Context Exploitation in Data Fusion

Complex and dynamic environments constitute a challenge for existing tracking algorithms. For this reason, modern solutions are trying to utilize any available information which could help to constrain, improve or explain the measurements. So called Context Information (CI) is understood as information that surrounds an element of interest, whose knowledge may help understanding the (estimated) situation and also in reacting to that situation. However, context discovery and exploitation are still largely unexplored research topics. Until now, the context has been extensively exploited as a parameter in system and measurement models which led to the development of numerous approaches for the linear or non-linear constrained estimation and target tracking. More specifically, the spatial or static context is the most common source of the ambient information, i.e. features, utilized for recursive enhancement of the state variables either in the prediction or the measurement update of the filters. In the case of multiple model estimators, context can not only be related to the state but also to a certain mode of the filter. Common practice for multiple model scenarios is to represent states and context as a joint distribution of Gaussian mixtures. These approaches are commonly referred as the join tracking and classification. Alternatively, the usefulness of context was also demonstrated in aiding the measurement data association. Process of formulating a hypothesis, which assigns a particular measurement to the track, is traditionally governed by the empirical knowledge of the noise characteristics of sensors and operating environment, i.e. probability of detection, false alarm, clutter noise, which can be further enhanced by conditioning on context. We believe that interactions between the environment and the object could be classified into actions, activities and intents, and formed into structured graphs with contextual links translated into arcs. By learning the environment model we will be able to make prediction on the target\u2019s future actions based on its past observation. Probability of target future action could be utilized in the fusion process to adjust tracker confidence on measurements. By incorporating contextual knowledge of the environment, in the form of a likelihood function, in the filter measurement update step, we have been able to reduce uncertainties of the tracking solution and improve the consistency of the track. The promising results demonstrate that the fusion of CI brings a significant performance improvement in comparison to the regular tracking approaches

Ubiquitous Technologies for Emotion Recognition

Emotions play a very important role in how we think and behave. As such, the emotions we feel every day can compel us to act and influence the decisions and plans we make about our lives. Being able to measure, analyze, and better comprehend how or why our emotions may change is thus of much relevance to understand human behavior and its consequences. Despite the great efforts made in the past in the study of human emotions, it is only now, with the advent of wearable, mobile, and ubiquitous technologies, that we can aim to sense and recognize emotions, continuously and in real time. This book brings together the latest experiences, findings, and developments regarding ubiquitous sensing, modeling, and the recognition of human emotions

Deep combination of radar with optical data for gesture recognition: role of attention in fusion architectures

Multimodal time series classification is an important aspect of human gesture recognition, in which limitations of individual sensors can be overcome by combining data from multiple modalities. In a deep learning pipeline, the attention mechanism further allows for a selective, contextual concentration on relevant features. However, while the standard attention mechanism is an effective tool when working with Natural Language Processing (NLP), it is not ideal when working with temporally- or spatially-sparse multi-modal data. In this paper, we present a novel attention mechanism, Multi-Modal Attention Preconditioning (MMAP). We first demonstrate that MMAP outperforms regular attention for the task of classification of modalities involving temporal and spatial sparsity and secondly investigate the impact of attention in the fusion of radar and optical data for gesture recognition via three specific modalities: dense spatiotemporal optical data, spatially sparse/temporally dense kinematic data, and sparse spatiotemporal radar data. We explore the effect of attention on early, intermediate, and late fusion architectures and compare eight different pipelines in terms of accuracy and their ability to preserve detection accuracy when modalities are missing. Results highlight fundamental differences between late and intermediate attention mechanisms in respect to the fusion of radar and optical data

