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Semantic Similarity (SS) has become a long-standing research domain in artificial intelligence and cognitive science for measuring the strength of the semantic relationship between entities (e.g., words, documents). Several ontology-based SS measures have been proposed in the recent time due to their ability of mimicking the cognitive process of humans. Among them, intrinsic information content (IC) based approaches have shown a significant correlation with human assessment. The design principle of the existing intrinsic IC-based SS measures constrain themselves to be applicable in a single ontology. However, such SS measures can be leveraged within two ontologies with the help of identifying the most informative common ancestors (MICA) across the ontologies. Existing IC-based MICA identification algorithms follow string matching of the labels of the concepts. In this paper, we propose a novel intrinsic IC-based MICA finding algorithm that exploits two domain-ontologies for finding SS without using string matching of the labels. The proposed approach has been evaluated using a widely used benchmark dataset of medical terms. The experimental results show that the proposed IC-based approach can be a stepping stone to a new direction in the process of finding MICA over two ontologies. • An algorithm for finding Cross-Ontology Semantic Similarity between concepts. • Avoiding strict string matching for finding the most informative common ancestor. • Intrinsic Information Theoretic Knowledge-based paradigm followed. • Correlation Coefficient with human cognition has been measured. • Information retrieval becomes more effective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we propose a novel density-based radar scanning clustering algorithm. Its main objective is to quickly discover and accurately extract individual clusters by employing the radar scanning strategy. By using this algorithm, the number of clusters does not need to be specified beforehand. Two techniques are utilized in our proposed method. First, we use a fast mean-shift algorithm with adaptive radius and active subsets to effectively locate the centers, reducing the computational time significantly. Second, we employ the shape of the probability density function of the distribution of distances between a selected point and the other points in the data set. This is performed to determine the critical parameters of the radiuses of the fast mean-shift algorithm and radiuses of clusters. The new algorithm has four merits. It reduces the computational complexity, overcomes problems caused by high dimensionality, is capable of dealing with heterogeneous spherical data sets, and lastly, is robust to noise and outliers. After applying our proposed method to several kinds of synthetic and real-world data sets, the results indicate that the density-based radar scanning algorithm is efficient and accurate. • The proposed algorithm discovers and extracts clusters by a radar scanning strategy. • The number of clusters does not need to be given beforehand. • This algorithm reduces time complexity and solves high dimensionality. • It is capable of dealing with heterogeneous data. • It is robust and invulnerable to noise and outliers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Machine intelligence based automation plays a significant role in many modern applications, and vision based understanding is a significant element of this. To meet the goals of vision based understanding of images, segmentation plays a vital role through partitioning of regions of interest for further processing. Much research, including basic statistical and modern convolutional neural network based techniques, has been reported for segmentation. However, application based fine tuning is always essential for effective results in complex applications. In this paper, we have proposed a score-based mask edge improvement of Mask-RCNN to segment fruit and vegetable images in a supermarket environment. A modular score-based edge improvement head is proposed for Mask-RCNN to improve the segmentation of fruit and vegetable images. The edge difference between ground truth and estimated edges is filled with a pre-defined score proportional to the pixel-level difference. A cosine similarity based loss function is reduced to improve the edge details following segmentation. A significant improvement has been reported based on the proposed technique. • Cosine similarity based mask edge improvement for Mask-RCNN. • Fruit and vegetable segmentation in a supermarket environment. • Score-based mask edge improvement for effective segmentation of fruit and vegetables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

OneClass SVM is a popular method for unsupervised anomaly detection. As many other methods, it suffers from the black box problem: it is difficult to justify, in an intuitive and simple manner, why the decision frontier is identifying data points as anomalous or non anomalous. This problem is being widely addressed for supervised models. However, it is still an uncharted area for unsupervised learning. In this paper, we evaluate several rule extraction techniques over OneClass SVM models, while presenting alternative designs for some of those algorithms. Furthermore, we propose algorithms for computing metrics related to eXplainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) regarding the "comprehensibility", "representativeness", "stability" and "diversity" of the extracted rules. We evaluate our proposals with different data sets, including real-world data coming from