Facial emotion recognition using min-max similarity classifier

Recognition of human emotions from the imaging templates is useful in a wide variety of human-computer interaction and intelligent systems applications. However, the automatic recognition of facial expressions using image template matching techniques suffer from the natural variability with facial features and recording conditions. In spite of the progress achieved in facial emotion recognition in recent years, the effective and computationally simple feature selection and classification technique for emotion recognition is still an open problem. In this paper, we propose an efficient and straightforward facial emotion recognition algorithm to reduce the problem of inter-class pixel mismatch during classification. The proposed method includes the application of pixel normalization to remove intensity offsets followed-up with a Min-Max metric in a nearest neighbor classifier that is capable of suppressing feature outliers. The results indicate an improvement of recognition performance from 92.85% to 98.57% for the proposed Min-Max classification method when tested on JAFFE database. The proposed emotion recognition technique outperforms the existing template matching methods

Summative Stereoscopic Image Compression using Arithmetic Coding

Image compression targets at plummeting the amount of bits required for image representation for save storage space and speed up the transmission over network. The reduction of size helps to store more images in the disk and take less transfer time in the data network. Stereoscopic image refers to a three dimensional (3D) image that is perceived by the human brain as the transformation of two images that is being sent to the left and right human eyes with distinct phases. However, storing of these images takes twice space than a single image and hence the motivation for this novel approach called Summative Stereoscopic Image Compression using Arithmetic Coding (S2ICAC) where the difference and average of these stereo pair images are calculated, quantized in the case of lossy approach and unquantized in the case of lossless approach, and arithmetic coding is applied. The experimental result analysis indicates that the proposed method achieves high compression ratio and high PSNR value. The proposed method is also compared with JPEG 2000 Position Based Coding Scheme(JPEG 2000 PBCS) and Stereoscopic Image Compression using Huffman Coding (SICHC). From the experimental analysis, it is observed that S2ICAC outperforms JPEG 2000 PBCS as well as SICHC

Stereoscopic image quality assessment method based on binocular combination saliency model

The objective quality assessment of stereoscopic images plays an important role in three-dimensional (3D) technologies. In this paper, we propose an effective method to evaluate the quality of stereoscopic images that are afflicted by symmetric distortions. The major technical contribution of this paper is that the binocular combination behaviours and human 3D visual saliency characteristics are both considered. In particular, a new 3D saliency map is developed, which not only greatly reduces the computational complexity by avoiding calculation of the depth information, but also assigns appropriate weights to the image contents. Experimental results indicate that the proposed metric not only significantly outperforms conventional 2D quality metrics, but also achieves higher performance than the existing 3D quality assessment models

Técnica eficiente para reconocimiento facial global utilizando wavelets y máquinas de vectores de soporte en imágenes 3D

La presente investigación se desarrolla en el marco de los sistemas de reconocimiento facial automático de imágenes, que consisten en procesar las imágenes de caras de personas utilizando métodos estadísticos y matemáticos de extracción de características y de clasificación de imágenes, para conocer si un individuo se encuentra en una determinada clase, y finalmente hallar su identidad. El tratamiento automático de una cara es complicado, debido a que se presenta varios factores que le afectan, como la posición de la cara, la expresión, la edad, la raza, el tipo de iluminación, el ruido, y objetos como lentes, sombrero, barba entre otros. El procesamiento se realiza de forma global, en donde se procesa toda la cara. Se sabe que procesar las imágenes de manera global es más rápido, práctico y fiable que las basadas en rasgos. Además, se conoce que procesar imágenes en tres dimensiones es más real y consistente que en dos dimensiones. El principal objetivo de la tesis que se propuso fue desarrollar una técnica eficiente de reconocimiento facial con rasgos globales, y con imágenes en tres dimensiones. Para ello, se seleccionó los algoritmos más eficientes para extracción de características, filtros de Gabor, y el algoritmo para clasificación, máquina de vectores de soporte (SVM). Este último algoritmo, su eficiencia varía de acuerdo a la función núcleo o kernel, por ello en esta tesis se trabajaron con tres kernel: líneal, gauseano y cúbico. Estos sistemas constan de dos procesos necesarios: 1) Entrenamiento, y 2) Pruebas. Lo que permitió establecer un modelo de reconocimiento facial global para dos y tres dimensiones respectivamente. La técnica fue procesada primero para imágenes 2D, luego para imágenes 3D. Y se utilizó el método de validación cruzada en ambos casos para aprobarlo. Los mejores resultados obtenidos con la técnica alcanzada son 96% de eficiencia con base de datos de imágenes de dos dimensiones; y 98,4% con base de datos de imágenes de tres dimensiones. Finalmente, se hace una comparación de los resultados alcanzados con otros trabajos de investigación similares, obteniéndose mayor eficiencia con este trabajo

