Events & Seminars

Three Faculty members visited Kyushu Institute of Technology, Japan for “Joint Collaborative Research Programme’’ at ‘Life Science and System Engineering Department Wakamatsu Campus’ under MOU signed between Graduate School of Life Science and Systems Engineering, Kyushu Institute of Technology, Japan and Dronacharya College of Engineering, Gurgaon. The following three faculty members on behalf of Dronacharya College of Engineering, Gurgaon visited KIT, Japan for the Research Programme:

1. Mr. Ashish Gambhir (CSE department) visited the lab of Prof. Hakaru Tamukoh,

2. Mrs. Amninder Kaur (ECE department) visited the lab of Prof. Chikamune Wada

3. Mr. Amar Saraswat (ECE department) visited the lab of Prof. Keiichi Horio.

Week 1: (18th January 2016 – 22nd January 2016)

Dr. Shyam Sundar Pandey, Professor, Department of Life Sciences, Kyushu Institute of Technology, Japan introduced the faculties with all the good practices followed at the various institutes of Japan and discussed about the research work and various laboratories.

On 18th January, 2016 Prof. Hakaru Tamukoh accompanied them to the laboratories and gave overview of the various projects being taken up by his students and also told about the Robo Cup to be held in Japan during the month of March 2016.

Prof. Chikamune Wada briefed about Assistive Technology, Bio-medical Engineering, Ergonomics and Human Interface and how assistive technology promotes greater independence by enabling people to perform tasks that they were formerly unable to accomplish, or had great difficulty accomplishing, by providing enhancements to, or changing methods of interacting with, the technology needed to accomplish such tasks. An assistive device could be a wheelchair, Reacher, or a disability product that allows you to use a computer. If you experience difficulties performing certain tasks it's possible that an assistive device can help you overcome your problems faced in day to day life.

Ergonomics (or human factors) is the scientific discipline concerned with the understanding of interactions among humans and other elements of a system, and the profession that applies theory, principles, data and methods to design in order to optimize human well-being and overall system performance.

Biomedical engineering (BME) is the application of engineering principles and design concepts to medicine and biology for healthcare purposes (e.g. diagnostic or therapeutic).

He informed about the schedule of ``Global Mind Seminar`` and the shared the list of faculty members of eminent Indian Institute of Technology (IIT`s) participating in the seminar.

Dr. Keiichi Horio gave the introduction of various topics on Image Processing, and explained the basic concepts of Detection of Target in Static Images, Tacking of Target based on movie processing and Data Processing which included High Dimensional – 2D data visualization and analysing Relational Data.

On 19th January 2016, A Global Mind Seminar was held at college campus of KIT, Japan, in which various dignitaries were present such as Prof. P. K. Iyer, IIT Guwahati, Dr. Avanish Pratap Singh Rajput, National Physical Laboratories, India, Mr. K. Narayanswamy, Indian Institute of Chemical Technology, India, and Mr. Akhtar Hussain Malik, IIT, Guwahati. During the seminar, Dr. Shyam Sundar Pandey delivered the inauguration speech. Several research scholars presented their research work. Mr. Amar Saraswat presented his research work based on “Endpoint based Call Admission Control on VoIP over WLAN”. In the end Prof. Hanamoto explained about the motive of the research and ways to indulge in research in an effective manner.

On 20th January 2016 Dr. Shyam Sundar Pandey took all of the participants of the Global Mind Seminar for the Lab Visit in which we visited the highly equipped laboratories of Solar Energy, Electrical Engineering and Electronics Engineering. He explained the working of each and every equipment, including varieties of inks that are used for developing the solar cell, temperature and humidity maintaining devices, and some other devices through which we can see the electrons in the exciting state. In the end, Dr. Pandey discussed the need of the generation of solar energy. He said that Photovoltaics were initially solely used as a source of electricity for small and medium-sized applications, from the calculator powered by a single solar cell to remote homes powered by an off-grid rooftop PV system. As the cost of solar electricity has fallen, the number of grid-connected solar PV systems has grown into the millions and utility-scale solar power stations with hundreds of megawatts are being built. Solar PV is rapidly becoming an inexpensive, low-carbon technology to harness renewable energy from the Sun.