industry. Consequently, our proposal contributes to extending XAI techniques to unsupervised machine learning models. • Rule extraction for unsupervised outlier detection models using OCSVM. • Design and evaluate alternatives over rule extraction algorithms. • XAI metric evaluation: comprehensibility, representativeness, stability and diversity. • Quantify quality of the explanations with XAI metrics for P@1 rules. • Measure the kernel influence in the number of rules generated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Deep learning for identifying papillary thyroid carcinomas and computing certainty. • Ensemble technique combines multiple deep CNNs to significantly increase accuracies. • GRAD-CAM method highlights dominant tissues for the discriminative decision-making. • Effectiveness of stain normalization methods on predictive performances is evaluated. • Proposed ensemble learning is superior to current models for automatic diagnosis. Accurately cytopathological diagnosis of Papillary Thyroid Carcinoma (PTC) is of importance for reducing costs and increasing efficiency of treatments. In this paper, we pursue that goal by introducing artificial intelligence (AI) for automatic classification of malignant PTC cell clusters from Fine Needle Aspiration Cytology (FNAC) processed by ThinPrep. High-resolution cytological images obtained with a 40 × objective lens digital camera attached to an Olympus microscope were segmented into fragments and then divided into training, validation, and testing subsets. Fragments are non-overlapped patches containing only regions-of-interest that cover informative tissue structures for making proper diagnoses. Deep learning CNN models were pre-trained and fine-tuned on large-scale ImageNet domain before they were re-trained on cytology fragments. Moreover, we proposed a method to compute certainty of the patient-level prediction that undoubtedly provides additional evidence for reliability and confidence of the prediction. Results showed that the best classification performance on digital FNAC images achieved using DenseNet161, obtaining a mean accuracy of 0.9556 (p < 0.01), a mean sensitivity of 0.9734, and a mean specificity of 0.9405 on yet-to-be-seen test-set. Ensemble learning findings suggested combinations of AdaBoost classifier with multiple CNN models boosted predictive performances, up to 0.9971 accuracy. Moreover, stain normalization introduced by Reinhard increased the predictive ability, outperforming histogram specification, and Macenko methods. Presented findings demonstrate deep learning can integrate into computer-aided diagnosis systems to support cytopathologists in accurate diagnosis of PTC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we present a method to use advance demand information (ADI), taking the form of request for quotation (RFQ) data, in B2B sales forecasting. We apply supervised machine learning and Natural Language Processing techniques to analyze and learn from RFQs. We apply and test our approach in a case study at a large after-sales service and maintenance provider. After evaluation we found that our approach identifies ∼ 70% of actual sales (recall) with a precision rate of ∼ 50%, which represents a performance improvement of slightly more than a factor 2.5 over the current labor-intensive manual process at the service and maintenance provider. Our research contributes to literature by giving step-by-step guidance on incorporating artificial intelligence in B2B sales forecasting and revealing potential pitfalls along the way. Furthermore, our research gives an indication of the performance improvement that can be expected when adopting supervised machine learning into B2B sales forecasting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Background information on social spam and the spamming process. • Social spam taxonomy comprising spam content and spammer account is outlined. • A review of social spam, Deepfakes, and spammer detection techniques is presented. • Several challenges, open issues, and future research directions are discussed. Online Social Networks are perpetually evolving and used in plenteous applications such as content sharing, chatting, making friends/followers, customer engagements, commercials, product reviews/promotions, online games, and news, etc. The substantial issues related to the colossal flood of social spam in social media are polarizing sentiments, impacting users' online interaction time, degrading available information quality, network bandwidth, computing power, and speed. Simultaneously, groups of coordinated automated accounts/bots often use social networking sites to spread spam, rumors, bogus reviews, and fake news for targeted users or mass communication. The latest developments in the form of artificial intelligence-enabled Deepfakes have exacerbated these issues at large. Consequently, it becomes extremely relevant to review recent work concerning social spam and spammer detection to counter this issue and its effect. This paper provides a brief introduction to social spam, the spamming process, and social spam taxonomy. The comprehensive review entails several dimensionality reduction techniques used for feature selection/extraction, features used, various machine learning and deep learning techniques used for social spam and spammer detection, and their merits and demerits. Artificial intelligence and deep learning empowered Deepfake (text, image, and video) spam, and their countermeasures are also explored. Furthermore, meticulous discussions, existing challenges, and emerging issues such as robustness of detection systems, scalability, real-time