OctNetFusion: Learning Depth Fusion from Data

In this paper, we present a learning based approach to depth fusion, i.e., dense 3D reconstruction from multiple depth images. The most common approach to depth fusion is based on averaging truncated signed distance functions, which was originally proposed by Curless and Levoy in 1996. While this method is simple and provides great results, it is not able to reconstruct (partially) occluded surfaces and requires a large number frames to filter out sensor noise and outliers. Motivated by the availability of large 3D model repositories and recent advances in deep learning, we present a novel 3D CNN architecture that learns to predict an implicit surface representation from the input depth maps. Our learning based method significantly outperforms the traditional volumetric fusion approach in terms of noise reduction and outlier suppression. By learning the structure of real world 3D objects and scenes, our approach is further able to reconstruct occluded regions and to fill in gaps in the reconstruction. We demonstrate that our learning based approach outperforms both vanilla TSDF fusion as well as TV-L1 fusion on the task of volumetric fusion. Further, we demonstrate state-of-the-art 3D shape completion results.Comment: 3DV 2017, https://github.com/griegler/octnetfusio

Machine learning and ontology in eCoaching for personalized activity level monitoring and recommendation generation

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The European architectural sector. A scientific perspective on the debate about the economic impact of different regulatory approaches in the Member States of the EU. Aktualisierte Version

The EU Commission – in line with its mandate given by the member states – places an emphasis on the enhancement of the internal market for services. Through further harmonization of the so-called regulated professions, the EU Commission intends to intensify the competition and simplify and strengthen the cross-border provision of services. The architectural profession belongs to this group of regulated professions. All Member States want to ensure a certain minimum quality in the field of architectural services via regulative market interventions. The reason for these market interventions is to ensure the protection of public interests – such as construction safety, consumer and environmental protection as well as cultural, historical, and artistic concerns. According to the EU Commission, such regulation hinders the internal market for services. Whilst the Commission does not urge the abolition of all regulation concerning the area of profession, it does call for a stronger harmonisation of the member states’ own relevant provisions. In order to pursue this aim, the EU Commission has recently recommended an array of measures. This research report analyses the economic observations and theses of the European Commission which state a further need for reforms in the European architectural sector

Automatic thumbnail selection for soccer videos using machine learning

Thumbnail selection is a very important aspect of online sport video presentation, as thumbnails capture the essence of important events, engage viewers, and make video clips attractive to watch. Traditional solutions in the soccer domain for presenting highlight clips of important events such as goals, substitutions, and cards rely on the manual or static selection of thumbnails. However, such approaches can result in the selection of sub-optimal video frames as snapshots, which degrades the overall quality of the video clip as perceived by viewers, and consequently decreases viewership, not to mention that manual processes are expensive and time consuming. In this paper, we present an automatic thumbnail selection system for soccer videos which uses machine learning to deliver representative thumbnails with high relevance to video content and high visual quality in near real-time. Our proposed system combines a software framework which integrates logo detection, close-up shot detection, face detection, and image quality analysis into a modular and customizable pipeline, and a subjective evaluation framework for the evaluation of results. We evaluate our proposed pipeline quantitatively using various soccer datasets, in terms of complexity, runtime, and adherence to a pre-defined rule-set, as well as qualitatively through a user study, in terms of the perception of output thumbnails by end-users. Our results show that an automatic end-to-end system for the selection of thumbnails based on contextual relevance and visual quality can yield attractive highlight clips, and can be used in conjunction with existing soccer broadcast pipelines which require real-time operation

The European architectural sector. A scientific perspective on the debate about the economic impact of different regulatory approaches in the Member States of the EU