Assessing primate skull shape variation in relation to habitat: a 3D geometric morphometric approach

The advancement of digital imaging and open-source geometric morphometric (GM) software is positively impacting the way we understand morphological adaptation as an evolutionary response. Shape-space data and multivariate statistics quantify shape variation patterning and, therefore, consolidate hominoid systematic procedures. This thesis identifies ecomorphological patterns of variation within extant primates. Through a comparative, multivariate and geometric morphometric approach, this research provides a better understanding of the effects of the environment on craniomandibular form in early hominins. In this study, 107 cranial and 108 mandible specimens of 9 modern primate species were 3D imaged, and geometric morphometrics statistics were used to quantify and assess the patterns of variation between intra- and interspecific datasets concerning habitat type. Results were visualised through Principal Component scatter plots and Thin-plate Spline deformation warps, which identified critical morphological high-to-low-energy bending areas. This application addressed the questions: • to what extent does ecology influence craniomandibular morphology? • what are the main environmental pressures that encourage morphological variance in hominins? The main methodological aims sought to a) create accurate 3D digital renderings of primate skull specimens and b) define a reproducible geometric morphometric technique, which could be used as a valid and precise statistical procedure for future studies regarding hominin ecomorphology. This was achieved by pilot testing laser scanning hardware, digitising cranial and mandibular specimen, testing 3D scanning accuracy, and the best practice for capturing accurate 3D imagery, e.g. environment, lighting and meshing multiple scans. The pilot phase of this thesis also tested statistical programming toolkits capable of carrying out the finalised geometric morphometric methodology. This was achieved through trials of landmarking and statistical procedures on various data processing software, e.g. Checkpoint, TINA, and MeshLabs. Ultimately, the R Project software and accompanying IDE, R Studio, was used to collect, process and analyse the specimen shape data. This thesis contributes to the study of hominin ecomorphological patterning through a comparative approach investigating primate skull adaptation. The main findings showed habitat type as having statistical significance on the cranium's morphology but quantifiably more so in the mandible, which reported 63.71% of the overall variance observed in the first two Principal Components. This was an increase of 10.44% compared to the interspecific cranial dataset and was supported by Two-block Partial Least Squares and Procrustes ANOVA analysis. The geometric morphometric results showed significant environmental influence on the morphology of the primate cranium, most notably concerned with locomotive functions and visualises a distinction between primates who are more arboreally inclined versus those whose primary form of locomotion is terrestrial. The study also found that dietary specialisations are particularly distinguished by patterns of variation between highly folivorous versus more frugivorous species in both inter-and intraspecific groups

Evaluation of PD-L1 expression in various formalin-fixed paraffin embedded tumour tissue samples using SP263, SP142 and QR1 antibody clones

Background & objectives: Cancer cells can avoid immune destruction through the inhibitory ligand PD-L1. PD-1 is a surface cell receptor, part of the immunoglobulin family. Its ligand PD-L1 is expressed by tumour cells and stromal tumour infltrating lymphocytes (TIL). Methods: Forty-four cancer cases were included in this study (24 triple-negative breast cancers (TNBC), 10 non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and 10 malignant melanoma cases). Three clones of monoclonal primary antibodies were compared: QR1 (Quartett), SP 142 and SP263 (Ventana). For visualization, ultraView Universal DAB Detection Kit from Ventana was used on an automated platform for immunohistochemical staining Ventana BenchMark GX. Results: Comparing the sensitivity of two different clones on same tissue samples from TNBC, we found that the QR1 clone gave higher percentage of positive cells than clone SP142, but there was no statistically significant difference. Comparing the sensitivity of two different clones on same tissue samples from malignant melanoma, the SP263 clone gave higher percentage of positive cells than the QR1 clone, but again the difference was not statistically significant. Comparing the sensitivity of two different clones on same tissue samples from NSCLC, we found higher percentage of positive cells using the QR1 clone in comparison with the SP142 clone, but once again, the difference was not statistically significant. Conclusion: The three different antibody clones from two manufacturers Ventana and Quartett, gave comparable results with no statistically significant difference in staining intensity/ percentage of positive tumour and/or immune cells. Therefore, different PD-L1 clones from different manufacturers can potentially be used to evaluate the PD- L1 status in different tumour tissues. Due to the serious implications of the PD-L1 analysis in further treatment decisions for cancer patients, every antibody clone, staining protocol and evaluation process should be carefully and meticulously validated