datasets, evade strategies used by spammers, coordinated inauthentic behavior, and adversarial attacks on machine learning-based spam detectors, etc., have been discussed with possible directions for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A bibliometric analysis on machine learning research in all engineering fields. • VOSviewer is employed to this study based on retrieved 3057 articles. • Research distributions of this topic are identified. • A detailed discussion on the knowledge bases, research hotspots and frontiers. In this work, we conducted a visualized bibliometric analysis to map the research trends of machine learning in engineering (MLE) based on articles indexed in the Web of Science Core Collection published between 2000 and 2019. The research distributions, knowledge bases, research hotspots, and research frontiers for MLE studies are revealed by using VOSviewer software and visualization technology. The growth of the literature related to MLE averaged 24.3% in the past two decades. A total of 3057 peer-reviewed papers from 96 countries published in 1299 different journals were identified. The USA was the most productive country, with 23.73% of the overall articles and 32.25% of the overall citations. The most active research organization was MIT, with 41 publications and 1079 citations, and the Journal of Machine Learning Research had the largest number of citations in the field of MLE. In particular, our findings indicate that the research issues of "random forests", "support vector machine", "extreme learning machine", "deep learning", "statistical learning theory", and "Python machine learning" formed the knowledge bases of MLE from 2000 to 2019, while the research hotspots focused on applications of machine learning benchmark algorithms. Burst detection analysis results showed that more burst keywords emerged and had a higher frequency of change after 2010. This study provides an insight view of the overall research trends of MLE and may help researchers better understand this research field and predict its dynamic directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• This paper introduces a deep Frequency decomposition model as a stock prediction model. • The role of introduced prediction model in the portfolio management is highlighted. • The Black-Litterman model is addressed as a proper response to the investors' subjective views. • The collaboration of the models above could make the intelligent asset allocation more effective. The boom of financial technology and artificial intelligence (AI) has influenced financial industry. Application of AI-based techniques especially deep neural networks in the stock market has drawn particular attention in recent years. Moreover, applying modern technology in finance has created new fields such as computational finance and intelligent asset management. Following this revolution, the present research aims to shed light on deep learning models in stocks analysis and apply theses analyses in portfolio management. To this end, we introduced a novel hybrid deep learning model for stock prediction and incorporated these predictions as investors' views in Black-Litterman asset allocation model. The finding indicates that the Black-Litterman portfolio based on the predictions of the hybrid CEEMD-CNN-LSTM model constructed portfolios with high return, low extreme allocation, and low risk. Furthermore, the Black-Litterman portfolios based on the introduced prediction model outperformed the mean-variance portfolio, equal-weighted portfolio, and the Black-Litterman portfolios based on the predictions of CNN-LSTM and LSTM. This remarkable performance could be attributed to each constituting model used in the hybrid model and portfolio formation strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We study fairness of AI algorithms in Privileged Group Selection Bias data settings. • A typical domain which often presents such selection bias is AI-based hiring. • We demonstrate that such selection bias can indeed lead to a high algorithmic bias. • We propose three in-process and pre-process fairness mechanisms. • Our methods improve fairness considerably with a minimal compromise in accuracy. An increasing number of decisions regarding the daily lives of human beings are being controlled by artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms. Since they now touch on many aspects of our lives, it is crucial to develop AI algorithms that are not only accurate but also objective and fair. Recent studies have shown that algorithmic decision-making may be inherently prone to unfairness, even when there is no intention for it. In this paper, we study the fairness of AI algorithms in data settings for which unprivileged groups are extremely under-represented compared to privileged groups. A typical domain which often presents such Privileged Group Selection Bias (PGSB) is AI-based hiring, which stems from an inherent lack of labeled information for rejected applicants. We first demonstrate that such a selection bias can lead to a high algorithmic bias, even if privileged and unprivileged groups are treated exactly the same. We then propose several methods to overcome this type of bias. In particular, we suggest three in-process and pre-process fairness mechanisms, combined with both supervised and semi-supervised learning algorithms. An extensive evaluation that was conducted using two real-world datasets, reveals that the proposed methods are able to improve fairness considerably, with only a minimal compromise in accuracy. This is despite the limited information available for