Real Time Object Pose Estimation by Two-Step Crossing Line Fitting

Abstract: Real-time industrial vision system for object detection and pose estimation is a promising area yet posing a challenge for high processing efficiency. This paper presents a fast object detection and pose estimation method which captures the specific but common visual pattern as contained in many objects -the two-line cross. A two-step grid based scheme is designed, being able to fast detect the crossing line on the objects and thus identifying the object location and pose. Superior efficiency -4 milliseconds per frame on a laptop with 2.53 HZ is reported for real image data, without any parallelization or hardware acceleration. Our method outperforms the state-of-the-art line detection method significantly, and has been applied in embedded inspection platform for pipeline object pose estimation

Recent Progress in Light‐Scattering Porous Polymers and Their Applications

Conventional inorganic-nanoparticles-based scattering systems have dominated many practical applications for years. In contrast, the rise of porous polymers is perceived as a game-changer due to their low cost, facile preparation, and great abundance. One challenging issue to be tackled is the design and fabrication of porous polymers with light-scattering properties comparable to those of inorganic nanoparticles. Taking inspiration from nature (e.g., from white beetles Cyphochilus), scientists have achieved remarkable progress in the field of light-scattering porous polymers and their related applications in recent years. Therefore, here, an up-to-date review about this emerging field is provided. This overview covers materials for making porous polymer structures, detailed fabrication methods, and applications benefitting from their tailorable light-scattering properties. It is envisioned that more bioinspired light-scattering porous polymers will be made to be potential alternatives of conventional nanoparticles-based scatterers

Automaticity in processing spatial-numerical associations: Evidence from a perceptual orientation judgment task of Arabic digits in frames.

Human adults are faster to respond to small/large numerals with their left/right hand when they judge the parity of numerals, which is known as the SNARC (spatial-numerical association of response codes) effect. It has been proposed that the size of the SNARC effect depends on response latencies. The current study introduced a perceptual orientation task, where participants were asked to judge the orientation of a digit or a frame surrounding the digit. The present study first confirmed the SNARC effect with native Chinese speakers (Experiment 1) using a parity task, and then examined whether the emergence and size of the SNARC effect depended on the response latencies (Experiments 2, 3, and 4) using a perceptual orientation judgment task. Our results suggested that (a) the automatic processing of response-related numerical-spatial information occurred with Chinese-speaking participants in the parity task; (b) the SNARC effect was also found when the task did not require semantic access; and (c) the size of the effect depended on the processing speed of the task-relevant dimension. Finally, we proposed an underlying mechanism to explain the SNARC effect in the perceptual orientation judgment task

Virtual community based secure service discovery and access for 3D video steaming applications

The Freehand I-Share project aims to define the mechanisms for trust, willingness, resource discovery and sharing mechanisms in virtual communities. To improve the secure and performance of a 3D video streaming application, which is a research vehicle of the I-Share project, we propose a virtual community based access control approach for secure service discovery and access (VICSDA) which groups services in virtual communities and only grants authenticated community members to discover and access these community services. There are two main contributions associated with this approach. First, different from most of the other access control approaches it adopts a dual access control mechanism which allows community services to define their local access control policy besides following the community membership policy. Second, behavior of these community services is monitored in order to guarantee a better QoS provision. Using this approach, the 3D video streaming application can be guaranteed with authentication and message confidentiality through the dual secure service discovery and access mechanism. Better application performance can also be achieved through the community member behavior audit.</p

Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells for Tissue-Engineered Skeletal Muscles

Skeletal muscle, which comprises a significant portion of the body, is responsible for vital functions such as movement, metabolism, and overall health. However, severe injuries often result in volumetric muscle loss (VML) and compromise the regenerative capacity of the muscle. Tissue-engineered muscles offer a potential solution to address lost or damaged muscle tissue, thereby restoring muscle function and improving patients’ quality of life. Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) have emerged as a valuable cell source for muscle tissue engineering due to their pluripotency and self-renewal capacity, enabling the construction of tissue-engineered artificial skeletal muscles with applications in transplantation, disease modelling, and bio-hybrid robots. Next-generation iPSC-based models have the potential to revolutionize drug discovery by offering personalized muscle cells for testing, reducing reliance on animal models. This review provides a comprehensive overview of iPSCs in tissue-engineered artificial skeletal muscles, highlighting the advancements, applications, advantages, and challenges for clinical translation. We also discussed overcoming limitations and considerations in differentiation protocols, characterization methods, large-scale production, and translational regulations. By tackling these challenges, iPSCs can unlock transformative advancements in muscle tissue engineering and therapeutic interventions for the future

The Helicobacter pylori duodenal ulcer promoting gene, dupA in China

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The prevalence of <it>H. pylori </it>is as high as 60–70% in Chinese population. Although duodenal ulcer and gastric cancer are both caused by <it>H. pylori</it>, they are at opposite ends of the spectrum and as such are considered mutually exclusive. Duodenal ulcer promoting (<it>dupA</it>) gene was reported to be associated with duodenal ulcer development. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of <it>dupA </it>gene of <it>Helicobacter pylori </it>in patients with various gastroduodenal diseases and to explore the association between the gene and other virulence factors.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p><it>H. pylori </it>were isolated from gastric biopsies of patients with chronic gastritis, duodenal ulcer (DU), gastric ulcer (GU), or non-cardia gastric carcinoma. The <it>dupA</it>, <it>cagA</it>, <it>vacA</it>, <it>iceA </it>and <it>babA2 </it>genotypes were determined by polymerase chain reaction. Histological features of gastric mucosal biopsy specimens were graded based on the scoring system proposed by the updated Sydney system. IL-1β polymorphism was investigated using restriction fragment length polymorphism.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Isolates from 360 patients including 133 with chronic gastritis, 101 with DU, 47 with GU, and 79 with non-cardia gastric carcinoma were examined. The <it>dupA </it>gene was detected in 35.3% (127/360) and the prevalence DU patients was significantly greater than that in gastric cancer or GU patients (45.5% vs. 24.1% and 23.4%, <it>P </it>< 0.05). Patients infected with <it>dupA</it>-positive strains had higher scores for chronic inflammation compared to those with <it>dupA</it>-negative strains (2.36 vs. 2.24, p = 0.058). The presence of <it>dupA </it>was not associated with the <it>cagA</it>, <it>vacA, iceA </it>and <it>babA 2 </it>genotypes or with IL-1β polymorphisms.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>In China the prevalence of <it>dupA </it>gene was highest in DU and inversely related to GU and gastric cancer.</p