Processing of Synthetic Aperture Radar Images by the Boundary Contour System and Feature Contour System

An improved Boundary Contour System (BCS) and Feature Contour System (FCS) neural network model of preattentive vision is applied to two large images containing range data gathered by a synthetic aperture radar (SAR) sensor. The goal of processing is to make structures such as motor vehicles, roads, or buildings more salient and more interpretable to human observers than they are in the original imagery. Early processing by shunting center-surround networks compresses signal dynamic range and performs local contrast enhancement. Subsequent processing by filters sensitive to oriented contrast, including short-range competition and long-range cooperation, segments the image into regions. Finally, a diffusive filling-in operation within the segmented regions produces coherent visible structures. The combination of BCS and FCS helps to locate and enhance structure over regions of many pixels, without the resulting blur characteristic of approaches based on low spatial frequency filtering alone.Air Force Office of Scientific Research (90-0175); Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (90-0083

Disease surveillance and patient care in remote regions: an exploratory study of collaboration among healthcare professionals in Amazonia

The development and deployment of information technology, particularly mobile tools, to support collaboration between different groups of healthcare professionals has been viewed as a promising way to improve disease surveillance and patient care in remote regions. The effects of global climate change combined with rapid changes to land cover and use in Amazonia are believed to be contributing to the spread of vector-borne emerging and neglected diseases. This makes empowering and providing support for local healthcare providers all the more important. We investigate the use of information technology in this context to support professionals whose activities range from diagnosing diseases and monitoring their spread to developing policies to deal with outbreaks. An analysis of stakeholders, their roles and requirements, is presented which encompasses results of fieldwork and of a process of design and prototyping complemented by questionnaires and targeted interviews. Findings are analysed with respect to the tasks of diagnosis, training of local healthcare professionals, and gathering, sharing and visualisation of data for purposes of epidemiological research and disease surveillance. Methodological issues regarding the elicitation of cooperation and collaboration requirements are discussed and implications are drawn with respect to the use of technology in tackling emerging and neglected diseases

Лидерские качества современного студента университета в рефлексивном измерении

Leadership qualities of the individual are of particular importance in the context of globalization and integration trends of modern society. Leadership is the inner state of a person determining the strategy of her life. Thus, leadership qualities are related to its reflection, which gives the opportunity to carry out introspection and to analyze other people, that is meta quality. This circumstance makes it possible to consider the phenomenon of leadership qualities of students in the reflexive dimension. Leadership qualities of a modern University student have a complex structure, contains motivational-value, cognitive, operational-activity components. These components are associated with different types of reflection, namely, personal, intellectual, communicative, cooperative; retrospective, situational, perspective. The diagnostic tools presented in the article allowed to determine the level of formation of students' leadership qualities and their reflexivity and to statistically prove the relationship and interrelation of these phenomena. At the initial stage of education at the University dominated by leadership qualities of the individual, focused “on themselves” and, accordingly, personal, intellectual and retrospective types of reflection. At the stage of completion of the second (bachelor) level of higher education the priority is given to leadership qualities of the student, aimed “at others”, which are determined by communicative, cooperative, perspective reflection. The results of the experimental study actualized the need for the formation of leadership qualities and different types of reflection of modern University students.Лідерські якості особистості мають особливе значення в контексті глобалізаційних та інтеграційних тенденцій сучасного суспільства. Лідерство - це внутрішній стан людини, що визначає стратегію її життя. Таким чином, лідерські якості пов'язані з його відображенням, що дає можливість здійснювати самоаналіз та аналізувати інших людей, тобто мета якості. Ця обставина дає можливість розглядати явище лідерських якостей учнів у рефлексивному вимірі. Лідерські якості сучасного студента університету мають складну структуру, містять мотиваційно-ціннісні, пізнавальні, оперативно-діяльнісні компоненти. Ці компоненти пов'язані з різними видами рефлексії, а саме особистісною, інтелектуальною, комунікативною, кооперативною; ретроспектива, ситуативність, перспектива. Представлені у статті діагностичні засоби дозволили визначити рівень сформованості лідерських якостей учнів та їх рефлексивність та статистично довести взаємозв’язок та взаємозв'язок цих явищ. На початковому етапі навчання в університеті переважали лідерські якості особистості, орієнтовані «на себе» і, відповідно, особистісні, інтелектуальні та ретроспективні типи рефлексії. На етапі завершення другого (бакалаврського) рівня вищої освіти пріоритет надається лідерським якостям студента, спрямованим «на інших», що визначаються комунікативним, спільним, перспективним відображенням. Результати експериментального дослідження актуалізували потребу у формуванні лідерських якостей та різних типів рефлексії сучасних студентів університету.Лидерские качества личности имеют особое значение в условиях глобализации и интеграционных тенденций современного общества. Лидерство - это внутреннее состояние человека, определяющее стратегию его жизни. Таким образом, лидерские качества связаны с его отражением, что дает возможность проводить самоанализ и анализировать других людей, то есть мета-качество. Это обстоятельство дает возможность рассматривать феномен лидерских качеств учащихся в рефлексивном измерении. Лидерские качества современного студента Университета имеют сложную структуру, содержат мотивационно-ценностный, когнитивный, оперативно-деятельностный компоненты. Эти компоненты связаны с различными типами рефлексии, а именно, личными, интеллектуальными, коммуникативными, кооперативными; ретроспективный, ситуационный, перспективный. Представленные в статье диагностические инструменты позволили определить уровень формирования лидерских качеств студентов и их рефлексивность, а также статистически обосновать взаимосвязь и взаимосвязь этих явлений. На начальном этапе обучения в университете преобладают лидерские качества личности, ориентированные «на себя» и, соответственно, личностные, интеллектуальные и ретроспективные типы рефлексии. На этапе завершения второго (бакалавриата) уровня высшего образования приоритет отдается лидерским качествам студента, нацеленным «на других», которые определяются коммуникативной, кооперативной, перспективной рефлексией. Результаты экспериментального исследования актуализировали необходимость формирования лидерских качеств и различных видов рефлексии современных студентов университета

