Robust thermal face recognition using region classifiers

This paper presents a robust approach for recognition of thermal face images based on decision level fusion of 34 different region classifiers. The region classifiers concentrate on local variations. They use singular value decomposition (SVD) for feature extraction. Fusion of decisions of the region classifier is done by using majority voting technique. The algorithm is tolerant against false exclusion of thermal information produced by the presence of inconsistent distribution of temperature statistics which generally make the identification process difficult. The algorithm is extensively evaluated on UGC-JU thermal face database, and Terravic facial infrared database and the recognition performance are found to be 95.83% and 100%, respectively. A comparative study has also been made with the existing works in the literature

Biomedical Signal and Image Processing

Written for senior-level and first year graduate students in biomedical signal and image processing, this book describes fundamental signal and image processing techniques that are used to process biomedical information. The book also discusses application of these techniques in the processing of some of the main biomedical signals and images, such as EEG, ECG, MRI, and CT. New features of this edition include the technical updating of each chapter along with the addition of many more examples, the majority of which are MATLAB based

Obiter Dicta

"Stitched together over five years of journaling, Obiter Dicta is a commonplace book of freewheeling explorations representing the transcription of a dozen notebooks, since painstakingly reimagined for publication. Organized after Theodor Adorno’s Minima Moralia, this unschooled exercise in aesthetic thought—gleefully dilettantish, oftentimes dangerously close to the epigrammatic—interrogates an array of subject matter (although inescapably circling back to the curiously resemblant histories of Western visual art and instrumental music) through the lens of drive-by speculation. Erick Verran’s approach to philosophical inquiry follows the brute-force literary technique of Jacques Derrida to exhaustively favor the material grammar of a signifier over hand-me-down meaning, juxtaposing outer semblances with their buried systems and our etched-in-stone intuitions about color and illusion, shape and value, with lessons stolen from seemingly unrelatable disciplines. Interlarded with extracts of Ludwig Wittgenstein but also Wallace Stevens, Cormac McCarthy as well as Roland Barthes, this cache of incidental remarks eschews what’s granular for the biggest picture available, leaving below the hyper-specialized fields of academia for a bird’s-eye view of their crop circles. Obiter Dicta is an unapologetic experiment in intellectual dot-connecting that challenges much long-standing wisdom about everything from illuminated manuscripts to Minecraft and the evolution of European music with lyrical brevity; that is, before jumping to the next topic.

Shapes of Edges: Exploring the notion of boundary, drawing on experiments in force and form

Shapes of edges explores the boundaries we perceive - the surfaces of objects we touch, constellations in the night sky, the fenced borders of home and nation, lines between animate and inanimate, and the outer edges of the ideals which we hold to our hearts. Through elaborate physical experiments in force and form, and applied philosophical thought, the underlying structures of knowledge which we use to define the world are examined. Three basic experiments, documented in detail, form the foundation of the study. The physical experiments are: colliding of hollow metal boxes in air; studies of smoke vortex formation; and spark discharge imaging of solid forms. Machines are purpose-built for the experiments, and documentation carried out in traditional and alternative media. Many of the methods of recording require bespoke apparatus, created with a single process in mind, and the processes inevitably become entangled with expectation, perception, and habitual patterns of thought. The experiments and the machines, the documentation and their processes, the exhibited work, the philosophical research, and these written words, all merge. Such a mesh of information creates rich ground for new knowledge, arising from an intimate relation of disparate parts, all brought to bear upon one notion, that of boundary

Proceedings of the NASA Conference on Space Telerobotics, volume 3

The theme of the Conference was man-machine collaboration in space. The Conference provided a forum for researchers and engineers to exchange ideas on the research and development required for application of telerobotics technology to the space systems planned for the 1990s and beyond. The Conference: (1) provided a view of current NASA telerobotic research and development; (2) stimulated technical exchange on man-machine systems, manipulator control, machine sensing, machine intelligence, concurrent computation, and system architectures; and (3) identified important unsolved problems of current interest which can be dealt with by future research

Biomedical Signal and Image Processing

First published in 2005, Biomedical Signal and Image Processing received wide and welcome reception from universities and industry research institutions alike, offering detailed, yet accessible information at the reference, upper undergraduate, and first year graduate level. Retaining all of the quality and precision of the first edition, Biomedical Signal and Image Processing, Second Edition offers a number of revisions and improvements to provide the most up-to-date reference available on the fundamental signal and image processing techniques that are used to process biomedical information. Addressing the application of standard and novel processing techniques to some of today’s principle biomedical signals and images over three sections, the book begins with an introduction to digital signal and image processing, including Fourier transform, image filtering, edge detection, and wavelet transform. The second section investigates specifically biomedical signals, such as ECG, EEG, and EMG, while the third focuses on imaging using CT, X-Ray, MRI, ultrasound, positron, and other biomedical imaging techniques. Updated and expanded, Biomedical Signal and Image Processing, Second Edition offers numerous additional, predominantly MATLAB, examples to all chapters to illustrate the concepts described in the text and ensure a complete understanding of the material. The author takes great care to clarify ambiguities in some mathematical equations and to further explain and justify the more complex signal and image processing concepts to offer a complete and understandable approach to complicated concepts

Gaze-Based Human-Robot Interaction by the Brunswick Model

We present a new paradigm for human-robot interaction based on social signal processing, and in particular on the Brunswick model. Originally, the Brunswick model copes with face-to-face dyadic interaction, assuming that the interactants are communicating through a continuous exchange of non verbal social signals, in addition to the spoken messages. Social signals have to be interpreted, thanks to a proper recognition phase that considers visual and audio information. The Brunswick model allows to quantitatively evaluate the quality of the interaction using statistical tools which measure how effective is the recognition phase. In this paper we cast this theory when one of the interactants is a robot; in this case, the recognition phase performed by the robot and the human have to be revised w.r.t. the original model. The model is applied to Berrick, a recent open-source low-cost robotic head platform, where the gazing is the social signal to be considered

Computational Intelligence for Modeling, Control, Optimization, Forecasting and Diagnostics in Photovoltaic Applications

This book is a Special Issue Reprint edited by Prof. Massimo Vitelli and Dr. Luigi Costanzo. It contains original research articles covering, but not limited to, the following topics: maximum power point tracking techniques; forecasting techniques; sizing and optimization of PV components and systems; PV modeling; reconfiguration algorithms; fault diagnosis; mismatching detection; decision processes for grid operators