Book review

Informatics for Development: The New Challenge Khadija Haq (Editor) The North‐South Round Table, PO Box 2006, Islamabad, Pakistan     

An investigation of colour appearance for unrelated colours under photopic and mesopic vision

Data were obtained for the colour appearance of unrelated colours under photopic and mesopic conditions. The effects of changes in luminance level and stimulus size were investigated. The method used was magnitude scaling of brightness, colourfulness, and hue. Two stimulus sizes (10° and 0.5°) and four starting luminance levels (60, 5, 1, and 0.1, cd/m²) were used. The results at 0.1 cd/m² had large variations, so data were obtained for two additional stimulus sizes (1° and 2°) at this luminance level. Ten observers judged 50 unrelated colours. A total of 17,820 estimations were made. The observations were carried out in a completely darkened room, after 20 min adaptation; each test colour was presented on its own. Brightness and colourfulness were found to decrease with decreases of both luminance level and stimulus size. The CAM97u model predicted brightness more accurately than CIECAM02 but gave worse performance in predicting colorfulness. For hue, CAM97u and CIECAM02 both gave satisfactory predictions. Using the brightness correlate from CAM97u, a new colour‐appearance model based on CIECAM02 was developed specifically for unrelated colours under photopic and mesopic conditions, with parameters to allow for the effects of luminance level and stimulus size. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Col Res Appl, 2011;     

Graduated driver licensing program component calibrations and their association with fatal crash involvement

Graduated driver licensing (GDL) programs are specialized licensing systems for beginner drivers adopted in all U.S. states, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. GDL programs reduce novice drivers’ exposure to high-risk driving situations while they gain driving experience. Several studies document the success of GDL programs overall in reducing young teen crash rates. However, little is known about which specific components of these programs (e.g., nighttime driving restrictions) and which calibrations of these components (e.g., 10 PM, 11 PM, 12 AM, or 1 AM), are associated with the largest crash reductions. The goal of this study was to identify the GDL component calibrations associated with the largest reductions in fatal crash involvements for 16–17-year-olds. Driver fatal crash involvements for all U.S. states from 1986 to 2007 were analyzed using Poisson regression models to estimate the association of various GDL component calibrations with 16- and 17-year-old driver fatal crash incidence, after adjusting for potential confounders. We found clear evidence that (a) a minimum learner permit holding period of 9–12 months and (b) a passenger restriction allowing only one teen passenger for 6 months or longer are the calibrations for the learner permit holding period and passenger restriction components associated with the largest reductions in 16–17-year-old driver fatal crash involvements. Additionally, the data suggest that (a) disallowing learner driving until age 16, (b) disallowing intermediate licensure until age 16½ to 17, and (c) a nighttime driving restriction starting at 10 PM or earlier are the calibrations for these components associated with the largest reductions in 16-year-old driver fatal crashes. There was no clear evidence to support particular calibrations for supervised driving hours or unrestricted license ages.     

Systematic skin segmentation: merging spatial and non-spatial data

Skin detection is used in applications ranging from face detection, tracking of body parts, hand gesture analysis, to retrieval and blocking objectionable content. We present a systematic approach for robust skin segmentation using graph cuts. The skin segmentation process starts by exploiting the local skin information of detected faces. The detected faces are used as foreground seeds for calculating the foreground weights of the graph. If local skin information is not available, we opt for the universal seed. To increase the robustness, the decision tree based classifier is used to augment the universal seed weights when no local information is available in the image. With this setup, we achieve robust skin segmentation, outperforming off-line trained classifiers. The setup also provides a generic skin detection system, using positive training data only. With face detection, we take advantage of the contextual information present in the scene. With the weight augmentation, we provide a setup for merging spatial and non-spatial data. Experiments on two datasets with annotated pixel-level ground truth show that the systematic skin segmentation approach outperforms other approaches and provides robust skin detection.     

Investigations of ductile damage during the process chains of toothed functional components manufactured by sheet-bulk metal forming

Sheet-bulk metal forming processes combine conventional sheet forming processes with bulk forming of sheet semi-finished parts. In these processes the sheets undergo complex forming histories. Due to in- and out-of-plane material flow and large accumulated plastic strains, the conventional failure prediction methods for sheet metal forming such as forming limit curve fall short. As a remedy, damage models can be applied to model damage evolution during those processes. In this study, damage evolution during the production of two different toothed components from DC04 steel is investigated. In both setups, a deep drawn cup is upset to form a circumferential gearing. However, the two final products have different dimensions and forming histories. Due to combined deep drawing and upsetting processes, the material flow on the cup walls is three-dimensional and non-proportional. In this study, the numerical and experimental investigations for those parts are presented and compared. Damage evolution in the process chains is simulated with a Lemaitre damage criterion. Microstructural analysis by scanning electron microscopy is performed in the regions with high mechanical loading. It is observed that the evolution of voids in terms of void volume fraction is strongly dependent on the deformation path. The comparison of simulation results with microstructural data shows that the void volume fraction decreases in the upsetting stage after an initial increase in the drawing stage. Moreover, the concurrent numerical and microstructural analysis provides evidence that the void volume fraction decreases during compression in sheet-bulk metal forming.