Färgperception och grafisk profilering av Hedemora Assistansservie

An inquiring study of literature has been conducted, about the human colour perception (theimpression of colours). The colour has been examined, both as conscious and subconscious signal,and reasons for it’s influence have been exammed.The practical parts of the degree project have been carried out in active collaboration with thecustomer, The Association Hedemora Assistansservice (HASS), which offers handicapped persons astimulating spare time by personal assistance. A graphical profile-programme and an informationfolderhave been produced, easy received by both handicapped (with defective vision) and normallysighted persons. The graphical profile-programme was made in collaboration with the customer.Concerning the information-folder HASS took the main responsibility for the choice of photographswhile layout, text writing, colour-reproduction, original-production and connecting printing workswere made independently. The customer has shown engagement and interest and had a lot of opinionsabout the degree project, of which have been paid attention.

MACHINE VISION FOR AUTOMATICVISUAL INSPECTION OF WOODENRAILWAY SLEEPERS USING UNSUPERVISED NEURAL NETWORKS

The motivation for this thesis work is the need for improving reliability of equipment and quality of service to railway passengers as well as a requirement for cost-effective and efficient condition maintenance management for rail transportation. This thesis work develops a fusion of various machine vision analysis methods to achieve high performance in automation of wooden rail track inspection.The condition monitoring in rail transport is done manually by a human operator where people rely on inference systems and assumptions to develop conclusions. The use of conditional monitoring allows maintenance to be scheduled, or other actions to be taken to avoid the consequences of failure, before the failure occurs. Manual or automated condition monitoring of materials in fields of public transportation like railway, aerial navigation, traffic safety, etc, where safety is of prior importance needs non-destructive testing (NDT).In general, wooden railway sleeper inspection is done manually by a human operator, by moving along the rail sleeper and gathering information by visual and sound analysis for examining the presence of cracks. Human inspectors working on lines visually inspect wooden rails to judge the quality of rail sleeper. In this project work the machine vision system is developed based on the manual visual analysis system, which uses digital cameras and image processing software to perform similar manual inspections. As the manual inspection requires much effort and is expected to be error prone sometimes and also appears difficult to discriminate even for a human operator by the frequent changes in inspected material. The machine vision system developed classifies the condition of material by examining individual pixels of images, processing them and attempting to develop conclusions with the assistance of knowledge bases and features.A pattern recognition approach is developed based on the methodological knowledge from manual procedure. The pattern recognition approach for this thesis work was developed and achieved by a non destructive testing method to identify the flaws in manually done condition monitoring of sleepers.In this method, a test vehicle is designed to capture sleeper images similar to visual inspection by human operator and the raw data for pattern recognition approach is provided from the captured images of the wooden sleepers. The data from the NDT method were further processed and appropriate features were extracted.The collection of data by the NDT method is to achieve high accuracy in reliable classification results. A key idea is to use the non supervised classifier based on the features extracted from the method to discriminate the condition of wooden sleepers in to either good or bad. Self organising map is used as classifier for the wooden sleeper classification.In order to achieve greater integration, the data collected by the machine vision system was made to interface with one another by a strategy called fusion. Data fusion was looked in at two different levels namely sensor-level fusion, feature- level fusion. As the goal was to reduce the accuracy of the human error on the rail sleeper classification as good or bad the results obtained by the feature-level fusion compared to that of the results of actual classification were satisfactory.

Visuell utvärdering av frekvensmodulerat raster på obestruket papper.

This thesis investigated if a combination of increased under colour removal (decreasing the total ink limit), normal andincreased density and modern FM-screening could be used to provide a visually better print on uncoated and coated paperin comparison with AM-screening using the same conditions.Two different test groups (one with graphic background, the other with no graphic background) were asked to a visuallyassess the quality of the prints presented in a pair comparison using a reference image.The results show that the FM-screening did not obtain any significant visual difference in comparison with AM-screening,regardless of paper types and density levels. In general however, prints on coated paper were graded higher.

Optiska egenskapers påverkanav möjligheten att trycka eftermålvärden i ISO 12647-2.

