Open Access

A Stereo Active Vision Interface is introduced which detects frontal faces in real world environments and performs particular active control tasks dependent on changes in the visual field. Firstly, connected skin colour regions in the visual scene are detected by applying a radial scanline algorithm. Secondly, facial features are searched for in the most salient skin colour region while the blob is tracked by the camera system. The facial features are evaluated and, based on the obtained results and the current state of the system, particular actions are performed. The SAVI system is thought of as a smart user interface for teleconferencing, telemedicine, and distance learning. The system is designedas a Perception-Action-Cycle (PAC), processing sensory data ofdifferent kinds and qualities. Both the vision module and the head motion control module work at frame rate. Hence, the system is able to react instantaneously to changing conditions in the visual scene.

Entering the work envelope of an industrial robot can lead to severe injury from collisions with moving parts of the system. Conventional safety mechanisms therefore mostly restrict access to the robot using physical barriers such as walls and fences or non-contact protective devices including light curtains and laser scanners. As none of these mechanisms applies to human-robot-collaboration (HRC), a concept in which human and machine complement one another by working hand in hand, there is a rising need for safe and reliable detection of human body parts amidst background clutter. For this application camera-based systems are typically well suited. Still, safety concerns remain, owing to possible detection failures caused by environmental occlusion, extraneous light or other adverse imaging conditions. While ultrasonic proximity sensing can provide physical diversity to the system, it does not yet allow to reliably distinguish relevant objects from background objects.This work investigates a new approach to detecting relevant objects and human body parts based on acoustic holography. The approach is experimentally validated using a low-cost application-specific ultrasonic sensor system created from micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS). The presented results show that this system far outperforms conventional proximity sensors in terms of lateral imaging resolution and thus allows for more intelligent muting processes without compromising the safety of people working close to the robot. Based upon this work, a next step could be the development of a multimodal sensor systems to safeguard workers who collaborate with robots using the described ultrasonic sensor system.

Serine/threonine kinase 4 (STK4) deficiency is an autosomal recessive genetic condition that leads to primary immunodeficiency (PID) typically characterized by lymphopenia, recurrent infections and Epstein Barr Virus (EBV) induced lymphoproliferation and -lymphoma. State-of-the-art treatment regimens consist of prevention or treatment of infections, immunoglobulin substitution (IVIG) and restoration of the immune system by hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. Here, we report on two patients from two consanguineous families of Turkish (patient P1) and Moroccan (patient P2) decent, with PID due to homozygous STK4 mutations. P1 harbored a previously reported frameshift (c.1103 delT, p.M368RfsX2) and P2 a novel splice donor site mutation (P2; c.525+2 T>G). Both patients presented in childhood with recurrent infections, CD4 lymphopenia and dysregulated immunoglobulin levels. Patient P1 developed a highly malignant B cell lymphoma at the age of 10 years and a second, independent Hodgkin lymphoma 5 years later. To our knowledge she is the first STK4 deficient case reported who developed lymphoma in the absence of detectable EBV or other common viruses. Lymphoma development may be due to the lacking tumor suppressive function of STK4 or the perturbed immune surveillance due to the lack of CD4+ T cells. Our data should raise physicians' awareness of [1] lymphoma proneness of STK4 deficient patients even in the absence of EBV infection and [2] possibly underlying STK4 deficiency in pediatric patients with a history of recurrent infections, CD4 lymphopenia and lymphoma and unknown genetic make-up. Patient P2 experienced recurrent otitis in childhood, but when she presented at the age of 14, she showed clinical and immunological characteristics similar to patients suffering from Autoimmune Lymphoproliferative Syndrome (ALPS): elevated DNT cell number, non-malignant lymphadenopathy and hepatosplenomegaly, hematolytic anemia, hypergammaglobulinemia. Also patient P1 presented with ALPS-like features (lymphadenopathy, elevated DNT cell number and increased Vitamin B12 levels) and both were initially clinically diagnosed as ALPS-like. Closer examination of P2, however, revealed active EBV infection and genetic testing identified a novel STK4 mutation. None of the patients harbored typically ALPS-associated mutations of the Fas receptor mediated apoptotic pathway and Fas-mediated apoptosis was not affected. The presented case reports extend the clinical spectrum of STK4 deficiency.

