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1197 results (View BibTeX file of all listed publications)

2013

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Learning People Detectors for Tracking in Crowded Scenes

Tang, S., Andriluka, M., Milan, A., Schindler, K., Roth, S., Schiele, B.

In 2013 IEEE International Conference on Computer Vision, pages: 1049-1056, IEEE, IEEE International Conference on Computer Vision, December 2013 (inproceedings)

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PDF DOI [BibTex]

2013

ps Tang, S., Andriluka, M., Milan, A., Schindler, K., Roth, S., Schiele, B. Learning People Detectors for Tracking in Crowded Scenes In 2013 IEEE International Conference on Computer Vision, pages: 1049-1056, IEEE, IEEE International Conference on Computer Vision, December 2013 (inproceedings)

PDF DOI [BibTex]

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Branch&Rank for Efficient Object Detection

Lehmann, A., Gehler, P., VanGool, L.

International Journal of Computer Vision, Springer, December 2013 (article)

Abstract
Ranking hypothesis sets is a powerful concept for efficient object detection. In this work, we propose a branch&rank scheme that detects objects with often less than 100 ranking operations. This efficiency enables the use of strong and also costly classifiers like non-linear SVMs with RBF-TeX kernels. We thereby relieve an inherent limitation of branch&bound methods as bounds are often not tight enough to be effective in practice. Our approach features three key components: a ranking function that operates on sets of hypotheses and a grouping of these into different tasks. Detection efficiency results from adaptively sub-dividing the object search space into decreasingly smaller sets. This is inherited from branch&bound, while the ranking function supersedes a tight bound which is often unavailable (except for rather limited function classes). The grouping makes the system effective: it separates image classification from object recognition, yet combines them in a single formulation, phrased as a structured SVM problem. A novel aspect of branch&rank is that a better ranking function is expected to decrease the number of classifier calls during detection. We use the VOC’07 dataset to demonstrate the algorithmic properties of branch&rank.

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pdf link (url) [BibTex]

ps Lehmann, A., Gehler, P., VanGool, L. Branch&Rank for Efficient Object Detection International Journal of Computer Vision, Springer, December 2013 (article)

pdf link (url) [BibTex]

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Strong Appearance and Expressive Spatial Models for Human Pose Estimation

Pishchulin, L., Andriluka, M., Gehler, P., Schiele, B.

In International Conference on Computer Vision (ICCV), pages: 3487 - 3494 , IEEE, Computer Vision (ICCV), IEEE International Conference on , December 2013 (inproceedings)

Abstract
Typical approaches to articulated pose estimation combine spatial modelling of the human body with appearance modelling of body parts. This paper aims to push the state-of-the-art in articulated pose estimation in two ways. First we explore various types of appearance representations aiming to substantially improve the body part hypotheses. And second, we draw on and combine several recently proposed powerful ideas such as more flexible spatial models as well as image-conditioned spatial models. In a series of experiments we draw several important conclusions: (1) we show that the proposed appearance representations are complementary; (2) we demonstrate that even a basic tree-structure spatial human body model achieves state-of-the-art performance when augmented with the proper appearance representation; and (3) we show that the combination of the best performing appearance model with a flexible image-conditioned spatial model achieves the best result, significantly improving over the state of the art, on the "Leeds Sports Poses'' and "Parse'' benchmarks.

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pdf DOI Project Page [BibTex]

ps Pishchulin, L., Andriluka, M., Gehler, P., Schiele, B. Strong Appearance and Expressive Spatial Models for Human Pose Estimation In International Conference on Computer Vision (ICCV), pages: 3487 - 3494 , IEEE, Computer Vision (ICCV), IEEE International Conference on , December 2013 (inproceedings)

pdf DOI Project Page [BibTex]

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A Practical System For Recording Instrument Interactions During Live Robotic Surgery

McMahan, W., Gomez, E. D., Chen, L., Bark, K., Nappo, J. C., Koch, E. I., Lee, D. I., Dumon, K., Williams, N., Kuchenbecker, K. J.

Journal of Robotic Surgery, 7(4):351-358, 2013 (article)

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[BibTex]

hi McMahan, W., Gomez, E. D., Chen, L., Bark, K., Nappo, J. C., Koch, E. I., Lee, D. I., Dumon, K., Williams, N., Kuchenbecker, K. J. A Practical System For Recording Instrument Interactions During Live Robotic Surgery Journal of Robotic Surgery, 7(4):351-358, 2013 (article)

[BibTex]

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Methods and Applications for Distance Based ANN Training

Lassner, C., Lienhart, R.

In IEEE International Conference on Machine Learning and Applications (ICMLA), December 2013 (inproceedings)

Abstract
Feature learning has the aim to take away the hassle of hand-designing features for machine learning tasks. Since the feature design process is tedious and requires a lot of experience, an automated solution is of great interest. However, an important problem in this field is that usually no objective values are available to fit a feature learning function to. Artificial Neural Networks are a sufficiently flexible tool for function approximation to be able to avoid this problem. We show how the error function of an ANN can be modified such that it works solely with objective distances instead of objective values. We derive the adjusted rules for backpropagation through networks with arbitrary depths and include practical considera- tions that must be taken into account to apply difference based learning successfully. On all three benchmark datasets we use, linear SVMs trained on automatically learned ANN features outperform RBF kernel SVMs trained on the raw data. This can be achieved in a feature space with up to only a tenth of dimensions of the number of original data dimensions. We conclude our work with two experiments on distance based ANN training in two further fields: data visualization and outlier detection.

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pdf [BibTex]

ps Lassner, C., Lienhart, R. Methods and Applications for Distance Based ANN Training In IEEE International Conference on Machine Learning and Applications (ICMLA), December 2013 (inproceedings)

pdf [BibTex]

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Extracting Postural Synergies for Robotic Grasping

Romero, J., Feix, T., Ek, C., Kjellstrom, H., Kragic, D.

Robotics, IEEE Transactions on, 29(6):1342-1352, December 2013 (article)

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[BibTex]

ps Romero, J., Feix, T., Ek, C., Kjellstrom, H., Kragic, D. Extracting Postural Synergies for Robotic Grasping Robotics, IEEE Transactions on, 29(6):1342-1352, December 2013 (article)

[BibTex]

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Understanding High-Level Semantics by Modeling Traffic Patterns

Zhang, H., Geiger, A., Urtasun, R.

In International Conference on Computer Vision, pages: 3056-3063, Sydney, Australia, December 2013 (inproceedings)

Abstract
In this paper, we are interested in understanding the semantics of outdoor scenes in the context of autonomous driving. Towards this goal, we propose a generative model of 3D urban scenes which is able to reason not only about the geometry and objects present in the scene, but also about the high-level semantics in the form of traffic patterns. We found that a small number of patterns is sufficient to model the vast majority of traffic scenes and show how these patterns can be learned. As evidenced by our experiments, this high-level reasoning significantly improves the overall scene estimation as well as the vehicle-to-lane association when compared to state-of-the-art approaches. All data and code will be made available upon publication.

