Fast 3D cluster tracking for a mobile robot using 2D techniques on depth images

User simultaneous detection and tracking is an issue at the core of human-robot interaction (HRI). Several methods exist and give good results; many use image processing techniques on images provided by the camera. The increasing presence in mobile robots of range-imaging cameras (such as structured light devices as Microsoft Kinects) allows us to develop image processing on depth maps. In this article, a fast and lightweight algorithm is presented for the detection and tracking of 3D clusters thanks to classic 2D techniques such as edge detection and connected components applied to the depth maps. The recognition of clusters is made using their 2D shape. An algorithm for the compression of depth maps has been specifically developed, allowing the distribution of the whole processing among several computers. The algorithm is then applied to a mobile robot for chasing an object selected by the user. The algorithm is coupled with laser-based tracking to make up for the narrow field of view of the range-imaging camera. The workload created by the method is light enough to enable its use even with processors with limited capabilities. Extensive experimental results are given for verifying the usefulness of the proposed method.Spanish MICINN (Ministry of Science and Innovation) through the project ‘‘Applications of Social Robots=Aplicaciones de los Robots Sociales.’’Publicad

Pencil-Beam Surveys for Faint Trans-Neptunian Objects

We have conducted pencil-beam searches for outer solar system objects to a limiting magnitude of R ~ 26. Five new trans-neptunian objects were detected in these searches. Our combined data set provides an estimate of ~90 trans-neptunian objects per square degree brighter than ~ 25.9. This estimate is a factor of 3 above the expected number of objects based on an extrapolation of previous surveys with brighter limits, and appears consistent with the hypothesis of a single power-law luminosity function for the entire trans-neptunian region. Maximum likelihood fits to all self-consistent published surveys with published efficiency functions predicts a cumulative sky density Sigma(<R) obeying log10(Sigma) = 0.76(R-23.4) objects per square degree brighter than a given magnitude R.Comment: Accepted by AJ, 18 pages, including 6 figure

