A morphological approach for segmentation and tracking of human faces

A new technique for segmenting and tracking human faces in video sequences is presented. The technique relies on morphological tools such as using connected operators to extract the connected component that more likely belongs to a face, and partition projection to track this component through the sequence. A binary partition tree (BPT) is used to implement the connected operator. The BPT is constructed based on the chrominance criteria and its nodes are analyzed so that the selected node maximizes an estimation of the likelihood of being part of a face. The tracking is performed using a partition projection approach. Images are divided into face and non-face parts, which are tracked through the sequence. The technique has been successfully assessed using several test sequences from the MPEG-4 (raw format) and the MPEG-7 databases (MPEG-1 format).Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

On sentential inheritance in Turkish: Is "Öyle" a prosentence?

A conspicuous explanation for sentential inheritance, i.e. the phenomenon of an expression’s taking over, in written or oral discourse, the semantic content of a full-fledged declarative sentence in toto, is given by means of the philosophically fabricated category of prosentence. A prosentence inherits the content of a previously (or only presumptively) uttered declarative sentence in analogy to a pronoun’s inheriting the content of a previously uttered noun – in other words, a prosentence is a sentential proform that functions similarly to the sentential variable employed in calculi of propositional logic. There are some expressions in natural languages that can be prima facie taken as instances of this category. This paper focuses on the instance of “öyle” in Turkish, and shows that the way “öyle” takes over sentential content in actual usage suggests a non-prosentential model of sentential inheritance, a model in which the inheriting expression functions rather as a pro-predicate, and the complementing (indeterminate) subject expression is ellipted. This pro-predicative-elliptical model employs a structurally more concrete and natural form, namely the traditional subject-predicate form, as the general and abstract form of a declarative sentence, which makes it a healthier alternative to the prosentential model based on the unnatural idea of a sentential variable

Action tube extraction based 3D-CNN for RGB-D action recognition

In this paper we propose a novel action tube extractor for RGB-D action recognition in trimmed videos. The action tube extractor takes as input a video and outputs an action tube. The method consists of two parts: spatial tube extraction and temporal sampling. The first part is built upon MobileNet-SSD and its role is to define the spatial region where the action takes place. The second part is based on the structural similarity index (SSIM) and is designed to remove frames without obvious motion from the primary action tube. The final extracted action tube has two benefits: 1) a higher ratio of ROI (subjects of action) to background; 2) most frames contain obvious motion change. We propose to use a two-stream (RGB and Depth) I3D architecture as our 3D-CNN model. Our approach outperforms the state-of-the-art methods on the OA and NTU RGB-D datasets. © 2018 IEEE.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

The Connection between M. A. Krapiec’s Existential Thomism and P. F. Strawson’s Analytic Philosophy

Christian humanism in the III millennium from the perspective of Thomas Aquinas’s philosophy can be developed by finding the common area between Thomism and other current philosophy trends, for example analytic philosophy. The common area for both: Thomism and analytic philosophy is not a new idea. According to John Haldaine (from St. Andrews University) now there is analytical Thomism, which connects the analytic traditions with Aquinas` thought and his followers. It tries to use the tools of analytic philosophy to investigate the philosophical problems of Aquinas’s philosophy. My paper presents an attempt to show what is common and what is different in both metaphysics: Mieczyslaw Albert Krapiec’s metaphysics and Peter Frederic Strawson’s metaphysics

Picking groups instead of samples: a close look at Static Pool-based Meta-Active Learning

©2019 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.Active Learning techniques are used to tackle learning problems where obtaining training labels is costly. In this work we use Meta-Active Learning to learn to select a subset of samples from a pool of unsupervised input for further annotation. This scenario is called Static Pool-based Meta-Active Learning. We propose to extend existing approaches by performing the selection in a manner that, unlike previous works, can handle the selection of each sample based on the whole selected subset.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Philosophical and Mathematical Correspondence between Gottlob Frege and Bertrand Russell in the years 1902-1904 : Some Uninvestigated Topics

Although the connections between Frege’s and Russell’s investigations are commonly known (Hylton 2010), there are some topics in their letters which do not seem to have been analysed until now: 1. Paradoxes formulated by Russell on the basis of Frege’s rules: a) „»ξ can never take the place of a proper name« is a false proposition when ξ is a proposition”; b) “A function never takes the place of a subject.” A solution of this problem was based on the reference/sense theory and on the distinction between the first- and second-level names (Frege). 2. The inconsistency in Frege’s system may be avoided by the introduction of: a) a new kind of objects called quasi-objects (Frege); b) logical types (Frege and Russell); c) mathematics without classes (Russell); d) some restrictions on the domain of function (Frege). 3. Since the inconsistency is connected with a class, what is class? In one of the letters, Frege compared a class to a chair composed of atoms. This approach seems to be similar to the collective understanding of a set (Stanisław Leśniewski). 4. Russell doubted that the difference between sense and reference of expressions was essential. Hence, Frege found some additional reasons to distinguish between them: semiotic, epistemological, from identity, and from mathematical practice. This discussion can be seen as a next step in developing the theory of descriptions by Bertrand Russell