Neural Dynamics of Motion Perception: Direction Fields, Apertures, and Resonant Grouping

A neural network model of global motion segmentation by visual cortex is described. Called the Motion Boundary Contour System (BCS), the model clarifies how ambiguous local movements on a complex moving shape are actively reorganized into a coherent global motion signal. Unlike many previous researchers, we analyse how a coherent motion signal is imparted to all regions of a moving figure, not only to regions at which unambiguous motion signals exist. The model hereby suggests a solution to the global aperture problem. The Motion BCS describes how preprocessing of motion signals by a Motion Oriented Contrast Filter (MOC Filter) is joined to long-range cooperative grouping mechanisms in a Motion Cooperative-Competitive Loop (MOCC Loop) to control phenomena such as motion capture. The Motion BCS is computed in parallel with the Static BCS of Grossberg and Mingolla (1985a, 1985b, 1987). Homologous properties of the Motion BCS and the Static BCS, specialized to process movement directions and static orientations, respectively, support a unified explanation of many data about static form perception and motion form perception that have heretofore been unexplained or treated separately. Predictions about microscopic computational differences of the parallel cortical streams V1 --> MT and V1 --> V2 --> MT are made, notably the magnocellular thick stripe and parvocellular interstripe streams. It is shown how the Motion BCS can compute motion directions that may be synthesized from multiple orientations with opposite directions-of-contrast. Interactions of model simple cells, complex cells, hypercomplex cells, and bipole cells are described, with special emphasis given to new functional roles in direction disambiguation for endstopping at multiple processing stages and to the dynamic interplay of spatially short-range and long-range interactions.Air Force Office of Scientific Research (90-0175); Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (90-0083); Office of Naval Research (N00014-91-J-4100

Image and interpretation using artificial intelligence to read ancient Roman texts

The ink and stylus tablets discovered at the Roman Fort of Vindolanda are a unique resource for scholars of ancient history. However, the stylus tablets have proved particularly difficult to read. This paper describes a system that assists expert papyrologists in the interpretation of the Vindolanda writing tablets. A model-based approach is taken that relies on models of the written form of characters, and statistical modelling of language, to produce plausible interpretations of the documents. Fusion of the contributions from the language, character, and image feature models is achieved by utilizing the GRAVA agent architecture that uses Minimum Description Length as the basis for information fusion across semantic levels. A system is developed that reads in image data and outputs plausible interpretations of the Vindolanda tablets

Cortical Synchronization and Perceptual Framing

How does the brain group together different parts of an object into a coherent visual object representation? Different parts of an object may be processed by the brain at different rates and may thus become desynchronized. Perceptual framing is a process that resynchronizes cortical activities corresponding to the same retinal object. A neural network model is presented that is able to rapidly resynchronize clesynchronized neural activities. The model provides a link between perceptual and brain data. Model properties quantitatively simulate perceptual framing data, including psychophysical data about temporal order judgments and the reduction of threshold contrast as a function of stimulus length. Such a model has earlier been used to explain data about illusory contour formation, texture segregation, shape-from-shading, 3-D vision, and cortical receptive fields. The model hereby shows how many data may be understood as manifestations of a cortical grouping process that can rapidly resynchronize image parts which belong together in visual object representations. The model exhibits better synchronization in the presence of noise than without noise, a type of stochastic resonance, and synchronizes robustly when cells that represent different stimulus orientations compete. These properties arise when fast long-range cooperation and slow short-range competition interact via nonlinear feedback interactions with cells that obey shunting equations.Office of Naval Research (N00014-92-J-1309, N00014-95-I-0409, N00014-95-I-0657, N00014-92-J-4015); Air Force Office of Scientific Research (F49620-92-J-0334, F49620-92-J-0225)

Cognitive visual tracking and camera control

Cognitive visual tracking is the process of observing and understanding the behaviour of a moving person. This paper presents an efficient solution to extract, in real-time, high-level information from an observed scene, and generate the most appropriate commands for a set of pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ) cameras in a surveillance scenario. Such a high-level feedback control loop, which is the main novelty of our work, will serve to reduce uncertainties in the observed scene and to maximize the amount of information extracted from it. It is implemented with a distributed camera system using SQL tables as virtual communication channels, and Situation Graph Trees for knowledge representation, inference and high-level camera control. A set of experiments in a surveillance scenario show the effectiveness of our approach and its potential for real applications of cognitive vision