unprivileged groups and the inherent trade-off between fairness and accuracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Uncertainty in decision-making systems by categorical data. • Preprocessing incomplete and ambiguous categorical attributes. • Uncertainty due to lack of pre-modelling explainability. • Subjective expert preference over a piece of evidence in categorical attribute. The uncertainty attributed by discrepant data in AI-enabled decisions is a critical challenge in highly regulated domains such as health care and finance. Ambiguity and incompleteness due to missing values in output and input attributes, respectively, is ubiquitous in these domains. It could have an adverse impact on a certain unrepresented set of people in the training data without a developer's intention to discriminate. The inherently non-numerical nature of categorical attributes than numerical attributes and the presence of incomplete and ambiguous categorical attributes in a dataset increases the uncertainty in decision-making. This paper addresses the challenges in handling categorical attributes as it is not addressed comprehensively in previous research. Three sources of uncertainties in categorical attributes are recognised in this research. The informational uncertainty, unforeseeable uncertainty in the decision task environment, and the uncertainty due to lack of pre-modelling explainability in categorical attributes are addressed in the proposed methodology on maximum likelihood evidential reasoning (MAKER). It can transform and impute incomplete and ambiguous categorical attributes into interpretable numerical features. It utilises a notion of weight and reliability to include subjective expert preference over a piece of evidence and the quality of evidence in a categorical attribute, respectively. The MAKER framework strives to integrate the recognised uncertainties in the transformed input data that allow a model to perceive data limitations during the training regime and acknowledge doubtful predictions by supporting trustworthy pre-modelling and post modelling explainability. The ability to handle uncertainty and its impact on explainability is demonstrated on a real-world healthcare and finance data for different missing data scenarios in three types of AI algorithms: deep-learning, tree-based, and rule-based model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent trends in intelligent manufacturing are transforming shop floor environments into digital factories, thanks to a pervasive integration of information and communication technologies in production lines. Industrial processes become the source of high-volume heterogeneous data, paving the way to create manufacturing intelligence by means of machine learning and data-driven methodologies. In such settings, predictive diagnostics play a crucial role, as they promise to predict future critical conditions in the production process. Unfortunately, the diffusion of data-driven predictive maintenance methodologies is limited by (i) the absence of timely ground-truth knowledge (i.e., class labels), required in the learning phase of data-driven supervised approaches, and (ii) the limited availability of data-mining expertise among application-domain experts, required to harness the power of machine learning techniques. Innovative data-driven services are needed to support domain experts in (i) applying powerful self-learning intelligent techniques with limited technical expertise and (ii) easily understanding results and choices operated by such intelligent techniques, to increase trust by means of transparency. To this aim, this paper presents UDaMP, an integrated platform to support manufacturing intelligence by providing a transparent, self-tuning, unsupervised discovery and assisted data labelling service for predictive maintenance, specifically targeted at cyclic industrial processes. UDaMP includes (i) production-cycle-aware feature engineering, (ii) unsupervised discovery of production-cycle categories, (iii) self-tuning of the optimal number of categories, (iv) human-readable characterisation of production-cycle categories, and (v) assisted data labelling for domain experts. Scalable clustering algorithms automatically discover groups of production cycles sharing common time-independent properties. A self-tuning strategy is integrated to automatically configure the specific input parameter and select the best approach for the data under analysis. Each cluster is then locally characterised through the data distribution of the top 10 most relevant features to support domain experts in uncovering its meaning. Experimental evaluation of UDaMP has been performed on real-world data collected in two different industrial settings. • Semi-supervised labelling of production cycles for predictive maintenance. • Wide applicability to any cycle-based production process without ground truth labels. • Exploitable by domain experts thanks to transparent self-tuning techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Accurate and Novel Session-based News Recommendations. • Development of a stream-based version of SimRank algorithm. • Providing News Suggestions over Time-evolving Graphs. Recommender systems are among the most widespread applications of artificial intelligence techniques. For instance, news recommender systems serve users in managing the overload of information they come across when accessing news portals. Obviously, in the news domain time-awareness of recommendation approaches are crucial. However, most of these approaches missed to consider user sessions, which group the items that a user