Investigating haptic distance-to-break using linear and nonlinear materials in a simulated minimally invasive surgery task

Accurate detection of mediated haptic information in minimally invasive surgery (MIS) is critical for applying appropriate force magnitudes onto soft tissue with the aim of minimising tissue trauma. Force perception in MIS is a dynamic process, with surgeons’ administration of force into tissue revealing information about the remote surgical site which further informs the surgeons’ haptic interactions. The relationship between applied force and material deformation rate provides biomechanical information specifying the deformation distance remaining until a tissue will fail: which is termed distance-to-break (DTB). The current study demonstrates that observers can detect DTB while deforming simulated tissues and stop before reaching the tissues’ failure points. The design of training simulators, control devices and automated robotic systems for applications outside of MIS is discussed.

Practitioner Summary: In MIS, haptic information is critical for applying appropriate forces onto soft tissue to minimise tissue trauma. Observers used force information to detect how far they could deform a virtual tissue before it would break. The design of training simulators, control devices and automated robotic systems is discussed.     

The contribution of visual and proprioceptive information to the perception of leaning in a dynamic motorcycle simulator

Compared with driving or flight simulation, little is known about self-motion perception in riding simulation. The goal of this study was to examine whether or not continuous roll motion supports the sensation of leaning into bends in dynamic motorcycle simulation. To this end, riders were able to freely tune the visual scene and/or motorcycle simulator roll angle to find a pattern that matched their prior knowledge. Our results revealed idiosyncrasy in the combination of visual and proprioceptive information. Some subjects relied more on the visual dimension, but reported increased sickness symptoms with the visual roll angle. Others relied more on proprioceptive information, tuning the direction of the visual scenery to match three possible patterns. Our findings also showed that these two subgroups tuned the motorcycle simulator roll angle in a similar way. This suggests that sustained inertially specified roll motion have contributed to the sensation of leaning in spite of the occurrence of unexpected gravito-inertial stimulation during the tilt. Several hypotheses are discussed.

Practitioner Summary: Self-motion perception in motorcycle simulation is a relatively new research area. We examined how participants combined visual and proprioceptive information. Findings revealed individual differences in the visual dimension. However, participants tuned the simulator roll angle similarly, supporting the hypothesis that sustained inertially specified roll motion contributes to a leaning sensation.     

Users' psychological perception and perceived readability of wearable devices for elderly people

As the population of elderly people in society rises, the importance of technology to assist health management is growing with the demographic shift. Wearable personal computing has been the common solution proposed by related projects to fulfil the needs of elderly people. These add-on devices are attached to the users, and result in uneasiness or discomfort while wearing them in public areas. In this study, three common wearing positions – wrist, upper arm, and neck – were investigated in terms of psychological perception and perceived readability. Twenty-four Taiwanese participants in Miaoli area were asked to wear the designed prototypes for a certain time. The participants completed questionnaires and participated in an open-ended interview. Data of psychological perceptions, visibility, and readability about wearable devices were collected. The results evidenced that the personal attributes of gender, smart device user, and requirement for medical care affect the psychological perception and user attitudes. The statistical results indicated significant differences in elderly people's attitudes towards wearable devices attached to different parts of the body. The wrist was the most favourable location to attach a wearable device.     

Simulated environments with animated agents: effects on visual attention,emotion, performance,and perception

This research assessed how emotive animated agents in a simulation‐based training affect the performance outcomes and perceptions of the individuals interacting in real time with the training application. A total of 56 participants consented to complete the study. The material for this investigation included a nursing simulation in which participants interacted with three animated agents. The results of this investigation indicated that both experienced and novice participants focused more visual attention time on the body of the animated agent than the other defined areas of interest in the simulated environment. The results also indicated that novice participants conveyed more neutral facial expressions during the interaction with the animated agents than experience participants. The results of the simulation performance scores indicated that novice participants achieved higher simulation performance scores on the simulation task than experienced participants. Lastly, the results of the agent persona instrument showed that experienced and novice participants perceived the animated agents as facilitators of learning, credible, human‐like and engaging.     

