Konstantinos A. Tarabanis

A survey of sensor planning in computer vision

A survey of research in the area of vision sensor planning is presented. The problem can be summarized as follows: given information about the environment as well as information about the task that the vision system is to accomplish, develop strategies to automatically determine sensor parameter values that achieve this task with a certain degree of satisfaction. With such strategies, sensor parameters values can be selected and can be purposefully changed in order to effectively perform the task at hand. The focus here is on vision sensor planning for the task of robustly detecting object features. For this task, camera and illumination parameters such as position, orientation, and optical settings are determined so that object features are, for example, visible, in focus, within the sensor field of view, magnified as required, and imaged with sufficient contrast. References to, and a brief description of, representative sensing strategies for the tasks of object recognition and scene reconstruction are also presented. For these tasks, sensor configurations are sought that will prove most useful when trying to identify an object or reconstruct a scene. >

The MVP sensor planning system for robotic vision tasks

The MVP (machine vision planner) model-based sensor planning system for robotic vision is presented. MVP automatically synthesizes desirable camera views of a scene based on geometric models of the environment, optical models of the vision sensors, and models of the task to be achieved. The generic task of feature detectability has been chosen since it is applicable to many robot-controlled vision systems. For such a task, features of interest in the environment are required to simultaneously be visible, inside the field of view, in focus, and magnified as required. In this paper, we present a technique that poses the vision sensor planning problem in an optimization setting and determines viewpoints that satisfy all previous requirements simultaneously and with a margin. In addition, we present experimental results of this technique when applied to a robotic vision system that consists of a camera mounted on a robot manipulator in a hand-eye configuration. >

Towards an enterprise architecture for public adminstration using a top-down approach

The use of Enterprise Architectures is becoming increasingly widespread in the private sector. Borrowing insights from enterprise reference architectures developed during the last decade, IT vendors and companies belonging to specific industries are establishing reference data and process models advancing the standardisation of their businesses and creating a more integrated environment for their activities. Although public administrations share the same problem of non-standardisation, which is being magnified rapidly in a changing and demanding environment, little has been done so far in the direction of integration. This article builds a basis, shows initial directions and attempts to stimulate interest in a PA enterprise framework. Following a top-down approach and employing concepts from the fields of public administration, enterprise integration and generic process and data modeling, the outline of the ArchPad enterprise architecture for Public Administration is presented.

A Framework for Assessing eParticipation Projects and Tools

An increasing number of governments worldwide understand the importance of electronic participation (eParticipation) i.e. the importance of the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) to more actively engage citizens in democratic processes. As a result, the number of eParticipation projects and relevant tools is rapidly growing. This makes the need for recording and reviewing such projects and tools both timely and critical. In this paper we present a framework for assessing eParticipation projects and tools. The proposed framework is based on distinguishing between participation areas and ICT support for these areas and suggests assessment to be performed using specific templates that are developed for this purpose. We further apply this framework in order to assess 19 relevant European Commission co-funded research projects. The preliminary results suggest that research in the domain of eParticipation is at its early stages. More specifically, the results suggest that projects focus on the more elementary eParticipation areas, such as information provision and opinion polling, while there is a trend for using multiple access channels, e.g. mobile technologies

Method employing sequential two-dimensional geometry for producing shells for fabrication by a rapid prototyping system

Beginning with a CAD specification of an object, the method and apparatus of the invention reduces the overall time to produce a shell of the object with a rapid prototyping machine. The reduction in time is achieved by interleaving the computation and the building tasks and by not requiring an explicit evaluation of a shell of the solid at the outset. The method is shown to operate with STL data, or with other CAD data, directly, and can also be employed to create non-planar objects, such as models of sheet metal parts that are represented only as surfaces. Furthermore, the method can be employed to produce a smooth outer surface even when employing polyhedral approximations to the surfaces of the object.

Understanding the predictive power of social media

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to consolidate existing knowledge and provide a deeper understanding of the use of social media (SM) data for predictions in various areas, such as disease outbreaks, product sales, stock market volatility and elections outcome predictions. Design/methodology/approach – The scientific literature was systematically reviewed to identify relevant empirical studies. These studies were analysed and synthesized in the form of a proposed conceptual framework, which was thereafter applied to further analyse this literature, hence gaining new insights into the field. Findings – The proposed framework reveals that all relevant studies can be decomposed into a small number of steps, and different approaches can be followed in each step. The application of the framework resulted in interesting findings. For example, most studies support SM predictive power, however, more than one-third of these studies infer predictive power without employing predictive analytics. In addition, a...

Automated sensor planning for robotic vision tasks

A method is presented to determine viewpoints for a robotic vision system for which object features of interest will simultaneously by visible, inside the field-of-view, in-focus, and magnified as required. A technique that poses the problem in an optimization setting in order to determine viewpoints that satisfy all requirements simultaneously and with a margin is presented. The formulation and results of the optimization are shown, as well as experimental results in which a robot vision system is positioned and its lens is set according to this method. Camera views are taken from the computed viewpoints in order to verify that all feature detectability requirements are satisfied.<<ETX>>

A classification scheme for open government data: towards linking decentralised data

Open government data (OGD) refers to making public sector information freely available in open formats and ways that enable public access and facilitate exploitation. Lately, a large number of OGD initiatives launched worldwide aiming to implement one-stop portals acting as single points of access to governmental data. At the same time, the so-called linked data technologies emerged aiming at publishing structured data on the web in such a way that enables semantically enriching data, uniform access to data, and linking of data. In this paper, we first propose a classification scheme for OGD initiatives based on the relevant literature. We thereafter, review and analyse OGD initiatives based on the proposed scheme. We finally present an architecture and prototype implementation for the most advanced OGD class in our scheme, which enables linking decentralised data.

Dynamic sensor planning

A method of extending the sensor planning abilities of the MVP (machine vision planning) system to plan viewpoints for monitoring a pre-planned robot task is described. The dynamic sensor planning system presented analyzes geometric models of the environment and of the planned motions of the robot, as well as optical models of the vision sensor. Using a combination of swept volumes and a temporal interval search technique, it computes a series of viewpoints, each of which provides a valid viewpoint for a different interval of the task. By mounting a camera on another manipulator, the viewpoints can be executed at appropriate times during the task so that there is always a robust view suitable for monitoring the task. Experimental results monitoring a simulated robot operation are presented, and directions for future research are discussed.<<ETX>>

Towards a Reference Architecture for Semantically Interoperable Clouds

This paper focuses on the emerging problem of semantic interoperability between heterogeneous cooperating Cloud platforms. We try to pave the way towards a Reference Architecture for Semantically Interoperable Clouds (RASIC). To this end, three fundamental and complementary computing paradigms, namely Cloud computing, Service Oriented Architectures (SOA) and lightweight semantics are used as the main building blocks. The open, generic Reference Architecture for Semantically Interoperable Clouds introduces a scalable, reusable and transferable approach for facilitating the design, deployment and execution of resource intensive SOA services on top of semantically interlinked Clouds. In order to support the development of semantically interoperable Cloud systems based on RASIC, the model of a common Cloud API is also specified.