1,395 research outputs found

    Computer Vision-Based Hand Tracking and 3D Reconstruction as a Human-Computer Input Modality with Clinical Application

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    The recent pandemic has impeded patients with hand injuries from connecting in person with their therapists. To address this challenge and improve hand telerehabilitation, we propose two computer vision-based technologies, photogrammetry and augmented reality as alternative and affordable solutions for visualization and remote monitoring of hand trauma without costly equipment. In this thesis, we extend the application of 3D rendering and virtual reality-based user interface to hand therapy. We compare the performance of four popular photogrammetry software in reconstructing a 3D model of a synthetic human hand from videos captured through a smartphone. The visual quality, reconstruction time and geometric accuracy of output model meshes are compared. Reality Capture produces the best result, with output mesh having the least error of 1mm and a total reconstruction time of 15 minutes. We developed an augmented reality app using MediaPipe algorithms that extract hand key points, finger joint coordinates and angles in real-time from hand images or live stream media. We conducted a study to investigate its input variability and validity as a reliable tool for remote assessment of finger range of motion. The intraclass correlation coefficient between DIGITS and in-person measurement obtained is 0.767- 0.81 for finger extension and 0.958–0.857 for finger flexion. Finally, we develop and surveyed the usability of a mobile application that collects patient data medical history, self-reported pain levels and hand 3D models and transfer them to therapists. These technologies can improve hand telerehabilitation, aid clinicians in monitoring hand conditions remotely and make decisions on appropriate therapy, medication, and hand orthoses

    Advances and Applications of DSmT for Information Fusion. Collected Works, Volume 5

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    This ïŹfth volume on Advances and Applications of DSmT for Information Fusion collects theoretical and applied contributions of researchers working in different ïŹelds of applications and in mathematics, and is available in open-access. The collected contributions of this volume have either been published or presented after disseminating the fourth volume in 2015 in international conferences, seminars, workshops and journals, or they are new. The contributions of each part of this volume are chronologically ordered. First Part of this book presents some theoretical advances on DSmT, dealing mainly with modiïŹed Proportional ConïŹ‚ict Redistribution Rules (PCR) of combination with degree of intersection, coarsening techniques, interval calculus for PCR thanks to set inversion via interval analysis (SIVIA), rough set classiïŹers, canonical decomposition of dichotomous belief functions, fast PCR fusion, fast inter-criteria analysis with PCR, and improved PCR5 and PCR6 rules preserving the (quasi-)neutrality of (quasi-)vacuous belief assignment in the fusion of sources of evidence with their Matlab codes. Because more applications of DSmT have emerged in the past years since the apparition of the fourth book of DSmT in 2015, the second part of this volume is about selected applications of DSmT mainly in building change detection, object recognition, quality of data association in tracking, perception in robotics, risk assessment for torrent protection and multi-criteria decision-making, multi-modal image fusion, coarsening techniques, recommender system, levee characterization and assessment, human heading perception, trust assessment, robotics, biometrics, failure detection, GPS systems, inter-criteria analysis, group decision, human activity recognition, storm prediction, data association for autonomous vehicles, identiïŹcation of maritime vessels, fusion of support vector machines (SVM), Silx-Furtif RUST code library for information fusion including PCR rules, and network for ship classiïŹcation. Finally, the third part presents interesting contributions related to belief functions in general published or presented along the years since 2015. These contributions are related with decision-making under uncertainty, belief approximations, probability transformations, new distances between belief functions, non-classical multi-criteria decision-making problems with belief functions, generalization of Bayes theorem, image processing, data association, entropy and cross-entropy measures, fuzzy evidence numbers, negator of belief mass, human activity recognition, information fusion for breast cancer therapy, imbalanced data classiïŹcation, and hybrid techniques mixing deep learning with belief functions as well

    Stress detection in lifelog data for improved personalized lifelog retrieval system