Smoking and Second Hand Smoking in Adolescents with Chronic Kidney Disease: A Report from the Chronic Kidney Disease in Children (CKiD) Cohort Study

The goal of this study was to determine the prevalence of smoking and second hand smoking [SHS] in adolescents with CKD and their relationship to baseline parameters at enrollment in the CKiD, observational cohort study of 600 children (aged 1-16 yrs) with Schwartz estimated GFR of 30-90 ml/min/1.73m2. 239 adolescents had self-report survey data on smoking and SHS exposure: 21 [9%] subjects had “ever” smoked a cigarette. Among them, 4 were current and 17 were former smokers. Hypertension was more prevalent in those that had “ever” smoked a cigarette (42%) compared to non-smokers (9%), p\u3c0.01. Among 218 non-smokers, 130 (59%) were male, 142 (65%) were Caucasian; 60 (28%) reported SHS exposure compared to 158 (72%) with no exposure. Non-smoker adolescents with SHS exposure were compared to those without SHS exposure. There was no racial, age, or gender differences between both groups. Baseline creatinine, diastolic hypertension, C reactive protein, lipid profile, GFR and hemoglobin were not statistically different. Significantly higher protein to creatinine ratio (0.90 vs. 0.53, p\u3c0.01) was observed in those exposed to SHS compared to those not exposed. Exposed adolescents were heavier than non-exposed adolescents (85th percentile vs. 55th percentile for BMI, p\u3c 0.01). Uncontrolled casual systolic hypertension was twice as prevalent among those exposed to SHS (16%) compared to those not exposed to SHS (7%), though the difference was not statistically significant (p= 0.07). Adjusted multivariate regression analysis [OR (95% CI)] showed that increased protein to creatinine ratio [1.34 (1.03, 1.75)] and higher BMI [1.14 (1.02, 1.29)] were independently associated with exposure to SHS among non-smoker adolescents. These results reveal that among adolescents with CKD, cigarette use is low and SHS is highly prevalent. The association of smoking with hypertension and SHS with increased proteinuria suggests a possible role of these factors in CKD progression and cardiovascular outcomes

Patterns of subspecies diversity in the giraffe, Giraffa camelopardalis (L. 1758): comparison of systematic methods and their implications for conservation policy

This thesis examines the subspecific taxonomic status of the giraffe and considers the role of formal taxonomy in the formulation of conservation policy. Where species show consistent. geographically structured phenotypic variation such geographic patterns may indicate selective forces (or other population-level effects) acting. upon local populations. These consistent geographic patterns may be recognised formally as subspecies and may be of interest in single or multi-species biodiversity or biogeography studies for delimiting areas of conservation priority. Subspecies may also be used in the formulation of management policies and legislation. Subspecies are, by definition, allopatric. This thesis explicitly uses methodology of systematic biology and phylogenetic reconstruction to investigate patterns of variation between geographic groups. The taxonomic status of the giraffe is apposite for review. The species provides three independent data sets that may be analysed quantitatively for geographic structure; pelage patterns, morphology and genetics. Museum specimens. grouped according to geographic origin, were favoured for study as more than one type of data was often available for an individual. Population aggregation analysis of forty pelage pattern characters maintained six separate subspecies, while agglomerating some neighbouring populations into a subspecies. A 'traditional' morphometric approach, using multivariate statistical analysis of adult skull measurements, was complemented by a geometric morphometric approach; landmarkrestricted eigenshape analysis. Four morphologically distinct groups were recognised by both morphological analyses. Phylogenetic analysis of mitochondrial DNA control region sequences indicates five major cIades. Nested cIade analysis identifies population fragmentation, range expansion and genetic isolation by distance as contributing to the genetic structure of the giraffe. The results of the analyses show remarkable congruence. These results are discussed in terms of the formulation of conservation policy and the differing requirements of'blological and legal classification systems. The value of a formal taxonomic framework to the recognition, and subsequent conservation, of biodiversity is emphasised

Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution, showing the operations, expenditures, and condition of the Institution to July, 1891

Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution. [3001] Research concerned with the American Indian