Recovery in sensory-enriched break environments: integrating vision,sound and scent into simulated indoor and outdoor environments

To deal with stress and exhaustion at work, personal resources need to be replenished during breaks. The aim of this laboratory study (n?=?122 students) was to test the restorative potential of sensory-enriched break environments (SEBEs) in between-subjects with repeated measures design, focusing on the type of the environment (natural outdoor vs. built indoor environment) and sensory input (no sensory input vs. audiovisual input vs. audiovisual and olfactory input). Analyses showed that SEBEs simulating either a natural or a lounge environment were perceived as more pleasant and restorative (fascination/being away) than a standard break room, which in turn facilitated the recovery of personal resources (mood, fatigue, arousal). Moreover, adding a congruent scent to an audiovisual simulation indirectly facilitated the recovery of personal resources via greater scent pleasantness and higher fascination and being away. The current study shows the opportunities for sensory enrichment to foster restoration in break environments.     

Saliency and spatial information-based landmark selection for mobile robot navigation in natural environments

In this paper, a landmark selection and tracking approach is presented for mobile robot navigation in natural environments, using textural distinctiveness-based saliency detection and spatial information acquired from stereo data. The presented method focuses on achieving high robustness of tracking rather than self-positioning accuracy. The landmark selection method is designed to select a small amount of the most salient feature points in a wide variety of sparse unknown environments to ensure successful matching. Landmarks are selected by an iterative algorithm from a textural distinctiveness-based saliency map extended with spatial information, where a repulsive potential field is created around the position of each already selected landmark for better distribution in order to increase robustness. The template matching of landmarks is aided with visual odometry-based motion estimation. Other robustness increasing strategies includes estimating landmark positions by unscented Kalman filters as well as from surrounding landmarks. Experimental results show that the introduced method is robust and suitable for natural environments.     

An Efficient, Practical Parallelization Methodology for Multicore Architecture Simulation

Multiple core designs have become commonplace in the processor market, and are hence a major focus in modern computer architecture research. Thus, for both product development and research, multiple core processor simulation environments are necessary. A well-known positive feedback property of computer design is that we use today's computers to design tomorrow's. Thus, with the emergence of chip multiprocessors, it is natural to re-examine simulation environments written to exploit parallelism. In this paper we present a programming methodology for directly converting existing uniprocessor simulators into parallelized multiple-core simulators. Our method not only takes significantly less development effort compared to some prior used programming techniques, but also possesses advantages by retaining a modular and comprehensible programming structure. We demonstrate our case with actual developed products after applying this method to two different simulators, one developed from IBM Ibrandot and the other from the SimpleScalar tool set. Our SimpleScalar-based framework achieves a parallel speedup of 2.2times on a dual-CPU dual-core (4-way) Opteron server     

Biological couplings: Function, characteristics and implementation mode

Through rigorous natural selection, biological organisms have evolved exceptional functions highly adaptable to their living environments. Biological organisms can achieve a variety of biological functions efficiently by using the synergic actions of two or more different parts of the body, or the coupling effects of multiple factors, and demonstrate optimal adaptations to the living environment. In this paper, the function, characteristics and types of biological couplings are analyzed, the implementation ...     

Ergonomics and human factors: the paradigms for science,engineering, design,technology and management of human-compatible systems

This paper provides a theoretical perspective on human factors and ergonomics (HFE), defined as a unique and independent discipline that focuses on the nature of human-artefact interactions, viewed from the unified perspective of the science, engineering, design, technology and management of human-compatible systems. Such systems include a variety of natural and artificial products, processes and living environments. The distinguishing features of the contemporary HFE discipline and profession are discussed and a concept of ergonomics literacy is proposed. An axiomatic approach to ergonomics design and a universal measure of system-human incompatibility are also introduced. It is concluded that the main focus of the HFE discipline in the 21st century will be the design and management of systems that satisfy human compatibility requirements.     

Ergonomics and human factors: the paradigms for science, engineering, design, technology and management of human-compatible systems

This paper provides a theoretical perspective on human factors and ergonomics (HFE), defined as a unique and independent discipline that focuses on the nature of human-artefact interactions, viewed from the unified perspective of the science, engineering, design, technology and management of human-compatible systems. Such systems include a variety of natural and artificial products, processes and living environments. The distinguishing features of the contemporary HFE discipline and profession are discussed and a concept of ergonomics literacy is proposed. An axiomatic approach to ergonomics design and a universal measure of system-human incompatibility are also introduced. It is concluded that the main focus of the HFE discipline in the 21st century will be the design and management of systems that satisfy human compatibility requirements.     