Mastering Uncertainty in Mechanical Engineering

This open access book reports on innovative methods, technologies and strategies for mastering uncertainty in technical systems. Despite the fact that current research on uncertainty is mainly focusing on uncertainty quantification and analysis, this book gives emphasis to innovative ways to master uncertainty in engineering design, production and product usage alike. It gathers authoritative contributions by more than 30 scientists reporting on years of research in the areas of engineering, applied mathematics and law, thus offering a timely, comprehensive and multidisciplinary account of theories and methods for quantifying data, model and structural uncertainty, and of fundamental strategies for mastering uncertainty. It covers key concepts such as robustness, flexibility and resilience in detail. All the described methods, technologies and strategies have been validated with the help of three technical systems, i.e. the Modular Active Spring-Damper System, the Active Air Spring and the 3D Servo Press, which have been in turn developed and tested during more than ten years of cooperative research. Overall, this book offers a timely, practice-oriented reference guide to graduate students, researchers and professionals dealing with uncertainty in the broad field of mechanical engineering

Populist Strategies in African Democracies

Drawing on insights from Latin America, this paper examines the factors that contributed to the use of populist strategies by political parties during recent presidential elections in Kenya, South Africa, and Zambia. Specifically, the paper argues that the nature of party competition in Africa, combined with rapid urbanization and informalization of the labour force, provided a niche for populist leaders to espouse a message relevant to the region’s growing urban poor. Simultaneously, such leaders employed ethno-linguistic appeals to mobilize a segment of rural voters who could form a minimum winning coalition in concert with the urban poor and thereby deliver sizeable electoral victories. While such strategies are similar to those used by Latin American populists, the paper highlights key contrasts as well. By combining crossregional and sub-national perspectives, this paper therefore aims to contribute to a better understanding of how demographic and socioeconomic changes in Africa intersect with voting behaviour and political party development.Africa, democratization, political parties, populism, urbanization, voting behaviour

Electrophysiologic assessment of (central) auditory processing disorder in children with non-syndromic cleft lip and/or palate

Session 5aPP - Psychological and Physiological Acoustics: Auditory Function, Mechanisms, and Models (Poster Session)Cleft of the lip and/or palate is a common congenital craniofacial malformation worldwide, particularly non-syndromic cleft lip and/or palate (NSCL/P). Though middle ear deficits in this population have been universally noted in numerous studies, other auditory problems including inner ear deficits or cortical dysfunction are rarely reported. A higher prevalence of educational problems has been noted in children with NSCL/P compared to craniofacially normal children. These high level cognitive difficulties cannot be entirely attributed to peripheral hearing loss. Recently it has been suggested that children with NSCLP may be more prone to abnormalities in the auditory cortex. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether school age children with (NSCL/P) have a higher prevalence of indications of (central) auditory processing disorder [(C)APD] compared to normal age matched controls when assessed using auditory event-related potential (ERP) techniques. School children (6 to 15 years) with NSCL/P and normal controls with matched age and gender were recruited. Auditory ERP recordings included auditory brainstem response and late event-related potentials, including the P1-N1-P2 complex and P300 waveforms. Initial findings from the present study are presented and their implications for further research in this area —and clinical intervention—are outlined. © 2012 Acoustical Society of Americapublished_or_final_versio

Advances and Applications of DSmT for Information Fusion. Collected Works, Volume 5