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    Stress can be categorized into acute and chronic types, with acute stress having short-term positive effects in managing hazardous situations, while chronic stress can adversely impact mental health. In a biological context, stress elicits a physiological response indicative of the fight-or-flight mechanism, accompanied by measurable changes in physiological signals such as blood volume pulse (BVP), galvanic skin response (GSR), and skin temperature (TEMP). While clinical-grade devices have traditionally been used to measure these signals, recent advancements in sensor technology enable their capture using consumer-grade wearable devices, providing opportunities for research in acute stress detection. Despite these advancements, there has been limited focus on utilizing low-resolution data obtained from sensor technology for early stress detection and evaluating stress detection models under real-world conditions. Moreover, the potential of physiological signals to infer mental stress information remains largely unexplored in lifelog retrieval systems. This thesis addresses these gaps through empirical investigations and explores the potential of utilizing physiological signals for stress detection and their integration within the state-of-the-art (SOTA) lifelog retrieval system. The main contributions of this thesis are as follows. Firstly, statistical analyses are conducted to investigate the feasibility of using low-resolution data for stress detection and emphasize the superiority of subject-dependent models over subject-independent models, thereby proposing the optimal approach to training stress detection models with low-resolution data. Secondly, longitudinal stress lifelog data is collected to evaluate stress detection models in real-world settings. It is proposed that training lifelog models on physiological signals in real-world settings is crucial to avoid detection inaccuracies caused by differences between laboratory and free-living conditions. Finally, a state-of-the-art lifelog interactive retrieval system called \lifeseeker is developed, incorporating the stress-moment filter function. Experimental results demonstrate that integrating this function improves the overall performance of the system in both interactive and non-interactive modes. In summary, this thesis contributes to the understanding of stress detection applied in real-world settings and showcases the potential of integrating stress information for enhancing personalized lifelog retrieval system performance

    Out of sight, out of mind: accessibility for people with hidden disabilities in museums and heritage sites

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    As of 2020, an estimated 14.1 million residents of the United Kingdom reported a disability (DWP 2020). Within this population, approximately 6.1 million people have a hidden disability (Buhalis and Michopoulou 2011). These hidden disabilities range widely, from neurodiverse conditions like autism and dyslexia to long term chronic conditions such as fibromyalgia and arthritis. Due to the wide range of disabilities and their impact on a disabled person’s life, they have generally been underrepresented in accessibility studies. This thesis uncovers the accessibility needs of people with hidden disabilities, specifically in museums and heritage sites where they have heretofore mostly been overlooked. I utilise semi-structured interviews and correspondence with people with hidden disabilities, as well as participant-led experiences through three case study sites in Northern England, to understand the barriers they face. Their experiences help me expose the importance of passive accessibility – accessibility measures built directly into an exhibition design, such as adequate lighting and personal interpretation boards. Additionally, this thesis aims to understand the cultural forces that prevent or support accessibility-related improvements to such sites from taking place. By studying the cultural make-up of each case study organisation through ethnographic observations of the staff at these sites, institutional roadblocks to enacting accessibility-related adjustments are revealed. Specifically, the lack of communication at these sites presents a significant barrier to enacting accessibility suggestions from disabled visitors. Tying together the themes of active/passive accessibility and lack of communication is the theme of gaps in disability awareness, by which I mean that heritage organisations do not wilfully create these barriers to inclusion, and yet they create them still because they simply do not realise these things. Filling these gaps opens up countless possibilities for improving accessibility not only for people with hidden disabilities but for all visitors and staff at museums and heritage sites

    2023- The Twenty-seventh Annual Symposium of Student Scholars

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    The full program book from the Twenty-seventh Annual Symposium of Student Scholars, held on April 18-21, 2023. Includes abstracts from the presentations and posters.https://digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/sssprograms/1027/thumbnail.jp

    Animate Being: Extending a Practice of the Image to New Mediums via Speculative Game Design

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    This post-disciplinary practice as research thesis examines the potential of Carl Jung's therapeutic method of active imagination as a strategy for engaging with an increasingly complex and interconnected technological reality. Embracing a non-clinical, practice-driven approach, I harness James Hillman’s notion of the image and the imaginal to investigate the interdisciplinary capacity and ethical dimensions of an expansive mode of image-work. My approach to practice theoretically and practically intertwines analytical psychology, feminist worlding and design speculation. Building upon Susan Rowland’s work, I study image-work as an ecological alchemical craft that seeks to matter the immaterial. Through the cyclic iterative design of a video game, I mobilise and respond to image-work as a mode of myth-making that may facilitate dialogue between human and non-human intelligences. Departing from the essentialism of the hero's journey, I adopt Le Guin's Carrier Bag (1986/2019) as a feminist video game form and by utilising the framework of a video game (Bogost, 2007; Flannigan, 2013), the alchemical processes of image-work are transformed into novel interactive game mechanics. The game I design is both a vessel and a portal to an imaginal ecological realm, an open-world, procedurally generated ‘living world’ sandbox exploration game. This game integrates real-time, real-world data streams to invite the non-human to enter into play as player two, facilitating experimentation with possible new forms of cross-species dialogue, collaboration, and healing

    Gender and sexuality diverse women’s experiences of sexual and gendered embodiment in the context of cancer

