AI-Enabled Contextual Representations for Image-based Integration in Health and Safety

Recent advancements in the area of Artificial Intelligence (AI) have made it the field of choice for automatically processing and summarizing information in big-data domains such as high-resolution images. This approach, however, is not a one-size-fits-all solution, and must be tailored to each application. Furthermore, each application comes with its own unique set of challenges including technical variations, validation of AI solutions, and contextual information. These challenges are addressed in three human-health and safety related applications: (i) an early warning system of slope failures in open-pit mining operations; (ii) the modeling and characterization of 3D cell culture models imaged with confocal microscopy; and (iii) precision medicine of biomarker discovery from patients with glioblastoma multiforme through digital pathology. The methodologies and results in each of these domains show how tailor-made AI solutions can be used for automatically extracting and summarizing pertinent information from big-data applications for enhanced decision making

Characterization of the facial phenotype associated with fetal alcohol syndrome using stereo-photogrammetry and geometric morphometrics

Includes abstract.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 108-118).Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) is a clinical condition caused by excessive pre-natal alcohol exposure and is regarded as a leading identifiable and preventable cause of mental retardation in the Western world. The highest prevalence of FAS was reported in the wine-growing regions of South Africa but data for the rest of the country is not available. Required, therefore, are large-scale screening and surveillance programmes to be conducted in South Africa in order for the epidemiology of the disease to be understood. Efforts to this end have been stymied by the cost and labour-intensive nature of collecting the facial anthropometric data useful in FAS diagnosis. Stereo-photogrammetry provides a low cost, easy to use and non-invasive alternative to traditional facial anthropometry. The design and implementation of a landmark-based stereo-photogrammetry system to obtain 3D facial information for fetal alcohol syndrome diagnosis (FAS) is described. The system consists of three high resolution digital cameras resting on a purpose-built stand and a control frame which surrounds the subject's head during imaging. Reliability and assessments of accuracy for the stereo-photogrammetric tool are presented using 275 inter-landmark distance comparisons between the system and direct anthropometry using a doll. These showed the system to be highly reliable and precise

Going batty: the challenges and opportunities of using drones to monitor the behaviour and habitat use of rays

The way an animal behaves in its habitat provides insight into its ecological role. As such, collecting robust, accurate datasets in a time-efficient manner is an ever-present pressure for the field of behavioural ecology. Faced with the shortcomings and physical limitations of traditional ground-based data collection techniques, particularly in marine studies, drones offer a low-cost and efficient approach for collecting data in a range of coastal environments. Despite drones being widely used to monitor a range of marine animals, they currently remain underutilised in ray research. The innovative application of drones in environmental and ecological studies has presented novel opportunities in animal observation and habitat assessment, although this emerging field faces substantial challenges. As we consider the possibility to monitor rays using drones, we face challenges related to local aviation regulations, the weather and environment, as well as sensor and platform limitations. Promising solutions continue to be developed, however, growing the potential for drone-based monitoring of behaviour and habitat use of rays. While the barriers to enter this field may appear daunting for researchers with little experience with drones, the technology is becoming increasingly accessible, helping ray researchers obtain a wide range of highly useful data

Methodology Applied to the Diagnosis and Monitoring of Dikes and Dams

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Drone Up! Quantifying Whale Behavior From a New Perspective Improves Observational Capacity

During traditional boat-based surveys of marine megafauna, behavioral observations are typically limited to records of animal surfacings obtained from a horizontal perspective. Achieving an aerial perspective has been restricted to brief helicopter or airplane based observations that are costly, noisy, and risky. The emergence of commercial small unmanned aerial systems (UAS) has significantly reduced these constraints to provide a stable, relatively quiet, and inexpensive platform that enables replicate observations for prolonged periods with minimal disturbance. The potential of UAS for behavioral observation appears immense, yet quantitative proof of utility as an observational tool is required. We use UAS footage of gray whales foraging in the coastal waters of Oregon, United States to develop video behavior analysis methods, determine the change in observation time enabled by UAS, and describe unique behaviors observed via UAS. Boat-based behavioral observations from 53 gray whale sightings between May and October 2016 were compared to behavioral data extracted from video analysis of UAS flights during those sightings. We used a DJI Phantom 3 Pro or 4 Advanced, recorded video from an altitude ≥25 m, and detected no behavioral response by whales to the UAS. Two experienced whale ethologists conducted UAS video behavioral analysis, including tabulation of whale behavior states and events, and whale surface time and whale visible time (total time the whale was visible including underwater). UAS provided three times more observational capacity than boat-based observations alone (300 vs. 103 min). When observation time is accounted for, UAS data provided more and longer observations of all primary behavior states (travel, forage, social, and rest) relative to boat-based data, especially foraging. Furthermore, UAS enable documentation of multiple novel gray whale foraging tactics (e.g., headstands: n = 58; side-swimming: n = 17; jaw snapping and flexing: n = 10) and 33 social events (nursing and pair coordinated surfacings) not identified from boat-based observation. This study demonstrates the significant added value of UAS to marine megafauna behavior and ecological studies. With technological advances, robust study designs, and effective analytical tools, we foresee increased UAS applications to marine megafauna studies to elucidate foraging strategies, habitat associations, social patterns, and response to human disturbance

3D forensic crime scene reconstruction involving immersive technology: A systematic literature review

Recreation of 3D crime scenes is critical for law enforcement in the investigation of serious crimes for criminal justice responses. This work presents a premier systematic literature review (SLR) that offers a structured, methodical, and rigorous approach to understanding the trend of research in 3D crime scene reconstruction as well as tools, technologies, methods, and techniques employed thereof in the last 17 years. Major credible scholarly database sources, Scopus, and Google Scholar, which index journals and conferences that are promoted by entities such as IEEE, ACM, Elsevier, and SpringerLink were explored as data sources. Of the initial 17, 912 papers that resulted from the first search string, 258 were found to be relevant to our research questions after implementing the inclusion and exclusion criteria