Dr. Pandey explained the need of being dependent on solar energy, and discussed about the difference between the silicon cells and Dye-sensitized solar cell. He said that in a traditional solid-state semiconductor, a solar cell is made from two doped crystals, one doped with n-type impurities (n-type semiconductor), which add additional free conduction band electrons, and the other doped with p-type impurities (p-type semiconductor), which add additional electron holes. Dr. Pandey said that when placed in contact, some of the electrons in the n-type portion flow into the p-type to "fill in" the missing electrons, also known as electron holes. Eventually enough electrons will flow across the boundary to equalize the Fermi levels of the two materials. The result is a region at the interface, the p-n junction, where charge carriers are depleted and/or accumulated on each side of the interface.

Stating the various advantages of Dye-sensitized solar cell, Dr. Pandey explained that A dye-sensitized solar cell is a low-cost solar cell belonging to the group of thin film solar cells. It is based on a semiconductor formed between a photo-sensitized anode and an electrolyte, a photoelectrochemical system. Dye-sensitized solar cells has a number of attractive features such as it is simple to make using conventional roll-printing techniques and is semi-flexible which offers a variety of uses not applicable to glass-based systems. The greatest advantage of using the solar cells is that it can be developed and installed at a very low cost.

Dr. Pandey discussed that in practice it has proven difficult to eliminate a number of expensive materials, notably platinum and ruthenium, and the liquid electrolyte presents a serious challenge to making a cell suitable for use in all weather. Dr. Pandey said that although its conversion efficiency is less than the best thin-film cells, in theory its price/performance ratio should be good enough to allow them to compete with fossil fuel electrical generation by achieving grid parity.

On 21st January 2016 the students pursuing M.tech under guidance of Prof. Chikamune demonstrated their project work. Mr. Yoshiyuki Tomiyama (student-M.tech second year) demonstrated his project “Rising support from the chair -Relationship of the seat surface state and lower limb muscle activity”.

Prof. Hakaru Tamukoh explained the various areas of his research and explained one of his area “Simplified Lightness Modification Algorithm for Generating Graik O’Brien Effect”. In one of his paper, he has proposed a low-complexity and low-memory requirement lightness modification algorithm for generating Craik O’Brien effect.

On 22nd January 2016 Mr. Romy Budhi, Ph. D second year student demonstrated his Research Work: “Improvement Study for measurement accuracy on Wireless Shoe-type Measurement Device to support Walking Rehabilitation”. He had developed a shoe-type measurement device which is able to measure gait information such as step length, width and pressure distribution while daily living.

Professor shared a ppt regarding the CO effect. Mr. Kouji Okumara, one of the masters student working in the Tamukoh Lab, presented one of the presentation on the Xilinx tools and also demonstrated the working of the software.

He also explained the SVI 06 module which is an image inspection and development support equipment of the portable type. In SVI 06, input of image sensor is possible with one piece of board.

Week 2: (25th January 2016 – 29th January 2016)

Dr. Keiichi Horio explained about the field of research Detection of Target in Static Images, in detail. He stated that Image processing is a method to convert an image into digital form and perform some operations on it, in order to get an enhanced image or to extract some useful information from it. It is a type of signal dispensation in which input is image, like video frame or photograph and output may be image or characteristics associated with that image, in order to improve its quality and can be defined as the analysis and manipulation of a digitized image.

Explaining about the commonly used feature, on which the research work is dependent, Dr. Horio stated that a parameter, in its common meaning, is a characteristic, feature, or measurable factor that can help in defining a particular system. A parameter is an important element to consider in evaluation or comprehension of an event, project, or situation. Parameter has more specific interpretations in mathematics, logic, linguistics, environmental science, and other disciplines.

