A user supported object tracking framework for interactive video production

We present a user supported tracking framework that combines automatic tracking with extended user input to create error free tracking results that are suitable for interactive video production. The goal of our approach is to keep the necessary user input as small as possible. In our framework, the user can select between different tracking algorithms - existing ones and new ones that are described in this paper. Furthermore, the user can automatically fuse the results of different tracking algorithms with our robust fusion approach. The tracked object can be marked in more than one frame, which can significantly improve the tracking result. After tracking, the user can validate the results in an easy way, thanks to the support of a powerful interpolation technique. The tracking results are iteratively improved until the complete track has been found. After the iterative editing process the tracking result of each object is stored in an interactive video file that can be loaded by our player for interactive videos.

A distributed, semiotic-inductive and human-Oriented approach to web-scale knowledge retrieval

Web-scale knowledge retrieval can be enabled by distributed information retrieval, clustering Web clients to a large-scale computing infrastructure for knowledge discovery from Web documents. Based on this infrastructure, we propose to apply semiotic (i.e., sub-syntactical) and inductive (i.e., probabilistic) methods for inferring concept associations in human knowledge. These associations can be combined to form a fuzzy (i.e.,gradual) semantic net representing a map of the knowledge in the Web. Thus, we propose to provide interactive visualizations of these cognitive concept maps to end users, who can browse and search the Web in a human-oriented, visual, and associative interface.

The Dissociation of Location and Object Working Memory using fMRI and MEG

Visual working memory (VWM) involves maintaining and processing visual information, often for the purpose of making immediate decisions. Neuroimaging experiments of VWM provide evidence in support of a neural system mainly involving a fronto-parietal neuronal network, but the role of specific brain areas is less clear. A proposal that has recently generated considerable debate suggests that a dissociation of object and location VWM occurs within the prefrontal cortex, in dorsal and ventral regions, respectively. However, re-examination of the relevant literature presents a more robust distribution suggestive of a general caudal-rostral dissociation from occipital and parietal structures, caudally, to prefrontal regions, rostrally, corresponding to location and object memory, respectively. The purpose of the present study was to identify a dissociation of location and object VWM across two imaging methods (magnetoencephalography, MEG, and functional magnetic imaging, fMRI). These two techniques provide complimentary results due the high temporal resolution of MEG and the high spatial resolution of fMRI. The use of identical location and object change detection tasks was employed across techniques and reported for the first time. Moreover, this study is the first to use matched stimulus displays across location and object VWM conditions. The results from these two imaging methods provided convergent evidence of a location and object VWM dissociation favoring a general caudal-rostral rather than the more common prefrontal dorsal-ventral view. Moreover, neural activity across techniques was correlated with behavioral performance for the first time and provided convergent results. This novel approach of combining imaging tools to study memory resulted in robust evidence suggesting a novel interpretation of location and object memory. Accordingly, this study presents a novel context within which to explore the neural substrates of WM across imaging techniques and populations.

Effects of Motive-Oriented Therapeutic Relationship in a Ten-Session General Psychiatric Treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Background: Motive-oriented therapeutic relationship (MOTR) was postulated to be a particularly helpful therapeutic ingredient in the early treatment phase of patients with personality disorders, in particular with borderline personality disorder (BPD). The present randomized controlled study using an add-on design is the first study to test this assumption in a 10-session general psychiatric treatment with patients presenting with BPD on symptom reduction and therapeutic alliance. Methods: A total of 85 patients were randomized. They were either allocated to a manual-based short variant of the general psychiatric management (GPM) treatment (in 10 sessions) or to the same treatment where MOTR was deliberately added to the treatment. Treatment attrition and integrity analyses yielded satisfactory results. Results: The results of the intent-to-treat analyses suggested a global efficacy of MOTR, in the sense of an additional reduction of general problems, i.e. symptoms, interpersonal and social problems (F 1, 73 = 7.25, p < 0.05). However, they also showed that MOTR did not yield an additional reduction of specific borderline symptoms. It was also shown that a stronger therapeutic alliance, as assessed by the therapist, developed in MOTR treatments compared to GPM (Z 55 = 0.99, p < 0.04). Conclusions: These results suggest that adding MOTR to psychiatric and psychotherapeutic treatments of BPD is promising. Moreover, the findings shed additional light on the perspective of shortening treatments for patients presenting with BPD.

