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This paper delves into the calculation of nuclear matrix elements for the two-neutrino double-beta (2νββ) decay, aiming to provide fresh insights. A novel toy model is introduced, merging the single state dominance (SSD) and higher state dominance (HSD) hypotheses. Drawing from the recent measurement of the shape factor ξ 31 2 v , our toy model anticipates a scenario of destructive mixing between the SSD and HSD states in the context of 2νββ decay of 100Mo. This finding is in accordance with our proton neutron quasi-random phase approximation (pn-QRPA) calculations, which also indicates cancellations between contributions from low-lying and higher-lying states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

CdS nanoparticles were prepared successfully using chemical precipitation technique. CdCl2 and Na2S were utilized as precursors for Cd ions and sulfide ions in aqueous media, respectively. The effect of reaction temperature, reaction time and PH values on the growth process of CdS particles were investigated realizing that 30 oC. 6 hours and PH of 11 are the best conditions for producing CdS nanoparticles. Structural features showed that CdS particles have a nearly spherical shape and the XDR measurement confirmed the presence of both cadmium and sulfur atoms in as-prepared particles. The bandgap energy was calculated from the Uv-Visible spectrum ∼2.66 eV, which is high compared to 2.42 eV (Eg of bulk CdS). XRD pattern showed that the zinc blend phase is dominated and the particle size was estimated at around 3.2 nm using the Scherrer formula. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Asiaticoside is the most active component of gotu kola plant (Centella asiatica L) which has been proven efficacious in the process of wound healing by increasing fibroblasts and collagen synthesis. Conventional drug form for treating wounds such as ointments, gels and plasters have many disadvantages including not penetrating and optimally absorbing into the tissues and relatively long healing process. Wounds treatments need carriers that can deliver asiaticoside with a good release profile so the effectiveness of wound healing can be optimal. Membrane nano-composite is a drug form that is similar to the body's extracellular tissue. It can help the wound healing process. This research is carried out to study the characteristics of membrane nano-composite made from PVA-chitosan mixtures as polymers and asiaticosides as active ingredients. Comparison of PVA-chitosan-asiaticoside mixture used is FI (5:0:1), FII (5:0.2:1), F3 (5:0.4:1) and F4 (5:0.5:1). The electrospinning parameters used include; collector distance is 10 cm, the flow rate is 0.3 mL/hr, the voltage used is 20 kV and the diameter of the needle used is 21 G. Then an evaluation of formula solution (pH, Viscosity and Conductivity) and evaluation for membrane nano-composite includes measurement of shape and morphology (FESEM). Membrane nano-composite that have been formed are then tested for the effectiveness of wound healing in vivo using rabbits. The results showed the increasing concentration of chitosan in the formula showed a difference in the morphology of the membrane nano-composite produced and the effectiveness of wound healing process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tyrosine is one of the important aromatic amino acids, the wrong metabolization of which usually results in severe mental diseases. Based on the simulation results it was observed that tyrosine molecules form fibril-like structures at high temperatures. In order to have a better understanding of tyrosine self-assembly, we developed a quantitative measure to analyze fibril-like shapes formed by tyrosine molecules. This was applied to 4 different temperatures and then was compared with the analysis from simulation data. As expected, tyrosine molecules indeed exhibit fibril-like structures at 350 K at a fast rate, which is perfectly in agreement with the analysis in literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Formation of minute burr through shearing process brings about some annoying problem relating to post-processing, accuracy of product and worker’s safety and so on. Therefore, restrain or control of burr size and shape is considered as one of the critical issues in shearing process, and so a lot of researches mainly to control burr height have been conducted until now. Previously, our research group had modeled a detailed shape of minute burr, which consisted of burr height, burr root radius, crack angle and die-side angle, and had investigated variations of these parameters using orthogonal four point two-dimensional observation using cut specimen. From these studies, a standard relationship between the way of burr shape formation in a meaning as an average pattern. Then, for deeper understanding of burr shape formation, it was thought that measurement of three-dimensional shape including distribution around the hole should be necessary. Therefore, in this study, three-dimensional measurement of minute burr shape was attempted using a laser microscope. Using a sample of mild steel sheet (SPCC) with a circle hole formed through punching process, angular distribution of a burr shape was measured three-dimensionally. By using laser microscope, height data of the specimen was obtained in orthogonal coordinate. On the bases of this data, noise removal, continuous approximation and coordinate transformation to polar coordinates were conducted. Through these procedures, distribution of three dimensional shape of minute burr could was finally obtained. The usefulness and problems of this measurement were discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whirling, in