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    This thesis has explored the cancer and cancer care experiences of gender and sexuality diverse (GSD) women. It has examined how participants navigated the embodied intersections of their cancer, gender, and sexual identities in the context of predominantly cisheteronormative medical systems and constructions of cancer. This analysis was guided by a social constructionist epistemology in conjunction with a thematic discourse analysis, and by way of semi-structured and Photo-elicitation interviews, aimed to foreground the complex and diverse nature of GSD women’s survivorship experiences. It has drawn on a queer theoretical sensibility to question dominant cisheteronormative discourses in cancer care, and the construction of non-normative subjectivities in cancer culture. This facilitated the questioning of cancer survivorship as a heteronormative temporal relation tied to a form of recovery reliant on gender conformity, optimism, and neoliberal health logics, ultimately arguing for the queer temporality of survivorship itself. While this is a growing field of study, the existing literature suggests that GSD women (and LGBTQI populations in general) face a disproportionate cancer burden compared to their heterosexual counterparts, and overall unique challenges across all stages of the cancer continuum. The research findings presented in this thesis have examined the specificities of those challenges. Assumptions of heterosexuality, and cisgender embodiment, identity and expression were prevalent across GSD women’s stories and had implications for survivorship at multiple levels. A number of GSD women described feeling invisibilised by the “pinkification” of “women’s” cancers. They did not feel represented by the coding of cisheteronormative femininity present in available information, resources, and support, which emphasised the reinstatement or recovery of “ideal” cisheteronormative femininity. Many GSD women described feeling stripped of their agency in health decision-making in that they felt pressure to undergo breast reconstruction after mastectomy or compelled to cover up the signs of illness with wigs, make-up, and prostheses; whilst a number rejected these pressures and found freedom or gender affirmation in doing so. Assumptions of cisheteronormativity extended also to GSD women’s renegotiation of sexual embodiment after cancer, wherein their sexual concerns were often not understood by health providers nor captured by the available resources, which privileged coital (penis-vagina) heterosexual sex. Whilst some GSD women were able to renegotiate sex and intimacy on their own terms, others described feelings of loss in the absence of sexual renegotiation. The biographical disruption posed by cancer enabled some GSD women to reprioritise their lives, whereas others felt pressured to “optimise” their cancer experience

    The Contemporary Malaysian Fantastic Film: Imagining an Alternative Modernity

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    The thesis posits that contemporary Malaysian fantastic films possess critical characteristics: they offer an alternative version of an imagined community and undermine the status quo. These films deploy elements of fantasy to negotiate the dominant notions of cultural and national identity in Malaysia. However, my study notes that the degree of resistance in such films is contingent on how well the filmmakers navigate the censorship guidelines, and negotiate with the authorities, and highlight the ongoing tension between artistic freedom and state control in film production. Most filmmakers of the fantastic genre do not produce films that are explicitly critical as such. As I will demonstrate, they need to navigate the productive dimension of censorship. My key aim is to overcome the limitation of Malaysian cinema scholarship that focuses exclusively on censorship as prohibitive. This thesis aims to broaden the scope of research on Malaysian cinema by examining the role of censorship in shaping the emergence and development of the fantastic film as a genre. Rather than simply viewing censorship as a hindrance to creative expression, this thesis argues that censorship can also be productive and lead to new forms of artistic expression. Alongside textual analysis, I interview filmmakers and study the history and recent change in censorship practices to gain a deeper understanding of current fantastic film practices in Malaysia. By doing so, the study hopes to contribute to a more nuanced understanding of how Malaysian national and ethnic identity is constructed in film. My thesis proposes a definition of the fantastic film that identifies several stylistic features constructing an alternative national identity, thereby promoting diverse notions of belonging. The Malaysian fantastic films are intertextual. They deploy Computer Graphic Imagery (CGI), and their representation of religious and racial identities explore interaction between official and unofficial definitions of nationhood. In 2003 the Malaysian censorship policy was revised, thus, allowing the production of fantastic films which had been banned for decades. This shift came with new censorship guidelines that aimed to impose control influenced by the rise of Islamisation and the emphasis on Malay paramountcy. In times of political and ideological crisis the stylistic strategies invoked in these films become crucial in negotiating with the authority and offering relief when other institutions fail. This thesis argues that fantastic films have the tendency to perform criticism with such films serving to present an alternative version of an imagined community and questioning the status quo. The thesis delineates several types of Malaysian fantastic films in terms of stylistic features that construct an alternative national identity and promote different notions of belonging, which are often facilitated by religious influences, racial identity and technological advancement in presenting the conflict of interests between the public and private definitions of nationhood

    Altered Images: A Comparative Study of Medical Portraits by Henry Tonks and Raphaël Freida in the Great War

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