Perceptual Quality Assessment of Omnidirectional Images:Subjective Experiment and Objective Model Evaluation

Virtual reality(VR) environment can provide immersive experience to viewers.Under the VR environment, providing a good quality of experience is extremely important.Therefore, in this paper, we present an image quality assessment(IQA) study on omnidirectional images. We first build an omnidirectional IQA(OIQA) database, including 16 source images with their corresponding 320 distorted images. We add four commonly encountered distortions. These distortions are JPEG compression, JPEG2000 compression, Gaussian blur, and Gaussian noise. Then we conduct a subjective quality evaluation study in the VR environment based on the OIQA database. Considering that visual attention is more important in VR environment, head and eye movement data are also tracked and collected during the quality rating experiments. The 16 raw and their corresponding distorted images,subjective quality assessment scores, and the head-orientation data and eye-gaze data together constitute the OIQA database. Based on the OIQA database, we test some state-of-the-art full-reference IQA(FR-IQA) measures on equirectangular format or cubic formatomnidirectional images. The results show that applying FR-IQA metrics on cubic format omnidirectional images could improve their performance. The performance of some FR-IQA metrics combining the saliency weight of three different types are also tested based on our database. Some new phenomena different from traditional IQA are observed.

Research on cognitive load evaluation with subjective method in manual assembly

Subjective scales have different kinds of applicability in diverse fields.This study intends to implement a quantitative approach to determine the applicability of subjective scales in manual as-sembly work and evaluate the cognitive load of assembly workers.A multi-scale research paradigm based on subjective evaluation method is proposed.Three typical task stages are extracted from the process of assembly work.The National Aeronautics and Space Administration Task Load Index(NASA-TLX)scale,PAAS scale and Workload Profile Index Ratings(WP)scale are selected for the design of 3×3 multi-factor mixed experiment.The power spectrum density(PSD)characteris-tics of electroencephalogram(EEG)are utilized to identify the difficulty levels of the three task sta-ges.The relevant indicators of scale applicability are assessed.The results show that in terms of sensitivity,NASA-TLX scale reaches the highest sensitivity(F=999.137,P=0<0.05).In terms of validity,NASA-TLX scale possesses the best concurrent validity(P=0.0255<0.05).In terms of diagnosticity,NASA-TLX scale based on 6 dimensions takes on the best diagnostic performance.In terms of subject acceptability,WP scale performs the worst.According to the analytic hierarchy process(AHP)model,the applicability scores of NASA-TLX scale,PAAS scale and WP scale are determined as 3,2.55 and 1.6714,respectively.Therefore,NASA-TLX scale is regarded as the most suitable subjective evaluation questionnaire for assembly workers,which is also an effective quantitative evaluation method for the cognitive load of assembly workers.

Carbon efficiency evaluation method for urban energy system with multiple energy complementary

Urban energy systems(UESs)play a pivotal role in the consumption of clean energy and the promotion of energy cascade utilization.In the context of the construction and operation strategy of UESs with multiple complementary energy resources,a comprehensive assessment of the energy efficiency is of paramount importance.First,a multi-dimensional evaluation system with four primary indexes of energy utilization,environmental protection,system operation,and economic efficiency and 21 secondary indexes is constructed to comprehensively portray the UES.Considering that the evaluation system may contain a large number of indexes and that there is overlapping information among them,an energy efficiency evaluation method based on data processing,dimensionality reduction,integration of combined weights,and gray correlation analysis is proposed.This method can effectively reduce the number of calculations and improve the accuracy of energy efficiency assessments.Third,a demonstration project for a UES in China is presented.The energy efficiency of each scenario is assessed using six operational scenarios.The results show that Scenario 5,in which parks operate independently and investors build shared energy-storage equipment,has the best results and is best suited for green and low-carbon development.The results of the comparative assessment methods show that the proposed method provides a good energy efficiency assessment.This study provides a reference for the optimal planning,construction,and operation of UESs with multiple energy sources.