which a rotating workpiece is machined by rotating tools around the workpiece with an eccentricity between the centers of the workpiece and the tool rotations, has been generally performed in threading. The whiling mechanism is applied to polygon machinings in this study. In proposed machining, the ratio of workpiece rotation rate to tool rotation rate is set to be n : 1 to machine n polygon prism. An analytical model was established to control the machining shape. The cutting tests, then, were conducted to verify the presented machining with the analytical model. Machining examples of triangular, square and pentagonal prisms were demonstrated in whirling. The effect of the tool rotation radius on the curvature of the workpiece surface is discussed in measurement of the machined shapes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes methods that are aimed to solve face recognition tasks with an insufficient training set. These methods include: creation of a 3D model of a head that is based on a basic training set - three images of faces (profile, half turn, full face), placing and analyzing control points on a model, calculating distances between points (the ones not used in the creation of a model), which is followed by face recognition. The created 3D model allows acquiring additional images of faces (at different angles), which significantly increases the results of recognition of unknown faces, as compared to only using the basic training set. The proposed methods were tested on various images of faces. The results have shown that these recognition methods can be used in cases, when the initial information about the shape of the face is insufficient, for example, in forensics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Indirectly driven Symcap capsules are used at the NIF to obtain information about ignition capsule implosion performance, in particular shape. Symcaps replace the cryogenic fuel layer with an equivalent ablator mass and can be similarly diagnosed. Symcaps are good symmetry surrogates to an ignition capsule after the peak of the drive, radiation-hydrodynamics simulations predict that doping of the symcaps vary the behavior of the implosion. We compare the equatorial shapes of a symcap doped with Si or Ge, as well as examine the reproducibility of the shape measurement using two symcaps with the same hohlraum and laser conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To focus on objects at various distances, the lens of the eye must change shape to adjust its refractive power. This change in lens shape causes a change in the shape of the iris surface which can be measured by examining the curvature of the iris. This work isolates the variable of iris curvature in the recognition process and shows that differences in iris curvature degrade matching ability. To our knowledge, no other work has examined the effects of varying iris curvature on matching ability. To examine this degradation, we conduct a matching experiment across pairs of images with varying degrees of iris curvature differences. The results show a statistically significant degradation in matching ability. Finally, the real world impact of these findings is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Micro stereovision based on stereo light microscope (SLM) is used in Micro stereo measurement, in which stereo matching is an important part. In this paper, a new method for solving this problem is proposed by raising an optimized stereo matching algorithm based on Hopfield Neural network and color stereo image pair getting from SLM. In this method we firstly define the color similarity by using the internal association of RGB in a color image, and then combine it with Rank transform and the NCC algorithm to build the optimal stereo matching relations. At last, we use these relations to build the Energy function of Hopfield network combined with the inherent constraints of computer stereo vision. The experimental results show that the accuracy of stereo matching and noise immunity are partially improved by using Hopfield network algorithm compared to NCC algorithm. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper presents an objective evaluation of previously unexplored biometric techniques utilizing patterns identifiable in human eye movements to distinguish individuals. The distribution of primitive eye movement features are compared between eye movement recordings using algorithms based on the following statistical tests: the Ansari-Bradley test, the Mann-Whitney U-test, the two-sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, the two-sample t-test, and the two-sample Cramer-von Mises test. Score-level information fusion is applied and evaluated by: weighted mean, support vector machine, random forest, and likelihood ratio. The accuracy of each comparison/jusion algorithm is evaluated, with results suggesting that, on high resolution eye tracking equipment, it is possible to obtain equal error rates of 16.5% and rank-1 identification rates of 82.6% using the two-sample Cramér-von Mises test and score-level information fusion by random forest, the highest accuracy results on the considered dataset. