment using both imaging modalities was 6.5 (p > 0.05) on a 10 item Likert scale and the mean satisfaction with the quality of the NIRF imaging was 7.4 (p > 0.05). Conclusion: In this study, the additional value of NIRF imaging, although feasible, was found to be limited for the intraoperative detection of endometriotic lesions.

A NEUROPHYSIOLOGY-BASED MODEL TO ESTIMATE VISIBILITY IN ACTUAL LIGHTING ENVIRONMENT

Visibility is one of the fundamental factors for explaining the lighting environment, and various quantitative indexes for these have been made in such a manner that directly finds the formulae that best match the numerous subjective evaluations. Recently neurophysiology-based models have been paid attention as the complementary or alternative methods to these conventional indexes. In this paper we will introduce the normalization and gain control models, which are generally accepted theories in the visual information processing, to estimate the visibility, and verify the validity of this algorithm by comparing with the subjective evaluation in the experimental room. The result showed that the algorithm in this research could estimate the visibility of the simple objects in the experimental space with a pseudo window with great accuracy, however, it is desirable and necessary to publicly discuss various algorithms and clarify their reliability based on the verification results under various situations.

Iatrogenic depression: the case of Frederic Chopin

Psychological disorders caused by the doctor’s rash words are as common as the side effects of drug. Iatrogenic depression caused by ethical and psychological mistakes of doctors will never go away. Their frequency can be reduced only by improving the physicians’ skills in the fields of medical ethics and psychology. A clinical case analysis based on a famous person’s history of the disease is an effective pedagogical tool. The study aims to present the case of the famous Polish composer Frederic Chopin. The A comparative analysis of doctors’ objective actions and patients’ subjective evaluations of their actions were made based on a study of Chopin’s and Sand’s letters as well as the works of composer’s biographers. This approach provides a valuable opportunity to see doctors through the patient’s eyes. In the fall of 1838, during his rest in Majorca, the local doctors diagnosed pulmonary tuberculosis in Chopin. The Majorcan doctors made a serious ethical mistake. They ignored the patient’s anamnesis vitae indicating his phthisiophobia and informed Chopin about the diagnosis of pulmonary tuberculosis and a poor prognosis in a very cynical manner. Chopin wrote: ‘One (doctor) said I had died the second that I am dying, the 3rd that I shall die’. Chopin perceived the diagnosis of tuberculosis as a ‘death sentence’, as a result of which he developed iatrogenic depression. All previous and subsequent Chopin’s doctors used other tactics: they prescribed the correct treatment, but the diagnosis was not voiced. The analysis shows the effectiveness of this tactic: Chopin lived another 10 years after the Majorcan episode. Chopin’s case shows typical doctors’ ethical and psychological issues in informing the patient about the dangerous diagnosis and poor prognosis as well as tactics for building a good physician‑patient relationship.

Smart Director: An Event-Driven Directing System for Live Broadcasting

Live video broadcasting normally requires a multitude of skills and expertise with domain knowledge to enable multi-camera productions. As the number of cameras keeps increasing, directing a live sports broadcast has now become more complicated and challenging than ever before. The broadcast directors need to be much more concentrated, responsive, and knowledgeable, during the production. To relieve the directors from their intensive efforts, we develop an innovative automated sports broadcast directing system, called Smart Director, which aims at mimicking the typical human-in-the-loop broadcasting process to automatically create near-professional broadcasting programs in real-time by using a set of advanced multi-view video analysis algorithms. Inspired by the so-called “three-event” construction of sports broadcast [ 14 ], we build our system with an event-driven pipeline consisting of three consecutive novel components: (1) the Multi-View Event Localization to detect events by modeling multi-view correlations, (2) the Multi-View Highlight Detection to rank camera views by the visual importance for view selection, and (3) the Auto-Broadcasting Scheduler to control the production of broadcasting videos. To our best knowledge, our system is the first end-to-end automated directing system for multi-camera sports broadcasting, completely driven by the semantic understanding of sports events. It is also the first system to solve the novel problem of multi-view joint event detection by cross-view relation modeling. We conduct both objective and subjective evaluations on a real-world multi-camera soccer dataset, which demonstrate the quality of our auto-generated videos is comparable to that of the human-directed videos. Thanks to its faster response, our system is able to capture more fast-passing and short-duration events which are usually missed by human directors.

Using Augmented Reality and Drones in Tandem to Serve Smart Cities

Augmented Reality Technologies as such have been known since the first decade of the 21st century. However, due to the relatively high costs of terminal equipment, the lack of mass demand in industries, their unpreparedness to implement augmented reality in production processes, the limited use of augmented reality in the educational process, etc., this technology did not become networked. In the broadest sense of this word, the traffic generated by augmented reality significantly affects both the principles of network construction and its planning. The article is devoted to studying the interaction of augmented reality applications and control methods for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. The study was carried out experimentally using the developed experimental stand. During the experiment, an augmented reality application was used to control the UAV. The assessments of the quality of service of the network and subjective evaluations of the quality of perception were obtained. The Hurst parameter was used to determine the relationship between the quality of communication network service and the quality of perception. The parameters of the communication network maintenance are determined to ensure the specified rate of perception when controlling the UAV using the augmented reality application.

The Framing of machine learning risk prediction models illustrated by evaluation of sepsis in general wards

Problem framing is critical to developing risk prediction models because all subsequent development work and evaluation takes place within the context of how a problem has been framed and explicit documentation of framing choices makes it easier to compare evaluation metrics between published studies. In this work, we introduce the basic concepts of framing, including prediction windows, observation windows, window shifts and event-triggers for a prediction that strongly affects the risk of clinician fatigue caused by false positives. Building on this, we apply four different framing structures to the same generic dataset, using a sepsis risk prediction model as an example, and evaluate how framing affects model performance and learning. Our results show that an apparently good model with strong evaluation results in both discrimination and calibration is not necessarily clinically usable. Therefore, it is important to assess the results of objective evaluations within the context of more subjective evaluations of how a model is framed.

Emotional experience is increased and emotion recognition decreased in multiple sclerosis

Emotional disorders in multiple sclerosis (MS) are frequently described as difficulties in recognizing facial expressions, rarely in the experience dimension. Moreover, interaction between emotional disorders and cognitive or psychological disorders remains little documented. The aim of this study is to explore emotions in MS in emotion recognition and emotional experience and compare these data with cognitive, psychological, and disease aspects. Twenty-five women with MS (MS group) and 27 healthy controls (control group) matched for age, sex, and education were assessed for emotion recognition (Florida Affect Battery) and emotional experience (International Affective Picture System Photographs). Participants were also assessed for cognitive and psychological aspects. Compared to the control group, the MS group had more difficulty in recognizing emotions, and their subjective evaluations when presented IAPS pictures were more scattered, globally increased. Emotional dimensions were each correlated with executive functions but neither correlated with alexithymia, depression, anxiety, or MS characteristics. In conclusion, MS patients present difficulties in identifying emotion and their emotional experience appears to be increased. These disorders are correlated with cognition but remain independent of psychological or disease aspects. Considering the implications that emotional disorders may have, it seems essential to take these aspects into account in clinical practice.