Comprehensive Evaluation of Distributed PV Grid-Connected Based on Combined Weighting Weights and TOPSIS-RSR Method

To effectively quantify the impact of distributed photovoltaic(PV)access on the distribution network,this paper proposes a comprehensive evaluation method of distributed PV grid connection combining subjective and objective combination of assignment and technique for order preference by similarity to an ideal solution(TOPSIS)—rank sum ratio(RSR)(TOPSIS-RSR)method.Based on the traditional distribution network evaluation system,a comprehensive evaluation system has been constructed.It fully considers the new development requirements of distributed PV access on the environmental friendliness and absorptive capacity of the distribution grid and comprehensively reflects the impact of distributed PV grid connection.The analytic hierarchy process(AHP)was used to determine the subjective weights of the primary indicators,and the Spearman consistency test was combined to determine the weights of the secondary indicators based on three objective assignment methods.The subjective and objective combination weights of each assessment indicator were calculated through the principle of minimum entropy.Calculate the distance between the indicators to be evaluated and the positive and negative ideal solutions,the relative closeness ranking,and qualitative binning by TOPSIS-RSR method to obtain the comprehensive evaluation results of different scenarios.By setting up different PV grid-connected scenarios and utilizing the IEEE33 node simulation algorithm,the correctness and effectiveness of the proposed subject-object combination assignment and integrated assessment method are verified.

Objective Fitting Evaluation Model for Dressing Fit Based on Wrinkle Index of Dressing Image

An effective model(image to wrinkle, ITW) for garment fitting evaluation is presented. The proposed model is to improve the accuracy of garment fitting evaluation based on dressing image. The ITW model is an objective evaluation model of fitting based on the wrinkle index of dressing image. The ITW model consists of two main steps, the gray curve-fitting(GCF) threshold segmentation algorithm and Canny edge detection algorithm. In the ITW model, three types of wrinkle trends are defined. And the network dressing image is evaluated and simulated by three quantitative indexes: wrinkle number, wrinkle regularity and wrinkle unevenness. Finally, the fitness of three kinds of dress effects(tight, fit and loose) is quantified by objective fitting evaluation model.

Objective Performance Evaluation of Video Segmentation Algorithms with Ground-Truth

While the development of particular video segmentation algorithms has attracted considerable research interest, relatively little effort has been devoted to provide a methodology for evaluating their performance. In this paper, we propose a methodology to objectively evaluate video segmentation algorithm with ground-truth, which is based on computing the deviation of segmentation results from the reference segmentation. Four different metrics based on classification pixels, edges, relative foreground area and relative position respectively are combined to address the spatial accuracy. Temporal coherency is evaluated by utilizing the difference of spatial accuracy between successive frames. The experimental results show the feasibility of our approach. Moreover, it is computationally more efficient than previous methods. It can be applied to provide an offline ranking among different segmentation algorithms and to optimally set the parameters for a given algorithm.

A Sound Quality Objective Evaluation Method Based on Auditory Peripheral Simulation Model

Based on auditory peripheral simulation model, a new Sound Quality Objective Evaluation (SQOE) method is presented,which can be used to model and analyze the impacts of head, shoulder and other parts of human body on sound wave trans-mission.This method employs the artificial head technique, in which the head related transfer function was taken into account tothe outer ear simulation phase.First, a bionic artificial head was designed as the outer ear model with considering the outersound field in view of theory and physical explanations.Then the auditory peripheral simulation model was built, which mimicsthe physiological functions of the human hearing, simulating the acoustic signal transfer process and conversion mechanismsfrom the free field to the peripheral auditory system.Finally, performance comparison was made between the proposed SQOEmethod and ArtemiS software, and the verifications of subjective and objective related analysis were made.Results show thatthe proposed method was economical, simple, and with good evaluation quality.