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pdf [BibTex]

avg ps Zhang, H., Geiger, A., Urtasun, R. Understanding High-Level Semantics by Modeling Traffic Patterns In International Conference on Computer Vision, pages: 3056-3063, Sydney, Australia, December 2013 (inproceedings)

pdf [BibTex]

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A Non-parametric Bayesian Network Prior of Human Pose

Lehrmann, A. M., Gehler, P., Nowozin, S.

In Proceedings IEEE Conf. on Computer Vision (ICCV), pages: 1281-1288, IEEE International Conference on Computer Vision, December 2013 (inproceedings)

Abstract
Having a sensible prior of human pose is a vital ingredient for many computer vision applications, including tracking and pose estimation. While the application of global non-parametric approaches and parametric models has led to some success, finding the right balance in terms of flexibility and tractability, as well as estimating model parameters from data has turned out to be challenging. In this work, we introduce a sparse Bayesian network model of human pose that is non-parametric with respect to the estimation of both its graph structure and its local distributions. We describe an efficient sampling scheme for our model and show its tractability for the computation of exact log-likelihoods. We empirically validate our approach on the Human 3.6M dataset and demonstrate superior performance to global models and parametric networks. We further illustrate our model's ability to represent and compose poses not present in the training set (compositionality) and describe a speed-accuracy trade-off that allows realtime scoring of poses.

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Project page pdf DOI Project Page [BibTex]

ps Lehrmann, A. M., Gehler, P., Nowozin, S. A Non-parametric Bayesian Network Prior of Human Pose In Proceedings IEEE Conf. on Computer Vision (ICCV), pages: 1281-1288, IEEE International Conference on Computer Vision, December 2013 (inproceedings)

Project page pdf DOI Project Page [BibTex]

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Towards understanding action recognition

Jhuang, H., Gall, J., Zuffi, S., Schmid, C., Black, M. J.

In IEEE International Conference on Computer Vision (ICCV), pages: 3192-3199, IEEE, Sydney, Australia, December 2013 (inproceedings)

Abstract
Although action recognition in videos is widely studied, current methods often fail on real-world datasets. Many recent approaches improve accuracy and robustness to cope with challenging video sequences, but it is often unclear what affects the results most. This paper attempts to provide insights based on a systematic performance evaluation using thoroughly-annotated data of human actions. We annotate human Joints for the HMDB dataset (J-HMDB). This annotation can be used to derive ground truth optical flow and segmentation. We evaluate current methods using this dataset and systematically replace the output of various algorithms with ground truth. This enables us to discover what is important – for example, should we work on improving flow algorithms, estimating human bounding boxes, or enabling pose estimation? In summary, we find that highlevel pose features greatly outperform low/mid level features; in particular, pose over time is critical, but current pose estimation algorithms are not yet reliable enough to provide this information. We also find that the accuracy of a top-performing action recognition framework can be greatly increased by refining the underlying low/mid level features; this suggests it is important to improve optical flow and human detection algorithms. Our analysis and JHMDB dataset should facilitate a deeper understanding of action recognition algorithms.

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Website Errata Poster Paper Slides DOI Project Page Project Page Project Page [BibTex]

ps Jhuang, H., Gall, J., Zuffi, S., Schmid, C., Black, M. J. Towards understanding action recognition In IEEE International Conference on Computer Vision (ICCV), pages: 3192-3199, IEEE, Sydney, Australia, December 2013 (inproceedings)

Website Errata Poster Paper Slides DOI Project Page Project Page Project Page [BibTex]

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Probabilistic Object Tracking Using a Range Camera

Wüthrich, M., Pastor, P., Kalakrishnan, M., Bohg, J., Schaal, S.

In IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, pages: 3195-3202, IEEE, November 2013 (inproceedings)

Abstract
We address the problem of tracking the 6-DoF pose of an object while it is being manipulated by a human or a robot. We use a dynamic Bayesian network to perform inference and compute a posterior distribution over the current object pose. Depending on whether a robot or a human manipulates the object, we employ a process model with or without knowledge of control inputs. Observations are obtained from a range camera. As opposed to previous object tracking methods, we explicitly model self-occlusions and occlusions from the environment, e.g, the human or robotic hand. This leads to a strongly non-linear observation model and additional dependencies in the Bayesian network. We employ a Rao-Blackwellised particle filter to compute an estimate of the object pose at every time step. In a set of experiments, we demonstrate the ability of our method to accurately and robustly track the object pose in real-time while it is being manipulated by a human or a robot.

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arXiv Video Code Video DOI Project Page [BibTex]

am Wüthrich, M., Pastor, P., Kalakrishnan, M., Bohg, J., Schaal, S. Probabilistic Object Tracking Using a Range Camera In IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, pages: 3195-3202, IEEE, November 2013 (inproceedings)

arXiv Video Code Video DOI Project Page [BibTex]

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Virtual Robotization of the Human Body via Data-Driven Vibrotactile Feedback

Kurihara, Y., Hachisu, T., Kuchenbecker, K. J., Kajimoto, H.

In Proc. International Conference on Advances in Computer Entertainment Technology (ACE), 8253, pages: 109-122, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Springer, Enschede, Netherlands, 2013, Oral presentation given by Kurihara. Best Paper Silver Award (inproceedings)

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[BibTex]

hi Kurihara, Y., Hachisu, T., Kuchenbecker, K. J., Kajimoto, H. Virtual Robotization of the Human Body via Data-Driven Vibrotactile Feedback In Proc. International Conference on Advances in Computer Entertainment Technology (ACE), 8253, pages: 109-122, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Springer, Enschede, Netherlands, 2013, Oral presentation given by Kurihara. Best Paper Silver Award (inproceedings)

[BibTex]

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Mixing Decoded Cursor Velocity and Position from an Offline Kalman Filter Improves Cursor Control in People with Tetraplegia

Homer, M., Harrison, M., Black, M. J., Perge, J., Cash, S., Friehs, G., Hochberg, L.

In 6th International IEEE EMBS Conference on Neural Engineering, pages: 715-718, San Diego, November 2013 (inproceedings)

Abstract
Kalman filtering is a common method to decode neural signals from the motor cortex. In clinical research investigating the use of intracortical brain computer interfaces (iBCIs), the technique enabled people with tetraplegia to control assistive devices such as a computer or robotic arm directly from their neural activity. For reaching movements, the Kalman filter typically estimates the instantaneous endpoint velocity of the control device. Here, we analyzed attempted arm/hand movements by people with tetraplegia to control a cursor on a computer screen to reach several circular targets. A standard velocity Kalman filter is enhanced to additionally decode for the cursor’s position. We then mix decoded velocity and position to generate cursor movement commands. We analyzed data, offline, from two participants across six sessions. Root mean squared error between the actual and estimated cursor trajectory improved by 12.2 ±10.5% (pairwise t-test, p<0.05) as compared to a standard velocity Kalman filter. The findings suggest that simultaneously decoding for intended velocity and position and using them both to generate movement commands can improve the performance of iBCIs.

