168,812 research outputs found
Defining the Pose of any 3D Rigid Object and an Associated Distance
The pose of a rigid object is usually regarded as a rigid transformation,
described by a translation and a rotation. However, equating the pose space
with the space of rigid transformations is in general abusive, as it does not
account for objects with proper symmetries -- which are common among man-made
objects.In this article, we define pose as a distinguishable static state of an
object, and equate a pose with a set of rigid transformations. Based solely on
geometric considerations, we propose a frame-invariant metric on the space of
possible poses, valid for any physical rigid object, and requiring no arbitrary
tuning. This distance can be evaluated efficiently using a representation of
poses within an Euclidean space of at most 12 dimensions depending on the
object's symmetries. This makes it possible to efficiently perform neighborhood
queries such as radius searches or k-nearest neighbor searches within a large
set of poses using off-the-shelf methods. Pose averaging considering this
metric can similarly be performed easily, using a projection function from the
Euclidean space onto the pose space. The practical value of those theoretical
developments is illustrated with an application of pose estimation of instances
of a 3D rigid object given an input depth map, via a Mean Shift procedure
Measuring Blood Glucose Concentrations in Photometric Glucometers Requiring Very Small Sample Volumes
Glucometers present an important self-monitoring tool for diabetes patients
and therefore must exhibit high accu- racy as well as good usability features.
Based on an invasive, photometric measurement principle that drastically
reduces the volume of the blood sample needed from the patient, we present a
framework that is capable of dealing with small blood samples, while
maintaining the required accuracy. The framework consists of two major parts:
1) image segmentation; and 2) convergence detection. Step 1) is based on
iterative mode-seeking methods to estimate the intensity value of the region of
interest. We present several variations of these methods and give theoretical
proofs of their convergence. Our approach is able to deal with changes in the
number and position of clusters without any prior knowledge. Furthermore, we
propose a method based on sparse approximation to decrease the computational
load, while maintaining accuracy. Step 2) is achieved by employing temporal
tracking and prediction, herewith decreasing the measurement time, and, thus,
improving usability. Our framework is validated on several real data sets with
different characteristics. We show that we are able to estimate the underlying
glucose concentration from much smaller blood samples than is currently
state-of-the- art with sufficient accuracy according to the most recent ISO
standards and reduce measurement time significantly compared to
state-of-the-art methods
The merger history, AGN and dwarf galaxies of Hickson Compact Group 59
Compact group galaxies often appear unaffected by their unusually dense
environment. Closer examination can, however, reveal the subtle, cumulative
effects of multiple galaxy interactions. Hickson Compact Group (HCG) 59 is an
excellent example of this situation. We present a photometric study of this
group in the optical (HST), infrared (Spitzer) and X-ray (Chandra) regimes
aimed at characterizing the star formation and nuclear activity in its
constituent galaxies and intra-group medium. We associate five dwarf galaxies
with the group and update the velocity dispersion, leading to an increase in
the dynamical mass of the group of up to a factor of 10 (to 2.8e13 Msun), and a
subsequent revision of its evolutionary stage. Star formation is proceeding at
a level consistent with the morphological types of the four main galaxies, of
which two are star-forming and the other two quiescent. Unlike in some other
compact groups, star-forming complexes across HCG 59 closely follow mass-radius
scaling relations typical of nearby galaxies. In contrast, the ancient globular
cluster populations in galaxies HCG 59A and B show intriguing irregularities,
and two extragalactic HII regions are found just west of B. We age-date a faint
stellar stream in the intra-group medium at ~1 Gyr to examine recent
interactions. We detect a likely low-luminosity AGN in HCG 59A by its ~10e40
erg/s X-ray emission; the active nucleus rather than star formation can account
for the UV+IR SED. We discuss the implications of our findings in the context
of galaxy evolution in dense environments.Comment: 38 pages, 17 figures. Please visit "http://tinyurl.com/isk-hcg59" for
a full-resolution PDF. Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journa
Deception in context: coding nonverbal cues, situational variables and risk of detection
There are many situations in which deception may arise and understanding the behaviors associated with it are compounded by various contexts in which it may occur. This paper sets out a coding protocol for identifying cues to deception and reports on three studies, in which deception was studied in different contexts. The contexts involved manipulating risks (i.e., probability) of being detected and reconnaissance, both of which are related to terrorist activities. Two of the studies examined the impact of changing the risks of deception detection, whilst the third investigated increased cognitive demand of duplex deception tasks including reconnaissance and deception. In all three studies, cues to deception were analyzed in relation to observable body movements and subjective impressions given by participants. In general, the results indicate a pattern of hand movement reduction by deceivers, and suggest the notion that raising the risk of detection influences deceivers? behaviors. Participants in the higher risk condition displayed increased negative affect (found in deceivers) and tension (found in both deceivers and truth-tellers) than those in lower risk conditions
A group-theoretic approach to formalizing bootstrapping problems
The bootstrapping problem consists in designing agents that learn a model of themselves and the world, and utilize it to achieve useful tasks. It is different from other learning problems as the agent starts with uninterpreted observations and commands, and with minimal prior information about the world. In this paper, we give a mathematical formalization of this aspect of the problem. We argue that the vague constraint of having "no prior information" can be recast as a precise algebraic condition on the agent: that its behavior is invariant to particular classes of nuisances on the world, which we show can be well represented by actions of groups (diffeomorphisms, permutations, linear transformations) on observations and commands. We then introduce the class of bilinear gradient dynamics sensors (BGDS) as a candidate for learning generic robotic sensorimotor cascades. We show how framing the problem as rejection of group nuisances allows a compact and modular analysis of typical preprocessing stages, such as learning the topology of the sensors. We demonstrate learning and using such models on real-world range-finder and camera data from publicly available datasets
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