Diffusion-Based Image Segmentation Methods

Import 23/07/2015Image segmentation is an important task in image analysis and computer vision. A difficult problem in image segmentation is to decide whether two image points belong to one or to two image segments. The decision to this question can be based on measuring the distance between the points. Measuring this distance is the main topic of the thesis. We especially focus on the techniques that are based on the spectral decomposition and on the diffusion processes since they may be regarded as sophisticated and promising. In this work, however, we firstly show that they are not always good in the given context. This claim is supported by the theoretical considerations as well as by the extensive computational simulations. On the basis of these observations, we continue with the proposition of several new distance measures that try to remedy the problems that have been discovered. The new methods can be divided into two groups. The first group contains three methods that are based on the diffusion processes and are inspired by the diffusion distance. The second group consists of only one method that combines the resistance and the geodesic distance. We describe the new methods from the theoretical point of view; the results of testing are presented as well. The results show that the methods have certain good properties and may be useful in image segmentation.Segmentace obrazu je důležitým úkolem v analýze obrazu a počítačovém vidění. Težkým úkolem v segmentaci obrazu je rozhodnutí, zdali dva body náleží do jednoho nebo dvou segmentů. Odpověď na tuto otázku může být založena na měření vzdálenosti mezi body. Měření vzdálenosti je hlavním tématem této práce. Speciálně se zaměřujeme na techniky, které jsou založeny na spektrálním rozkladu a na difuzních procesech, které se považují za sofistikované a slibné. V této práci však nejprve ukazujeme, že nejsou vždy dobré v daném kontextu. Toto tvrzení je podpořeno z teoretického pohledu a také širokými výpočetními simulacemi. Na základě těchto pozorování pokračujeme v navržení několika nových měření vzdálenosti, které se snaží napravit objevené problémy. Nové metody mohou být rozděleny do dvou skupin. První skupina obsahuje tři metody, které jsou založeny na difuzních procesech a jsou inspirovány difuzní vzdáleností. Druhá skupina obsahuje pouze jednu metodu, která kombinuje resistivní a geodetickou vzdálenost. Metody popisujeme z teoretického pohledu. Prezentujeme též výsledky testování. Výsledky ukazují, že metody mají určité dobré vlastnosti a mohou být užitečné v segmentaci obrazu.Prezenční460 - Katedra informatikyvyhově

Proceedings of the second "international Traveling Workshop on Interactions between Sparse models and Technology" (iTWIST'14)

The implicit objective of the biennial "international - Traveling Workshop on Interactions between Sparse models and Technology" (iTWIST) is to foster collaboration between international scientific teams by disseminating ideas through both specific oral/poster presentations and free discussions. For its second edition, the iTWIST workshop took place in the medieval and picturesque town of Namur in Belgium, from Wednesday August 27th till Friday August 29th, 2014. The workshop was conveniently located in "The Arsenal" building within walking distance of both hotels and town center. iTWIST'14 has gathered about 70 international participants and has featured 9 invited talks, 10 oral presentations, and 14 posters on the following themes, all related to the theory, application and generalization of the "sparsity paradigm": Sparsity-driven data sensing and processing; Union of low dimensional subspaces; Beyond linear and convex inverse problem; Matrix/manifold/graph sensing/processing; Blind inverse problems and dictionary learning; Sparsity and computational neuroscience; Information theory, geometry and randomness; Complexity/accuracy tradeoffs in numerical methods; Sparsity? What's next?; Sparse machine learning and inference.Comment: 69 pages, 24 extended abstracts, iTWIST'14 website: http://sites.google.com/site/itwist1

Effects of essential oils-based supplement and Salmonella infection on gene expression, blood parameters, cecal microbiome and egg production in laying hens

Simple Summary Salmonellosis is one of the most severe zoonotic diseases transmitted to humans through animal products (especially poultry meat and eggs). Essential oils (EOs)-based feed additives in poultry nutrition are a possible alternative replacement of antimicrobials to fight this infection. In the present study on laying hens, we tested a phytobiotic, Intebio®, and elucidated formation of immune response and changes in cecal microbiocenosis and biochemical/immunological variables in blood caused by Salmonella. Changes in differential gene expression were observed at both one and seven days post-inoculation in the hens’ intestines, revealing similarities with known mammalian/human tissue-specific expression. The results of this study suggest that the challenge of birds with Salmonella had a negative effect, while phytobiotic intake had a positive effect on the status of their gastrointestinal microbiome, their level of metabolism, and their performance. Abstract One of the main roles in poultry resistance to infections caused by Salmonella is attributed to host immunity and intestinal microbiota. We conducted an experiment that involved challenging Lohmann White laying hens with Salmonella Enteritidis (SE), feeding them a diet supplemented with an EOs-based phytobiotic Intebio®. At 1 and 7 days post-inoculation, the expression profiles of eight genes related to immunity, transport of nutrients in the intestine, and metabolism were examined. Cecal microbiome composition and blood biochemical/immunological indices were also explored and egg production traits recorded. As a result, the SE challenge of laying hens and Intebio® administration had either a suppressive or activating effect on the expression level of the studied genes (e.g., IL6 and BPIFB3), the latter echoing mammalian/human tissue-specific expression. There were also effects of the pathogen challenge and phytobiotic intake on the cecal microbiome profiles and blood biochemical/immunological parameters, including those reflecting the activity of the birds’ immune systems (e.g., serum bactericidal activity, β-lysine content, and immunoglobulin levels). Significant differences between control and experimental subgroups in egg performance traits (i.e., egg weight/number/mass) were also found. The phytobiotic administration suggested a positive effect on the welfare and productivity of poultry

