Belief Tree Search for Active Object Recognition

Active Object Recognition (AOR) has been approached as an unsupervised learning problem, in which optimal trajectories for object inspection are not known and are to be discovered by reducing label uncertainty measures or training with reinforcement learning. Such approaches have no guarantees of the quality of their solution. In this paper, we treat AOR as a Partially Observable Markov Decision Process (POMDP) and find near-optimal policies on training data using Belief Tree Search (BTS) on the corresponding belief Markov Decision Process (MDP). AOR then reduces to the problem of knowledge transfer from near-optimal policies on training set to the test set. We train a Long Short Term Memory (LSTM) network to predict the best next action on the training set rollouts. We sho that the proposed AOR method generalizes well to novel views of familiar objects and also to novel objects. We compare this supervised scheme against guided policy search, and find that the LSTM network reaches higher recognition accuracy compared to the guided policy method. We further look into optimizing the observation function to increase the total collected reward of optimal policy. In AOR, the observation function is known only approximately. We propose a gradient-based method update to this approximate observation function to increase the total reward of any policy. We show that by optimizing the observation function and retraining the supervised LSTM network, the AOR performance on the test set improves significantly.Comment: IROS 201

A Rare Case of Gastrointestinal Tract Foreign Body; Glassy Stomach

Ingestion of foreign bodies is common and conservative treatment can eliminated most particlesfrom the gastrointestinal tractunless peritoneal signs appear. A 22-year-old man presented to emergency department who had ingested glass particles of a crushed beverage bottle. He complained of epigastric and periumbilical pain. Physical examination did not revealany peritoneal signs. Abdominal X-ray showed stomach full of small glass particles. Conservative treatment, without any surgical intervention,resulted insafely eliminating glass particlesin this patient

A checklist for assessing the methodological quality of concurrent tES-fMRI studies (ContES checklist): a consensus study and statement

Background: Low intensity transcranial electrical stimulation (tES), including alternating or direct current stimulation (tACS or tDCS), applies weak electrical stimulation to modulate the activity of brain circuits. Integration of tES with concurrent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) allows for the mapping of neural activity during neuromodulation, supporting causal studies of both brain function and tES effects. Methodological aspects of tES-fMRI studies underpin the results, and reporting them in appropriate detail is required for reproducibility and interpretability. Despite the growing number of published reports, there are no consensus-based checklists for disclosing methodological details of concurrent tES-fMRI studies. Objective: To develop a consensus-based checklist of reporting standards for concurrent tES-fMRI studies to support methodological rigor, transparency, and reproducibility (ContES Checklist). Methods: A two-phase Delphi consensus process was conducted by a steering committee (SC) of 13 members and 49 expert panelists (EP) through the International Network of the tES-fMRI (INTF) Consortium. The process began with a circulation of a preliminary checklist of essential items and additional recommendations, developed by the SC based on a systematic review of 57 concurrent tES-fMRI studies. Contributors were then invited to suggest revisions or additions to the initial checklist. After the revision phase, contributors rated the importance of the 17 essential items and 42 additional recommendations in the final checklist. The state of methodological transparency within the 57 reviewed concurrent tES-fMRI studies was then assessed using the checklist. Results: Experts refined the checklist through the revision and rating phases, leading to a checklist with three categories of essential items and additional recommendations: (1) technological factors, (2) safety and noise tests, and (3) methodological factors. The level of reporting of checklist items varied among the 57 concurrent tES-fMRI papers, ranging from 24% to 76%. On average, 53% of checklist items were reported in a given article. Conclusions: Use of the ContES checklist is expected to enhance the methodological reporting quality of future concurrent tES-fMRI studies, and increase methodological transparency and reproducibility

Perceptual Algorithms for Social Robots in Early Childhood Education

Social robots are becoming a part of everyday life, from household smart companions to education and healthcare assistants, assembly robots in factories and museum guide robots, they adapt different appearances and exhibit a range of capabilities and duties. These robots are benefiting from machine perception systems that automatically recognize people, recognize their facial expressions, and the surrounding environment. In this thesis, we focus on RUBI, a social robot designed to interact with toddlers in classroom and enrich the early childhood education environments. We develop perception algorithms for RUBI to recognize faces while interacting with toddlers in the classroom. We use facial recognition, along with facial expression recognition to analyze the social structure of the classroom and to monitor the emotional development of toddlers in the classroom. In the first two chapters of this thesis, we show that RUBI discovers useful aspects of the social structure of the toddler's group, as well as the children's preferences for different activities and toddler's preferences to play with or to avoid playing with other specific children. These studies illustrate that social robots may become a useful tool in early childhood education to discover socio-emotional patterns over time and to monitor toddlers development. In the next chapters, we focus on active object recognition in RUBI. While interacting with children, RUBI can teach object names to children, to extend their vocabulary and monitor their learning skills. In chapter 3, we introduce GERMS, a dataset designed to accelerate progress on active object recognition in the context of human robot interaction. In chapter 4, a deep neural network is used for joint prediction of the object label and the action. A generative model of object similarities based on the Dirichlet distribution is proposed and embedded in the network for encoding the state of the system. In chapter 5, we propose a method for supervised learning of active object recognition, in which we train a Long Short Term Memory (LSTM) network to predict the best next action on the training set rollouts. We show improved recognition performance by optimizing the observation function and retraining the supervised LSTM network