Extratropical fronts in the lower troposphere-global perspectives obtained from two automated methods

In this study two commonly used automated methods to detect atmospheric fronts in the lower troposphere are compared in various synoptic situations. The first method is a thermal approach, relying on the gradient of equivalent potential temperature (TH), while the second method is based on temporal changes in the 10 m wind (WND). For a comprehensive objective comparison of the outputs of these methods of frontal identification, both schemes are firstly applied to an idealised strong baroclinic wave simulation in the absence of topography. Then, two case-studies (one in the Northern Hemisphere (NH) and one in the Southern Hemisphere (SH)) were conducted to contrast fronts detected by the methods. Finally, we obtain global winter and summer frontal occurrence climatologies (derived from ERA-Interim for 1979–2012) and compare the structure of these. TH is able to identify cold and warm fronts in strong baroclinic cases that are in good agreement with manual analyses. WND is particularly suited for the detection of strongly elongated, meridionally oriented moving fronts, but has very limited ability to identify zonally oriented warm fronts. We note that the areas of the main TH frontal activity are shifted equatorwards compared to the WND patterns and are located upstream of regions of main WND front activity. The number of WND fronts in the NH shows more interseasonal variations than TH fronts, decreasing by more than 50% from winter to summer. In the SH there is a weaker seasonal variation of the number of observed WND fronts, however TH front activity reduces from summer (DJF) to winter (JJA). The main motivation is to give an overview of the performance of these methods, such that researchers can choose the appropriate one for their particular interest.

Motivational profiles of sport event volunteers.

Aim of the study Due to the valuable contribution made by volunteers to sporting events, a better understanding of volunteers’ motivation is imperative for event managers in order to develop effective volunteer re-cruitment and retention strategies. The adoption of working conditions and task domains to the mo-tives and needs of volunteers is one of the key challenges in volunteer management. Conversely, an ignorance of the motives and needs of volunteers could negatively affect their performance and attitude, which will have negative consequences for the execution of events (Strigas & Jackson, 2003). In general, the motives of volunteers are located on a continuum between selflessness (e.g. helping others), and self-interest (e.g. pursuing one’s own interests). Furthermore, it should take into account that volunteers may be motivated by more than one need or goal, and therefore, configure different bundles of motives, resulting in heterogeneous types of motives for voluntary engagement (Dolnicar & Randle, 2007). Despite the extensive number of studies on the motives of sport event volunteers, only few studies focus on the analysis of individual motive profiles concerning volun-teering. Accordingly, we will take a closer look at the following questions: To what extent do volun-teers at sporting events differ in the motives of their engagement, and how can the volunteers be ade-quately classified? Theoretical Background According to the functional approach, relevant subjective motives are related to the outcomes and consequences that volunteering is supposed to lead to and to produce. This means, individuals’ mo-tives determine which incentives are anticipated in return for volunteering (e.g. increase in social contacts), and are important for engaging in volunteering, e.g. the choice between different oppor-tunities for voluntary activity, or different tasks (Stukas et al., 2009). Additionally, inter-individual differences of motive structures as well as matching motives in the reflections of voluntary activities will be considered by using a person-oriented approach. In the person-oriented approach, it is not the specific variables that are made the entities of investigation, but rather persons with a certain combination of characteristic features (Bergmann et al., 2003). Person-orientation in the field of sports event volunteers, it is therefore essential to implement an orientation towards people as a unit of analysis. Accordingly, individual motive profiles become the object of investigation. The individ-ual motive profiles permit a glimpse of intra-individual differences in the evaluation of different motive areas, and thus represent the real subjective perspective. Hence, a person will compare the importance of individual motives for his behaviour primarily in relation to other motives (e.g. social contacts are more important to me than material incentives), and make fewer comparisons with the assessments of other people. Methodology, research design and data analysis The motives of sports event volunteers were analysed in the context of the European Athletics Championships 2014 in Zürich. After data cleaning, the study sample contained a total of 1,169 volunteers, surveyed by an online questionnaire. The VMS-ISA scale developed by Bang and Chel-ladurai (2009) was used and replicated successfully by a confirmatory factor analysis. Accordingly, all seven factors of the scale were included in the subsequent cluster analysis to determine typical motive profiles of volunteers. Before proceeding with the cluster analysis, an intra-individual stand-ardization procedure (according to Spiel, 1998) was applied to take advantage of the intra-individual relationships between the motives of the volunteers. Intra-individual standardization means that every value of each motive dimension was related to the average individual level of ex-pectations. In the final step, motive profiles were determined using a hierarchic cluster analysis based on Ward’s method with squared Euclidean distances. Results, discussion and implications The results reveal that motivational processes differ among sports event volunteers, and that volunteers sometimes combine contradictory bundles of motives. In our study, four different volunteer motive profiles were identified and described by their positive levels on the individual motive dimension: the community supporters, the material incentive seekers, the social networkers, and the career and personal growth pursuers. To describe the four identified motive profiles in more detail and to externally validate them, the clusters were analysed in relation to socio-economic, sport-related, and voluntary work characteristics. This motive-based typology of sports event volunteers can provide valuable guidance for event managers in order to create distinctive and designable working conditions and tasks at sporting events that should, in relation to a person-oriented approach, be tailored to a wide range of individ-ual prerequisites. Furthermore, specific recruitment procedures and appropriate communication measures can be defined in order to approach certain groups of potential volunteers more effectively. References Bang, H., & Chelladurai, P. (2009). Development and validation of the volunteer motivations scale for international sporting events (VMS-ISE). International Journal Sport Management and Market-ing, 6, 332-350. Bergmann, L. R., Magnusson, D., & El-Khouri, B. M. (2003). Studying individual development in an interindividual context. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Dolnicar, S., & Randle, M. (2007). What motivates which volunteers? Psychographic heterogeneity among volunteers in Australia. Voluntas, 18, 135-155. Spiel, C. (1998). Four methodological approaches to the study of stability and change in develop-ment. Methods of Psychological Research Online, 3, 8-22. Stukas, A. A., Worth, K. A., Clary, E. G., & Snyder, M. (2009). The matching of motivations to affordances in the volunteer environment: an index for assessing the impact of multiple matches on volunteer outcomes. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 38, 5-28.