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Reliably measuring the similarity of two shapes or images (instances) is an important problem for various computer vision applications such as classification, recognition, and retrieval. While pairwise measures take advantage of the geometric differences between two instances to quantify their similarity, recent advances use relationships among the population of instances when quantifying pairwise measures. In this paper, we propose a novel method which refines pairwise similarity measures using population cues by examining the most similar instances shared by the compared shapes or images. We then use this refined measure to organize instances into disjoint components that consist of similar instances. Connectivity is then established between components to avoid hard constraints on what instances can be retrieved, improving retrieval performance. To evaluate the proposed method we conduct experiments on the well-known MPEG-7 and Swedish Leaf shape datasets as well as the Nister and Stewenius image dataset. We show that the proposed method is versatile, performing very well on its own or in concert with existing methods. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Three-step phase-shifting is an extensively employed method for 3D shape measurement, especially for high speed 3-D image acquisition. However, since only three fringe images are used, the measurement result is susceptible to sensor and environment noise. In this paper, we propose a third harmonic injection technique for three-step phase shifting profilometry to reduce the error caused by the uncertainty noise. By adding a measure of third harmonic to the sinusoidal waveform, the amplitude of the sinusoidal fundamental component can be increased by 15.5-percent, which resulting in the reduction of the phase error caused by noise. Theoretical analysis, simulation, and experiment are presented to verify the effectiveness of the proposed technique. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Fourier Transform Profilometry using linear CCD array is proposed in this paper. The digital sinusoidal fringe pattern is projected on an object surface. The object is moved by a linear motor stage and the deformed fringe patterns are grabbed by line-scan CCD camera. The object's height distribution is measured by traditional FTP and π phase shifting FTP separately. Experimental results demonstrate that FTP using linear CCD array is effective for accurate 3D shape measurement. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In the parallel astigmatic confocal system, the in-focus positions of the whole-field probing points are extracted by means of searching the "zero" points at the detecting curves which come from the system's sequential images. A 3-D surface profile is reconstructed based on the "zero" points in the detecting curves, than the surface profile parameters of the microstructure are measured. Bi-cubic-spline interpolation curve surface fitting method is used to reconstruct the 3-D surface profile, which passes the in-focus position of the probing points. High subdivision rate can improve the geometric continuity and accuracy of the 3-D surface reconstructed. In the course of visualization measurement for the microstructure, the 3-D surface profile parameters are evaluated based on the points picked from the bi-cubic-spline interpolation curve surface rather than from the local triangular plane in the 3-D surface profile. The measurement accuracy for the 3-D profile parameters of the microstructure could be advanced. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Novel process control methodologies are required for SiGe gate recess structures that are used in IC manufacturing to enhance device performance. Metrology measurements of 28nm SiGe after-etch inspection U-sigma shaped and V-sigma shaped gate structures must be able to track subtle variations for several critical parameters, including SiGe-to-gate width, tip-to-gate width, sigma depth and recess depth. For production process control of these structures, a metrology tool must utilize a nondestructive measurement technique, and have high sensitivity, precision and throughput. This paper explores the capabilities of a new-generation scatterometry critical dimension (SCD) metrology tool to measure critical parameters and serve as a production process monitor for 28nm and beyond complex gate structures. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Twenty-high Sendzimir rolling mills (ZRMs) typically use small diameter work rolls to provide massive rolling force. Because of the small diameter of the work rolls, a rolled steel strip has a complex shape mixed with quarter, edge, and center waves. When the strip shape is controlled automatically, actuator saturation occurs in the shape actuator such as AS-U roll. These problems affect productivity and the quality of products made from the rolled material. We analyzed problems with the automatic shape control of ZRMs. The shape recognition performance was analyzed by comparing the measured and recognized shapes by multi-layer perceptron (MLP) method. In addition, neural networks were developed using the radial basis function (RBF) method, and are proposed to improve the shape recognition performance of the automatic shape control system in a ZRM. Through simulation results, we found that shape recognition performance can be improved by the proposed method based on RBF neural networks. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

3-D shape measurement techniques have applications in such diverse areas as industrial inspection, reverse engineering, robotic vision, computer graphics, medical diagnosis, etc. Structured light techniques based on sinusoidal phase shifting methods are widely used for 3-D profile measurement due to their measurement speed and accuracy. However, phase-unwrapping algorithms have difficulty in correcting phase unwrapping error due to random wrong order of fringe pattern in specular object. Therefore, it is difficult for the conventional phase shift approach to apply for 3D shape measurement of specular object. In this paper, we propose a novel color phase shift approach to allow to correct phase unwrapping error for specular object. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Image matching is the most important fundamental task in many fields, such as image sensing, video signal processing, computer vision, etc. Recently, the demand for high-performance image matching achieving sub-pixel registration is rapidly growing in many applications. We have developed an efficient image matching technique using Phase-Only Correlation (POC), which uses the phase components in Discrete Fourier Transforms (DFTs) of given images. In this paper, we briefly present fundamentals of our image matching technique and examples of the potential applications. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

