Decomposition and replacement: Spatial knowledge distillation for monocular depth estimation

Knowledge distillation has become a key technique for making smart and light-weight networks through model compression and transfer learning. Unlike previous methods that applied knowledge distillation to the classification task, we propose to exploit the decomposition-and-replacement based distillation scheme for depth estimation from a single RGB color image. To do this, Laplacian pyramid-based knowledge distillation is firstly presented in this paper. The key idea of the proposed method is to transfer the rich knowledge of the scene depth, which is well encoded through the teacher network, to the student network in a structured way by decomposing it into the global context and local details. This is fairly desirable for the student network to restore the depth layout more accurately with limited resources. Moreover, we also propose a new guidance concept for knowledge distillation, so-called ReplaceBlock, which replaces blocks randomly selected in the decoded feature of the student network with those of the teacher network. Our ReplaceBlock gives a smoothing effect in learning the feature distribution of the teacher network by considering the spatial contiguity in the feature space. This process is also helpful to clearly restore the depth layout without the significant computational cost. Based on various experimental results on benchmark datasets, the effectiveness of our distillation scheme for monocular depth estimation is demonstrated in details. The code and model are publicly available at : https://github.com/tjqansthd/Lap_Rep_KD_Depth.     

Emergency decision support modeling for COVID-19 based on spherical fuzzy information

Significant emergency measures should be taken until an emergency event occurs. It is understood that the emergency is characterized by limited time and information, harmfulness and uncertainty, and decision-makers are always critically bound by uncertainty and risk. This paper introduces many novel approaches to addressing the emergency situation of COVID-19 under spherical fuzzy environment. Fundamentally, the paper includes six main sections to achieve appropriate and accurate measures to address the situation of emergency decision-making. As the spherical fuzzy set (FS) is a generalized framework of fuzzy structure to handle more uncertainty and ambiguity in decision-making problems (DMPs). First, we discuss basic algebraic operational laws (AOLs) under spherical FS. In addition, elaborate on the deficiency of existing AOLs and present three cases to address the validity of the proposed novel AOLs under spherical fuzzy settings. Second, we present a list of Einstein aggregation operators (AgOp) based on the Einstein norm to aggregate uncertain information in DMPs. Thirdly, we are introducing two techniques to demonstrate the unknown weight of the criteria. Fourthly, we develop extended TOPSIS and Gray relational analysis approaches based on AgOp with unknown weight information of the criteria. In fifth, we design three algorithms to address the uncertainty and ambiguity information in emergency DMPs. Finally, the numerical case study of the novel carnivorous (COVID-19) situation is provided as an application for emergency decision-making based on the proposed three algorithms. Results explore the effectiveness of our proposed methodologies and provide accurate emergency measures to address the global uncertainty of COVID-19.     

Laplacian regularized robust principal component analysis for process monitoring

Principal component analysis (PCA) is one of the most widely used techniques for process monitoring. However, it is highly sensitive to sparse errors because of the assumption that data only contains an underlying low-rank structure. To improve classical PCA in this regard, a novel Laplacian regularized robust principal component analysis (LRPCA) framework is proposed, where the “robust” comes from the introduction of a sparse term. By taking advantage of the hypergraph Laplacian, LRPCA not only can represent the global low-dimensional structures, but also capture the intrinsic non-linear geometric information. An efficient alternating direction method of multipliers is designed with convergence guarantee. The resulting subproblems either have closed-form solutions or can be solved by fast solvers. Numerical experiments, including a simulation example and the Tennessee Eastman process, are conducted to illustrate the improved process monitoring performance of the proposed LRPCA.     

Global weak solutions to a spatio-temporal fractional Landau–Lifshitz–Bloch equation

The present paper deals with global existence of weak solutions of a time-space fractional Landau–Lifshitz–Bloch equation involving the weak Caputo derivative and a fractional Laplacian. We use Faedo–Galerkin method with some commutator estimates in order to prove global existence of weak solutions for the model. The uniqueness is also discussed in a special one dimensional case.     