Teens Read book trailers

The Teens Read website was developed as a tool for middle and high school students to use when making book selections. The website features award books from YALSA’s Best Fiction for Young Adults, YALSA Teen’s Top Ten, Iowa Teen Award, and Iowa High School book lists. Book trailers are embedded on each page to promote the books as well as an embedded preview for students to get a sneak-peak of the book before selection

Saliency maps on image hierarchies

© 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. In this paper we propose two saliency models for salient object segmentation based on a hierarchical image segmentation, a tree-like structure that represents regions at different scales from the details to the whole image (e.g. gPb-UCM, BPT). The first model is based on a hierarchy of image partitions. The saliency at each level is computed on a region basis, taking into account the contrast between regions. The maps obtained for the different partitions are then integrated into a final saliency map. The second model directly works on the structure created by the segmentation algorithm, computing saliency at each node and integrating these cues in a straightforward manner into a single saliency map. We show that the proposed models produce high quality saliency maps. Objective evaluation demonstrates that the two methods achieve state-of-the-art performance in several benchmark datasets.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

BCN20000: dermoscopic lesions in the wild

This article summarizes the BCN20000 dataset, composed of 19424 dermoscopic images of skin lesions captured from 2010 to 2016 in the facilities of the Hospital Clínic in Barcelona. With this dataset, we aim to study the problem of unconstrained classification of dermoscopic images of skin cancer, including lesions found in hard-to-diagnose locations (nails and mucosa), large lesions which do not fit in the aperture of the dermoscopy device, and hypo-pigmented lesions. The BCN20000 will be provided to the participants of the ISIC Challenge 2019 [8], where they will be asked to train algorithms to classify dermoscopic images of skin cancer automatically.Peer ReviewedPreprin

Multi-modality CT imaging of human bone for improved validation of subject-specific finite element analysis

INTRODUCTION Finite element analysis (FE) is a promising alternative to dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry for improved prediction of fracture risk as FE can incorporate bone density, geometry, and microarchitecture [1]. However, the accuracy of FE models is heavily influenced by the spatial resolution of the CT scan [2].  In this study we quantify the architectural differences in trabecular bone between different modalities, specifically high-resolution peripheral quantitative computed tomography (HR-pQCT) and micro-computed tomography (μCT), and measure their effect on the resulting FE models. METHODS Two cadaveric, human distal tibiae were imaged using HR-pQCT (XtremeCT, Scanco Medical, Switzerland), with a voxel size of 82μm. After imaging, four cubes, 10mm edge length, were cut and scanned using μCT (μCT-35, Scanco Medical, Switzerland.), with a voxel size of 20μm. During a sensitivity analysis, the μCT image data was segmented using a threshold based technique and resampled to voxel sizes of 40μm, 60μm, and 80μm to assess the effect of voxel size on the FE results. The FE results were statistical compared with a one-way repeated measures ANOVA and a Tukey’s post-hoc test. Based on the known location of each cube recorded during the cutting process, the μCT data was manually aligned to the larger HR-pQCT image, where mutual information registration was applied for accurate alignment.  Virtual cubes were extracted from the registered HR-pQCT data. All cube image data was rescaled to preserve the bone volume/total volume ratio. Subsequently, all image data was converted to hexahedron elements for FE analysis and subjected to 1% uniaxial compression (FAIM v6.0, Numerics88) in the x-, y-, and z-directions. The resulting FE data was compared with a two-way ANOVA, with Bonferroni multiple comparisons test. RESULTS The sensitivity analysis found no statistically significant differences in reaction force between any cubes with different resolutions when compressed in the z-direction. The mean percent error, when compared to the 20μm cube, for the 40μm, 60μm, and 80μm cubes was 0.06%, 0.45%, and 0.76%, respectively. In the y-direction, there were significant differences between the 20μm and the 80μm (p < 0.01; 62.51% error). When loaded in the x-direction, there were significant differences between the 20μm FE cube and the 60μm and 80μm FE cubes (p<0.05; respective mean percent errors of 121.27% and 182.83%). With increasing voxel size, the reaction force was overestimated. As shown in figure 1, the registration between μCT and HR-pQCT was successful. However, there were statistically significant differences found between the μCT versus HR-pQCT FE data in the y- and x-direction (p<0.01; 23.95% and 21.04% error, respectively) but none were found for the z-direction (p>0.05, 0.14% error.) Figure 1. Registered distal tibia (HR-pQCT - red) to the μCT acquired cubes (yellow). The registered image appears green in overlap. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS It was shown there is little difference in the FE results loaded in the z-direction upon rescaling μCT data (mean percent errors less than 0.8%). However, there are large changes in the non-axial (i.e. x and y) directions. It is recommended that μCT data be rescaled up to 40μm. In addition, it was shown that μCT data could be successfully registered to HR-pQCT (see figure 1). For a given resolution, μCT data is only comparable to HR-pQCT data in the z-direction. In conclusion, HR-pQCT may not be an ideal substitute for μCT micro-architectural data.  This study improves our understanding on the use of HR-pQCT imaging for quantification of bone micro-architecture