We raise and investigate the following problems that one can regard as very close relatives of the densest sphere packing problem. If the Euclidean 3-space is partitioned into convex cells each containing a unit ball, how should the shapes of the cells be designed to minimize the average surface area (resp., average edge curvature) of the cells? In particular, we prove that the average surface area (resp., average edge 24 curvature) in question is always at least v3 = 13.8564. This estimate is improved further for Voronoi tilings of unit ball packings. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Software component identification is one of the primary challenges in component base software engineering. Typically, the identification is done by analyzing existing software artefacts. Considering object-oriented systems, many approaches have been proposed to deal with this issue by identifying a component as a high cohesive and loose coupled set of classes. However, this assumption leads to two main limitations: in one hand, the focus on simple metrics like high cohesion and loose coupling will not necessarily lead to good quality components. The need of high level quality characteristics for components is crucial. On the other hand, the identified components' external structure (provided and required interfaces) is missing. As a result, the identified components can hardly be reused, composed, packaged and documented. To overcome these limitations, we propose in this paper an approach for identifying components based on a fitness function to measure the quality of a component. To evaluate this function, we use quality and semantic correctness models. Also, we propose to identify the provided and required interfaces of a component. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

An innovative way of object shape representation using Density Histogram of Feature Points (DHFP) is introduced and used in this paper. We have named this method Enhanced Density Histogram of Feature Points (EDHFP). We use silhouette images where the image region ξ consists of only those pixels that correspond to points on the object and have a value one (1) indicating “on” pixels. We count the number of “on” pixels in rectangle boundaries around a centroid, in the event that there are no “on” pixels in a rectangle boundary then the value is zero. The similarity level indicator is introduced to form part of vector a representation of the object shape. This method of image representation shows improved retrieval rate when compared to Density Histogram of Feature Points (DHFP) representation method. This method is capable of grouping object shapes with high probability of being similar using the similarity level indicator before calculation of similarity distance. Analytic analysis is done to justify our method, experiments are conducted and we compared our results with the object shape representation by DHFP to prove EDHFP's robustness. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper we propose a new compactness measure which defines the degree to which a 3D shape differs from a perfect sphere. The new measure is easy to compute and satisfies the following desirable properties: - it ranges over (0, 1] and gives the measured compactness equal to 1 if and only if the measured shape is a sphere; - it is invariant with respect to translations, rotations and scaling. Compared with a naive 3D compactness measure, which consider the relation between the shape volume and surface area, the new measure performs better in the case of shapes with deep intrusions and in case of compound shapes. In contrast to such a compactness measure, the new measure depends on the mutual position of the components inside a compound shape. Several experimental results are provided in order to illustrate the behaviour of the new measure. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper we study a shape descriptor ρ(S) that is defined as the ratio of the squared distance between centroids and the squared diameter of shape S (i.e., a set in the plane). This descriptor has been discussed for more than ten years, but its behaviour is not yet well studied, thus hindering its wide-spread application. There are two open basic questions to be answered: 1. What is the range of ρ(S)? 2. How do shapes look like with large ρ(S) values? This paper answers both open questions. We show that ρ(S) values are in the interval [0; 1), meaning in particular that value 1 is not taken, that 1 is the best possible upper bound, and and we give examples of shapes whose ρ(S) values are arbitrarily close to 1. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper presents a measurement and analysis system of surface defects on sphere parts. The purpose of the system is a requirement to assure high quality of parts. In the system, the developed surface defect detection (SDD) system using laser and CCD camera with improved accuracy, flexibility and advanced measuring efficiency advantages, and the surface defect analysis are used to identify defects. The proposed surface defect analysis approach first uses an empirical mode decomposition (EMD)-based extracting algorithm to perform initial locating of surface defects and extract the possible defects. Then, the approach applies Canny edge algorithm to narrow down the search space of these defects, and backpropagation (BP) neural network to classify five defects with complex shapes, specifically, bulge, dent, abrasion, oxidation, and exfoliation defects. Once these defects are classified, 3D surface morphology of the extracted bulge and dent defects can be obtained and evaluated. Therefore, the system can work well for surface defects on sphere parts mentioned. Experimental results on measurement and analysis of a variety of the surface defects on sphere parts are reported to show the performance of the system. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This papers describes GroBa, a new lumen calibre measurement technique based on growing balloons. GroBa presents the advantages of cross-sectional based methods, as it is able to cope with irregular, non-tubular vessel structures, such as stenosis or aneurysms, but at the same time it is able to obtain precise calibre measurements even when the estimated centrelines are not accurate. Experimental results using phantoms and real subtracted full-body magnetic resonance angiograms show the potential of this work. GroBa is integrated into a fully automatic system that segments the vasculature, obtains its centrelines, measures the lumen calibre at each detected artery, and presents the calibre information in false colours in the maximum intensity projection exploiting the HSV colour-space; all without any human intervention. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Trabecular bone has traditionally been assumed to be composed of plate- and rod-like trabeculae. This paper proposes a method to numerically evaluate the appropriateness of this assumption. In a first step, local constancy of thickness is estimated by comparing the maximum and mean diameter of the maximum inscribed balls centered at the medial axis/surface that includes every local point. In a second step, deviations from null curvature at the medial axis/surface are locally measured by comparing the geodesic and Euclidean distances from a point to its neighbors in the medial axis/surface. Finally, these two measurements are combined in order to locally estimate the compliance of the dataset with the plate-rod model assumption. Experiments on synthetic datasets show that the proposed measurements can be used to decide the compliance of a 3D shape with the plate-rod model. Results on micro computed tomography images show that the plate-rod model is more valid for a vertebra than for a radius. Thus, especially for the radius, measurements based on this model should be complemented with the proposed measurements. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper presents a high-precision three-dimensional laser measurement system of an architectural structure by cooperative multiple mobile robots. This system is composed of three mobile robots, that is, a parent robot and two child robots. The parent robot is equipped with a three-dimensional laser scanner, attitude sensor, total station, and auto-leveling device. On the other hand, the child robots are equipped with six corner mirrors. The parent robot moves and stops repeatedly, and measures a three-dimensional architectural shape using the equipped laser scanner at several positions. Meanwhile, the child robots also move and stop alternately, and act as mobile landmarks for the positioning of the parent robot. By replacing or newly installing several devices/mechanisms, the precision of the proposed system becomes incomparably higher than our previous system. We report the system achieves quite high accuracy of 0.03 0.05 % of targets' size through indoor/outdoor experiments. We apply the proposed technique for the shape measurement system of tunnels under construction and verify that the accuracy of the developed system is as high as a conventional ground-fixed laser scanner. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The 3D shape measurement of a cloth is indispensable for a robot to autonomously handle the cloth. When a humanoid hangs a large cloth using its arm, the cloth is very close to its head and extends across a very wide field of view. A normal stereo camera mounted on the humanoid robot's head cannot capture the whole shape; however, a fisheye stereo can. Because the cloth is very close to the stereo cameras, the left and right images appear to be very different, which creates a correspondence problem. To resolve this problem, a novel approach that predicts the apparent shape on the left image from the apparent shape on the right image by utilizing the characteristics of hanging clothes is proposed. The results from an evaluation experiment that used an artificial target and actual cloth hung by a humanoid are introduced. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper is about an experimental set-up for tracking a ground moving mobile object from a bird's eye view. In this experiment, an RGB and depth camera is used for detecting moving points. The detected points serve as input for a probabilistic extended object tracking algorithm that simultaneously estimates the kinematic parameters and the shape parameters of the object. By this means, it is easy to discriminate moving objects from the background and the probabilistic tracking algorithm ensures a robust and smooth shape estimate. We provide an experimental evaluation of a recent Bayesian extended object tracking algorithm based on a so-called Random Hypersurface Model and give a comparison with active contour models. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper presents the practical implementation of a novel shape measurement and analysis scheme for automatic quality inspection of sheet metal parts with large and complicated curved surfaces used widely for manufacturing applications base on statistics. In the proposed technique, the online measurement system (OLMS) developed with improved accuracy, flexibility and advanced measuring efficiency advantages, and the shape error analysis are used to assure quality and to reduce manufacturing costs and rework. The proposed shape error analysis technique first uses a statistical method to determine the number of test-points with suitable sample size. Then, the technique uses centroid-based matching and flexible transversal matching to perform the geometrical adjustment, following a report on detected shape errors. Experimental results showed satisfactory performances of the proposed shape measurement and analysis technique in terms of speed, accuracy and reliability in manufacturing processes. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A method to identify the flexural rigidity and the initial curvature of a deformable belt object from its static images is proposed. Automation of assembly of belt objects such as flexible flat cables hasn't progressed because of the difficulty in estimating their deformation. Furthermore, they have the variation which impedes successful manipulation with a uniform trajectory. In this paper, we consider a procedure to identify the properties of each cable and to generate an appropriate trajectory for it just before its manipulation. First, a method to identify the flexural rigidity of a belt object from its one static image is proposed. Next, this method is extended to identify both the flexural rigidity and the initial curvature of the object simultaneously. Finally, an example of planning adapted to the variation of the object properties is shown. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

We propose robust affine-invariant contour descriptor and measure for shape matching under nonlinear deformations. The descriptor is formed by orthonormal configuration matrix of local contour. The geodesic distance on Grassmann manifold is used to measure similarities of shapes under locally affine transformations, which can approximate complex deformations like articulations. A rigorous perturbation analysis proves that condition numbers of configuration matrices are critical for robustness. Then a method to improve matching stability using the condition numbers is deduced. Commonly used contour matchers, e.g., dynamical programming and others, are all applicable to the descriptor to obtain satisfied matching. Experimental evaluations are given using both synthetic and real-world images. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

At present, micrometer is used for measure the shape edge of automobile airbag. There are some shortcomings in this method. The number of test points is limited. Test data is not comprehensive. Detection speed is slow and a fixture can only test a kind of airbag. The method of airbag shape edge detection based on image processing is researched in this paper. The image of airbag is collected by CCD, and then it is sent to the computer to be processed and segmented. The edge of image is extracted through Canny edge detection algorithm in order to acquire shape edge of airbag in this paper, and the image similarity degree are calculated to provide the information of matching in the template matching process. Finally the comprehensive test shape edge of airbag is realized. The experimental results show that the detection method is effective feasible, intuitive and clear. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper proposes a simple “prior-free” method for solving non-rigid structure-from-motion factorization problems. Other than using the basic low-rank condition, our method does not assume any extra prior knowledge about the nonrigid scene or about the camera motions. Yet, it runs reliably, produces optimal result, and does not suffer from the inherent basis-ambiguity issue which plagued many conventional nonrigid factorization techniques. Our method is easy to implement, which involves solving no more than an SDP (semi-definite programming) of small and fixed size, a linear Least-Squares or trace-norm minimization. Extensive experiments have demonstrated that it outperforms most of the existing linear methods of nonrigid factorization. This paper offers not only new theoretical insight, but also a practical, everyday solution, to non-rigid structure-from-motion. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, we present a method for accurately estimating the shape of an object by integrating the surface orientation measured by photometric stereo and the position measured by some range-measuring method. We first show that even if the knowledge of the reflectance/illumination is inaccurate, the first derivatives of the photometrically measured orientation can be accurately estimated at the surface points where they have small values. We propose a probabilistic framework to quantitate the (in)accuracy of the knowledge and connect it to the estimation accuracy of these derivatives. Based on this framework, we consider optimally integrating the surface orientation and position to obtain the object shape with higher accuracy. The integration reduces to an optimization problem, and it is efficiently solved by belief propagation. We present several experimental results showing the effectiveness of the proposed approach. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper presents a novel convexity measurement for 3D meshes. The new convexity measure is calculated by minimizing the ratio of the summed area of valid regions in a mesh's six views, which are projected on faces of the bounding box whose edges are parallel to the coordinate axes, to the sum of three orthogonal projected areas of the mesh. The complete definition, theoretical analysis, and a computing algorithm of our convexity measure are explicitly described. This paper also proposes a new 3D shape descriptor CD (i.e., Convexity Distribution) based on the distribution of above-mentioned ratios, which are computed by randomly rotating the mesh around its center, to better describe the object's convexity-related properties compared to existing convexity measurements. Our experiments not only show that the proposed convexity measure corresponds well with human intuition, but also demonstrate the effectiveness of the new convexity measure and the new shape descriptor by significantly improving the performance of other methods in the application of 3D shape retrieval. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper we propose a new framework to obtain 3D shape information of thin film rapidly. The conventional equipments based on reflectometry are not suitable for obtaining 3D overall shape information of thin film rapidly since they require more than 30 minutes to measure the absolute thickness for 170 points. The proposed framework is based on an image analysis method that extracts contour lines from interference fringes images using Canny edge detector. The absolute thicknesses for contour lines are measured and then a height map from the contour lines is obtained by interpolation using modified Borgefors distance transformation. The extracted height map is visualized using the DirectX 3D terrain rendering method. The proposed framework can provide 3D overall shape information of thin film in about 5 minutes since relatively small number of real measurement for contour lines is required. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Recent years, the spread of devices to output Three-Dimension information are progressing. Researches about Three-Dimensional measurement have been actively carried out as a part of it. In general, when using the active stereo method, distance calibration is needed to associate the distance value to the pattern which the projector exposes. In addition, it is possible to extend the field of view by using multiple cameras, but a transformation matrix is needed to synthesize, due to the difference in the camera coordinate system. In this study, we propose a method to perform the distance calibration and the calculation of the transformation matrix at the same time, and then performed a 360degrees Tree-Dimensional measurement using the proposed method. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Despite of intensive research on shape decomposition algorithms, their performance evaluation remains qualitative today. The intention of this work is to close this gap by proposing a general framework for quantitative performance evaluation of shape decomposition algorithms. The proposed framework is of supervised nature and based on a benchmark database from a large-scale psychological study with manually specified ground truth. We discuss various variants of dissimilarity functions for comparing two decompositions. A preliminary comparison study using five shape decomposition methods and an ensemble technique demonstrates the usefulness of our approach. In particular, the quantitative results well coincide with visual comparison of decompositions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, we address the problem of detecting occlusion boundaries from video sequences. We build a bi-directed graph whose nodes are line fragments extracted from superpixels's edges. Based on the graph, we compute a global occlusion saliency map by integrating motion, shape and topology cues into the framework of Saliency Network. Furthermore, with the structural information generated from the network, the property of structural consistency is proposed to prune the graph and refine the saliency map. Finally, we train a classifier to detect occlusion fragments combining the global saliency value and local edge strength. The detector outperforms the state-of-the-art on the benchmark of Stein and Hebert[8] by improving average precision to .80. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

While the skeleton of a 2D shape corresponds to a planar graph, its encoding by usual graph data structures does not allow to capture its planar properties. Graph kernels may be defined on graph's encoding of the skeleton in order to define a similarity measure between shapes. Such graph kernels are usually based on a decomposition of graphs into bags of walks or trails. These linear patterns do not allow to fully encode the structure of a skeleton on branching points, hence losing important informations about the shape. This paper aims to solve these two drawbacks by using an encoding of the skeleton taking explicitly into account the orientation of the plane and by decomposing the resulting graph model into both linear and nonlinear patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Aiming at the irregular and uneven feature of medical time series data, a novel algorithm based on piecewise slope transformation distance for short time series similarity measure is propose. We firstly do some preprocess based on algorithm for key points selected, make the data curve to zigzag shape, then, we measure the distance between two curves based on piecewise slope transformation algorithm. By experiments, conclusion can be draw that this new approach can measure distance rapidly and correctly, especially appropriate to short time series data. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A simple compact printed slot antenna fed by coplanar waveguide (CPW) with a pair of parasitic patches that are added in back side of antenna is presented. By embedding an H-shaped strip to the feed line and symmetrical inverted L-shaped strips that are connected to the H-shaped strip, the impedance matching has improved and the bandwidth (BW) is extremely enhanced. The total size of the antenna is 25×25×1mm3 and operates over the frequency range of 3–15.5GHz. For the fabricated antenna, omni-directional pattern is observed over the whole UWB frequency range. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In extended target tracking, targets potentially produce more than one measurement per time step. In recent random finite set (RFS) approaches, the set of measurements obtained from an extended target is modelled as a point process. In this paper, we expand on the RFS approach to extended target tracking by considering a hierarchical point process representation of multiple extended target, more specifically a Poisson cluster process. This allows us to impose a geometric shape, in particular an ellipse, on each extended target. The set of target states, which are characterised by the kinematic variables and the shape parameters, represents the higher level (parent) process and the set of points on the boundary, from which measurements are generated, represents the lower level (daughter) process. We describe the PHD filter for multiple extended targets, whose extents vary in size, that estimates the shape parameters of the targets jointly with their positions and velocities. The main contribution of this paper is the practical implementation we propose, based on a particle-system representation for the targets' shape and a Gaussian mixture formulation for the kinematic state per particle. The method is demonstrated on simulated data for multiple elliptical shaped extended targets. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Positioning stages are widely used for a variety of machinery. They are usually mounted on a heavy base, which is supported by soft springs for vibration isolation. Then motion of a positioning stage induces vibration into the whole system, including the positioning stage and the base structure, due to the inertial-reactive force effect, as well as the vertical moving-load effect. This paper investigates the vibration behavior and a vibration suppression method for a positioning-system base caused by the stage motion. A vibration suppression method is applied to reduce the residual vibrations in the base structure by modifying the velocity command for positioning stage using command shaping. Simulations are performed to find a command shaper appropriate for this problem. Experiments show that the proposed command shaping technique effectively removes the residual vibrations from the positioning-stage base and that command shaping can enhance the positioning accuracy of stage. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Image segmentation plays a critical role in medical imaging applications, whereas it is still a challenging problem due to the complex shapes and complicated texture of structures in medical images. Model based methods have been widely used for medical image segmentation as a priori knowledge can be incorporated. Accurate shape prior estimation is one of the major factors affecting the accuracy of model based segmentation methods. This paper proposes a novel statistical shape modeling method, which aims to estimate target-oriented shape prior by applying the constraint from the intrinsic structure of the training shape set. The proposed shape modeling method is incorporated into a deformable model based framework for image segmentation. The experimental results showed that the proposed method can achieve more accurate segmentation compared with other existing methods. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper we start with a family of boundary based shape measures IN(γ) = ∫γ(x(s)2 + y(s)2)N ds, N = 1, 2, …, defined for every curve γ given in an arc-length parametrisation x = x(s), y = y(s), s ∈ [0, 1] and placed such that the centroid of γ and the origin coincide. We prove IN(γ) ≤ 4−N, for all N = 1, 2, … which implies that the sequence IN(γ) converges quickly to 0 and, therefore the first few measures IN(γ) are most useful to compare shapes and to be applied in tasks like object classification, recognition or identification. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper presents a novel method for tracking multiple extended objects. The shape of a single extended object is modeled with a recently developed approach called Random Hypersurface Model (RHM) that assumes a varying number of measurement sources to lie on scaled versions of the shape boundaries. This approach is extended by introducing a so-called Mixture Random Hypersurface Model (Mixture RHM), which allows for modeling multiple extended targets. Based on this model, a Gaussian-assumed Bayesian tracking method that provides the means to track and estimate shapes of multiple extended targets is derived. Simulations demonstrate the performance of the new approach. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Histogram Probabilistic Multi-Hypothesis Tracker (H-PMHT) is a parametric track-before-detect algorithm that has been shown to give good performance at a relatively low computation cost. The original algorithm assumes a known target signature and provides joint detection and tracking. A recent advance has allowed for the estimation of a time evolving Gaussian signature. This paper introduces a non-parametric method for learning an arbitrary target signature. The two methods are compared on Gaussian and non-Gaussian targets. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]