VIRTOPSY--scientific documentation, reconstruction and animation in forensic: individual and real 3D data based geo-metric approach including optical body/object surface and radiological CT/MRI scanning.

Until today, most of the documentation of forensic relevant medical findings is limited to traditional 2D photography, 2D conventional radiographs, sketches and verbal description. There are still some limitations of the classic documentation in forensic science especially if a 3D documentation is necessary. The goal of this paper is to demonstrate new 3D real data based geo-metric technology approaches. This paper present approaches to a 3D geo-metric documentation of injuries on the body surface and internal injuries in the living and deceased cases. Using modern imaging methods such as photogrammetry, optical surface and radiological CT/MRI scanning in combination it could be demonstrated that a real, full 3D data based individual documentation of the body surface and internal structures is possible in a non-invasive and non-destructive manner. Using the data merging/fusing and animation possibilities, it is possible to answer reconstructive questions of the dynamic development of patterned injuries (morphologic imprints) and to evaluate the possibility, that they are matchable or linkable to suspected injury-causing instruments. For the first time, to our knowledge, the method of optical and radiological 3D scanning was used to document the forensic relevant injuries of human body in combination with vehicle damages. By this complementary documentation approach, individual forensic real data based analysis and animation were possible linking body injuries to vehicle deformations or damages. These data allow conclusions to be drawn for automobile accident research, optimization of vehicle safety (pedestrian and passenger) and for further development of crash dummies. Real 3D data based documentation opens a new horizon for scientific reconstruction and animation by bringing added value and a real quality improvement in forensic science.

Associating optical measurements and estimating orbits of geocentric objects through population-based meta-heuristic methods

Currently several thousands of objects are being tracked in the MEO and GEO regions through optical means. The problem faced in this framework is that of Multiple Target Tracking (MTT). In this context both, the correct associations among the observations and the orbits of the objects have to be determined. The complexity of the MTT problem is defined by its dimension S. The number S corresponds to the number of fences involved in the problem. Each fence consists of a set of observations where each observation belongs to a different object. The S ≥ 3 MTT problem is an NP-hard combinatorial optimization problem. There are two general ways to solve this. One way is to seek the optimum solution, this can be achieved by applying a branch-and- bound algorithm. When using these algorithms the problem has to be greatly simplified to keep the computational cost at a reasonable level. Another option is to approximate the solution by using meta-heuristic methods. These methods aim to efficiently explore the different possible combinations so that a reasonable result can be obtained with a reasonable computational effort. To this end several population-based meta-heuristic methods are implemented and tested on simulated optical measurements. With the advent of improved sensors and a heightened interest in the problem of space debris, it is expected that the number of tracked objects will grow by an order of magnitude in the near future. This research aims to provide a method that can treat the correlation and orbit determination problems simultaneously, and is able to efficiently process large data sets with minimal manual intervention.