Integrating Exploration, Localization, Navigation and Planning with a Common Representation

Two major themes of our research include the creation of mobile robot systems that are robust and adaptive in rapidly changing environments, and the view of integration as a basic research issue. Where reasonable, we try to use the same representations to allow different components to work more readily together and to allow better and more natural integration of and communication between these components. In this paper, we describe our most recent work in integrating mobile robot exploration, localization, navigation, and planning through the use of a common representation, evidence grids.     

State-of-the-art in visual geo-localization

Large-scale visual geo-localization has recently gained a lot of attention in computer vision research and new methods are proposed steadily. However, surveys of visual geo-localization methods are rare and they focus mainly on city-scale localization methods. We present a comprehensive and balanced study of existing visual geo-localization domains, including city-scale, global approaches and methods for natural environments. We describe the methods to show their pros and cons, application domains, datasets, as well as evaluation techniques. We categorize the reviewed methods by two criteria. The first is the type of data the method uses for geo-location estimation. The second criterion is the target environment for which the method has been proposed and validated. Based on this categorization, we analyze important conditions that must be considered while solving geo-localization problems. Each category is in a different state of research—while city-scale image-based methods received a lot of attention, other categories such as natural environments using cross-domain data sources are still challenging problems under active research. Future research of large-scale visual geo-localization is discussed, primarily the challenging and new research category—geo-localization in natural environments.     

Learning Dynamic Obstacle Avoidance for a Robot Arm Using Neuroevolution

Neural networks can be evolved to control robot manipulators in tasks like target tracking and obstacle avoidance in complex environments. Neurocontrollers are robust to noise and can be adapted to different environments and robot configurations. In this paper, neurocontrollers were evolved to position the end effector of a robot arm close to a target in three different environments: environments without obstacles, environments with stationary obstacles, and environments with moving obstacles. The evolved neurocontrollers perform qualitatively like inverse kinematic controllers in environments with no obstacles and like path-planning controllers based on Rapidly-exploring random trees in environments with obstacles. Unlike inverse kinematic controllers and path planners, the approach reliably generalizes to environments with moving obstacles, making it possible to use it in natural environments.     

基于中性进化、自组织和自然选择的进化算法

生物的进化同时在基因层、个体层和种群层进行。基因层上的进化是随机、均匀、无方向性的；个体层的随机行为通过自组织作用形成种群的复杂行为；种群的进化则是一个以环境为参考的自然选择过程。基于此，本文提出了一种基于中性进化，自组织和自然选择的进化算法．该算法同时考虑基因层、个体层和种群层上的进化过程以及三个层次间的相互作用和映射关系。提出了个体能力评估函数f(xi)的概念，分析了个体能力评估函数f(xi)与种群适应度函数fit(X)间的关系。时该算法的性能进行了仿真研究．仿真结果表明该算法相对于传统的进化算法具有更好的全局收敛性，更快的收敛速度和更强的参数鲁棒性。     

A review of particle swarm optimization. Part II: hybridisation,combinatorial, multicriteria and constrained optimization,and indicative applications

Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO), in its present form, has been in existence for roughly a decade, with formative research in related domains (such as social modelling, computer graphics, simulation and animation of natural swarms or flocks) for some years before that; a relatively short time compared with some of the other natural computing paradigms such as artificial neural networks and evolutionary computation. However, in that short period, PSO has gained widespread appeal amongst researchers and has been shown to offer good performance in a variety of application domains, with potential for hybridisation and specialisation, and demonstration of some interesting emergent behaviour. This paper aims to offer a compendious and timely review of the field and the challenges and opportunities offered by this welcome addition to the optimization toolbox. Part I discusses the location of PSO within the broader domain of natural computing, considers the development of the algorithm, and refinements introduced to prevent swarm stagnation and tackle dynamic environments. Part II considers current research in hybridisation, combinatorial problems, multicriteria and constrained optimization, and a range of indicative application areas.     

AI Approaches to Cognitive Systems �C The Example of Spatial Cognition

Cognitive abilities can be studied by observing and interpreting natural systems or by developing artificial systems that interact with their environments in intelligent ways. Cognitive systems research connects both approaches. Typically, human requirements are in the focus of interest and systems are developed to interact with humans in as natural a way as possible. To achieve this goal, a deep understanding of human cognition is required. The present paper focuses on spatial cognition, i.?e. the ability to perceive and conceive spatial environments and solve spatial tasks intelligently. It discusses artificial intelligence approaches to spatial cognition for supporting human activities.     

CitrusYOLO: A Algorithm for Citrus Detection under Orchard Environment Based on YOLOv4

Multimedia Tools and Applications - Achieving rapid and accurate detection of tree fruits under natural environments is essential for many precision agriculture application (such as harvesting...     