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pdf Project Page [BibTex]

ps Homer, M., Harrison, M., Black, M. J., Perge, J., Cash, S., Friehs, G., Hochberg, L. Mixing Decoded Cursor Velocity and Position from an Offline Kalman Filter Improves Cursor Control in People with Tetraplegia In 6th International IEEE EMBS Conference on Neural Engineering, pages: 715-718, San Diego, November 2013 (inproceedings)

pdf Project Page [BibTex]

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Markov Random Field Modeling, Inference & Learning in Computer Vision & Image Understanding: A Survey

Wang, C., Komodakis, N., Paragios, N.

Computer Vision and Image Understanding (CVIU), 117(11):1610-1627, November 2013 (article)

Abstract
In this paper, we present a comprehensive survey of Markov Random Fields (MRFs) in computer vision and image understanding, with respect to the modeling, the inference and the learning. While MRFs were introduced into the computer vision field about two decades ago, they started to become a ubiquitous tool for solving visual perception problems around the turn of the millennium following the emergence of efficient inference methods. During the past decade, a variety of MRF models as well as inference and learning methods have been developed for addressing numerous low, mid and high-level vision problems. While most of the literature concerns pairwise MRFs, in recent years we have also witnessed significant progress in higher-order MRFs, which substantially enhances the expressiveness of graph-based models and expands the domain of solvable problems. This survey provides a compact and informative summary of the major literature in this research topic.

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Publishers site pdf [BibTex]

ps Wang, C., Komodakis, N., Paragios, N. Markov Random Field Modeling, Inference & Learning in Computer Vision & Image Understanding: A Survey Computer Vision and Image Understanding (CVIU), 117(11):1610-1627, November 2013 (article)

Publishers site pdf [BibTex]

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3-D Object Reconstruction of Symmetric Objects by Fusing Visual and Tactile Sensing

Illonen, J., Bohg, J., Kyrki, V.

The International Journal of Robotics Research, 33(2):321-341, Sage, October 2013 (article)

Abstract
In this work, we propose to reconstruct a complete 3-D model of an unknown object by fusion of visual and tactile information while the object is grasped. Assuming the object is symmetric, a first hypothesis of its complete 3-D shape is generated. A grasp is executed on the object with a robotic manipulator equipped with tactile sensors. Given the detected contacts between the fingers and the object, the initial full object model including the symmetry parameters can be refined. This refined model will then allow the planning of more complex manipulation tasks. The main contribution of this work is an optimal estimation approach for the fusion of visual and tactile data applying the constraint of object symmetry. The fusion is formulated as a state estimation problem and solved with an iterative extended Kalman filter. The approach is validated experimentally using both artificial and real data from two different robotic platforms.

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Web DOI Project Page [BibTex]

am Illonen, J., Bohg, J., Kyrki, V. 3-D Object Reconstruction of Symmetric Objects by Fusing Visual and Tactile Sensing The International Journal of Robotics Research, 33(2):321-341, Sage, October 2013 (article)

Web DOI Project Page [BibTex]

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Multi-robot cooperative spherical-object tracking in 3D space based on particle filters

Ahmad, A., Lima, P.

Robotics and Autonomous Systems, 61(10):1084-1093, October 2013 (article)

Abstract
This article presents a cooperative approach for tracking a moving spherical object in 3D space by a team of mobile robots equipped with sensors, in a highly dynamic environment. The tracker’s core is a particle filter, modified to handle, within a single unified framework, the problem of complete or partial occlusion for some of the involved mobile sensors, as well as inconsistent estimates in the global frame among sensors, due to observation errors and/or self-localization uncertainty. We present results supporting our approach by applying it to a team of real soccer robots tracking a soccer ball, including comparison with ground truth.

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DOI [BibTex]

ps Ahmad, A., Lima, P. Multi-robot cooperative spherical-object tracking in 3D space based on particle filters Robotics and Autonomous Systems, 61(10):1084-1093, October 2013 (article)

DOI [BibTex]

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Multi-Robot Cooperative Object Tracking Based on Particle Filters

Ahmad, A., Lima, P.

In 61(10):1084-1093, 5th European Conference on Mobile Robots (ECMR), October 2013 (inproceedings)

Abstract
This article presents a cooperative approach for tracking a moving object by a team of mobile robots equipped with sensors, in a highly dynamic environment. The tracker’s core is a particle filter, modified to handle, within a single unified framework, the problem of complete or partial occlusion for some of the involved mobile sensors, as well as inconsistent estimates in the global frame among sensors, due to observation errors and/or self-localization uncertainty. We present results supporting our approach by applying it to a team of real soccer robots tracking a soccer ball.

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link (url) DOI [BibTex]

ps Ahmad, A., Lima, P. Multi-Robot Cooperative Object Tracking Based on Particle Filters In 61(10):1084-1093, 5th European Conference on Mobile Robots (ECMR), October 2013 (inproceedings)

link (url) DOI [BibTex]

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Sisyphus cooling in a continuously loaded trap

Volchkov, V., Rührig, J., Pfau, T., Griesmaier, A.

New Journal of Physics, 15, pages: 093012, IOP Publishing and Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft, September 2013 (article)

Abstract
We demonstrate continuous Sisyphus cooling combined with a continuous loading mechanism used to efficiently slow down and accumulate chromium atoms from a guided beam. While the loading itself is based on a single slowing step, applying a radio frequency field forces the atoms to repeat this step many times resulting in a so-called Sisyphus cooling. This extension allows efficient loading and cooling of atoms from a wide range of initial beam conditions. We study the interplay of the continuous loading and simultaneous Sisyphus cooling in different density regimes. In the case of a low density flux we observe a differential gain in phase-space density of nine orders of magnitude. This makes the presented scheme an ideal tool for reaching collisional densities enabling evaporative cooling—in spite of unfavourable initial conditions.

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DOI [BibTex]

sf Volchkov, V., Rührig, J., Pfau, T., Griesmaier, A. Sisyphus cooling in a continuously loaded trap New Journal of Physics, 15, pages: 093012, IOP Publishing and Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft, September 2013 (article)

DOI [BibTex]

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Distribution Fields with Adaptive Kernels for Large Displacement Image Alignment

Mears, B., Sevilla-Lara, L., Learned-Miller, E.