Dr. Horio explained about the HOG feature, which stands for Histograms of Oriented Gradients and is a type of “feature descriptor”. The intent of a feature descriptor is to generalize the object in such a way that the same object produces as close as possible to the same feature descriptor when viewed under different conditions. He said that the HOG person detector uses a sliding detection window which is moved around the image. At each position of the detector window, a HOG descriptor is computed for the detection window and this descriptor is then shown to the trained SVM, which classifies it as either “person” or “not a person”. Dr. Horio gave the work for the implementation of the HOG Feature on the available data set.

On 25th and 26th January 2016 Hiroyuki Kuraoka, student of Ph.D second year is working with them on the project “Effects of a sensory intake task on heart rate and heart rate variability”. This project investigated the effects of a sensory intake task on heart rate and heart rate variability (HRV). Twenty-one female participants were asked to perform a mental arithmetic (MA) task and a mirror tracing (MT) task for 5 min each. A previous study indicated that MT task has the characteristic of sensory intake and induces Pattern 2 responses, which evoke vasoconstriction and the resulting bradycardia. In this experiment, participants were instructed to perform “without hurrying” and “as precisely as possible” during the MT task. Electrocardiogram (ECG) was recorded during the MA, MT, and resting period before and after each task. High frequency components (HF), low frequency components (LF), LF/HF ratio of HRV, and the coefficient of variations of RR intervals were derived from the ECGs. Subjective mental workload assessment by NASA task load index (TLX) was evaluated after each task. The MT task was found to induce Pattern 2 response in which HR significantly decreased from the before-task baseline, although no significant difference was found in HF. Therefore, physiological responses induced by mental tasks vary according to task characteristics, although average mental workload scores are identical.

Hiroyuki briefed the experimental task of his project that how he conduct the experiments in his lab. The MA task was based on the MATH algorithm proposed by Turner et al (1986). In this task, first, a problem appeared on a PC screen for 2 s. Following the word “EQUALS” for 1.5 s, an answer appeared for 1.5 s. Therefore, a problem appeared every 5 s. Participants were required to press the left button of a mouse if the presented answer was correct and the right button if it was incorrect. Participants had to respond quickly within 1.5 s. The MA task contained five levels of difficulty: level one, level two, level three, level four, and level five comprises 2-digit + 1-digit, 2-digit - 1-digit, 2-digit +/- 2-digit, 3-digit + 2-digit problems, and 3-digit - 2-digit problems, respectively. All subtractions yielded positive answers. The first problem presented was always at level 3. Thereafter, the levels of the subsequent problems depended on the participant’s responses. When the participant’s response was correct, the level of the next problem increased by one. If an incorrect response or no response was given within the time limit, the level went down. For correct responses to level five problems and incorrect responses to level one problems, the level of the next problem remained the same. The task lasted 5 min. Therefore, participants responded to 60 problems. In the MT task, participants were asked to trace a zig-zag pathway on a PC screen “as precisely as possible” by using a mouse whose horizontal and vertical control elements were interchanged. During the practice session, participants were notified that when the mouse is moved to the right, the trajectory goes down as an example. They were urged not to do this task “as quickly as possible”. Previous studies using this MT tasks suggested that they induced Pattern 2 response.

On 27th January Prof. Chikamune Wada and two other faculty members of Brain Science and Research department conducted Ph.D thesis presentation of an Indian student, Mr. Tripathi Gayanendra. The topic of the seminar was “Analytical Method for Synergy based Motion Control supported by Joint Energy and Coordinate Measure toward Rehabilitation and Robotic’’. He explained that the coordinated muscle activation is required for synchronized joint motion behaviour to complete the task. The coordinated activation of group of muscle ids defined as muscle synergy. He used Principal Component Analysis. PCA is the method to obtain a linear transform from the N X d matrix X to a NX m matrix Y.

Experiments involve data collection from volunteers. Volunteers were given instructions for the experiment. Subsequently, they were asked to practice two mental tasks briefly and confirm their informed consent. After attaching electrodes, participants took a 5-min pre-test rest (PRE) in a sitting position. Next, they were instructed to perform the Math Algorithm and Mirror Tracing tasks for 5 min each. The order of the tasks was counterbalanced. After conducting these two mental tasks, they took a 5-min post-test rest (POST) again.