The shorter the better? A follow-up analysis of 10-session psychiatric treatment including the motive-oriented therapeutic relationship for borderline personality disorder

OBJECTIVE: There is little research on short-term treatments for borderline personality disorder (BPD). While the core changes may occur only in long-term treatments, short-term treatments may enable the study of early generic processes of engagement in therapy and thus inform about effective treatment components. It was shown that a 10-session version of a psychiatric treatment was effective in reducing borderline symptoms at the end of this treatment [Kramer, U., Kolly, S., Berthoud, L., Keller, S., Preisig, M., Caspar, F., … Despland, J.-N. (2014). Effects of motive-oriented therapeutic relationship in a ten-session general psychiatric treatment for borderline personality disorder: A randomized controlled trial. Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, 83, 176-186.]. Also, it was demonstrated in a randomized design that adding the motive-oriented therapeutic relationship (MOTR), following an individualized case formulation based on Plan Analysis, further increased general outcome after session 10 and had a positive effect on the early changes in self-esteem and alliance. METHOD: The present study focuses on the follow-up period after this initial treatment, examining treatment density and outcomes after 6 months and service utilization after 12 months. Outcome was measured using the OQ-45. RESULTS: Results on a sub-sample of N = 40 patients with available OQ-45 data at follow-up (n = 21 for MOTR-treatment, n = 19 for comparison treatment) showed maintenance of gains over the follow-up period, which did not differ between both conditions. It appeared for this sample that MOTR treatments, while using the same number of sessions, lasted more weeks (i.e., lower treatment density, defined as the number of sessions per week), when compared to the treatments without MOTR. Density marginally predicted symptom reduction at follow-up. Patients in MOTR treatments had a greater likelihood of entering structured psychotherapy after the initial sessions than patients in the comparison group. CONCLUSIONS: These results are overall consistent with earlier studies on short-term treatments for BPD and underline the importance of individualizing interventions, by using case formulations that rely on idiographic methods and integrative concepts.

Benthic cover map of Heron Reef derived from a high-spatial-resolution multi-spectral satellite image using object based image analysis

Providing accurate maps of coral reefs where the spatial scale and labels of the mapped features correspond to map units appropriate for examining biological and geomorphic structures and processes is a major challenge for remote sensing. The objective of this work is to assess the accuracy and relevance of the process used to derive geomorphic zone and benthic community zone maps for three western Pacific coral reefs produced from multi-scale, object-based image analysis (OBIA) of high-spatial-resolution multi-spectral images, guided by field survey data. Three Quickbird-2 multi-spectral data sets from reefs in Australia, Palau and Fiji and georeferenced field photographs were used in a multi-scale segmentation and object-based image classification to map geomorphic zones and benthic community zones. A per-pixel approach was also tested for mapping benthic community zones. Validation of the maps and comparison to past approaches indicated the multi-scale OBIA process enabled field data, operator field experience and a conceptual hierarchical model of the coral reef environment to be linked to provide output maps at geomorphic zone and benthic community scales on coral reefs. The OBIA mapping accuracies were comparable with previously published work using other methods; however, the classes mapped were matched to a predetermined set of features on the reef.

Urban forest health survey on Roznik in Ljubljana in 2013 by two methods

Urban forest health was surveyed on Roznik in Ljubljana (46.05141 N, 14.47797 E) in 2013 by two methods: ICP Forests and UFMO. ICP Forests is most commonly used monitoring programme in Europe - the International Co-operative Programme on the Assessment and Monitoring of Air Pollution Effects on Forests, which is based on systematic grid. UFMO method - Urban Forests Management Oriented method was developed in the frame of EMoNFUr Project - Establishing a monitoring network to assess lowland forest and urban plantations in Lombardy and urban forest in Slovenia (LIFE10 ENV/IT/000399). UFMO is based on non-linear transects (GPS tracks). ICP forests monitoring plots were established in July 2013 in the urban forest Roznik in Ljubljana .The 32 plots are located on sampling grid 500 × 500 m. The grid was down-scaled from the National Forest Monitoring survey, which bases on national sample grid 4 × 4 km. With the ICP forests method the following parameters for each tree within the 15 plots were gathered according to the ICP forests manual for Visual assessment of crown condition and damaging agents: tree species, percentage of defoliation, affected part of the tree, specification of affected part, location in crown, symptom, symptom specification, causal agents / factors, age of damage, damage extent, and damage extent on the trunk. With the UFMO method, the following parameters for each tree that needed sylviculture measure (felling, pruning, sanitary felling, thinning, etc.) were recorded: tree species, breast diameter, causal agent / damaging factor, GPS waypoint and GPS track. For overall picture in the urban forest health problems, also other biotic and abiotic damaging factors that did not require management action were recorded.