In British Machine Vision Conference (BMVC) , BMVA Press, September 2013 (inproceedings)

Abstract
While region-based image alignment algorithms that use gradient descent can achieve sub-pixel accuracy when they converge, their convergence depends on the smoothness of the image intensity values. Image smoothness is often enforced through the use of multiscale approaches in which images are smoothed and downsampled. Yet, these approaches typically use fixed smoothing parameters which may be appropriate for some images but not for others. Even for a particular image, the optimal smoothing parameters may depend on the magnitude of the transformation. When the transformation is large, the image should be smoothed more than when the transformation is small. Further, with gradient-based approaches, the optimal smoothing parameters may change with each iteration as the algorithm proceeds towards convergence. We address convergence issues related to the choice of smoothing parameters by deriving a Gauss-Newton gradient descent algorithm based on distribution fields (DFs) and proposing a method to dynamically select smoothing parameters at each iteration. DF and DF-like representations have previously been used in the context of tracking. In this work we incorporate DFs into a full affine model for region-based alignment and simultaneously search over parameterized sets of geometric and photometric transforms. We use a probabilistic interpretation of DFs to select smoothing parameters at each step in the optimization and show that this results in improved convergence rates.

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pdf code [BibTex]

ps Mears, B., Sevilla-Lara, L., Learned-Miller, E. Distribution Fields with Adaptive Kernels for Large Displacement Image Alignment In British Machine Vision Conference (BMVC) , BMVA Press, September 2013 (inproceedings)

pdf code [BibTex]

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Metric Regression Forests for Human Pose Estimation

(Best Science Paper Award)

Pons-Moll, G., Taylor, J., Shotton, J., Hertzmann, A., Fitzgibbon, A.

In British Machine Vision Conference (BMVC) , BMVA Press, September 2013 (inproceedings)

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pdf [BibTex]

ps Pons-Moll, G., Taylor, J., Shotton, J., Hertzmann, A., Fitzgibbon, A. Metric Regression Forests for Human Pose Estimation In British Machine Vision Conference (BMVC) , BMVA Press, September 2013 (inproceedings)

pdf [BibTex]

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Vision meets Robotics: The KITTI Dataset

Geiger, A., Lenz, P., Stiller, C., Urtasun, R.

International Journal of Robotics Research, 32(11):1231 - 1237 , Sage Publishing, September 2013 (article)

Abstract
We present a novel dataset captured from a VW station wagon for use in mobile robotics and autonomous driving research. In total, we recorded 6 hours of traffic scenarios at 10-100 Hz using a variety of sensor modalities such as high-resolution color and grayscale stereo cameras, a Velodyne 3D laser scanner and a high-precision GPS/IMU inertial navigation system. The scenarios are diverse, capturing real-world traffic situations and range from freeways over rural areas to inner-city scenes with many static and dynamic objects. Our data is calibrated, synchronized and timestamped, and we provide the rectified and raw image sequences. Our dataset also contains object labels in the form of 3D tracklets and we provide online benchmarks for stereo, optical flow, object detection and other tasks. This paper describes our recording platform, the data format and the utilities that we provide.

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pdf DOI [BibTex]

avg ps Geiger, A., Lenz, P., Stiller, C., Urtasun, R. Vision meets Robotics: The KITTI Dataset International Journal of Robotics Research, 32(11):1231 - 1237 , Sage Publishing, September 2013 (article)

pdf DOI [BibTex]

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Vibrotactile Display: Perception, Technology, and Applications

Choi, S., Kuchenbecker, K. J.

Proceedings of the IEEE, 101(9):2093-2104, sep 2013 (article)

hi

[BibTex]

hi Choi, S., Kuchenbecker, K. J. Vibrotactile Display: Perception, Technology, and Applications Proceedings of the IEEE, 101(9):2093-2104, sep 2013 (article)

[BibTex]

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Virtual Robotization of the Human Body Using Vibration Recording, Modeling and Rendering

Kurihara, Y., Hachisu, T., Kuchenbecker, K. J., Kajimoto, H.

In Proc. Virtual Reality Society of Japan Annual Conference, Osaka, Japan, sep 2013, Paper written in Japanese. Presentation given by Kurihara (inproceedings)

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[BibTex]

hi Kurihara, Y., Hachisu, T., Kuchenbecker, K. J., Kajimoto, H. Virtual Robotization of the Human Body Using Vibration Recording, Modeling and Rendering In Proc. Virtual Reality Society of Japan Annual Conference, Osaka, Japan, sep 2013, Paper written in Japanese. Presentation given by Kurihara (inproceedings)

[BibTex]

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Visualizing dimensionality reduction of systems biology data

Lehrmann, A. M., Huber, M., Polatkan, A. C., Pritzkau, A., Nieselt, K.

Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery, 1(27):146-165, Springer, July 2013 (article)

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pdf SpRay [BibTex]

ps Lehrmann, A. M., Huber, M., Polatkan, A. C., Pritzkau, A., Nieselt, K. Visualizing dimensionality reduction of systems biology data Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery, 1(27):146-165, Springer, July 2013 (article)

pdf SpRay [BibTex]

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Poselet conditioned pictorial structures

Pishchulin, L., Andriluka, M., Gehler, P., Schiele, B.

In IEEE Computer Society Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, pages: 588 - 595, IEEE, Portland, OR, Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVRP), June 2013 (inproceedings)

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pdf DOI Project Page [BibTex]

ps Pishchulin, L., Andriluka, M., Gehler, P., Schiele, B. Poselet conditioned pictorial structures In IEEE Computer Society Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, pages: 588 - 595, IEEE, Portland, OR, Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVRP), June 2013 (inproceedings)

pdf DOI Project Page [BibTex]

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Occlusion Patterns for Object Class Detection

Pepik, B., Stark, M., Gehler, P., Schiele, B.

In IEEE Computer Society Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, Portland, OR, June 2013 (inproceedings)

Abstract
Despite the success of recent object class recognition systems, the long-standing problem of partial occlusion re- mains a major challenge, and a principled solution is yet to be found. In this paper we leave the beaten path of meth- ods that treat occlusion as just another source of noise – instead, we include the occluder itself into the modelling, by mining distinctive, reoccurring occlusion patterns from annotated training data. These patterns are then used as training data for dedicated detectors of varying sophistica- tion. In particular, we evaluate and compare models that range from standard object class detectors to hierarchical, part-based representations of occluder/occludee pairs. In an extensive evaluation we derive insights that can aid fur- ther developments in tackling the occlusion challenge.

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pdf Project Page [BibTex]

ps Pepik, B., Stark, M., Gehler, P., Schiele, B. Occlusion Patterns for Object Class Detection In IEEE Computer Society Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, Portland, OR, June 2013 (inproceedings)

pdf Project Page [BibTex]

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Lost! Leveraging the Crowd for Probabilistic Visual Self-Localization

(CVPR13 Best Paper Runner-Up)

Brubaker, M. A., Geiger, A., Urtasun, R.

