Hybrid Segmentation Scheme for Skin Features Extraction Using Dermoscopy Images

Objective and quantitative assessment of skin conditions is essential for cosmeceutical studies and research on skin aging and skin regeneration. Various handcraft-based image processing methods have been proposed to evaluate skin conditions objectively, but they have unavoidable disadvantages when used to analyze skin features accurately. This study proposes a hybrid segmentation scheme consisting of Deeplab v3+ with an Inception-ResNet-v2 backbone, LightGBM, and morphological processing (MP) to overcome the shortcomings of handcraft-based approaches. First, we apply Deeplab v3+ with an Inception-ResNet-v2 backbone for pixel segmentation of skin wrinkles and cells. Then, LightGBM and MP are used to enhance the pixel segmentation quality. Finally, we determine several skin features based on the results of wrinkle and cell segmentation. Our proposed segmentation scheme achieved a mean accuracy of 0.854, mean of intersection over union of 0.749, and mean boundary F1 score of 0.852, which achieved 1.1%, 6.7%, and 14.8% improvement over the panoptic-based semantic segmentation method, respectively.     

DEM: Deep Entity Matching Across Heterogeneous Information Networks

Heterogeneous information networks, which consist of multi-typed vertices representing objects and multi-typed edges representing relations between objects, are ubiquitous in the real world. In this paper, we study the problem of entity matching for heterogeneous information networks based on distributed network embedding and multi-layer perceptron with a highway network, and we propose a new method named DEM short for Deep Entity Matching. In contrast to the traditional entity matching methods, DEM utilizes the multi-layer perceptron with a highway network to explore the hidden relations to improve the performance of matching. Importantly, we incorporate DEM with the network embedding methodology, enabling highly efficient computing in a vectorized manner. DEM’s generic modeling of both the network structure and the entity attributes enables it to model various heterogeneous information networks flexibly. To illustrate its functionality, we apply the DEM algorithm to two real-world entity matching applications: user linkage under the social network analysis scenario that predicts the same or matched users in different social platforms and record linkage that predicts the same or matched records in different citation networks. Extensive experiments on real-world datasets demonstrate DEM’s effectiveness and rationality.

     

结合预训练模型和语言知识库的文本匹配方法

针对文本匹配任务,该文提出一种大规模预训练模型融合外部语言知识库的方法。该方法在大规模预训练模型的基础上,通过生成基于WordNet的同义—反义词汇知识学习任务和词组—搭配知识学习任务引入外部语言学知识。进而,与MT-DNN多任务学习模型进行联合训练,以进一步提高模型性能。最后利用文本匹配标注数据进行微调。在MRPC和QQP两个公开数据集的实验结果显示,该方法可以在大规模预训练模型和微调的框架基础上,通过引入外部语言知识进行联合训练有效提升文本匹配性能。     

面向智能客服系统的情感分析技术

该文以阿里小蜜为例,对智能客服系统中的情感分析技术进行比较全面的介绍,包括情感分析算法模型的原理及其在智能客服系统的多个应用场景中的实际落地使用方式和效果分析。智能客服在解决客户高频业务问题的同时,也需要给客户提供多维度的、具有类人能力的助理、导购、语聊和娱乐等服务,提高客户对智能客服机器人的整体满意度。在此过程中,情感分析技术在机器人类人能力建设中起到了至关重要的作用。该文围绕智能客服系统中人机结合的服务形式,从六个维度总结和介绍了情感分析技术在智能客服系统中的应用场景,包括用户情感检测、用户情感安抚、情感生成式语聊、客服服务质检、会话满意度预估和智能人工入口。     

ZerNet: Convolutional Neural Networks on Arbitrary Surfaces Via Zernike Local Tangent Space Estimation

In this paper, we propose a novel formulation extending convolutional neural networks (CNN) to arbitrary two-dimensional manifolds using orthogonal basis functions called Zernike polynomials. In many areas, geometric features play a key role in understanding scientific trends and phenomena, where accurate numerical quantification of geometric features is critical. Recently, CNNs have demonstrated a substantial improvement in extracting and codifying geometric features. However, the progress is mostly centred around computer vision and its applications where an inherent grid-like data representation is naturally present. In contrast, many geometry processing problems deal with curved surfaces and the application of CNNs is not trivial due to the lack of canonical grid-like representation, the absence of globally consistent orientation and the incompatible local discretizations. In this paper, we show that the Zernike polynomials allow rigourous yet practical mathematical generalization of CNNs to arbitrary surfaces. We prove that the convolution of two functions can be represented as a simple dot product between Zernike coefficients and the rotation of a convolution kernel is essentially a set of 2 × 2 rotation matrices applied to the coefficients. The key contribution of this work is in such a computationally efficient but rigorous generalization of the major CNN building blocks.     