The EU Commission – in line with its mandate given by the member states – places an emphasis on the enhancement of the internal market for services. Through further harmonization of the so-called regulated professions, the EU Commission intends to intensify the competition and simplify and strengthen the cross-border provision of services. The architectural profession belongs to this group of regulated professions. All Member States want to ensure a certain minimum quality in the field of architectural services via regulative market interventions. The reason for these market interventions is to ensure the protection of public interests – such as construction safety, consumer and environmental protection as well as cultural, historical, and artistic concerns. According to the EU Commission, such regulation hinders the internal market for services. Whilst the Commission does not urge the abolition of all regulation concerning the area of profession, it does call for a stronger harmonisation of the member states’ own relevant provisions. In order to pursue this aim, the EU Commission has recently recommended an array of measures. This research report analyses the economic observations and theses of the European Commission which state a further need for reforms in the European architectural sector

Kvasir-Capsule, a video capsule endoscopy dataset

Artificial intelligence (AI) is predicted to have profound effects on the future of video capsule endoscopy (VCE) technology. The potential lies in improving anomaly detection while reducing manual labour. Existing work demonstrates the promising benefits of AI-based computer-assisted diagnosis systems for VCE. They also show great potential for improvements to achieve even better results. Also, medical data is often sparse and unavailable to the research community, and qualified medical personnel rarely have time for the tedious labelling work. We present Kvasir-Capsule, a large VCE dataset collected from examinations at a Norwegian Hospital. Kvasir-Capsule consists of 117 videos which can be used to extract a total of 4,741,504 image frames. We have labelled and medically verified 47,238 frames with a bounding box around findings from 14 different classes. In addition to these labelled images, there are 4,694,266 unlabelled frames included in the dataset. The Kvasir-Capsule dataset can play a valuable role in developing better algorithms in order to reach true potential of VCE technology

Optimal control of vortex core polarity by resonant microwave pulses

In a vortex-state magnetic nano-disk, the static magnetization is curling in the plane, except in the core region where it is pointing out-of-plane, either up or down leading to two possible stable states of opposite core polarity p. Dynamical reversal of p by large amplitude motion of the vortex core has recently been demonstrated experimentally,raising fundamental interest for potential application in magnetic storage devices. Here we demonstrate coherent control of p by single and double microwave pulse sequences, taking advantage of the resonant vortex dynamics in a perpendicular bias magnetic field. Optimization of the microwave pulse duration required to switch p allows to experimentally infer the characteristic decay time of the vortex core in the large oscillation regime. It is found to be more than twice shorter than in the small oscillation regime, raising the fundamental question of the non-linear behaviour of magnetic dissipation

Die schwierige Versöhnung

This volume is the result of collaboration between historians and scientific institutions in Austria and Italy. It covers two major topics: the bilateral contacts in the 20th century between the two neighbouring countries and the role of the South Tyrol question in this relationship. In the Rome-Vienna-Bolzano triangle, the most important intersections of this continuously maintained relationship are illuminated and central questions of recent European history are examined: the treatment of national minorities, the work of authoritarian regimes as well as democratization and the process of European integration. The aim of this volume is to map the current state of research, to open up possible new fields of research and to give new impulses to the historiographical dialogue between Rome and Vienna.; Dieser Band ist das Ergebnis der Zusammenarbeit zwischen Historikern und wissenschaftlichen Einrichtungen in Österreich und Italien. Er umfasst zwei große Themenbereiche: die bilateralen Kontakte im 20. Jahrhundert zwischen den beiden Nachbarländern sowie die Rolle der Südtirolfrage in diesem Verhältnis. Im Dreieck Rom-Wien-Bozen werden die wichtigsten Schnittpunkte dieser fortwährend aufrechterhaltenen Beziehung beleuchtet und zentrale Fragen der jüngsten europäischen Geschichte untersucht: der Umgang mit nationalen Minderheiten, das Wirken autoritärer Regimes sowie die Demokratisierung und der Prozess der europäischen Integration. Ziel dieses Bandes ist es, den derzeitigen Forschungsstand abzubilden, mögliche neue Forschungsfelder zu eröffnen und dem historiografischen Dialog zwischen Rom und Wien neue Impulse zu verleihen