基于视觉颜色对比敏感度模型的动态视频压缩预处理算法

针对彩色视频压缩过程中压缩率不高或者视频质量损失过大的问题,提出一种基于视觉感知模型与色差的自适应视频压缩预处理算法。首先,在颜色对比敏感度模型中,人类视觉对高色度区域的色差敏感度较低,因此为不同色度区域分配不同的压缩权重;然后,基于帧之间的偏差图建立运动预测帧的空间运动模型,降低了高运动区域的残差;最终,使用动态的色调映射函数来控制视频的压缩等级,从而保证视频的视觉质量。基于多组视频进行实验,本算法成功地将标准的压缩软件提高了35%的压缩率,但同时可看出,本算法的性能依赖于具体的视频上下文。     

IM-UFF: Extending the universal force field for interactive molecular modeling

The universal force field (UFF) is a broadly applicable classical force field that contains parameters for almost every atom type of the periodic table. This force field is non-reactive, i.e. the topology of the system under study is considered as fixed and no creation or breaking of covalent bonds is possible. This paper introduces interactive modeling-UFF (IM-UFF), an extension of UFF that combines the possibility to significantly modify molecular structures (as with reactive force fields) with a broad diversity of supported systems thanks to the universality of UFF. Such an extension lets the user easily build and edit molecular systems interactively while being guided by physics based inter-atomic forces. This approach introduces weighted atom types and weighted bonds, used to update topologies and atom parameterizations at every time step of a simulation. IM-UFF has been evaluated on a large set of benchmarks and is proposed as a self-contained implementation integrated in a new module for the SAMSON software platform for computational nanoscience available at http://www.samson-connect.net.     

Detection of aircraft below the horizon for vision‐based detect and avoid in unmanned aircraft systems

Vision‐based aircraft detection technology may provide a credible sensing option for automated detect and avoid in small‐to‐medium size fixed‐wing unmanned aircraft systems (UAS). Reliable vision‐based aircraft detection has previously been demonstrated in sky‐region sensing environments. This paper describes a novel vision‐based system for detecting aircraft below the horizon in the presence of ground clutter. We examine the performance of our system on a data set of 63 near collision encounters we collected between a camera‐equipped manned aircraft and a below‐horizon target. In these 63 encounters, our system successfully detects all aircraft, at an average detection range of 1890 m (with a standard error of 43 m and no false alarms in 1.1 h). Furthermore, our system does not require access to inertial sensor data (which significantly reduces system cost) and operates at over 12 frames per second.     

一种面向物流网监控的物联网技术

目前物流运输配送安全管理主要依靠GPS技术进行管理, 缺乏整体安全管理技术手段. 提出了一种物流物联网监控技术. 该技术实现了物联网传感器系统、视频监控系统、单兵可视通话指挥系统、司乘人员终端、通讯系统等技术的综合应用. 通过实际项目应用, 验证了该技术可以广泛应用于实现保障运输安全、提高运输效率、管理运输绩效、处理应急情况等.     

基于几何结构失真模型的图像质量评价研究

客观图像质量评价研究的目的是设计一种和视觉感知保持一致,且适用于各种失真模型的质量评价方法. 传统的结构相似度量质量评价方法忽视了自然图像本身的特点,不能很好地评判某些失真类型图像. 本文根据人眼视觉系统(Human visual system, HVS)在感知图像质量过程中的特点,探索自然图像的本征几何结构特征, 考虑像素点的方向失真、幅度失真和方差失真,提出了一种新型的基于图像几何结构失真模型的完全参考质量评价方法. 在标准数据库上的实验结果表明,本文方法适用于所有失真模型图像数据的质量评价, 计算复杂度相对较低,得到的图像客观评价结果和主观评价方法具有更好的一致性, 能够很好地反映人眼对图像质量的主观感受.