Full-Reference Image Quality Expression via Genetic Programming

Bakurov, I., Buzzelli, M., Schettini, R., Castelli, M., & Vanneschi, L. (2023). Full-Reference Image Quality Expression via Genetic Programming. IEEE Transactions on Image Processing, 32, 1458-1473. https://doi.org/10.1109/TIP.2023.3244662 This work was supported by national funds through the FCT (Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia) under the projects Algoritmos de Inteligência artificial no Consumo de crédito e conciliação de Endividamento (AICE) (DSAIPA/DS/0113/2019) and UIDB/04152/2020 - Centro de Investigação em Gestão de Informação (MagIC)/NOVA IMS. Mauro Castelli acknowledges the financial support from the Slovenian Research Agency (research core funding no. P5-0410).Full-reference image quality measures are a fundamental tool to approximate the human visual system in various applications for digital data management: from retrieval to compression to detection of unauthorized uses. Inspired by both the effectiveness and the simplicity of hand-crafted Structural Similarity Index Measure (SSIM), in this work, we present a framework for the formulation of SSIM-like image quality measures through genetic programming. We explore different terminal sets, defined from the building blocks of structural similarity at different levels of abstraction, and we propose a two-stage genetic optimization that exploits hoist mutation to constrain the complexity of the solutions. Our optimized measures are selected through a cross-dataset validation procedure, which results in superior performance against different versions of structural similarity, measured as correlation with human mean opinion scores. We also demonstrate how, by tuning on specific datasets, it is possible to obtain solutions that are competitive with (or even outperform) more complex image quality measures.authorsversionauthorsversionpublishe

Trends and concerns in digital cartography

CISRG discussion paper ;

QoE for Mobile Streaming

No abstract

The Influence of media displays and image quality attributes for HDR image reproductions

High Dynamic Range (HDR) photography has been in existence at least since the time of Ansel Adams, with his experiments using analog film and darkroom techniques for the production of black and white prints in the 1940\u27s (Ashbrook, 2010). This photographic method has the ability to provide a more accurate representation of a scene through a greater range of the light and dark areas captured in an image. In the mid-20th century HDR Photography it has continued to grow in popularity among those interested in photography wishing to optimize their resulting image beyond a more commonly used technique. Presently, the limitations of commonly available reproduction technologies can lead to unpredictable output results through media such as monitor displays and inkjet prints. The purpose of this research was to determine the influence of quality attributes and image content on the preference of display media for HDR image reproductions. To achieve this purpose, a psychophysical experiment was conducted of 38 observers with previous imaging related exposure. This part of the study consisted of HDR comparisons across both a monitor display device and inkjet prints. Through qualitative and quantitative methods, common trends were identified among observer responses. The results show that for inkjet prints are the most preferred for the output of HDR images, specifically when printed on a metallic substrate. Additionally, the content of displayed images can directly impact display preference depending on the viewer\u27s perception and relationship formed with the photographic image. When evaluating HDR images across two media platforms, quality attributes comprising of a strong influence towards preference are sharpness, naturalness, contrast and highlights while artifacts, physical qualities and shadows were found to have barely any influence. Within the attributes related to HDR, relationships between attributes are found to be significant regarding image evaluation, leading to areas of further research

Graph analysis of functional brain networks: practical issues in translational neuroscience

The brain can be regarded as a network: a connected system where nodes, or units, represent different specialized regions and links, or connections, represent communication pathways. From a functional perspective communication is coded by temporal dependence between the activities of different brain areas. In the last decade, the abstract representation of the brain as a graph has allowed to visualize functional brain networks and describe their non-trivial topological properties in a compact and objective way. Nowadays, the use of graph analysis in translational neuroscience has become essential to quantify brain dysfunctions in terms of aberrant reconfiguration of functional brain networks. Despite its evident impact, graph analysis of functional brain networks is not a simple toolbox that can be blindly applied to brain signals. On the one hand, it requires a know-how of all the methodological steps of the processing pipeline that manipulates the input brain signals and extract the functional network properties. On the other hand, a knowledge of the neural phenomenon under study is required to perform physiological-relevant analysis. The aim of this review is to provide practical indications to make sense of brain network analysis and contrast counterproductive attitudes

Object relations in personality disorder: development of the "Problematic Object Representation Scales" (PORS) for the AAI.