This thesis investigates how the optical properties of paperboard influences printing with targets in ISO 12647-2. The targets for optical properties in ISO 12647-2 are defined for paperboard without optical brightening agents and fluorescent brightening agents wich makes it difficult to reach the targets when printing paperboard containing these agents.Seven different types of paperboard, some with and some without the agents, have been printed and instrumentally andvisually measured to see if there is any deviation from the standard targets and if it shows visually.The result shows that paperboard containing optical brightening agents and fluorescent brightening agents can print with targets in ISO 12647-2 but in many measurments the difference between the types of paperboard were to small to assess. The differences between the types of paperboard in the instrumental measurements did not fully correspond with the waythe panel appraised them visually.

Visuell Perception : En studie av visuella faktorer kring ett musikaliskt framträdande

The essay investigates the visual element as seen by the audience and artist to be of greatest importance to a musicalperformance. The study was conducted in the form of a field work which included doing interviews with artists, surveys of the audience and interpretive observations of live performance. The fieldwork was conducted in three different environments in which I found myself on the spot and performed the various stages included in the field work. It was done to create a surface that could be used in an essay, and through that use this material to compare and analyze my results and in the end be able to answer my questions. I started from eight different factors which all could beexperienced visually on stage. The factors were light / colors, costumes, props, effects, stage presence, attitude / image, nervousness and dance / body language. Those factors would then be examined in the various musical performances and to be answered by the audience and performers which of those factors they considered to be of great importance or small importance when it comes to visual perception in a musical context. The result was a clear statement where two factors were considered to be most crucial for a musical performance, and a clear statement in which two factors were considered by the majority to be less important. The results demonstrate a common understanding what the artist and the audience thinks is important. A result that can act as a template for what an artist should think about regarding the visual elements before an performance. My theory is my assumption that the visual elements of musical performances can play an important or decisive role, an assumption that was strengthened by my empirical experiences at a concert visit. I wanted in this essay explore and give a clear picture of what it is that artists and audiences consider to be visually crucial for a musical context

Developing Optical Character Recoginition for Ethiopic Scripts

The Amharic language is the Official language of over 70 million people mainly in Ethiopia. An extensive literature survey and the government report reveal no single Amharic character recognition is found in the country. The Amharic script has 33 basic characters each with seven orders giving 310 distinct characters, including numbers and punctuation symbols. The characters are visually similar; there is a typeface, but no capitalization. Beside this there is no any standard font to use the language in the computer but they use different fonts developed by different stakeholders without keeping a standard on their own way and interest and this create a problem of incompatibility between different fonts and documents.This project is to investigate the reason why Amharic optical character recognition is not addressed by local and international researchers and developers and finally to develop Amharic optical character recognition uses the features and facilities of Microsoft windows Vista or 7 using Unicode standard.

Automatic and objective assessment of alternating tapping performance in Parkinson’s disease

This paper presents the development and evaluation of a method for enabling quantitative and automatic scoring of alternating tapping performance of patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD). Ten healthy elderly subjects and 95 patients in different clinical stages of PD have utilized a touch-pad handheld computer to perform alternate tapping tests in their home environments. First, a neurologist used a web-based system to visually assess impairments in four tapping dimensions (‘speed’, ‘accuracy’, ‘fatigue’ and ‘arrhythmia’) and a global tapping severity (GTS). Second, tapping signals were processed with time series analysis and statistical methods to derive 24 quantitative parameters. Third, principal component analysis was used to reduce the dimensions of these parameters and to obtain scores for the four dimensions. Finally, a logistic regression classifier was trained using a 10-fold stratified cross-validation to map the reduced parameters to the corresponding visually assessed GTS scores. Results showed that the computed scores correlated well to visually assessed scores and were significantly different across Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale scores of upper limb motor performance. In addition, they had good internal consistency, had good ability to discriminate between healthy elderly and patients in different disease stages, had good sensitivity to treatment interventions and could reflect the natural disease progression over time. In conclusion, the automatic method can be useful to objectively assess the tapping performance of PD patients and can be included in telemedicine tools for remote monitoring of tapping.