확률적인 3차원 자세 복원과 행동인식

학위논문 (박사)-- 서울대학교 대학원 : 전기·컴퓨터공학부, 2016. 2. 오성회.These days, computer vision technology becomes popular and plays an important role in intelligent systems, such as augment reality, video and image analysis, and to name a few. Although cost effective depth cameras, like a Microsoft Kinect, have recently developed, most computer vision algorithms assume that observations are obtained from RGB cameras, which make 2D observations. If, somehow, we can estimate 3D information from 2D observations, it might give better solutions for many computer vision problems. In this dissertation, we focus on estimating 3D information from 2D observations, which is well known as non-rigid structure from motion (NRSfM). More formally, NRSfM finds the three dimensional structure of an object by analyzing image streams with the assumption that an object lies in a low-dimensional space. However, a human body for long periods of time can have complex shape variations and it makes a challenging problem for NRSfM due to its increased degree of freedom. In order to handle complex shape variations, we propose a Procrustean normal distribution mixture model (PNDMM) by extending a recently proposed Procrustean normal distribution (PND), which captures the distribution of non-rigid variations of an object by excluding the effects of rigid motion. Unlike existing methods which use a single model to solve an NRSfM problem, the proposed PNDMM decomposes complex shape variations into a collection of simpler ones, thereby model learning can be more tractable and accurate. We perform experiments showing that the proposed method outperforms existing methods on highly complex and long human motion sequences. In addition, we extend the PNDMM to a single view 3D human pose estimation problem. While recovering a 3D structure of a human body from an image is important, it is a highly ambiguous problem due to the deformation of an articulated human body. Moreover, before estimating a 3D human pose from a 2D human pose, it is important to obtain an accurate 2D human pose. In order to address inaccuracy of 2D pose estimation on a single image and 3D human pose ambiguities, we estimate multiple 2D and 3D human pose candidates and select the best one which can be explained by a 2D human pose detector and a 3D shape model. We also introduce a model transformation which is incorporated into the 3D shape prior model, such that the proposed method can be applied to a novel test image. Experimental results show that the proposed method can provide good 3D reconstruction results when tested on a novel test image, despite inaccuracies of 2D part detections and 3D shape ambiguities. Finally, we handle an action recognition problem from a video clip. Current studies show that high-level features obtained from estimated 2D human poses enable action recognition performance beyond current state-of-the-art methods using low- and mid-level features based on appearance and motion, despite inaccuracy of human pose estimation. Based on these findings, we propose an action recognition method using estimated 3D human pose information since the proposed PNDMM is able to reconstruct 3D shapes from 2D shapes. Experimental results show that 3D pose based descriptors are better than 2D pose based descriptors for action recognition, regardless of classification methods. Considering the fact that we use simple 3D pose descriptors based on a 3D shape model which is learned from 2D shapes, results reported in this dissertation are promising and obtaining accurate 3D information from 2D observations is still an important research issue for reliable computer vision systems.Chapter 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Motivation 1 1.2 Research Issues 4 1.3 Organization of the Dissertation 6 Chapter 2 Preliminary 9 2.1 Generalized Procrustes Analysis (GPA) 11 2.2 EM-GPA Algorithm 12 2.2.1 Objective function 12 2.2.2 E-step 15 2.2.3 M-step 16 2.3 Implementation Considerations for EM-GPA 18 2.3.1 Preprocessing stage 18 2.3.2 Small update rate for the covariance matrix 20 2.4 Experiments 21 2.4.1 Shape alignment with the missing information 23 2.4.2 3D shape modeling 24 2.4.3 2D+3D active appearance models 28 2.5 Chapter Summary and Discussion 32 Chapter 3 Procrustean Normal Distribution Mixture Model 33 3.1 Non-Rigid Structure from Motion 35 3.2 Procrustean Normal Distribution (PND) 38 3.3 PND Mixture Model 41 3.4 Learning a PNDMM 43 3.4.1 E-step 44 3.4.2 M-step 46 3.5 Learning an Adaptive PNDMM 48 3.6 Experiments 50 3.6.1 Experimental setup 50 3.6.2 CMU Mocap database 53 3.6.3 UMPM dataset 69 3.6.4 Simple and short motions 74 3.6.5 Real sequence - qualitative representation 77 3.7 Chapter Summary 78 Chapter 4 Recovering a 3D Human Pose from a Novel Image 83 4.1 Single View 3D Human Pose Estimation 85 4.2 Candidate Generation 87 4.2.1 Initial pose generation 87 4.2.2 Part recombination 88 4.3 3D Shape Prior Model 89 4.3.1 Procrustean mixture model learning 89 4.3.2 Procrustean mixture model fitting 91 4.4 Model Transformation 92 4.4.1 Model normalization 92 4.4.2 Model adaptation 95 4.5 Result Selection 96 4.6 Experiments 98 4.6.1 Implementation details 98 4.6.2 Evaluation of the joint 2D and 3D pose estimation 99 4.6.3 Evaluation of the 2D pose estimation 104 4.6.4 Evaluation of the 3D pose estimation 106 4.7 Chapter Summary 108 Chapter 5 Application to Action Recognition 109 5.1 Appearance and Motion Based Descriptors 112 5.2 2D Pose Based Descriptors 113 5.3 Bag-of-Features with a Multiple Kernel Method 114 5.4 Classification - Kernel Group Sparse Representation 115 5.4.1 Group sparse representation for classification 116 5.4.2 Kernel group sparse (KGS) representation for classification 118 5.5 Experiment on sub-JHMDB Dataset 120 5.5.1 Experimental setup 120 5.5.2 3D pose based descriptor 122 5.5.3 Experimental results 123 5.6 Chapter Summary 129 Chapter 6 Conclusion and Future Work 131 Appendices 135 A Proof of Propositions in Chapter 2 137 A.1 Proof of Proposition 1 137 A.2 Proof of Proposition 3 138 A.3 Proof of Proposition 4 139 B Calculation of p(XijDii) in Chapter 3 141 B.1 Without the Dirac-delta term 141 B.2 With the Dirac-delta term 142 C Procrustean Mixture Model Learning and Fitting in Chapter 4 145 C.1 Procrustean Mixture Model Learning 145 C.2 Procrustean Mixture Model Fitting 147 Bibliography 153 초 록 167Docto

Mechanistic insight into ligand binding to G-quadruplex DNA

Specific guanine-rich regions in human genome can form higher-order DNA structures called G-quadruplexes, which regulate many relevant biological processes. For instance, the formation of G-quadruplex at telomeres can alter cellular functions, inducing apoptosis. Thus, developing small molecules that are able to bind and stabilize the telomeric G-quadruplexes represents an attractive strategy for antitumor therapy. An example is 3-(benzo[d]thiazol-2-yl)-7-hydroxy-8-((4-(2-hydroxyethyl)piperazin-1-yl)methyl)-2H-chromen-2-one (compound 1), recently identified as potent ligand of the G-quadruplex [d(TGGGGT)]4 with promising in vitro antitumor activity. The experimental observations are suggestive of a complex binding mechanism that, despite efforts, has defied full characterization. Here, we provide through metadynamics simulations a comprehensive understanding of the binding mechanism of 1 to the G-quadruplex [d(TGGGGT)]4. In our calculations, the ligand explores all the available binding sites on the DNA structure and the free-energy landscape of the whole binding process is computed. We have thus disclosed a peculiar hopping binding mechanism whereas 1 is able to bind both to the groove and to the 3' end of the G-quadruplex. Our results fully explain the available experimental data, rendering our approach of great value for further ligand/DNA studie