This fifth volume on Advances and Applications of DSmT for Information Fusion collects theoretical and applied contributions of researchers working in different fields of applications and in mathematics, and is available in open-access. The collected contributions of this volume have either been published or presented after disseminating the fourth volume in 2015 in international conferences, seminars, workshops and journals, or they are new. The contributions of each part of this volume are chronologically ordered. First Part of this book presents some theoretical advances on DSmT, dealing mainly with modified Proportional Conflict Redistribution Rules (PCR) of combination with degree of intersection, coarsening techniques, interval calculus for PCR thanks to set inversion via interval analysis (SIVIA), rough set classifiers, canonical decomposition of dichotomous belief functions, fast PCR fusion, fast inter-criteria analysis with PCR, and improved PCR5 and PCR6 rules preserving the (quasi-)neutrality of (quasi-)vacuous belief assignment in the fusion of sources of evidence with their Matlab codes. Because more applications of DSmT have emerged in the past years since the apparition of the fourth book of DSmT in 2015, the second part of this volume is about selected applications of DSmT mainly in building change detection, object recognition, quality of data association in tracking, perception in robotics, risk assessment for torrent protection and multi-criteria decision-making, multi-modal image fusion, coarsening techniques, recommender system, levee characterization and assessment, human heading perception, trust assessment, robotics, biometrics, failure detection, GPS systems, inter-criteria analysis, group decision, human activity recognition, storm prediction, data association for autonomous vehicles, identification of maritime vessels, fusion of support vector machines (SVM), Silx-Furtif RUST code library for information fusion including PCR rules, and network for ship classification. Finally, the third part presents interesting contributions related to belief functions in general published or presented along the years since 2015. These contributions are related with decision-making under uncertainty, belief approximations, probability transformations, new distances between belief functions, non-classical multi-criteria decision-making problems with belief functions, generalization of Bayes theorem, image processing, data association, entropy and cross-entropy measures, fuzzy evidence numbers, negator of belief mass, human activity recognition, information fusion for breast cancer therapy, imbalanced data classification, and hybrid techniques mixing deep learning with belief functions as well

Intelligent Transportation Related Complex Systems and Sensors

Building around innovative services related to different modes of transport and traffic management, intelligent transport systems (ITS) are being widely adopted worldwide to improve the efficiency and safety of the transportation system. They enable users to be better informed and make safer, more coordinated, and smarter decisions on the use of transport networks. Current ITSs are complex systems, made up of several components/sub-systems characterized by time-dependent interactions among themselves. Some examples of these transportation-related complex systems include: road traffic sensors, autonomous/automated cars, smart cities, smart sensors, virtual sensors, traffic control systems, smart roads, logistics systems, smart mobility systems, and many others that are emerging from niche areas. The efficient operation of these complex systems requires: i) efficient solutions to the issues of sensors/actuators used to capture and control the physical parameters of these systems, as well as the quality of data collected from these systems; ii) tackling complexities using simulations and analytical modelling techniques; and iii) applying optimization techniques to improve the performance of these systems. It includes twenty-four papers, which cover scientific concepts, frameworks, architectures and various other ideas on analytics, trends and applications of transportation-related data

Conceptualising Regional Power in International Relations: Lessons from the South African Case

Regional powers can be distinguished by four pivotal criteria: claim to leadership, power resources, employment of foreign policy instruments, and acceptance of leadership. Applying these indicators to the South African case, the analysis demonstrates the crucial significance of institutional foreign policy instruments. But although the South African government is ready to pay the costs of co-operative hegemony (such as capacity building for regional institutions and peacekeeping), the regional acceptance of South Africa’s leadership is constrained by its historical legacy. Additionally, Pretoria’s foreign policy is based on ideational resources such as its reputation as an advocate of democracy and human rights and the legitimacy derived from its paradigmatic behaviour as a ‘good global citizen’. However, the Mbeki presidency is more successful in converting these resources into discursive instruments of interest-assertion in global, rather than in regional bargains. In effect the regional power’s reformist South-oriented multilateralism is challenging some of the guiding principles of the current international system.South Africa, regional power, foreign policy, co-operative hegemony, multipolarisation of the international system

New imperialism or new capitalism?

Over the past century, the institution of capital and the process of its accumulation have been fundamentally transformed. By contrast, the theories that explain this institution and process have remained largely unchanged. The purpose of this paper is to address this mismatch. Using a broad brush, we outline a new, power theory of capital and accumulation. We use this theory to assess the changing meaning of the corporation and the capitalist state, the new ways in which capital gets accumulated and the specific historical trajectory of twentieth-century capitalism up to the present.arms; accumulation; capital flow; capitalism; conflict; corporation; crisis; distribution; elite; energy; finance; globalization; growth; imperialism; GPE; liberalism; Marxism; Middle East; military; national interest; neoclassical economics; neoliberalism; nomos; oil; OPEC; ownership; peace; power; profit; ruling class; security; stagflation; state; stock market; TNC; United States; US; utility; value; violence; war