基于多尺度结构特征的快速异源图像匹配

针对异源图像提出一种基于多尺度密集结构特征的快速匹配算法。算法首先利用Gabor滤波器逐像素提取图像中的结构响应,再根据主方向响应对多尺度结构特征融合,然后使用快速傅里叶变换在频域计算各特征分量图像之间的卷积,最后将卷积生成的系数矩阵求和计算出图像之间的相似性并选择相似性最大位置作为匹配结果输出。本文算法能有效适应异源图像间的非线性灰度变化和噪声干扰问题。测试使用可见光、红外、雷达图像组成的异源图像数据集对本文算法和现有算法进行测试比较,结果表明:本文算法的平均误匹配率最低,并且计算速度有明显优势。     

Evolution of rotated Brass texture by cross rolling: implications on formability

In the present work, the possibilities of tailoring crystallographic texture via cross rolling are presented. It is shown that a strong rotated Brass texture develops upon cross rolling in aluminium alloys which also remains intact during the subsequent recrystallisation annealing treatment. The governing mechanisms behind the evolution of deformation and recrystallisation texture are discussed in terms of effect of strain path on stability of deformation texture components and strain-induced boundary migration mechanism, respectively. In addition, the likelihood of rotated Brass texture having a positive effect on formability is discussed in terms of sluggish cross-slip criteria as the rotated Brass texture presents a unique scenario where cross-slip is inhibited along all the three principal directions.     

摩擦副表面气膜屏蔽微细电解加工微织构及摩擦性能分析

采用气膜屏蔽微细电解加工方法在金属平面副、圆柱副表面加工不同阵列形貌微织构。通过试验将该方法与微细电解加工的微织构尺寸精度、表面质量、摩擦性能进行对比，研究结果表明，气膜屏蔽微细电解加工的微织构相比微细电解加工方法加工的微织构平面副及圆柱副凹槽深径比分别提高了约45.6%和25.8%，改善了加工的定域性，提高了加工精度。进一步的摩擦磨损试验结果表明，相较于微细电解加工方法，气膜屏蔽微细电解加工出的平面副及圆柱副微凹槽的表面摩擦因数分别减小了13.6%与16.2%，表面摩擦性能得到了提高。     

Extrinsic parameter's adjustment and potential implications in Plasmodium falciparum malaria diagnosis

Malaria is a major public health concern, affecting over 3.2 billion people in 91 countries. The advent of digital microscopy and Machine learning with the aim of automating Plasmodium falciparum diagnosis extensively depends on the extracted image features. The color of the cells, plasma, and stained artifacts influence the topological, geometrical, and statistical parameters being used to extract image features. During microscopic image acquisition, custom adjustments to the condenser and color temperature controls often have an influence on the extracted statistical features. But, our human visual system sub-consciously adjusts the color and retains the originality in a different lighting environment. Despite the use of appropriate image preprocessing, findings from the literature indicate that statistical feature variations exist, allowing the risk of P. falciparum misinterpretation. In order to eliminate this pervasive variation, the current work focuses on preprocessing the extracted statistical features rather than the prepossessing of the source image. It begins with the augmentation of series images for a microscopic field by inducing illumination variations during the microscopic image acquisition stage. A set of such image series is analyzed using a Nonlinear Regression Model to generalize the relationship between microscopic images acquired with variable ambient brightness and a specific feature. The projection point of the centroid feature onto the brightness parameter is identified in the model and it is denoted as the optimum brightness factor (OBF). Using the model, the feature correction factor (CF) is calculated from the rate of change of feature values over the interval OBF, and the brightness of the test image is processed. The present work has investigated OBF for selected image textural features, namely Contrast, Homogeneity, Entropy, Energy, and Correlation individually from its co-occurrence matrices. For performance analysis, the best state-of-the-art method uses selected texture as a subset feature to evaluate the effectiveness of P. falciparum malaria classification. Then, the impact of proposed feature processing is evaluated on 274 blood smear images with and without Feature Correction (FC). As a result, the “p” value is less than .05, which leads to the result that it is highly significant and the classification accuracy and F-score of P. falciparum malaria are increased.     

Role of cube texture on toughness variation of electric resistance welded steel

Properties changes of an X52 microalloyed steel processed by a full-scale industrial electric resistant welding (ERW) equipment was studied. Lack of proper toughness level in the weld zone was investigated. Results show that the low toughness value could only be satisfactorily addressed after a two-stage annealing process. {100} pole figures for each processing step revealed a completely random texture for the initial plate. However, after the ERW process, a textured structure with the main components of brass, S and copper was obtained. Texture components were substantially weakened after the second stage of annealing and instead a cube texture was developed which could explain satisfactory level of toughness for the ERW pipe after conducting the two-step annealing process.