Over the past years, there has been an increasing interest in assessing object relations and studying the relationship between problematic object representations and different types of psychological disturbance. These efforts have emphasised the importance of the representation of interpersonal relationships in personality pathology. Representations of interpersonal relationships are given particular emphasis by the Attachment Theory (e.g., Bowlby, 1980/88), which highlights the importance of early relationships with caregivers in personality development. In fact, many patients with personality disorder exhibit significant difficulties in intimate relationships and can therefore be seen as having some degree of attachment disorder. The present study describes the development and reliability analysis of the "Problematic Object Representation Scales" (PORS) to be applied to the Adult Attachment Interview Protocol (George et al., 1996), in an effort to integrate object relations and personality disorder research. Levels of PORS are compared across different diagnostic groups revealing that personality disordered patients exhibit higher levels of "inconsistency", "inappropriate affect valence", and "disturbance of thinking" when compared to patients with other disorders and normal controls. Results also reveal significant associations between some of the PORS and other measures of personality functioning (e.g., Reflective Functioning, Fonagy et al., 1998 Revised Adult Personality Functioning Assessment, Hill & Stein, 2000) and early adversity (Childhood Experiences of Care and Abuse, Bifulco et al., 1994), although these associations seem mostly accounted for by the presence of personality disorder. Hence, the PORS appear to be a reliable method of assessing problematic object representations through the AAI and some of the scales are able to differentiate diagnostic groups on the basis of their object representations. Conclusions are drawn regarding the potential usefulness of the PORS in research and clinical contexts

Conveying User Experience in Business-to-Business Environment

Tässä työssä käsittelen käyttäjäkokemuslähtöisen tuotesuunnittelun mahdollisuuksia vaikuttaa erottautumistekijöihin teollisissa yrityksissä, jotka toimivat B2B ympäristössä. Työn tavoitteena on tarkastella kokemuspohjaisen suunnittelun teoreettisia lähtökohtia, ottaen huomioon muotoilun, kognitiotieteiden ja kauppatieteiden alojen tutkimuspohja. B2B ympäristön tarkastelu on tämän työn yksi painopisteistä, koska siinä tuotteen omistus ja käyttö jakautuvat asiakkaiden ja käyttäjien kesken. Tämä toisaalta vaikuttaa tuotteen suunnittelun lähtökohtiin, sen markkinointiin, myyntiin ja vastaavasti asiakas- ja käyttäjäkokemukseen. Työ on tehty FIMECC:in aloittaman UXUS projektin yhteydessä. Projektin tarkoitus on tutkia ja soveltaa käyttäjäkokemuksen lähtökohtia teollisessa ympäristössä. Työssäni pyrin kehittämään teoreettisen ajatusmallin, jolla asiakkaiden ja käyttäjien kokemuksia voidaan tarkastella eri tasoilla ja ottaa huomioon suunnitteluprosessin varhaisissa vaiheissa. Tämä malli pohjautuu osittain psykologisiin teorioihin, jotka tulevat esille aikaisemmissa tutkimuksissa mm. Carver ja Scheier (1998); Sheldon, K.M., Elliot, A.J., Kim, Y. ja Kasser, T. (2001). Ajatusmallin ensisijainen tarkoitus on toimia tukityökaluna tuottajayrityksen tuotekehityksen ja markkinoinnin yksiköille kun halutaan soveltaa kokemuslähtöisen suunnittelun periaatteita yrityksen toiminnassa. Mallin toinen tarkoitus on toimia perustana teolliseen ympäristöön soveltuvien kokemusmittareiden kehitykselle. Työn toinen osio keskittyy yheden UXUS projektin yrityskumppanin toiminnan tutkimiseen (Rocla). Tässä osiossa pyrin kehittämään kokemusmittariston, jonka tarkoituksena on huomioida tuottajayrityksen, tuotevälittäjien, asiakkaiden ja käyttäjien näkemyksiä tuotteiden ominaisuuksista ja kokemuksista sekä mahdollistaa vertailu näiden osapuolten välillä. Kerätyn aineiston ja vertailun tarkoitus on auttaa tuotekehitys- ja markkinointitiimien työtä kun määritetään uusien tuotteiden kehityskriteerit ja myyntiargumentit. Kokemusmittariston sunnittelussa käytän sekä teoreettisia lähtökohtia, jotka käydään läpi työn alussa, että kymmentä johtajatason henkilön haastattelutulosta Roclan tuotekehityksen, markkinoinnin ja myynnin yksiköistä. Tämän lisäksi sovellan ajatuksia keskusteluista, joita käytiin läpi lukuisissa tutkijatapaamisissa, kenttä- ja yritysvierailuilla. Ehdotetun kokemusmittariston avulla kerään aineistoa 57:ltä kokeneelta varastotuotevälittäjältä. Välittäjät vertasivat kahta erityyppistä varastokonetta heidän kokemuksiensa perusteella ja myös osoittivat näkemyksensä psykologisten tarpeiden tärkeydestä asiakkaiden ja käyttäjien näkökulmasta. Aineiston analyysi osoittaa, että vaikka välittäjät kokivat selkeitä eroja tuotteiden visuaalisen ulkonön viehättävyydessä, tämä tekijän tärkeys oli yleisesti vähäinen (mm. osittain linjassa Diefenbach, S. ja Hassenzahl, M. (2011) tulosten kanssa). Tämä tulos tukee ajatusta siitä, jos kokemuspohjaisia lähtökohtia halutaan soveltaa erottautumistekijöinä B2B ympäristössä, niiden pitää olla vahvasti ja selkeästi yhdistettynä taloudellisiin mittareihin.The main goal of this study is to investigate theoretical background behind user experience (UX) paradigm and its possible implementation in industrial product development within business-to-business (B-to-B) environment. This work is conducted in the realm of UXUS project (User Experience and Usability in complex Systems), which was initiated by FIMECC (Finnish Metals and Engineering Competence Cluster) in 2010. In contrast to business-to-consumer environment, B-to-B setting separates ownership and actual use of the product. My aim lies in elaborating on various impacts of this separation on user and customer experiences and possible ways to communicate benefits of better UX to customers and equipment distributors. In the content of this paper, I introduce a theoretical thinking model for approaching experiences in industrial product development and an experimental questionnaire set, which is meant to capture different aspects of product and operating environment experiences. I test the proposed questionnaire set with 57 experienced warehouse equipment distributors who evaluate two separate industrial products. Results indicate that distributors are able to appreciate differences in hedonic qualities of industrial equipment and that visual appearance is a major factor in indicated product perceptions. However, overall hedonic qualities were perceived as less important compared to utilitarian qualities, which is partially in line with consumer product findings by DIEFENBACH, et al. (2011). I also find that distributors were unable to appreciate the importance of three major psychological needs (relatedness, autonomy and competence as indicated by SHELDON, et al., 2001) in industrial product development. I also analyze interviews of ten managers from warehouse equipment manufacturing company Rocla to investigate whether individuals working in separate departments perceive implications of UX paradigm differently. Findings indicate that individuals dealing with R&D activities stress the importance of end-users in deriving criteria for product development whereas individuals dealing with marketing and sales activities emphasize the role of personal relationships with customers. The longrun aim of this research direction is to assess strategic potential of UX paradigm for industrial product manufacturers