In IEEE Conf. on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR 2013), pages: 3057-3064, IEEE, Portland, OR, June 2013 (inproceedings)

Abstract
In this paper we propose an affordable solution to self- localization, which utilizes visual odometry and road maps as the only inputs. To this end, we present a probabilis- tic model as well as an efficient approximate inference al- gorithm, which is able to utilize distributed computation to meet the real-time requirements of autonomous systems. Because of the probabilistic nature of the model we are able to cope with uncertainty due to noisy visual odometry and inherent ambiguities in the map ( e.g ., in a Manhattan world). By exploiting freely available, community devel- oped maps and visual odometry measurements, we are able to localize a vehicle up to 3m after only a few seconds of driving on maps which contain more than 2,150km of driv- able roads.

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pdf supplementary project page [BibTex]

avg ps Brubaker, M. A., Geiger, A., Urtasun, R. Lost! Leveraging the Crowd for Probabilistic Visual Self-Localization In IEEE Conf. on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR 2013), pages: 3057-3064, IEEE, Portland, OR, June 2013 (inproceedings)

pdf supplementary project page [BibTex]

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Human Pose Estimation using Body Parts Dependent Joint Regressors

Dantone, M., Gall, J., Leistner, C., van Gool, L.

In IEEE Conf. on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR), pages: 3041-3048, IEEE, Portland, OR, USA, June 2013 (inproceedings)

Abstract
In this work, we address the problem of estimating 2d human pose from still images. Recent methods that rely on discriminatively trained deformable parts organized in a tree model have shown to be very successful in solving this task. Within such a pictorial structure framework, we address the problem of obtaining good part templates by proposing novel, non-linear joint regressors. In particular, we employ two-layered random forests as joint regressors. The first layer acts as a discriminative, independent body part classifier. The second layer takes the estimated class distributions of the first one into account and is thereby able to predict joint locations by modeling the interdependence and co-occurrence of the parts. This results in a pose estimation framework that takes dependencies between body parts already for joint localization into account and is thus able to circumvent typical ambiguities of tree structures, such as for legs and arms. In the experiments, we demonstrate that our body parts dependent joint regressors achieve a higher joint localization accuracy than tree-based state-of-the-art methods.

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pdf DOI Project Page [BibTex]

ps Dantone, M., Gall, J., Leistner, C., van Gool, L. Human Pose Estimation using Body Parts Dependent Joint Regressors In IEEE Conf. on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR), pages: 3041-3048, IEEE, Portland, OR, USA, June 2013 (inproceedings)

pdf DOI Project Page [BibTex]

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A fully-connected layered model of foreground and background flow

Sun, D., Wulff, J., Sudderth, E., Pfister, H., Black, M.

In IEEE Conf. on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, (CVPR 2013), pages: 2451-2458, Portland, OR, June 2013 (inproceedings)

Abstract
Layered models allow scene segmentation and motion estimation to be formulated together and to inform one another. Traditional layered motion methods, however, employ fairly weak models of scene structure, relying on locally connected Ising/Potts models which have limited ability to capture long-range correlations in natural scenes. To address this, we formulate a fully-connected layered model that enables global reasoning about the complicated segmentations of real objects. Optimization with fully-connected graphical models is challenging, and our inference algorithm leverages recent work on efficient mean field updates for fully-connected conditional random fields. These methods can be implemented efficiently using high-dimensional Gaussian filtering. We combine these ideas with a layered flow model, and find that the long-range connections greatly improve segmentation into figure-ground layers when compared with locally connected MRF models. Experiments on several benchmark datasets show that the method can recover fine structures and large occlusion regions, with good flow accuracy and much lower computational cost than previous locally-connected layered models.

ps

pdf Supplemental Material Project Page Project Page [BibTex]

ps Sun, D., Wulff, J., Sudderth, E., Pfister, H., Black, M. A fully-connected layered model of foreground and background flow In IEEE Conf. on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, (CVPR 2013), pages: 2451-2458, Portland, OR, June 2013 (inproceedings)

pdf Supplemental Material Project Page Project Page [BibTex]

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Correlation of Simultaneously Acquired Diffusion-Weighted Imaging and 2-Deoxy-[18F] fluoro-2-D-glucose Positron Emission Tomography of Pulmonary Lesions in a Dedicated Whole-Body Magnetic Resonance/Positron Emission Tomography System

Schmidt, H., Brendle, C., Schraml, C., Martirosian, P., Bezrukov, I., Hetzel, J., Müller, M., Sauter, A., Claussen, C., Pfannenberg, C., Schwenzer, N.

Investigative Radiology, 48(5):247-255, May 2013 (article)

ei

Web [BibTex]

ei Schmidt, H., Brendle, C., Schraml, C., Martirosian, P., Bezrukov, I., Hetzel, J., Müller, M., Sauter, A., Claussen, C., Pfannenberg, C., Schwenzer, N. Correlation of Simultaneously Acquired Diffusion-Weighted Imaging and 2-Deoxy-[18F] fluoro-2-D-glucose Positron Emission Tomography of Pulmonary Lesions in a Dedicated Whole-Body Magnetic Resonance/Positron Emission Tomography System Investigative Radiology, 48(5):247-255, May 2013 (article)

Web [BibTex]

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Hypothesis Testing Framework for Active Object Detection

Sankaran, B., Atanasov, N., Le Ny, J., Koletschka, T., Pappas, G., Daniilidis, K.

In IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), May 2013, clmc (inproceedings)

Abstract
One of the central problems in computer vision is the detection of semantically important objects and the estimation of their pose. Most of the work in object detection has been based on single image processing and its performance is limited by occlusions and ambiguity in appearance and geometry. This paper proposes an active approach to object detection by controlling the point of view of a mobile depth camera. When an initial static detection phase identifies an object of interest, several hypotheses are made about its class and orientation. The sensor then plans a sequence of view-points, which balances the amount of energy used to move with the chance of identifying the correct hypothesis. We formulate an active M-ary hypothesis testing problem, which includes sensor mobility, and solve it using a point-based approximate POMDP algorithm. The validity of our approach is verified through simulation and experiments with real scenes captured by a kinect sensor. The results suggest a significant improvement over static object detection.

am

pdf [BibTex]

am Sankaran, B., Atanasov, N., Le Ny, J., Koletschka, T., Pappas, G., Daniilidis, K. Hypothesis Testing Framework for Active Object Detection In IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), May 2013, clmc (inproceedings)

pdf [BibTex]

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Replacing Causal Faithfulness with Algorithmic Independence of Conditionals

Lemeire, J., Janzing, D.