Coopération de réseaux de caméras ambiantes et de vision embarquée sur robot mobile pour la surveillance de lieux publics

Actuellement, il y a une demande croissante pour le déploiement de robots mobile dans des lieux publics. Pour alimenter cette demande, plusieurs chercheurs ont déployé des systèmes robotiques de prototypes dans des lieux publics comme les hôpitaux, les supermarchés, les musées, et les environnements de bureau. Une principale préoccupation qui ne doit pas être négligé, comme des robots sortent de leur milieu industriel isolé et commencent à interagir avec les humains dans un espace de travail partagé, est une interaction sécuritaire. Pour un robot mobile à avoir un comportement interactif sécuritaire et acceptable - il a besoin de connaître la présence, la localisation et les mouvements de population à mieux comprendre et anticiper leurs intentions et leurs actions. Cette thèse vise à apporter une contribution dans ce sens en mettant l'accent sur les modalités de perception pour détecter et suivre les personnes à proximité d'un robot mobile. Comme une première contribution, cette thèse présente un système automatisé de détection des personnes visuel optimisé qui prend explicitement la demande de calcul prévue sur le robot en considération. Différentes expériences comparatives sont menées pour mettre clairement en évidence les améliorations de ce détecteur apporte à la table, y compris ses effets sur la réactivité du robot lors de missions en ligne. Dans un deuxiè contribution, la thèse propose et valide un cadre de coopération pour fusionner des informations depuis des caméras ambiant affixé au mur et de capteurs montés sur le robot mobile afin de mieux suivre les personnes dans le voisinage. La même structure est également validée par des données de fusion à partir des différents capteurs sur le robot mobile au cours de l'absence de perception externe. Enfin, nous démontrons les améliorations apportées par les modalités perceptives développés en les déployant sur notre plate-forme robotique et illustrant la capacité du robot à percevoir les gens dans les lieux publics supposés et respecter leur espace personnel pendant la navigation.This thesis deals with detection and tracking of people in a surveilled public place. It proposes to include a mobile robot in classical surveillance systems that are based on environment fixed sensors. The mobile robot brings about two important benefits: (1) it acts as a mobile sensor with perception capabilities, and (2) it can be used as means of action for service provision. In this context, as a first contribution, it presents an optimized visual people detector based on Binary Integer Programming that explicitly takes the computational demand stipulated into consideration. A set of homogeneous and heterogeneous pool of features are investigated under this framework, thoroughly tested and compared with the state-of-the-art detectors. The experimental results clearly highlight the improvements the different detectors learned with this framework bring to the table including its effect on the robot's reactivity during on-line missions. As a second contribution, the thesis proposes and validates a cooperative framework to fuse information from wall mounted cameras and sensors on the mobile robot to better track people in the vicinity. Finally, we demonstrate the improvements brought by the developed perceptual modalities by deploying them on our robotic platform and illustrating the robot's ability to perceive people in supposed public areas and respect their personal space during navigation

Smart Sensor Technologies for IoT

The recent development in wireless networks and devices has led to novel services that will utilize wireless communication on a new level. Much effort and resources have been dedicated to establishing new communication networks that will support machine-to-machine communication and the Internet of Things (IoT). In these systems, various smart and sensory devices are deployed and connected, enabling large amounts of data to be streamed. Smart services represent new trends in mobile services, i.e., a completely new spectrum of context-aware, personalized, and intelligent services and applications. A variety of existing services utilize information about the position of the user or mobile device. The position of mobile devices is often achieved using the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) chips that are integrated into all modern mobile devices (smartphones). However, GNSS is not always a reliable source of position estimates due to multipath propagation and signal blockage. Moreover, integrating GNSS chips into all devices might have a negative impact on the battery life of future IoT applications. Therefore, alternative solutions to position estimation should be investigated and implemented in IoT applications. This Special Issue, “Smart Sensor Technologies for IoT” aims to report on some of the recent research efforts on this increasingly important topic. The twelve accepted papers in this issue cover various aspects of Smart Sensor Technologies for IoT

Building information modeling – A game changer for interoperability and a chance for digital preservation of architectural data?

Digital data associated with the architectural design-andconstruction process is an essential resource alongside -and even past- the lifecycle of the construction object it describes. Despite this, digital architectural data remains to be largely neglected in digital preservation research – and vice versa, digital preservation is so far neglected in the design-and-construction process. In the last 5 years, Building Information Modeling (BIM) has seen a growing adoption in the architecture and construction domains, marking a large step towards much needed interoperability. The open standard IFC (Industry Foundation Classes) is one way in which data is exchanged in BIM processes. This paper presents a first digital preservation based look at BIM processes, highlighting the history and adoption of the methods as well as the open file format standard IFC (Industry Foundation Classes) as one way to store and preserve BIM data