Rekrytering av kreatörer och portfolions betydelse : En enkätundersökning med femtio svenska kommunikationsbyråer

Inom kommunikationsbranschen råder det hög konkurrens om arbeten för både nyutexaminerade arbetssökande och de med erfarenhet. En viktig del i ansök-ningshandlingarna är en portfolio som visuellt visar personens kompetens och talang.Denna kvantitativa studie har genom en webbenkät med 50 byråer inom kom-munikationsbranschen undersökt hur de rekryterar ny personal samt deras per-spektiv kring portfolion i samband med detta. Studien har även syftat till att belysa skillnader i svaren beroende på byråernas storlek.Resultaten från enkäten visade att den vanligaste kanalen vid anställning inom kommunikationsbranschen är via personliga kontakter och att det är portfolions kvalité som väger tyngst vid anställning. Vid ansökan föredrog byråerna en digital portfolio men vid en arbetsintervju såg de helst en kombination av en fysisk och digital portfolio. Mindre skillnader fanns i svaren beroende på byrå-storleken.

Automatic spiral analysis for objective assessment of motor symptoms in Parkinson's disease

Objective: To develop a method for objective quantification of PD motor symptoms related to Off episodes and peak dose dyskinesias, using spiral data gathered by using a touch screen telemetry device. The aim was to objectively characterize predominant motor phenotypes (bradykinesia and dyskinesia), to help in automating the process of visual interpretation of movement anomalies in spirals as rated by movement disorder specialists. Background: A retrospective analysis was conducted on recordings from 65 patients with advanced idiopathic PD from nine different clinics in Sweden, recruited from January 2006 until August 2010. In addition to the patient group, 10 healthy elderly subjects were recruited. Upper limb movement data were collected using a touch screen telemetry device from home environments of the subjects. Measurements with the device were performed four times per day during week-long test periods. On each test occasion, the subjects were asked to trace pre-drawn Archimedean spirals, using the dominant hand. The pre-drawn spiral was shown on the screen of the device. The spiral test was repeated three times per test occasion and they were instructed to complete it within 10 seconds. The device had a sampling rate of 10Hz and measured both position and time-stamps (in milliseconds) of the pen tip. Methods: Four independent raters (FB, DH, AJ and DN) used a web interface that animated the spiral drawings and allowed them to observe different kinematic features during the drawing process and to rate task performance. Initially, a number of kinematic features were assessed including ‘impairment’, ‘speed’, ‘irregularity’ and ‘hesitation’ followed by marking the predominant motor phenotype on a 3-category scale: tremor, bradykinesia and/or choreatic dyskinesia. There were only 2 test occasions for which all the four raters either classified them as tremor or could not identify the motor phenotype. Therefore, the two main motor phenotype categories were bradykinesia and dyskinesia. ‘Impairment’ was rated on a scale from 0 (no impairment) to 10 (extremely severe) whereas ‘speed’, ‘irregularity’ and ‘hesitation’ were rated on a scale from 0 (normal) to 4 (extremely severe). The proposed data-driven method consisted of the following steps. Initially, 28 spatiotemporal features were extracted from the time series signals before being presented to a Multilayer Perceptron (MLP) classifier. The features were based on different kinematic quantities of spirals including radius, angle, speed and velocity with the aim of measuring the severity of involuntary symptoms and discriminate between PD-specific (bradykinesia) and/or treatment-induced symptoms (dyskinesia). A Principal Component Analysis was applied on the features to reduce their dimensions where 4 relevant principal components (PCs) were retained and used as inputs to the MLP classifier. Finally, the MLP classifier mapped these components to the corresponding visually assessed motor phenotype scores for automating the process of scoring the bradykinesia and dyskinesia in PD patients whilst they draw spirals using the touch screen device. For motor phenotype (bradykinesia vs. dyskinesia) classification, the stratified 10-fold cross validation technique was employed. Results: There were good agreements between the four raters when rating the individual kinematic features with intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC) of 0.88 for ‘impairment’, 0.74 for ‘speed’, 0.70 for ‘irregularity’, and moderate agreements when rating ‘hesitation’ with an ICC of 0.49. When assessing the two main motor phenotype categories (bradykinesia or dyskinesia) in animated spirals the agreements between the four raters ranged from fair to moderate. There were good correlations between mean ratings of the four raters on individual kinematic features and computed scores. The MLP classifier classified the motor phenotype that is bradykinesia or dyskinesia with an accuracy of 85% in relation to visual classifications of the four movement disorder specialists. The test-retest reliability of the four PCs across the three spiral test trials was good with Cronbach’s Alpha coefficients of 0.80, 0.82, 0.54 and 0.49, respectively. These results indicate that the computed scores are stable and consistent over time. Significant differences were found between the two groups (patients and healthy elderly subjects) in all the PCs, except for the PC3. Conclusions: The proposed method automatically assessed the severity of unwanted symptoms and could reasonably well discriminate between PD-specific and/or treatment-induced motor symptoms, in relation to visual assessments of movement disorder specialists. The objective assessments could provide a time-effect summary score that could be useful for improving decision-making during symptom evaluation of individualized treatment when the goal is to maximize functional On time for patients while minimizing their Off episodes and troublesome dyskinesias.