Minds and Machines, 23(2):227-249, May 2013 (article)

Abstract
Independence of Conditionals (IC) has recently been proposed as a basic rule for causal structure learning. If a Bayesian network represents the causal structure, its Conditional Probability Distributions (CPDs) should be algorithmically independent. In this paper we compare IC with causal faithfulness (FF), stating that only those conditional independences that are implied by the causal Markov condition hold true. The latter is a basic postulate in common approaches to causal structure learning. The common spirit of FF and IC is to reject causal graphs for which the joint distribution looks ‘non-generic’. The difference lies in the notion of genericity: FF sometimes rejects models just because one of the CPDs is simple, for instance if the CPD describes a deterministic relation. IC does not behave in this undesirable way. It only rejects a model when there is a non-generic relation between different CPDs although each CPD looks generic when considered separately. Moreover, it detects relations between CPDs that cannot be captured by conditional independences. IC therefore helps in distinguishing causal graphs that induce the same conditional independences (i.e., they belong to the same Markov equivalence class). The usual justification for FF implicitly assumes a prior that is a probability density on the parameter space. IC can be justified by Solomonoff’s universal prior, assigning non-zero probability to those points in parameter space that have a finite description. In this way, it favours simple CPDs, and therefore respects Occam’s razor. Since Kolmogorov complexity is uncomputable, IC is not directly applicable in practice. We argue that it is nevertheless helpful, since it has already served as inspiration and justification for novel causal inference algorithms.

ei

PDF Web DOI [BibTex]

ei Lemeire, J., Janzing, D. Replacing Causal Faithfulness with Algorithmic Independence of Conditionals Minds and Machines, 23(2):227-249, May 2013 (article)

PDF Web DOI [BibTex]

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Benefits of an active spine supported bounding locomotion with a small compliant quadruped robot

Khoramshahi, M., Spröwitz, A., Tuleu, A., Ahmadabadi, M. N., Ijspeert, A. J.

In Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2013 IEEE International Conference on, pages: 3329-3334, May 2013 (inproceedings)

Abstract
We studied the effect of the control of an active spine versus a fixed spine, on a quadruped robot running in bound gait. Active spine supported actuation led to faster locomotion, with less foot sliding on the ground, and a higher stability to go straight forward. However, we did no observe an improvement of cost of transport of the spine-actuated, faster robot system compared to the rigid spine.

dlg

Youtube DOI Project Page [BibTex]

dlg Khoramshahi, M., Spröwitz, A., Tuleu, A., Ahmadabadi, M. N., Ijspeert, A. J. Benefits of an active spine supported bounding locomotion with a small compliant quadruped robot In Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2013 IEEE International Conference on, pages: 3329-3334, May 2013 (inproceedings)

Youtube DOI Project Page [BibTex]

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Virtual Alteration of Body Material by Reality-Based Periodic Vibrotactile Feedback

Kurihara, Y., Hachisu, T., Sato, M., Fukushima, S., Kuchenbecker, K. J., Kajimoto, H.

In Proc. JSME Robotics and Mechatronics Conference (ROBOMEC), Tsukuba, Japan, May 2013, Paper written in Japanese. Poster presentation given by {Kurihara} (inproceedings)

hi

[BibTex]

hi Kurihara, Y., Hachisu, T., Sato, M., Fukushima, S., Kuchenbecker, K. J., Kajimoto, H. Virtual Alteration of Body Material by Reality-Based Periodic Vibrotactile Feedback In Proc. JSME Robotics and Mechatronics Conference (ROBOMEC), Tsukuba, Japan, May 2013, Paper written in Japanese. Poster presentation given by {Kurihara} (inproceedings)

[BibTex]

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Perception-driven multi-robot formation control

Ahmad, A., Nascimento, T., Conceicao, A., Moreira, A., Lima, P.

In pages: 1851-1856, IEEE, IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), May 2013 (inproceedings)

Abstract
Maximizing the performance of cooperative perception of a tracked target by a team of mobile robots while maintaining the team's formation is the core problem addressed in this work. We propose a solution by integrating the controller and the estimator modules in a formation control loop. The controller module is a distributed non-linear model predictive controller and the estimator module is based on a particle filter for cooperative target tracking. A formal description of the integration followed by simulation and real robot results on two different teams of homogeneous robots are presented. The results highlight how our method successfully enables a team of homogeneous robots to minimize the total uncertainty of the tracked target's cooperative estimate while complying with the performance criteria such as keeping a pre-set distance between the team-mates and/or the target and obstacle avoidance.

ps

DOI [BibTex]

ps Ahmad, A., Nascimento, T., Conceicao, A., Moreira, A., Lima, P. Perception-driven multi-robot formation control In pages: 1851-1856, IEEE, IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), May 2013 (inproceedings)

DOI [BibTex]

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Cooperative Robot Localization and Target Tracking based on Least Squares Minimization

Ahmad, A., Tipaldi, G., Lima, P., Burgard, W.

In pages: 5696-5701, IEEE, IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), May 2013 (inproceedings)

Abstract
In this paper we address the problem of cooperative localization and target tracking with a team of moving robots. We model the problem as a least squares minimization problem and show that this problem can be efficiently solved using sparse optimization methods. To achieve this, we represent the problem as a graph, where the nodes are robot and target poses at individual time-steps and the edges are their relative measurements. Static landmarks at known position are used to define a common reference frame for the robots and the targets. In this way, we mitigate the risk of using measurements and state estimates more than once, since all the relative measurements are i.i.d. and no marginalization is performed. Experiments performed using a set of real robots show higher accuracy compared to a Kalman filter.

ps

DOI [BibTex]

ps Ahmad, A., Tipaldi, G., Lima, P., Burgard, W. Cooperative Robot Localization and Target Tracking based on Least Squares Minimization In pages: 5696-5701, IEEE, IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), May 2013 (inproceedings)

DOI [BibTex]

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The Design and Field Observation of a Haptic Notification System for Oral Presentations

Tam, D., MacLean, K. E., McGrenere, J., Kuchenbecker, K. J.

In Proc. SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pages: 1689-1698, Paris, France, May 2013, Oral presentation given by Tam (inproceedings)

hi

[BibTex]

hi Tam, D., MacLean, K. E., McGrenere, J., Kuchenbecker, K. J. The Design and Field Observation of a Haptic Notification System for Oral Presentations In Proc. SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pages: 1689-1698, Paris, France, May 2013, Oral presentation given by Tam (inproceedings)

[BibTex]

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Unscented Kalman Filtering on Riemannian Manifolds

Soren Hauberg, Francois Lauze, Kim S. Pedersen

Journal of Mathematical Imaging and Vision, 46(1):103-120, Springer Netherlands, May 2013 (article)

ps

Publishers site PDF [BibTex]

ps Soren Hauberg, Francois Lauze, Kim S. Pedersen Unscented Kalman Filtering on Riemannian Manifolds Journal of Mathematical Imaging and Vision, 46(1):103-120, Springer Netherlands, May 2013 (article)

Publishers site PDF [BibTex]

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Using Robotic Exploratory Procedures to Learn the Meaning of Haptic Adjectives

Chu, V., McMahon, I., Riano, L., McDonald, C. G., He, Q., Perez-Tejada, J. M., Arrigo, M., Fitter, N., Nappo, J., Darrell, T., Kuchenbecker, K. J.

