Visualizing for the Non‐Visual: Enabling the Visually Impaired to Use Visualization

The majority of visualizations on the web are still stored as raster images, making them inaccessible to visually impaired users. We propose a deep‐neural‐network‐based approach that automatically recognizes key elements in a visualization, including a visualization type, graphical elements, labels, legends, and most importantly, the original data conveyed in the visualization. We leverage such extracted information to provide visually impaired people with the reading of the extracted information. Based on interviews with visually impaired users, we built a Google Chrome extension designed to work with screen reader software to automatically decode charts on a webpage using our pipeline. We compared the performance of the back‐end algorithm with existing methods and evaluated the utility using qualitative feedback from visually impaired users.     

Using an integrated process of data and modeling in HRA

The paper describes an approach taken to estimate the probabilities of failure associated with various railroad tasks to prevent accidents (principally collisions and derailments). These probabilities were estimated using an expert elicitation process that used partially relevant data available from a variety of databases and that were filtered and scaled to make them more directly relevant to the analyses being performed. Extensive qualitative studies were performed prior to the elicitation process to identify relevant contexts under which the tasks can be performed.     

Sociotechnical systems, risk management, and public health: comparing the North Battleford and Walkerton outbreaks

Accidents in different complex sociotechnical systems are rarely compared using the same theoretical framework for risk management. We conducted a comparative analysis of two Canadian public health disasters involving drinking water distribution systems, the North Battleford Cryptosporidium parvum outbreak in April 2001 and the Walkerton E. coli outbreak in May 2000. Both accidents resulted from a complex interaction between all levels of a complex sociotechnical system. However, the low-level physical and individual factors differed in the two cases, whereas, the high-level governmental and regulatory factors tended to be the same. These findings may have implications for the design of public policies to minimize risk in complex sociotechnical systems.     

A method of identifying latent human errors in work systems

Work system improvements are implemented in various manufacturing processes to prevent problems caused by human errors. However, they are almost always applied to problems which have already occurred. This paper examines a method of identifying latent human errors existing within the work systems beforehand. A procedure for applying failure mode and effect analysis to this identification problem was defined based on over 1000 empirical errors: a work system decomposition criterion and fundamental error modes for listing latent human errors, and then applied to three practical manufacturing processes in order to evaluate its effectiveness.     

Type inference in stack based languages

We consider a language of operations which pass parameters by means of a stack. An algebra over the set of type signatures is introduced, which allows the type signature of a program to be obtained from the type signatures of its constituent operations.Although the theories apply in principle to any stack based language, they have been evolved with particular regard to the proposed ANSI Standard Forth language, which is currently implemented in a type free manner. We hope this work will stimulate an interest in Forth amongst those applying algebraic techniques in software engineering, and we hope to lay the theoretical foundations for implementing practical type checkers to support Forth.     

Empirical comparison of image retrieval color similarity methods with human judgment

It is important to verify assumptions and methods of image retrieval against actual human behavior. A study was conducted to compare similarity methods of color histograms against human assessment of similarity. The similarity methods tested include basic histogram intersection, center histogram matching, locality histogram matching, and size-weighted histogram matching. 161 subjects participated in the empirical study. The findings, based on Spearman correlation analysis, showed that both the basic histogram intersection method and size-weighted histogram are very close to human assessment of similarity (Spearman correlation coefficient of 0.915). The other two are not close to human judgment on similarity. This study illustrates an alternative approach to evaluating matching algorithms. Unlike the usual measures of recall and precision, this approach emphasizes human validation. Fewer images are required with the use of statistical testing.     

Protein binding study of isoflavone, perillyl alcohol and S-ibuprofen by high-performance frontal analysis

High-performance frontal analysis (HPFA) was used for a protein binding study of isoflavones (daidzein, genistin, and genistein), enantiomers of perillyl alcohol and S-ibuprofen to human serum albumin (HSA). The analyses were performed on a Develosil and Inertsil 100-Diol-5 column (10 cm×4.6mm). Sodium phosphate solution (pH 7.4, ionic strength 0.17) was used as the mobile phase at a flow rate of 1 ml/min. To ensure the drug to be eluted as a trapezoidal peak with a plateau, injection volumes were each fixed up the zonal profile with an evident plateau appears. The unbound drug concentration was determined from a plateau height of the plateau region after that experimental data were fitted by Scatchard equation. The binding constants (K) and total binding affinities (nK) of drugs to HSA were calculated, respectively.     

Highly oriented star-like patterns observed on GaSe epilayers grown on Si(111)

Epitaxial lamellar gallium selenide (GaSe) semiconductors have been grown on trench-patterned silicon (Si) substrates by molecular beam epitaxy. An intriguing star-like patterned morphology was identified by atomic force microscopy on these epilayers. This non-trivial feature can be correlated with the accumulation of stacking faults of two concurrent epitaxial domains around self-oriented triangular pits developed earlier on the Si(111) surface by the chemical etching. Crystallographic considerations show how the stars can be formed.     

Real-time control of video surveillance systems with program supervision techniques

In this article, we describe a knowledge-based controlled platform using program supervision techniques. This platform eases the creation and the configuration of video surveillance systems. Several issues need to be addressed to provide a correct system configuration: (1) to choose, among a library of programs, those which are best satisfying a given user request, (2) to assign a correct value for each program parameter, (3) to evaluate performances and to guarantee a performance rate which is satisfactory regarding end-user requirements. This platform is composed of three main components: the library of programs, the knowledge base and the control component. The knowledge is either given by experts or learnt by the system. The control is generic in the sense that it is independent of any application. To validate this platform, we have built and evaluated six video surveillance systems which are featured with three properties: adaptability, reliability and real-time processing.     

人支气管上皮靶细胞形态学参数的测量

支气管上皮靶细胞形态学参数对计算受氡子体照射的支气管的剂量是很重要的。本文介绍利用奥尔新兰-PAS 染色的外科切除人肺组织切片,测量基底细胞粘液细胞和的胞核深度与数目。结果表明,叶、段和小支气管的粘液细胞核深度分别为相应节段基底细胞的61%、69%和73%;此三节段粘液细胞的数目分别为基底细胞的53%、29%和28%,平均为37%。