Automatic spiral analysis for objective assessment of motor symptoms in Parkinson's disease

A challenge for the clinical management of advanced Parkinson’s disease (PD) patients is the emergence of fluctuations in motor performance, which represents a significant source of disability during activities of daily living of the patients. There is a lack of objective measurement of treatment effects for in-clinic and at-home use that can provide an overview of the treatment response. The objective of this paper was to develop a method for objective quantification of advanced PD motor symptoms related to off episodes and peak dose dyskinesia, using spiral data gathered by a touch screen telemetry device. More specifically, the aim was to objectively characterize motor symptoms (bradykinesia and dyskinesia), to help in automating the process of visual interpretation of movement anomalies in spirals as rated by movement disorder specialists. Digitized upper limb movement data of 65 advanced PD patients and 10 healthy (HE) subjects were recorded as they performed spiral drawing tasks on a touch screen device in their home environment settings. Several spatiotemporal features were extracted from the time series and used as inputs to machine learning methods. The methods were validated against ratings on animated spirals scored by four movement disorder specialists who visually assessed a set of kinematic features and the motor symptom. The ability of the method to discriminate between PD patients and HE subjects and the test-retest reliability of the computed scores were also evaluated. Computed scores correlated well with mean visual ratings of individual kinematic features. The best performing classifier (Multilayer Perceptron) classified the motor symptom (bradykinesia or dyskinesia) with an accuracy of 84% and area under the receiver operating characteristics curve of 0.86 in relation to visual classifications of the raters. In addition, the method provided high discriminating power when distinguishing between PD patients and HE subjects as well as had good test-retest reliability. This study demonstrated the potential of using digital spiral analysis for objective quantification of PD-specific and/or treatment-induced motor symptoms.

Monitoring vegetation on railway embankments : supporting maintenance decisions

The national railway administrations in Scandinavia, Germany, and Austria mainly resort to manual inspections to control vegetation growth along railway embankments. Manually inspecting railways is slow and time consuming. A more worrying aspect concerns the fact that human observers are often unable to estimate the true cover of vegetation on railway embankments. Further human observers often tend to disagree with each other when more than one observer is engaged for inspection. Lack of proper techniques to identify the true cover of vegetation even result in the excess usage of herbicides; seriously harming the environment and threating the ecology. Hence work in this study has investigated aspects relevant to human variationand agreement to be able to report better inspection routines. This was studied by mainly carrying out two separate yet relevant investigations.First, thirteen observers were separately asked to estimate the vegetation cover in nine imagesacquired (in nadir view) over the railway tracks. All such estimates were compared relatively and an analysis of variance resulted in a significant difference on the observers’ cover estimates (p<0.05). Bearing in difference between the observers, a second follow-up field-study on the railway tracks was initiated and properly investigated. Two railway segments (strata) representingdifferent levels of vegetationwere carefully selected. Five sample plots (each covering an area of one-by-one meter) were randomizedfrom each stratumalong the rails from the aforementioned segments and ten images were acquired in nadir view. Further three observers (with knowledge in the railway maintenance domain) were separately asked to estimate the plant cover by visually examining theplots. Again an analysis of variance resulted in a significant difference on the observers’ cover estimates (p<0.05) confirming the result from the first investigation.The differences in observations are compared against a computer vision algorithm which detects the "true" cover of vegetation in a given image. The true cover is defined as the amount of greenish pixels in each image as detected by the computer vision algorithm. Results achieved through comparison strongly indicate that inconsistency is prevalent among the estimates reported by the observers. Hence, an automated approach reporting the use of computer vision is suggested, thus transferring the manual inspections into objective monitored inspections