Subjective evaluation of indoor environmental quality of underground shopping malls in central district of Chongqing,China

Good indoor environmental quality enhances occupant health,comfort and productivity. In order to know the status of indoor environmental quality of underground shopping malls,five large underground shopping malls in five central districts of Chongqing,China,were surveyed. 2 411 questionnaires were distributed,and 98.5% of them were returned. From the results of questionnaire survey,the following conclusions were obtained:(1) in the five underground shopping malls surveyed,only shopping mall D in Nan'an district accords with the ASHRAE standard for good indoor air quality; (2) odors and sick building syndrome (SBS) symptoms are widespread in the underground shopping malls. The SBS occurrence rates for women and salespersons are higher than those of men and customers,respectively; (3) in the evaluation of the indoor environment,the indoor air quality dissatisfaction rate is the highest,followed by the thermal environment; and (4) women and salespersons generally have higher rates of dissatisfaction with the indoor environmental quality of underground shopping malls than men and customers,respectively.

Influence of Subjective Knowledge, Objective Knowledge and Health Consciousness on Olive Oil Consumption—A Case Study

Unlike the case in Mediterranean countries, where olive oil consumption is driven by habit or tradition, in a population where olive oil consumption rates are considerably low, it appears reasonable to suppose that the initial decision to buy a fairly expensive product—as is the case with olive oil in the Uruguayan market—may result from an individual’s overall interest in health-related issues and/or their acquaintance with relevant nutritional properties of the particular product—in this case, olive oil. Consumer subjective and objective knowledge, interest in health-related issues, and demographic variables were studied for their potential relationship (explanatory capacity) with olive oil consumption frequency, using a sample of 256 inhabitants of Montevideo (Uruguay). Several of the studied variables were found to relate to olive oil consumption, such as subjective and objective knowledge, age, education level, marital status, and interest in health-related issues. Subjective knowledge was found to have the highest explanatory capacity. An increase in subjective knowledge is therefore expected to lead to an increase in consumption frequency among regular olive oil consumers, while it may also encourage less frequent or non-consumers to purchase olive oil and become acquainted with the product.

Efficient Spam Filtering System Based on Smart Cooperative Subjective and Objective Methods

Most of the spam filtering techniques are based on objective methods such as the content filtering and DNS/reverse DNS checks. Recently, some cooperative subjective spam filtering techniques are proposed. Objective methods suffer from the false positive and false negative classification. Objective methods based on the content filtering are time consuming and resource demanding. They are inaccurate and require continuous update to cope with newly invented spammer’s tricks. On the other side, the existing subjective proposals have some drawbacks like the attacks from malicious users that make them unreliable and the privacy. In this paper, we propose an efficient spam filtering system that is based on a smart cooperative subjective technique for content filtering in addition to the fastest and the most reliable non-content-based objective methods. The system combines several applications. The first is a web-based system that we have developed based on the proposed technique. A server application having extra features suitable for the enterprises and closed work groups is a second part of the system. Another part is a set of standard web services that allow any existing email server or email client to interact with the system. It allows the email servers to query the system for email filtering. They can also allow the users via the mail user agents to participate in the subjective spam filtering problem.

Application of the Objective Structure Clinical Evaluation in Evaluating Clinical Competence for a BSN Program

Given the complex clinical situations and the dynamic nature of nursing, the greatest challenge for nursing educators is performing objective evaluation of students’ clinical competence. The Objective Structured Clinical Evaluation (OSCE) is designed to address this challenge and it has been widely used in nursing education. However, its implementation in nursing education in Taiwan has been limited. Accordingly, a quasi-experimental design was utilized to examine students’ clinical performance and stress levels using a 12-station OSCE assessment. Further, we investigated the inter-rater reliability and internal consistency of the OSCE. After controlling for scores of clinical performance, overall differences in pre- and post-practicum stress in the OSCE group were significantly higher than in the control group (F (1, 89) = 4.89, p = 0.03). There was no group effect on practicum performance after controlling for grade point average (F (1, 89) = 2.69, p = 0.14). Cronbach’s alpha for 12 OSCE stations ranged from 0.22 to 0.80 and inter-rater reliability for all 12 stations showed Pearson’s r ranging between 0.76 and 1.00. Cohen’s kappa ranged from 0.70 to 1.00

Study on Multi-Objective Effect Evaluation System of Smart Grid Construction

This paper builds multi-objective effect evaluation indicator system of smart grid construction from five connotations including strong and reliable, clean and green, friendly and interactive, transparent and open, economical and effective, which is embodied in the power generation, transmission, transformation, distribution, consumption, dispatching and information communication platform of smart grid. Taking the construction of smart grid in a certain area of China as an example, this paper uses analytic hierarchy process (AHP) to make an empirical analysis on it, and makes a comprehensive and objective evaluation on its construction effect.