Optimal interval type-2 fuzzy fractional order super twisting algorithm: A second order sliding mode controller for fully-actuated and under-actuated nonlinear systems

In this paper, a novel interval type-2 fuzzy fractional order super twisting algorithm (IT2FFOSTA) which is essentially a second order sliding mode controller is presented. The proposed IT2FFOSTA enhances fractional order super twisting algorithm (FOSTA) by taking advantage of an interval type-2 fuzzy fractional order sliding surface (IT2FFOSS) for some classes of fully-actuated and under-actuated nonlinear systems in presence of uncertainty. The FOSTA significantly reduces the amount of chattering and the IT2FFOSS results in decreasing the tracking error, control effort, and chattering level. In order to control under-actuated systems, a hierarchical sliding surface is employed. The multi-tracker optimization algorithm is utilized to adjust the controller’s parameters; this leads to an optimal performance for the IT2FFOSTA. To examine the performance of the IT2FFOSTA, some simulation and experimental tests on three examples of different classes of fully-actuated and under-actuated systems, including ball and plate, inverted pendulum, and ball and beam systems are carried out. The simulation and experimental results demonstrate the superiority of the IT2FFOSTA in reducing the amount of chattering, tracking error, and control effort compared to those of the other control methods.     

Copy-move forgery detection of duplicated objects using accurate PCET moments and morphological operators

This paper presents a new method for copy-move forgery detection of duplicated objects. A bounding rectangle is drawn around the detected object to form a sub-image. Morphological operator is used to remove the unnecessary small objects. Highly accurate polar complex exponential transform moments are used as features for the detected objects. Euclidian distance and correlation coefficient between the feature vectors are calculated and used for searching the similar objects. A set of 20 forged images with duplicated objects is carefully selected from previously published works. Additional 80 non-forged images are edited by the authors and forged by duplicating different kinds of objects. Numerical simulation is performed where the results show that the proposed method successfully detect different kinds of duplicated objects. The proposed method is much faster than the previously existing methods. Also, it exhibits high robustness to various attacks such as additive white Gaussian noise, JPEG compression, rotation, and scaling.     

Some picture fuzzy Bonferroni mean operators with their application to multicriteria decision making

In this paper, we extend the Bonferroni mean (BM) operator with the picture fuzzy numbers (PFNs) to propose novel picture fuzzy aggregation operators and demonstrate their application to multicriteria decision making (MCDM). On the basis of the algebraic operational rules of PFNs and BM, we introduce some aggregation operators: the picture fuzzy Bonferroni mean, the picture fuzzy normalized weighted Bonferroni mean, and the picture fuzzy ordered weighted Bonferroni mean. Then, a new picture fuzzy MCDM method is proposed with the help of the proposed operators. Lastly, a practical application of proposed model is given to verify the developed model and related results of the proposed model is compared with the results of the existing models to indicate its applicability.     

改进ILoG算子的故障检测方法

针对强背景噪声干扰下轮对轴承故障特征微弱、难以准确检测的问题,提出了一种自适应改进高斯拉普拉斯(improved Laplacian of Gaussian,简称ILoG)算子的微弱故障检测方法。ILoG算子滤波器具有优良的信号突变特征检测能力,将其用于轮对轴承故障信号的冲击特征检测,同时利用水循环算法(water cycle algorithm,简称WCA)的寻优特性,并行搜寻筛选最佳的ILoG算子影响参数,通过对参数优化后ILoG算子滤波后信号做进一步包络解调分析,提取出轮对轴承微弱的故障特征信息。对实际轮对轴承外圈和内圈故障信号分析的结果表明,该方法可以有效检测出轴承微弱故障特征频率,故障检测效果优于小波阈值和多尺度形态学差值滤波方法。     

Validity of facial features’ geometric measurements for real-time assessment of mental fatigue in construction equipment operators

Operating construction equipment for extended periods of time may lead to mental fatigue and, as a result, an increased risk of human error-related accidents and jeopardized health problems for the operators. Therefore, to limit the risk of accidents and protect operators' wellbeing, their mental fatigue must be monitored reliably and in real time. Recently, many invasive technologies have been employed to alleviate this problem, but they entail the wearing of physical sensors, which may instigate irritation and discomfort. This study proposes a non-invasive mental fatigue monitoring method using geometric measurements of their facial features that does not require the operators to wear sensors on their body. The study further validates the proposed method by comparing it with wearable electroencephalography (EEG) technology to establish its ecological validity for construction equipment operators. To serve the purpose, a one-hour excavator operation by sixteen construction equipment operators was conducted on a construction site. Ground truth, brain activity using wearable EEG, and geometric measurements of facial features were extracted and analyzed at the baseline and every 20 min for one hour. A considerable temporal variation was found in the reported metrics (eye aspect ratio, eye distance, mouth aspect ratio, face area, and head motion) and were significantly correlated with ground truth and EEG metric. Furthermore, the brain visualization pattern obtained from EEG was also associated with the variations in the facial features. The findings of the study reveal that construction equipment operators’ mental fatigue can be monitored non-invasively using geometrical measurements of facial features.