In Proc. IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, pages: 3048-3055, Karlsruhe, Germany, May 2013, Oral presentation given by Chu. Best Cognitive Robotics Paper Award (inproceedings)

hi

[BibTex]

hi Chu, V., McMahon, I., Riano, L., McDonald, C. G., He, Q., Perez-Tejada, J. M., Arrigo, M., Fitter, N., Nappo, J., Darrell, T., Kuchenbecker, K. J. Using Robotic Exploratory Procedures to Learn the Meaning of Haptic Adjectives In Proc. IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, pages: 3048-3055, Karlsruhe, Germany, May 2013, Oral presentation given by Chu. Best Cognitive Robotics Paper Award (inproceedings)

[BibTex]

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Instrument contact vibrations are a construct-valid measure of technical skill in Fundamentals of Laparoscopic Surgery Training Tasks

Gomez, E. D., Aggarwal, R., McMahan, W., Koch, E., Hashimoto, D. A., Darzi, A., Murayama, K. M., Dumon, K. R., Williams, N. N., Kuchenbecker, K. J.

In Proc. Annual Meeting of the Association for Surgical Education, Orlando, Florida, USA, 2013, Oral presentation given by Gomez (inproceedings)

hi

[BibTex]

hi Gomez, E. D., Aggarwal, R., McMahan, W., Koch, E., Hashimoto, D. A., Darzi, A., Murayama, K. M., Dumon, K. R., Williams, N. N., Kuchenbecker, K. J. Instrument contact vibrations are a construct-valid measure of technical skill in Fundamentals of Laparoscopic Surgery Training Tasks In Proc. Annual Meeting of the Association for Surgical Education, Orlando, Florida, USA, 2013, Oral presentation given by Gomez (inproceedings)

[BibTex]

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Dynamic Simulation of Tool-Mediated Texture Interaction

McDonald, C. G., Kuchenbecker, K. J.

In Proc. IEEE World Haptics Conference, pages: 307-312, Daejeon, South Korea, April 2013, Oral presentation given by McDonald (inproceedings)

hi

[BibTex]

hi McDonald, C. G., Kuchenbecker, K. J. Dynamic Simulation of Tool-Mediated Texture Interaction In Proc. IEEE World Haptics Conference, pages: 307-312, Daejeon, South Korea, April 2013, Oral presentation given by McDonald (inproceedings)

[BibTex]

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ROS Open-source Audio Recognizer: ROAR Environmental Sound Detection Tools for Robot Programming

Romano, J. M., Brindza, J. P., Kuchenbecker, K. J.

Autonomous Robots, 34(3):207-215, April 2013 (article)

hi

[BibTex]

hi Romano, J. M., Brindza, J. P., Kuchenbecker, K. J. ROS Open-source Audio Recognizer: ROAR Environmental Sound Detection Tools for Robot Programming Autonomous Robots, 34(3):207-215, April 2013 (article)

[BibTex]

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Generating Haptic Texture Models From Unconstrained Tool-Surface Interactions

Culbertson, H., Unwin, J., Goodman, B. E., Kuchenbecker, K. J.

In Proc. IEEE World Haptics Conference, pages: 295-300, Daejeon, South Korea, April 2013, Oral presentation given by Culbertson. Finalist for Best Paper Award (inproceedings)

hi

[BibTex]

hi Culbertson, H., Unwin, J., Goodman, B. E., Kuchenbecker, K. J. Generating Haptic Texture Models From Unconstrained Tool-Surface Interactions In Proc. IEEE World Haptics Conference, pages: 295-300, Daejeon, South Korea, April 2013, Oral presentation given by Culbertson. Finalist for Best Paper Award (inproceedings)

[BibTex]

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A practical System for Recording Instrument Contacts and Collisions During Transoral Robotic Surgery

Gomez, E. D., Weinstein, G. S., O’Malley, J. B. W., McMahan, W., Chen, L., Kuchenbecker, K. J.

In Proc. Annual Meeting of the Triological Society, Orlando, Florida, USA, April 2013, Poster presentation given by Gomez (inproceedings)

hi

[BibTex]

hi Gomez, E. D., Weinstein, G. S., O’Malley, J. B. W., McMahan, W., Chen, L., Kuchenbecker, K. J. A practical System for Recording Instrument Contacts and Collisions During Transoral Robotic Surgery In Proc. Annual Meeting of the Triological Society, Orlando, Florida, USA, April 2013, Poster presentation given by Gomez (inproceedings)

[BibTex]

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Unknown-color spherical object detection and tracking

Troppan, A., Guerreiro, E., Celiberti, F., Santos, G., Ahmad, A., Lima, P.

In pages: 1-4, IEEE, 13th International Conference on Autonomous Robot Systems (Robotica), April 2013 (inproceedings)

Abstract
Detection and tracking of an unknown-color spherical object in a partially-known environment using a robot with a single camera is the core problem addressed in this article. A novel color detection mechanism, which exploits the geometrical properties of the spherical object's projection onto the image plane, precedes the object's detection process. A Kalman filter-based tracker uses the object detection in its update step and tracks the spherical object. Real robot experimental evaluation of the proposed method is presented on soccer robots detecting and tracking an unknown-color ball.

ps

DOI [BibTex]

ps Troppan, A., Guerreiro, E., Celiberti, F., Santos, G., Ahmad, A., Lima, P. Unknown-color spherical object detection and tracking In pages: 1-4, IEEE, 13th International Conference on Autonomous Robot Systems (Robotica), April 2013 (inproceedings)

DOI [BibTex]

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What can neurons do for their brain? Communicate selectivity with bursts

Balduzzi, D., Tononi, G.

Theory in Biosciences , 132(1):27-39, Springer, March 2013 (article)

Abstract
Neurons deep in cortex interact with the environment extremely indirectly; the spikes they receive and produce are pre- and post-processed by millions of other neurons. This paper proposes two information-theoretic constraints guiding the production of spikes, that help ensure bursting activity deep in cortex relates meaningfully to events in the environment. First, neurons should emphasize selective responses with bursts. Second, neurons should propagate selective inputs by burst-firing in response to them. We show the constraints are necessary for bursts to dominate information-transfer within cortex, thereby providing a substrate allowing neurons to distribute credit amongst themselves. Finally, since synaptic plasticity degrades the ability of neurons to burst selectively, we argue that homeostatic regulation of synaptic weights is necessary, and that it is best performed offline during sleep.

ei

PDF Web DOI [BibTex]

ei Balduzzi, D., Tononi, G. What can neurons do for their brain? Communicate selectivity with bursts Theory in Biosciences , 132(1):27-39, Springer, March 2013 (article)

PDF Web DOI [BibTex]

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Apprenticeship Learning with Few Examples

Boularias, A., Chaib-draa, B.