Objective Evaluations of the Manner and Effect for Artificial Hail Suppression Operation in the Middle Region of Inner Mongolia

[ Objective] The research aimed to conduct objective evaluation on manner and effect of the artificial hail suppression operation in central Inner Mongolia. [ Method] Depending on analyses of the radar observation data, hail shooting data and artificial hail suppression operation data in the middle region of Inner Mongolia （ represented by Huhhot） from 1990 to 2007, and combining capability of the artificial hail suppression operation tool （＂ 37＂ anti-aircraft gun）, nucleation rate of the catalyst and suitable catalyst volume in hail cloud per unit volume, objective evaluation of the manner and effect for artificial hail suppression operation in the area was obtained. [ Result] It was exacter to distinguish shape and intensity of the hail cloud, but it was uncertain to distinguish height of the hail cloud, when selecting operation target cloud. Operation height was still lower, and perfect seeding height couldn＇t be attained. Operation occasion was controlled well, but there still were phenomena of the late operation. Shell amounts of the operation were few obviously, needing to increase shell amount or to improve nucleation rate of the catalyst. [ Conclsion] Syntheti- cally, manner of the artificial hail suppression operation in central Inner Mongolia was suitable, and total efficiency was about 85%.

Subjective V.S Objective Test Item

In this article,I will talk about the definition and discrimination of subjective test and objective test.The strong points and weak points are also discussed.Although each has its own disadvantages,subjective test and objective test will still play important roles at present or in future.A good classroom test will usually contain both subjective and objective test items.

A Contrastive Study on the C-E Translation of the Verb of Perception zhijian from the Perspective of Subjective Consciousness and Objective Consciousness

Verbs of perception include sight,hearing,smell,taste and touch,of which zhijian belongs to sight is very common in literary works,and its semantic meaning also begins to change with the development of time.Based on the original text and two translated versions of the Water Margin,this paper makes a comparative analysis of the translation strategies of zhijian on the basis that Chinese emphasizes subjective consciousness and the mixed consciousness of subjectivity and objectivity,while English stresses objective consciousness with a clear boundary between subjectivity and objectivity.According to previous studies,this paper regroups the appearance of zhijian and divides it into two categories,namely zhijian at the beginning of a sentence and at the beginning of a minor sentence.On the basis of the context and the changing function of zhijian,that is,the function of being a verb and being a discourse marker,it can be concluded that as the meaning of a verb,the real action,the meaning of zhijian is expressed by“seeing”,so translators usually adopt literal translation;while as a discourse marker,it is no longer the main component of sentence structure,but to highlight the following information,translators will adopt deletion,conversion and retaining.It can be seen that translators often need to convert Chinese characterized by subjective consciousness into English dominated by objective consciousness,thus conforming to various meaning of zhijian.

Improved Fuzzification Method for Multi-Objective Decision-Making and Its Application in Evaluation of Highway Planning

A new fuzzification method for multi-objective decision-making and selective sorting is proposed on the basis of the fuzzy consistent relation, and the specific algorithm is presented. The method is applied to the evaluation of highway planning of Zhanjiang city. To decrease the subjectivity in the process of decision-making, the LOWA operator is introduced, and a discussion on how to select appropriate weights involved in multi-objective sorting is made. It is concluded that it is feasible to apply the fuzzy consistent relation to multi-objective decision-making analysis, and the improved fuzzication method is workable.