Social cognition in South African children with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders

Research on the social-cognitive profile of individuals with prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE) has confirmed poorer social skills in these children compared to healthy controls, independent of overall cognitive functioning. However, although children with fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD) are known to have deficits in social-cognitive function, very little is known about the mechanisms underlying these impairments. I investigated social cognition in children with FASD by assessing Theory of Mind and emotion recognition ability as potential determinants of impaired social cognition, behaviourally and using neuroimaging. Study I showed that children aged 9-11 years (N =63) with fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) and partial FAS performed more poorly on the Reading the Mind in the Eyes test, after controlling for IQ and executive function, suggesting difficulty in inferring people's mental states. Study II investigated the ability of 9-12 year old children (N = 88) to read people's facial emotions because this more basic level of social cue processing was considered a possible precursor to the impairments seen in Study I. An affective appraisal and working memory (WM) task (1- back and 2-back) was administered. Groups performed well on the 1-back, indicating ability to meet WM demands of the affective appraisal task. No behavioural group differences were shown on the affective appraisal task, which confirmed the suitability of this task to identify possible differences in neuronal activation, which I investigated in Study III. Analyses of these fMRI data on 64 children aged 9 -14 years showed that participants performed well on the relatively simple affective appraisal task. However, greater cortical activation was shown in exposed children when processing positive but less when processing negative facial expressions. These data demonstrate that heavy PAE alters activation within a cortical affective processing network. Because we know that children with FASD have alcohol-related social-cognitive impairments (Study I), differences in cortical activation may suggest that when children with FASD need to appraise affect in more challenging contexts, as in dynamic social interactions, they are likely to have greater difficulties. These data are consistent with two ideas: a) that alcohol-exposed children have difficulty appraising negative emotions and b) that difficulty contributes to the clinically described trouble these children have in "reading" facial social cues. If this is true, then an intervention program that improves the ability of these children to appraise negative emotions will likely (a) improve their ability to correctly interpret the context of their social interactions; (b) contribute to developing mental representations of an appropriate reaction to a given situation and (c) positively affect the various evaluation processes during social information processing, which in turn are imperative to social -cognitive functioning