07171 Abstracts Collection -- Visual Computing -- Convergence of Computer Graphics and Computer Vision

From 22.04. to 27.04.2007, the Dagstuhl Seminar 07171 ``Visual Computing - Convergence of Computer Graphics and Computer Vision\u27\u27 was held in the International Conference and Research Center (IBFI), Schloss Dagstuhl. During the seminar, several participants presented their current research, and ongoing work and open problems were discussed. Abstracts of the presentations given during the seminar as well as abstracts of seminar results and ideas are put together in this paper. The first section describes the seminar topics and goals in general. Links to extended abstracts or full papers are provided, if available

Concentric mosaic(s), planar motion and 1D cameras

International audienceGeneral SFM methods give poor results for images captured by constrained motions such as planar motion of concentric mosaics (CM). In this paper, we propose new SFM algorithms for both images captured by CM and composite mosaic images from CM. We first introduce 1D affine camera model for completing 1D camera models. Then we show that a 2D image captured by CM can be decoupled into two 1D images: one 1D projective and one 1D affine; a composite mosaic image can by rebinned into a calibrated 1D panorama projective camera. Finally we describe subspace reconstruction methods and demonstrate both in theory and experiments the advantage of the decomposition method over the general SFM methods by incorporating the constrained motion into the earliest stage of motion analysis

The effect of elastic therapeutic taping on lumbar extensor isokinetic performance

Objective: To investigate the effects of elastic therapeutic tape when applied overlaying the lumbar extensors on different measures of muscle performance, compared to a placebo taping technique and a no-tape control. Relevance: Elastic therapeutic tape is frequently used as an adjunct to enhance athletic performance amongst athletes. However, limited research exists supporting its application on isokinetic performance of the lumbar extensor muscles. Methods: A cross-sectional experimental study. 21 participants received three taping conditions in a randomised order: elastic therapeutic tape, a placebo tape and a no-tape control. Peak torque, the time taken to reach peak torque and peak velocity were measured using an isokinetic dynamometer. Analysis: Friedman’s test and post-hoc Wilcoxon signed-rank test were used to determine the statistical differences between the three taping conditions. Level of significance was set at 0.05. Results: A statistically significant improvement in peak lumbar extensor torque was observed when comparing elastic therapeutic tape with the no-tape control (p 0.05). Conclusions: Results demonstrate that the application of elastic therapeutic tape overlaying the primary lumbar extensors significantly improves the maximal lumbar extension peak torque in healthy, asymptomatic adults

Development and first assessment of a questionnaire for health care utilization and costs for cardiac patients

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The valid and reliable measurement of health service utilization, productivity losses and consequently total disease-related costs is a prerequisite for health services research and for health economic analysis. Although administrative data sources are usually considered to be the most accurate, their use is limited as some components of utilization are not systematically captured and, especially in decentralized health care systems, no single source exists for comprehensive utilization and cost data. The aim of this study was to develop and test a questionnaire for the measurement of disease-related costs for patients after an acute cardiac event (ACE).</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>To design the questionnaire, the literature was searched for contributions to the assessment of utilization of health care resources by patient-administered questionnaires. Based on these findings, we developed a retrospective questionnaire appropriate for the measurement of disease-related costs over a period of 3 months in ACE patients. Items were generated by reviewing existing guidelines and by interviewing medical specialists and patients. In this study, the questionnaire was tested on 106 patients, aging 35–65 who were admitted for rehabilitation after ACE. It was compared with prospectively measured data; selected items were compared with administrative data from sickness funds.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The questionnaire was accepted well (response rate = 88%), and respondents completed the questionnaire in an average time of 27 minutes. Concordance between retrospective and prospective data showed an intraclass correlation (ICC) ranging between 0.57 (cost of medical intake) and 0.9 (hospital days) with the other main items (physician visits, days off work, medication) clustering around 0.7. Comparison between self-reported and administrative data for days off work and hospitalized days were possible for n = 48. Respective ICCs ranged between 0.92 and 0.94, although differences in mean levels were observed.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The questionnaire was accepted favorably and correlated well with alternative measurement approaches. This first assessment showed promising characteristics of this questionnaire in different aspects of validity for patients with ACE. However, additional research and more extensive tests in other patient groups would be worthwhile.</p

Multiple novel prostate cancer susceptibility signals identified by fine-mapping of known risk loci among Europeans

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified numerous common prostate cancer (PrCa) susceptibility loci. We have fine-mapped 64 GWAS regions known at the conclusion of the iCOGS study using large-scale genotyping and imputation in 25 723 PrCa cases and 26 274 controls of European ancestry. We detected evidence for multiple independent signals at 16 regions, 12 of which contained additional newly identified significant associations. A single signal comprising a spectrum of correlated variation was observed at 39 regions; 35 of which are now described by a novel more significantly associated lead SNP, while the originally reported variant remained as the lead SNP only in 4 regions. We also confirmed two association signals in Europeans that had been previously reported only in East-Asian GWAS. Based on statistical evidence and linkage disequilibrium (LD) structure, we have curated and narrowed down the list of the most likely candidate causal variants for each region. Functional annotation using data from ENCODE filtered for PrCa cell lines and eQTL analysis demonstrated significant enrichment for overlap with bio-features within this set. By incorporating the novel risk variants identified here alongside the refined data for existing association signals, we estimate that these loci now explain ∼38.9% of the familial relative risk of PrCa, an 8.9% improvement over the previously reported GWAS tag SNPs. This suggests that a significant fraction of the heritability of PrCa may have been hidden during the discovery phase of GWAS, in particular due to the presence of multiple independent signals within the same regio

07171 Summary -- Visual Computing -- Convergence of Computer Graphics and Computer Vision

Due to the importance of visual information for humans, visual computing is at the very core of the technologies enabling the modern information society. New and emerging technologies such as multimedia, digital television, telecommunication and telepresence, or virtual reality further indicate the tremendous potential of visual interaction with computers in the years to come. Typical for the field is the coincidence of very large data sets with the demand for fast, if possible interactive, user-adapted high quality visual display of the results. Furthermore, the user should be able to interact with the environment in a natural and intuitive way. In order to address the challenges mentioned above, a new and more integrated scientific view of Visual Computing is required that unifies the previously separate \u27\u27visual\u27\u27 disciplines of computer graphics and computer vision. Computer graphics is traditionally concerned with generating visual interfaces of computers and applications to the user. Computer vision focuses on enabling computers to understand and interpret visual information from static images and video sequences