Visual gesture interfaces for virtual environments

Virtual environments provide a whole new way of viewing and manipulating 3D data. Current technology moves the images out of desktop monitors and into the space immediately surrounding the user. Users can literally put their hands on the virtual objects. Unfortunately, techniques for interacting with such environments are yet to mature. Gloves and sensor-based trackers are unwieldy, constraining and uncomfortable to use. A natural, more intuitive method of interaction would be to allow the user to grasp objects with their hands and manipulate them as if they were real objects.We are investigating the use of computer vision in implementing a natural interface based on hand gestures. A framework for a gesture recognition system is introduced along with results of experiments in colour segmentation, feature extraction and template matching for finger and hand tracking, and simple hand pose recognition. Implementation of a gesture interface for navigation and object manipulation in virtual environments is presented.     

AI Approaches to Cognitive Systems – The Example of Spatial Cognition

Cognitive abilities can be studied by observing and interpreting natural systems or by developing artificial systems that interact with their environments in intelligent ways. Cognitive systems research connects both approaches. Typically, human requirements are in the focus of interest and systems are developed to interact with humans in as natural a way as possible. To achieve this goal, a deep understanding of human cognition is required. The present paper focuses on spatial cognition, i. e. the ability to perceive and conceive spatial environments and solve spatial tasks intelligently. It discusses artificial intelligence approaches to spatial cognition for supporting human activities.     

A Natural Feature Representation for Unstructured Environments

This paper addresses the long-standing problem of feature representation in the natural world for autonomous navigation systems. The proposed representation combines Isomap, which is a nonlinear manifold learning algorithm, with expectation maximization, which is a statistical learning scheme. The representation is computed off-line and results in a compact, nonlinear, non-Gaussian sensor likelihood model. This model can be easily integrated into estimation algorithms for navigation and tracking. The compactness of the model makes it especially attractive for deployment in decentralized sensor networks. Real sensory data from unstructured terrestrial and underwater environments are used to demonstrate the versatility of the computed likelihood model. The experimental results show that this approach can provide consistent models of natural environments to facilitate complex visual tracking and data-association problems.      

The Internet, intranets, and the AI renaissance

Virtually cost-free publication on the World Wide Web has led to information overload. Artificial intelligence (AI), with its roots in knowledge representation, is experiencing a renaissance as new tools emerge to make the Web more tractable. Why do these Internet-based applications herald an AI renaissance? AI has come to play a crucial role in Information Age retrieval strategies. Internet-based applications can exploit a wide range of AI developments. In this survey, we look at examples of the following AI technologies: natural language processing (concept-based Internet searching); machine-learning (WebWatcher); heuristic rules for establishing preference (Letizia); rule-based/heuristic natural language processing (ContactFinder, FAQFinder, Globenet); and neural networks (Autonomy). This isn't AI for AI's sake-this renaissance is not one of stand-alone AI applications. Unlike first-generation AI applications, AI can now be embedded in heterogeneous networked computing environments and used for searching, retrieval and analysis of previously unimaginable quantities of data. Because the wealth of data makes direct human analysis impossible, AI-based support has become necessary to help users fully exploit that information. Our increasingly competitive and technology-driven world has reduced the time available to us for decision-making. To survive in this environment, we are increasingly turning to advanced computer technologies, such as intelligent agents, and delegating some of that decision-making to these electronic surrogates     

Feature extraction for outdoor mobile robot navigation based on a modified Gauss–Newton optimization approach

This paper discusses the problem of feature detection for semi-structured outdoor environments such as campuses and parks using laser range sensors. In these environments, commonly encountered natural features that can be very useful for mobile robot navigation include edges (large discontinuity) and circles (e.g., trees, pillars). The term feature is used to denote objects which are “likely” to be detectable when the sensor is moved to new locations. Note that there has been no systematic approach for feature detection in outdoor environments. In this paper, we present an algorithm for feature detection. The algorithm consists of data segmentation and parameter acquisition. A modified Gauss–Newton method is proposed for fitting circle parameters iteratively. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm is efficient in detecting features for semi-structured outdoor environments and is applicable to real time simultaneous localization and mapping.     

Categorization of ambient media projects on their business models, innovativeness, and characteristics—evaluation of Nokia Ubimedia MindTrek Award Projects of 2010

Ambient Media describe media environments, where the medium is embedded within the natural environment. They follow the anytime, anywhere, and anyhow principle for media access. The Nokia Ubimedia MindTreks Awards have been established a few years ago to explore the potential of ambient media. In this article we analyze the total project portfolio submitted to the 4th Nokia Ubimedia MindTrek Awards in 2010 according to their business value, innovativeness, and use of ambient media. The aim of this article is to gain insights into the general characteristics of ambient media, their properties, and business functions. The article rounds up in providing a substantial framework and guidelines for ambient media developers in their product designs.