On 28th- 29th January Mr. Romy Budhi explained about the software, he used to implement the programming of his project. He used Microsoft Visual Studio C++. Participants installed that software in her system and practiced by building small projects using Microsoft Visual Studio software.

Microsoft Visual Studio is an integrated development environment (IDE) from Microsoft. It can be used to develop console and graphical user interface applications along with Windows Forms applications, websites, web applications, and web services in both native code together with managed code for all platforms supported by Microsoft Windows, Windows Phone, Windows CE, .NET Framework, .NET Compact Framework and Microsoft Silverlight. Visual C++ is a component of Microsoft Visual Studio 2012 for developing C++ programs.

Creating a Project

To create C++ programs in Visual C++, one have to first create a project. A project is like a holder that ties all the files together. Here are the steps to create a project:

1. Choose File, New, Project to display the New Project window.

2. Choose C++ under the Template and select Win32 Console Application in the middle column. Type bookexample in the Name field and c:\smith in the Location field. Click OK to Display the Win32 Application Wizard window.

3. Click Next to display the application settings window.

4. Select Console application in the Application type section and check Empty project in the Additional options section.

Click Finish to create a project.

Participants studied about the CO effect and various algorithms available for generating the CO effect. He also studied about the rare disease which is known as Dichromacy and various problems associated with the disease and about the re-coloring methods and various problems in conventional methods. The most important problems are Unnatural impression of re-coloring result and High computational cost. T-Model filter is useful to extract contour information which is needed in order to improve the visibility in dichromats. One of the most important advantages of using T-model filter is that it requires only two line buffers and not multiplier and divider is required.

Week 3: (1st February 2016 - 5th February 2016)

Dr. Horio analysed the task of implementing the HOG feature onto the static images. After that, he explained the concepts of SVM, which is Support Vector Machine and explained that one of the main reasons for this is that it uses a “global” feature to describe a person rather than a collection of “local” features and means that the entire person is represented by a single feature vector, as opposed to many feature vectors representing smaller parts of the person.

Also, while analysing the implementation work, Dr. Horio explained that detecting humans in images is a challenging task owing to their variable appearance and the wide range of poses that they can adopt and the first need is a robust feature set that allows the human form to be discriminated cleanly, even in cluttered backgrounds under difficult illumination. He also made a detailed study of the effects of various implementation choices on detector performance, taking .pedestrian detection as a test case.

Dr. Horio explained that for simplicity and speed, linear SVM as a baseline method is being adopted and the new detectors generally give essentially perfect results on the MIT pedestrian test set, so a more challenging set needs to be create that must contain over 1800 pedestrian images with a large range of poses and backgrounds.

Ms. Farah Khan, Internship student from Malaysia gave a two-hour presentation on “A biochemical study of spherical grip”. This discussion of a review paper is based on the fact that use of the hand is vital in working life due to grabbing and pinching it performs. Spherical grip is the most commonly used, due to similarity to the gripping of a computer mouse. Office work involves different tasks based on functional gripping. An example of this is the three-tip tripod grasp to hold a pen in writing and the spherical grip to move a computer mouse. The movements made by the hand and arm during mouse grip have been analysed from different perspectives. The obtained data was resampled b “R Software” and processed by “Matlab Script” based on an automatic numerical sequence recognition program. After processing and analysing the obtained data and signal it was possible to identify five stages of movement in accordance with the module vector from the palm. Analysis of movement through accelerometer and electromyography variables can give us an insight into the operation of spherical grip.

The discussion ended with the conclusion that the use of surface electromyography gave an overall idea of the muscle groups involved in making hand movements, namely the index, and thumb.

Participants also studied the National Instrument Device The NI myRIO student-ready enclosure and academic pricing discount means students can work on their own hardware device inside or outside of the classroom. With built-in WiFi capability, students can wirelessly transfer data and deploy code. With its onboard devices, seamless software experience, and library of courseware and tutorials, NI myRIO provides an affordable tool that students can use to do real engineering.