interacted with. In this paper, we study the problem of session-based recommendations by running SimRank on time-evolving heterogeneous graphs. In particular, we construct a dynamic heterogeneous multi-partite graph and adjust SimRank to run on it by using different (i) sliding time window sizes, (ii) sub-graphs used for model learning and (iii) sequential article weighting strategies. We evaluate our algorithms on two real-life datasets, and we show that our method outperforms other state-of-the-art methods in terms of accuracy and diversity. The significance and impact of this work is important because it introduces to the research community of expert and intelligent systems, for the first time, a stream-based version of SimRank algorithm, which is able to run over time-evolving graphs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• CASTLE aims to combine local and global features to explain any AI system predictions. • Model's global knowledge, as rules, supports the local explanation generation process. • CASTLE estimates how clusters' representative points in uence predictions. • It supports any explanation type (e.g. rule-based, feature importance, counterfactual). With Artificial Intelligence becoming part of a rapidly increasing number of industrial applications, more and more requirements about their transparency and trustworthiness are being demanded to AI systems, especially in military, medical and financial domains, where decisions have a huge impact on lives. In this paper, we propose a novel model-agnostic Explainable AI (XAI) technique, named Cluster-aided Space Transformation for Local Explanation (CASTLE) , able to provide rule-based explanations based on both the local and global model's workings, i.e. its detailed "knowledge" in the neighborhood of the target instance and its general knowledge on the training dataset, respectively. The framework has been evaluated on six datasets in terms of temporal efficiency, cluster quality and model significance. Eventually, we asked 36 users to evaluate the explainability of the framework, getting as result an increase of interpretability of 6 % with respect to another state-of-the-art technique, named Anchors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A performance-based algorithm (HGS) is proposed for global search and optimization in real world. • HGS simulates the logic of the collaborative interactions based on individual hunger. • The extensive results on benchmark problems and real datasets have been investigated. • The proposed HGS is applied to engineering optimization to reduce the consumption. A recent set of overused population-based methods have been published in recent years. Despite their popularity, most of them have uncertain, immature performance, partially done verifications, similar overused metaphors, similar immature exploration and exploitation components and operations, and an insecure tradeoff between exploration and exploitation trends in most of the new real-world cases. Therefore, all users need to extensively modify and adjust their operations based on main evolutionary methods to reach faster convergence, more stable balance, and high-quality results. To move the optimization community one step ahead toward more focus on performance rather than change of metaphor, a general-purpose population-based optimization technique called Hunger Games Search (HGS) is proposed in this research with a simple structure, special stability features and very competitive performance to realize the solutions of both constrained and unconstrained problems more effectively. The proposed HGS is designed according to the hunger-driven activities and behavioural choice of animals. This dynamic, fitness-wise search method follows a simple concept of "Hunger" as the most crucial homeostatic motivation and reason for behaviours, decisions, and actions in the life of all animals to make the process of optimization more understandable and consistent for new users and decision-makers. The Hunger Games Search incorporates the concept of hunger into the feature process; in other words, an adaptive weight based on the concept of hunger is designed and employed to simulate the effect of hunger on each search step. It follows the computationally logical rules (games) utilized by almost all animals and these rival activities and games are often adaptive evolutionary by securing higher chances of survival and food acquisition. This method's main feature is its dynamic nature, simple structure, and high performance in terms of convergence and acceptable quality of solutions, proving to be more efficient than the current optimization methods. The effectiveness of HGS was verified by comparing HGS with a comprehensive set of popular and advanced algorithms on 23 well-known optimization functions and the IEEE CEC 2014 benchmark test suite. Also, the HGS was applied to several engineering problems to demonstrate its applicability. The results validate the effectiveness of the proposed optimizer compared to popular essential optimizers, several advanced variants of the existing methods, and several CEC winners and powerful differential evolution (DE)-based methods abbreviated as LSHADE, SPS_L_SHADE_EIG, LSHADE_cnEpSi, SHADE, SADE, MPEDE, and JDE methods in handling many single-objective problems. We designed this open-source population-based method to be a standard tool for optimization in different areas of artificial intelligence and machine learning with several new exploratory and exploitative features, high performance, and high optimization capacity. The method is very flexible and scalable to be extended to fit more form of optimization cases in both structural aspects and application sides. This paper's source codes, supplementary files, Latex and office source files, sources of plots, a brief version and pseudocode, and an open-source software toolkit for solving optimization problems with Hunger Games Search and online web service for any question, feedback, suggestion, and idea on HGS algorithm will be available to the public at https://aliasgharheidari.com/HGS.html. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The multi-agent defense and attack environment is reconstructed. • Several algorithms are applied to solve the considered problem. • We redefine the state space, the action space and the reward functions accordingly. • Comparison experiments are conducted to show the performance of the employed models. Learning to cooperate among agents has always been an important research topic in artificial intelligence. Multi-agent defense and attack, one of the important issues in multi-agent cooperation, requires multiple agents in the environment to learn effective strategies to achieve their goals. Deep reinforcement learning (DRL) algorithms have natural advantages dealing with continuous control problems especially under situations with dynamic interactions, and have provided new solutions for those long-studied multi-agent cooperation problems. In this paper, we start from deep deterministic policy gradient (DDPG) algorithm and then introduce multi-agent DDPG (MADDPG) to solve the multi-agent defense and attack problem under different situations. We reconstruct the considered environment, redefine the continuous state space, continuous action space, reward functions accordingly, and then apply deep reinforcement learning algorithms to obtain effective decision strategies. Several experiments considering different confrontation scenarios are conducted to validate the feasibility and effectiveness of the DRL-based methods. Experimental results show that through learning the agents can make better decisions, and learning with MADDPG achieves superior performance than learning with other DRL-based models, which also explains the importance and necessity of mastering other agents' information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• High-performance computing speeds up decision trees while consuming less memory. • Ensembled decision trees are explainable with a maximum satisfiability solver. • Ensembled decision trees can be verified against user specifications. This paper introduces a new high-performance machine learning tool named Silas, which is built to provide a more transparent, dependable and efficient data analytics service. We discuss the machine learning aspects of Silas and demonstrate the advantage of Silas in its predictive and computational performance. We show that several customised algorithms in Silas yield better predictions in a significantly shorter time compared to the state-of-the-art. Another focus of Silas is on providing a formal foundation of decision trees to support logical analysis and verification of learned prediction models. We illustrate the potential capabilities of the fusion of machine learning and logical reasoning by showcasing applications in three directions: formal verification of the prediction model against user specifications, training correct-by-construction models, and explaining the decision-making of predictions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Development of a fuzzy classification system to ascertain an overall health status. • Determination of human BPM, RR and rhythm analysis via robotic tactile sensing. • Determination of human CRT and health status via use of tactile sensing and vision. • Pilot study to evaluate accuracy of vital sign measurement and fuzzy triage on human subjects. The ability to quickly and accurately triage a person's medical condition in an emergency situation or other critical scenarios could mean the difference between life and death. Endowing a robotic system with vision and tactile capabilities, similar to those of medical professionals, and thus enabling robots to assess a patient's status in an emergency is a highly sought after characteristic in healthcare robotics. This paper presents a novel fuzzy triage system exploiting visual and tactile sensing, to equip a robot with the skills to accurately determine key vital signs in humans. There are three key signs of human health: respiratory rate, pulse rate (Beats Per Minute (BPM)) and capillary refill time. Using ground truth from a medical professional, the fuzzy triage system is trained and validated initially with informed synthetic data and then further evaluated using vital signs data collected from subjects in a pilot study. Results from this pilot study indicate that the fuzzy triage system is capable of classifying a patient's health using the novel approaches for collecting BPM, Respiratory Rate (RR) and Capillary Refill Time (CRT) which replicate, to some extent, the approaches used by medical professionals for measuring vital signs. Furthermore, the intelligent system proved capable of determining whether a pulse was regular or arrhythmic, whether respiratory rate was regular or irregular, and determining the subject's capillary refill time. Such results imply that this system could ultimately be used, for example, in a home assistance robot for elderly or disabled persons, or as a first responder robot. Ultimately the aim would be that these methods could be utilised by robotic systems in emergency scenarios or disaster zones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]