Unobtrusive and pervasive video-based eye-gaze tracking

Eye-gaze tracking has long been considered a desktop technology that finds its use inside the traditional office setting, where the operating conditions may be controlled. Nonetheless, recent advancements in mobile technology and a growing interest in capturing natural human behaviour have motivated an emerging interest in tracking eye movements within unconstrained real-life conditions, referred to as pervasive eye-gaze tracking. This critical review focuses on emerging passive and unobtrusive video-based eye-gaze tracking methods in recent literature, with the aim to identify different research avenues that are being followed in response to the challenges of pervasive eye-gaze tracking. Different eye-gaze tracking approaches are discussed in order to bring out their strengths and weaknesses, and to identify any limitations, within the context of pervasive eye-gaze tracking, that have yet to be considered by the computer vision community.peer-reviewe

What is the Role of Recurrent Neural Networks (RNNs) in an Image Caption Generator?

In neural image captioning systems, a recurrent neural network (RNN) is typically viewed as the primary `generation' component. This view suggests that the image features should be `injected' into the RNN. This is in fact the dominant view in the literature. Alternatively, the RNN can instead be viewed as only encoding the previously generated words. This view suggests that the RNN should only be used to encode linguistic features and that only the final representation should be `merged' with the image features at a later stage. This paper compares these two architectures. We find that, in general, late merging outperforms injection, suggesting that RNNs are better viewed as encoders, rather than generators.Comment: Appears in: Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Natural Language Generation (INLG'17

Investigating user preferences in utilizing a 2D paper or 3D sketch based interface for creating 3D virtual models

Computer modelling of 2D drawings is becoming increasingly popular in modern design as can be witnessed in the shift of modern computer modelling applications from software requiring specialised training to ones targeted for the general consumer market. Despite this, traditional sketching is still prevalent in design, particularly so in the early design stages. Thus, research trends in computer-aided modelling focus on the the development of sketch based interfaces that are as natural as possible. In this report, we present a hybrid sketch based interface which allows the user to make draw sketches using offline as well as online sketching modalities, displaying the 3D models in an immersive setup, thus linking the object interaction possible through immersive modelling to the flexibility allowed by paper-based sketching. The interface was evaluated in a user study which shows that such a hybrid system can be considered as having pragmatic and hedonic value.peer-reviewe

Infertility in fertile couples

A paper read at the Annual Conference of the Society for the Study of Fertility, at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 11th July, 1968. In selecting this title for my brief contribution I felt that a little time of this Conference could deservedly be devoted to the plight of those married couples whom we know to be fertile who yet remain childless. It is in this sense that I speak of infertility in those cases where the husband's semen is normal, the wife ovulates regularly, and indeed fertilization occurs repeatedly, but where yet the pitiful couple continue to yearn for a viable child. Too many childless couples actually owe their plight to recurrent abortion. This is particularly tragic because here the deficiency is not one of ovulation or fertilization. At a time when abortion is so readily treated with depot progesterone, it is important to realize that three causes of habitual abortion are: Congenital malformation of the uterus, cervical incompetence and intra-uterine adhesions. Heterography is indicated routinely after two spontaneous abortions.peer-reviewe

Prospects for the childless

The sorry plight of infertile couples has attracted the interest of the author for several years. His experience suggests that their silent suffering deserves to be shared and relieved. In private practice between 1969 and 1975 his records show that 332 couples sought advice about their infertility, an average of 47 per year. Yet so many of them seemed to become readily disheartened, in some cases because they expected "miracle" pills or injections, in others because the husband would not countenance the idea that he should be investigated, and in many cases for no clear reason at all. In this paper a study of perseverance in relation to childless couples is presented and discussed, emphasizing that with determination the success rate can reach satisfying proportions and that the prospects are becoming brighter.peer-reviewe

The human ovum : concepts of conception

This is an abridged version from a Lecture delivered to the Royal University of Malta Anatomical Society, on January 19, 1972, at the Medical School, Guardamangia, Malta. The application of biochemical, embryological and genetic techniques to the problem of conception has resulted in rapid advances over the past 15 years, in the basic knowledge of fertilization and of very early embryonic development. The process of fertilization implies a continuum of events. The formation of the ovum, for instance, is becoming better understood. Remarkable progress continues on several biological fronts - all of them bound to bear human application. From artificial insemination biologists have advanced to the new technique of "artificial inovulation". Another remarkable achievement is that of nuclear transplantation, which has been applied satisfactorily to several species of amphibia though not as yet, to other vertebrates. Of all the biological achievements, however, the most exciting is bound to be the culture of human ova and their "in vitro" fertilization.peer-reviewe

Birth-weight and socio-economic factors

In 1974 there were 5762 total births in the Maltese Islands, and of these 3486 were born at St. Lukes`s Hospital Malta. Of the total births at this hospital, a sample of 407 records have been examined for this pilot study. The sample, which is believed to be reasonably representative of the respective situation in Malta, was restricted to primagravidae with no complication of pregnancy whose height was 5ft 1in and over. The effect of socio-economic factors upon birth-weight was studied, taking into account maternal age, duration of gestation and baby's sex. No such influence was detected to a convincing degree.peer-reviewe

On-screen point-of-regard estimation under natural head movement for a computer with integrated webcam

Recent developments in the field of eye-gaze tracking by vidoeoculography indicate a growing interest towards unobtrusive tracking in real-life scenarios, a new paradigm referred to as pervasive eye-gaze tracking. Among the challenges associated with this paradigm, the capability of a tracking platform to integrate well into devices with in-built imaging hardware and to permit natural head movement during tracking is of importance in less constrained scenarios. The work presented in this paper builds on our earlier work, which addressed the problem of estimating on-screen point-of-regard from iris center movements captured by an integrated camera inside a notebook computer, by proposing a method to approximate the head movements in conjunction with the iris movements in order to alleviate the requirement for a stationary head pose. Following iris localization by an appearance-based method, linear mapping functions for the iris and head movement are computed during a brief calibration procedure permitting the image information to be mapped to a point-of-regard on the monitor screen. Following the calculation of the point-of-regard as a function of the iris and head movement, separate Kalman filters improve upon the noisy point-of-regard estimates to smoothen the trajectory of the mouse cursor on the monitor screen. Quantitative and qualitative results obtained from two validation procedures reveal an improvement in the estimation accuracy under natural head movement, over our previous results achieved from earlier work.peer-reviewe