NI myRIO is used for a variety of teaching applications to improve student learning in engineering education. Whether used alone or paired with add-ons, NI miniSystems, or third-party sensors, NI myRIO can help students learn multiple engineering concepts on one device. Teach multiple disciplines on one device so that students learn all aspects of system design.

1. Up to 40 lines of digital I/O, 10 analog input channels, and 6 analog output channels for connectivity to sensors and actuators

2. Reusable from class to class and project to project

3. Onboard WiFi and USB port for connectivity to USB devices

Participants also completed the various assignments about the SVI 06 board. The assignments involved the analyzing the various codes in verilog language and also debugging exercises. Prof. Tamukoh also explained the implement of the Gaussian filter which will be useful when making the final T-model filter. The implementation of T-model filter uses various similar steps which are also used while implementing the Gaussian Filter. Participants interacted with the students of other labs who are working under Prof. Tamukoh. These students were working on Neural Networks and related areas. The students also explained the various research problems they are working on.

Week 4: (8th February 2016 - 11th February 2016)

During the fourth week, a research scholar, Tsuciya, whose thesis work is based on the real-time application of this technique of image processing, showcased his research work. His research work was truly based for the safety of pedestrians, in which he obtains the images vertically and from the top angle, also known as the head angle. If a pedestrian is detected, the signal will be generated within the vehicle and it will automatically stop. Tsuciya said that it is very easy to detect a human from the front side, through the HOG feature, but it becomes a tough job in detecting a human or pedestrian from the head angle.

The motive of the research work done by the Tsuciya, clearly fulfils the purpose to avoid road accidents, and minimizing there possibility. For the pedestrians, who are blind and generally cross the road or walk aside, this research work would solve all there problem of having the fear of accident.

During the analysis and the implantation of the task given by Dr. Horio, it was found that HOG descriptor should be operated on 8×8 pixel cells for getting the more accurate results within the detection window. These cells will be organized into overlapping blocks and 8×8 cell drawn in red, to give us an idea of the cell size and image resolution and within a cell, we compute the gradient vector at each pixel and take the 64 gradient vectors and put them into a 9-bin histogram. The Histogram ranges from 0 to 180 degrees, so there are 20 degrees per bin.

During the last week Prof. Chikamune gave a brief about Motion Capture Technology. There is a lab in Wada department which has this technology. Many students implement this technology in their projects. Motion capture (Mo-cap for short) is the process of recording the movement of objects or people. It is used in military, entertainment, sports, medical applications, and for validation of computer vision and robotics. In filmmaking and video game development, it refers to recording actions of human actors, and using that information to animate digital character models in 2D or 3D computer animation. In this technology the performer has to wear markers near each joint to identify the motion by the positions or angles between the markers. Acoustic, inertial, LED, magnetic or reflective markers, or combinations of any of these, are tracked, optimally at least two times the frequency rate of the desired motion. The resolution of the system is important in both the spatial resolution and temporal resolution as motion blur causes almost the same problems as low resolution. Most modern systems can extract the silhouette of the performer from the background. Afterwards all joint angles are calculated by fitting in a mathematic model into the silhouette. For movements you can't see a change of the silhouette, there are hybrid Systems available who can do both (marker and silhouette), but with less marker.

Participants learned about the software technology (Motion capture software MVN Studio) used to design motion capture devices. Motion capture (also MoCap) is a way to digitally record human movements. The recorded motion capture data is mapped on a digital model in 3D software (e.g. Maya or 3D Studio Max) so the digital character moves like the actor you recorded.

Motion capture technology has been available for researchers and scientists for a few decades, which has given new insight into many fields.

Conclusion

The visit to Kyushu Institute of Technology, Japan has been very interactive and knowledgeable. During this visit, they got the exposure to various high quality and sophisticated laboratories and were also interacted with many research scholars. They got the opportunity to work on highly sophisticated software and hardware tools. Also, during the interaction with the researchers, they also got to know about the latest research areas.