Neurocomputing, 104, pages: 83-96, March 2013 (article)

Abstract
We consider the problem of imitation learning when the examples, provided by an expert human, are scarce. Apprenticeship learning via inverse reinforcement learning provides an efficient tool for generalizing the examples, based on the assumption that the expert's policy maximizes a value function, which is a linear combination of state and action features. Most apprenticeship learning algorithms use only simple empirical averages of the features in the demonstrations as a statistics of the expert's policy. However, this method is efficient only when the number of examples is sufficiently large to cover most of the states, or the dynamics of the system is nearly deterministic. In this paper, we show that the quality of the learned policies is sensitive to the error in estimating the averages of the features when the dynamics of the system is stochastic. To reduce this error, we introduce two new approaches for bootstrapping the demonstrations by assuming that the expert is near-optimal and the dynamics of the system is known. In the first approach, the expert's examples are used to learn a reward function and to generate furthermore examples from the corresponding optimal policy. The second approach uses a transfer technique, known as graph homomorphism, in order to generalize the expert's actions to unvisited regions of the state space. Empirical results on simulated robot navigation problems show that our approach is able to learn sufficiently good policies from a significantly small number of examples.

ei

Web DOI [BibTex]

ei Boularias, A., Chaib-draa, B. Apprenticeship Learning with Few Examples Neurocomputing, 104, pages: 83-96, March 2013 (article)

Web DOI [BibTex]

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Quasi-Newton Methods: A New Direction

Hennig, P., Kiefel, M.

Journal of Machine Learning Research, 14(1):843-865, March 2013 (article)

Abstract
Four decades after their invention, quasi-Newton methods are still state of the art in unconstrained numerical optimization. Although not usually interpreted thus, these are learning algorithms that fit a local quadratic approximation to the objective function. We show that many, including the most popular, quasi-Newton methods can be interpreted as approximations of Bayesian linear regression under varying prior assumptions. This new notion elucidates some shortcomings of classical algorithms, and lights the way to a novel nonparametric quasi-Newton method, which is able to make more efficient use of available information at computational cost similar to its predecessors.

ei ps pn

website+code pdf link (url) [BibTex]

ei ps pn Hennig, P., Kiefel, M. Quasi-Newton Methods: A New Direction Journal of Machine Learning Research, 14(1):843-865, March 2013 (article)

website+code pdf link (url) [BibTex]

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Regional effects of magnetization dispersion on quantitative perfusion imaging for pulsed and continuous arterial spin labeling

Cavusoglu, M., Pohmann, R., Burger, H. C., Uludag, K.

Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, 69(2):524-530, Febuary 2013 (article)

Abstract
Most experiments assume a global transit delay time with blood flowing from the tagging region to the imaging slice in plug flow without any dispersion of the magnetization. However, because of cardiac pulsation, nonuniform cross-sectional flow profile, and complex vessel networks, the transit delay time is not a single value but follows a distribution. In this study, we explored the regional effects of magnetization dispersion on quantitative perfusion imaging for varying transit times within a very large interval from the direct comparison of pulsed, pseudo-continuous, and dual-coil continuous arterial spin labeling encoding schemes. Longer distances between tagging and imaging region typically used for continuous tagging schemes enhance the regional bias on the quantitative cerebral blood flow measurement causing an underestimation up to 37% when plug flow is assumed as in the standard model.

ei

Web DOI [BibTex]

ei Cavusoglu, M., Pohmann, R., Burger, H. C., Uludag, K. Regional effects of magnetization dispersion on quantitative perfusion imaging for pulsed and continuous arterial spin labeling Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, 69(2):524-530, Febuary 2013 (article)

Web DOI [BibTex]

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The multivariate Watson distribution: Maximum-likelihood estimation and other aspects

Sra, S., Karp, D.

Journal of Multivariate Analysis, 114, pages: 256-269, February 2013 (article)

Abstract
This paper studies fundamental aspects of modelling data using multivariate Watson distributions. Although these distributions are natural for modelling axially symmetric data (i.e., unit vectors where View the MathML source are equivalent), for high-dimensions using them can be difficult—largely because for Watson distributions even basic tasks such as maximum-likelihood are numerically challenging. To tackle the numerical difficulties some approximations have been derived. But these are either grossly inaccurate in high-dimensions [K.V. Mardia, P. Jupp, Directional Statistics, second ed., John Wiley & Sons, 2000] or when reasonably accurate [A. Bijral, M. Breitenbach, G.Z. Grudic, Mixture of Watson distributions: a generative model for hyperspherical embeddings, in: Artificial Intelligence and Statistics, AISTATS 2007, 2007, pp. 35–42], they lack theoretical justification. We derive new approximations to the maximum-likelihood estimates; our approximations are theoretically well-defined, numerically accurate, and easy to compute. We build on our parameter estimation and discuss mixture-modelling with Watson distributions; here we uncover a hitherto unknown connection to the “diametrical clustering” algorithm of Dhillon et al. [I.S. Dhillon, E.M. Marcotte, U. Roshan, Diametrical clustering for identifying anticorrelated gene clusters, Bioinformatics 19 (13) (2003) 1612–1619].

ei

Web DOI [BibTex]

ei Sra, S., Karp, D. The multivariate Watson distribution: Maximum-likelihood estimation and other aspects Journal of Multivariate Analysis, 114, pages: 256-269, February 2013 (article)

Web DOI [BibTex]

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In Vivo Validation of a System for Haptic Feedback of Tool Vibrations in Robotic Surgery

Bark, K., McMahan, W., Remington, A., Gewirtz, J., Wedmid, A., Lee, D. I., Kuchenbecker, K. J.

Surgical Endoscopy, 27(2):656-664, February 2013, dynamic article (paper plus video), available at \href{http://www.springerlink.com/content/417j532708417342/}{http://www.springerlink.com/content/417j532708417342/} (article)

hi

[BibTex]

hi Bark, K., McMahan, W., Remington, A., Gewirtz, J., Wedmid, A., Lee, D. I., Kuchenbecker, K. J. In Vivo Validation of a System for Haptic Feedback of Tool Vibrations in Robotic Surgery Surgical Endoscopy, 27(2):656-664, February 2013, dynamic article (paper plus video), available at \href{http://www.springerlink.com/content/417j532708417342/}{http://www.springerlink.com/content/417j532708417342/} (article)

[BibTex]