The Status of Social Hope in Iran (Secondary Analysis of Social, Cultural and Moral Surveys) Mohammad Amirpanahi , Mahdi Malmir , Mohsen Shokriani Received: 11/6/2018 Accepted: 11/11/2018 Abstract The present article is the result of a secondary analysis of the social, cultural and ethical status of Iran. This survey was conducted in 2017 on a large sample of 82500 inhabitants in 426 cities. In this research, the unit of analysis is

The Status of Social Hope in Iran (Secondary Analysis of Social, Cultural and Moral Surveys) Mohammad Amirpanahi[1]  ,  Mahdi Malmir[2] ,  Mohsen Shokriani[3] Received: 11/6/2018               Accepted: 11/11/2018   Abstract The present article is the result of a secondary analysis of the social, cultural and ethical status of Iran. This survey was conducted in 2017 on a large sample of 82500 inhabitants in 426 cities. In this research, the unit of analysis is the individual, but the analysis has been carried out at the provincial level. The main purpose of the article is to present the profile and the image of the social hope of the provinces of the country. According to the results of this article, a clear picture of the state of hope for the future among Iranians can be gained. For this purpose, in addition to a general description of the country's social hope index, according to a combined indicator, the relationship between people's assessment of past, present and future, has been studied and compared in different provinces of the country. The results of this study showed that there is a meaningful relationship between assessing people from the present time and assessing the past and future. Also, according to the combined index of social hope, first, overall, the average social hope among Iranians is negative for the next ten years, and secondly, the difference and inequality in the social hope of the future will increase among the provinces. Keywords: Situation Assessment, National Survey of Social Status, Social Hope, Hope Policy, Sociology of Hope   [1]. Assistant Professor of Sociology, Allameh Tabataba'i University [2]. Assistant Professor of Sociology, ShahidBeheshtiUniversity [3]. Master's degree in demography from TehranUniversit

The Effects of Lower Extremity Muscle Fatigue on Dynamic Balance in Volleyball Players

Objectives: Lower extremity muscles are critical for maintaining dynamic balance and athletic performance. Fatigue of these muscles may affect dynamic balance. It is unclear whether fatigue in a particular muscle group can affect dynamic balance more than that in other groups. This study was conducted to evaluate and compare the effects of fatigue in 5 muscle groups on dynamic balance in volleyball players. Methods: Fifteen healthy male volleyball players separately performed the Star Excursion Balance Test before and immediately after the occurrence of fatigue of ankle Plantar Flexor (PF), knee extensor, knee flexor, hip abductor, and hip adductor muscles. Composite reach distance and distance in anterior, posteromedial, and posterolateral directions were recorded, accordingly. Results: Repeated-measures Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) data indicated that fatigue of all muscle groups significantly decreased the mean score of composite (P<0.001). Anterior, posteromedial, and posterolateral distance scores decreased following muscle fatigue of knee extensors and ankle PFs (P<0.05). Discussion: This study suggested that regarding composite reach score, fatigue of ankle, knee, and hip muscles similarly decreased dynamic balance. However, evaluating three main directions revealed that knee extensors and ankle PFs muscles fatigue presented more prominent effects on the explored volleyball players’ balance, compared to the other muscles

Effects of tension of Kinesio taping application on maximum quadriceps torque and knee repositioning sense in recreationally males

Background: Sports injuries of the knee joint are very common. There are both contact injuries and non-contact injuries. Contractile injuries may be due to an impairment of the knee joint position sense or a decrease of the quadriceps muscle strength. Using a Kinesio taping method may decrease this impairment. The aim of the current study was to assess the effect of direction and tension of Kinesio taping of the quadriceps muscle on repositioning sense of the knee joint and maximum concentric and eccentric torque of the knee extensors. Methods: Twenty-one recreationally active healthy males, determined by convenient non-probability sampling method, participated in this quazi-experimental study. The tests were performed in biomechanics laboratory of School of Rehabilitation of Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Iran, between July to November 2017. They visited biomechanics laboratory 5 sessions. The first session was for familiarization with the main tests and signing an informed consent form. For 2 through 5 sessions, one of each Kinesio tape tension approaches of 100, 115 and 140 percent (origin to insertion direction) and 100 percent (insertion to origin direction) was randomly applied on the quadriceps muscle. Active and passive repositioning sense of the knee joint at 60-degree flexion and maximum concentric and eccentric torque of the knee extensors of the dominant extremity before and after Kinesio taping were measured using a Biodex System 3 isokinetic dynamometer (Biodex Medical Systems, Shirley, NY, USA). Order of measuring active and passive repositioning sense and maximum concentric and eccentric torque of the knee extensors were randomly selected. Results: Origin to insertion Kinesio taping method with tension of 100, 115 and 140 percent significantly decreased means of active and passive repositioning sense errors (P 0.05). Conclusion: According to the results, Kinesio taping could influence on repositioning sense of the knee joint at 60-degree knee flexion. Maximum concentric and eccentric extensor torques was also increased