Nonparametric Message Passing Methods for Cooperative Localization and Tracking

The objective of this thesis is the development of cooperative localization and tracking algorithms using nonparametric message passing techniques. In contrast to the most well-known techniques, the goal is to estimate the posterior probability density function (PDF) of the position of each sensor. This problem can be solved using Bayesian approach, but it is intractable in general case. Nevertheless, the particle-based approximation (via nonparametric representation), and an appropriate factorization of the joint PDFs (using message passing methods), make Bayesian approach acceptable for inference in sensor networks. The well-known method for this problem, nonparametric belief propagation (NBP), can lead to inaccurate beliefs and possible non-convergence in loopy networks. Therefore, we propose four novel algorithms which alleviate these problems: nonparametric generalized belief propagation (NGBP) based on junction tree (NGBP-JT), NGBP based on pseudo-junction tree (NGBP-PJT), NBP based on spanning trees (NBP-ST), and uniformly-reweighted NBP (URW-NBP). We also extend NBP for cooperative localization in mobile networks. In contrast to the previous methods, we use an optional smoothing, provide a novel communication protocol, and increase the efficiency of the sampling techniques. Moreover, we propose novel algorithms for distributed tracking, in which the goal is to track the passive object which cannot locate itself. In particular, we develop distributed particle filtering (DPF) based on three asynchronous belief consensus (BC) algorithms: standard belief consensus (SBC), broadcast gossip (BG), and belief propagation (BP). Finally, the last part of this thesis includes the experimental analysis of some of the proposed algorithms, in which we found that the results based on real measurements are very similar with the results based on theoretical models.

Object Kinetic Monte Carlo calculations of irradiated Fe-Cr dilute alloys: The effect of the interaction radius between substitutional Cr and self-interstitial Fe

ObjectKineticMonteCarlo models allow for the study of the evolution of the damage created by irradiation to time scales that are comparable to those achieved experimentally. Therefore, the essential ObjectKineticMonteCarlo parameters can be validated through comparison with experiments. However, this validation is not trivial since a large number of parameters is necessary, including migration energies of point defects and their clusters, binding energies of point defects in clusters, as well as the interactionradii. This is particularly cumbersome when describing an alloy, such as the Fe–Cr system, which is of interest for fusion energy applications. In this work we describe an ObjectKineticMonteCarlo model for Fe–Cr alloys in the dilute limit. The parameters used in the model come either from density functional theory calculations or from empirical interatomic potentials. This model is used to reproduce isochronal resistivity recovery experiments of electron irradiateddiluteFe–Cr alloys performed by Abe and Kuramoto. The comparison between the calculated results and the experiments reveal that an important parameter is the capture radius between substitutionalCr and self-interstitialFe atoms. A parametric study is presented on the effect of the capture radius on the simulated recovery curves.

Domain-Specific Multi-Modeling of Security Concerns in Service-Oriented Architectures

As a common reference for many in-development standards and execution frameworks, special attention is being paid to Service-Oriented Architectures. SOAs modeling, however, is an area in which a consensus has not being achieved. Currently, standardization organizations are defining proposals to offer a solution to this problem. Nevertheless, until very recently, non-functional aspects of services have not been considered for standardization processes. In particular, there exists a lack of a design solution that permits an independent development of the functional and non-functional concerns of SOAs, allowing that each concern be addressed in a convenient manner in early stages of the development, in a way that could guarantee the quality of this type of systems. This paper, leveraging on previous work, presents an approach to integrate security-related non-functional aspects (such as confidentiality, integrity, and access control) in the development of services.

Multiscale object-based classification of satellite images merging multispectral information with panchromatic textural features

Once admitted the advantages of object-based classification compared to pixel-based classification; the need of simple and affordable methods to define and characterize objects to be classified, appears. This paper presents a new methodology for the identification and characterization of objects at different scales, through the integration of spectral information provided by the multispectral image, and textural information from the corresponding panchromatic image. In this way, it has defined a set of objects that yields a simplified representation of the information contained in the two source images. These objects can be characterized by different attributes that allow discriminating between different spectral&textural patterns. This methodology facilitates information processing, from a conceptual and computational point of view. Thus the vectors of attributes defined can be used directly as training pattern input for certain classifiers, as for example artificial neural networks. Growing Cell Structures have been used to classify the merged information.