一种基于Subject-Action-Object三元组的知识基因提取方法

以专利引证网络为载体,从知识基因稳定性、遗传性以及变异性等基本特征出发,提出一种基于subject-action-object三元组的知识基因提取方法.应用连接度算法分析专利引证关系,挖掘引证专利和被引专利之间继承和发展的知识流,建立知识进化轨迹;利用文本语法分析技术,从专利权利要求书中提取subject-action-object三元组;基于语义词库WordNet进行语义加工,计算语义相似度,合并同义的subject-action-object三元组,绘制知识基因图谱.从美国专利数据库中采集了5 073项1975—1999年授权的数据挖掘领域的相关专利,分析了专利的地区分布情况和年度分布情况.从NBER(National Bureau of Economic Research)的专利数据集中查询得到专利引证关系,利用网络分析软件Pajek构建专利引证网络,作为实验数据样本,对所提出的知识基因提取方法进行验证.实验结果表明:所提取的subject-action-object三元组具备了知识基因稳定性、遗传性和变异性等特征,可以作为知识基因的一种表现形式.

Research and application of sidewall stability predic-tion method based on analytic hierarchy process and fuzzy integrative evaluation method

As a difficult problem, sidewall instability has been beset drilling workers all the time. Not only does it cause huge economic losses, but also it determines the success or failure of drilling engineering. Due to complex relationship between various factors which influence sidewall stability, it hasn’t been found a widely applied method to predicate sidewall stability so far. Therefore, in order to formulate corresponding measures to ensure successful drilling, searching for a kind of better method to forecast sidewall stability before drilling becomes an imperative and significant topic for drilling engineering. On the basis of traditional sidewall stability analytical method, we have put forward the Fuzzy Comprehensive Evaluation Method to forecast sidewall stability regulation using physico-chemical performance parameters of the clay mineral. This method has been improved by introducing the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and the Maximum Subjection Principle in the application process. After introducing Analytic Hierarchy Process to identify weight, and Maximum Subjection Principle to obtain evaluation results, it has reduced the influence of human factors and enhanced the accuracy of the fuzzy evaluation results. The application in Hailaer Area indicates that this method can predict sidewall stability of gas-oil well with high credibility and strong practicability.

Objective Assessment of Skin Tightening Using Multisource, Phase-Controlled Radiofrequency in Asians

Background: Radiofrequency has been proven to penetrate deeper than optical light sources independent of skin color allowing a safer treatment for the Asian skin type. Many studies have indicated the efficacy of various types of devices, but have not included a sufficient objective evaluation. Multisource radiofrequency uses multiple phase controlled radiofrequency generators with real time impedance control, allowing painless, deeper dermal heating with better adaptation to differences in individual skin impedance. In this study we used three-dimensional imaging for the objective evaluation of facial skin tightening by multisource phase-controlled radiofrequency. Methods: Twenty Japanese patients were treated with a multisource phase-controlled radiofrequency device. Three-dimensional imaging was performed with a Canfield Scientific Vectra camera and software, and quantitative volume measurements were taken to evaluate the change in the post-treatment volume. The patients then provided subjective assessments. Results: Objective assessments of the treated cheek volume evaluated by a three-dimensional color schematic representation with quantitative volume measurements showed significant improvement three months after the final treatment. The mean volume reduction at the last post-treatment visit was 3.878 ± 2.86 mL. The post-treatment volume was significantly reduced compared to the pretreatment volume in all of the volunteers (P = 0.0007). Ninety-five percent of volunteers reported satisfaction with the improvement of skin laxity, and ninety percent of volunteers reported satisfaction with the improvement of wrinkles, such as the nasolabial folds. Conclusions: The advantages of these multisource phase-controlled radiofrequency treatments are its high efficacy for skin tightening associated with minimal level of discomfort, minimal side effects, and low cost. Taken together, these characteristics facilitate the ability to give repeated treatments as a stand alone treatment or adjunct to surgery. This study provides for the first time a qualitative and quantitative volumetric assessment, proving the ability of the technology to reduce the volume through non invasive skin tightening.