In this work, we automatically distinguish the efficient high elbow pose from dropping one in pulling phase of front crawl stroke in front view amateurly recorded videos. This task is challenging due to the aquatic environment and missing depth information. We predict the pull’s efficiency through multiclass svm and random forest classifiers given arms key positions and angles as the feature set. We evaluate our approach over a labeled dataset of video frames taken from 25 members of masters’ swim club at Ryerson University with different levels of expertise and physiological characteristics. Our results show the effectiveness of our approach with random forest classifier, yielding 67% accuracy.

We present a multi-user virtual reality (VR) setup that aims at providing novel training tools for paramedics that enhances current learning methods. The hardware setup consists of a two-user fullscale VR environment with head-mounted displays for two interactive trainees and one additional desktop pc for one trainer participant. The software provides a connected multi-user environment, showcasing a paramedic emergency simulation with focus on anaphylactic shock, a representative scenario for critical medical cases that happen too rare to eventually occur within a regular curricular term of vocational training. The prototype offers hands-on experience on multi-user VR in an applied scenario, generating discussion around current state and future development concerning three important research areas: (a) user navigation, (b) interaction, (c) level of visual abstraction, and (d) level of task abstraction.

In this work we present a new approach for counterfeit protection against remarked, overproduced, and out-of-spec integrated circuits (ICs). Our approach uses identification sequences that are regularly published by the original chip manufacturer and hidden in the electromagnetic (EM) leakage of authentic chips. A portion of the chip area is dedicated to a crypto engine running in stream cipher mode that is initialized with a unique key and initialization vector stored in one-time-programmable antifuse memory. IC identification is carried out in the field, by obtaining EM measurements of deployed ICs and by proving the presence of the genuine identification sequences in the measurements. We evaluate our approach using a proof-of-concept implementation on three FPGA boards by capturing EM leakage of the FPGAs under test at their decoupling capacitors. The results show that the user can carry out IC identification on-site, using standard lab equipment in short amount of time.

In this paper, the application of established pansharpening algorithms for the fusion of hyperspectral images from Raman Microspectroscopy and panchromatic images from conventional Brightfield Microscopy is investigated. Seven different methods based on Multiresolution Analysis and Component Substitution are applied and evaluated through visual assessment and quantitative quality measures at full and reduced resolution. The obtained results indicate that among the considered concepts, multi-resolution methods are the more promising approaches for a physically and chemically meaningful fusion of the considered modalities. Here, pansharpening based on High-Pass Filtering led to the best results.

In this course, we will take a detailed look at various breeds of spatial navigation interfaces that allow for locomotion in digital 3D environments such as games, virtual environments or even the exploration of abstract data sets. We will closely look into the basics of navigation, unravelling the psychophysics (including wayfinding) and actual locomotion (travel) aspects. The theoretical foundations form the basis for the practical skillset we will develop, by providing an in-depth discussion of navigation devices and techniques, and a step-by-step discussion of multiple real-world case studies. Doing so, we will cover the full range of navigation techniques from handheld to full-body, highly engaging and partly unconventional methods and tackle spatial navigation with hands-on-experience and tips for design and validation of novel interfaces. In particular, we will be looking at affordable setups and ways to "trick" out users to enable a realistic feeling of self-motion in the explored environments. As such, the course unites the theory and practice of spatial navigation, serving as entry point to understand and improve upon currently existing methods for the application domain at hand.

An iterative computer-aided ideation procedure is introduced, building on recent quality-diversity algorithms, which search for diverse as well as high-performing solutions. Dimensionality reduction is used to define a similarity space, in which solutions are clustered into classes. These classes are represented by prototypes, which are presented to the user for selection. In the next iteration, quality-diversity focuses on searching within the selected class. A quantitative analysis is performed on a 2D airfoil, and a more complex 3D side view mirror domain shows how computer-aided ideation can help to enhance engineers' intuition while allowing their design decisions to influence the design process.