Articulated Clinician Detection Using 3D Pictorial Structures on RGB-D Data

Reliable human pose estimation (HPE) is essential to many clinical applications, such as surgical workflow analysis, radiation safety monitoring and human-robot cooperation. Proposed methods for the operating room (OR) rely either on foreground estimation using a multi-camera system, which is a challenge in real ORs due to color similarities and frequent illumination changes, or on wearable sensors or markers, which are invasive and therefore difficult to introduce in the room. Instead, we propose a novel approach based on Pictorial Structures (PS) and on RGB-D data, which can be easily deployed in real ORs. We extend the PS framework in two ways. First, we build robust and discriminative part detectors using both color and depth images. We also present a novel descriptor for depth images, called histogram of depth differences (HDD). Second, we extend PS to 3D by proposing 3D pairwise constraints and a new method that makes exact inference tractable. Our approach is evaluated for pose estimation and clinician detection on a challenging RGB-D dataset recorded in a busy operating room during live surgeries. We conduct series of experiments to study the different part detectors in conjunction with the various 2D or 3D pairwise constraints. Our comparisons demonstrate that 3D PS with RGB-D part detectors significantly improves the results in a visually challenging operating environment.Comment: The supplementary video is available at https://youtu.be/iabbGSqRSg

One more time : Plato's conception of the immortality of the soul

This article discusses the immortality of the soul as Plato demonstrates it mainly in the final argument of his dialogue “Phaedo”. Plato raises four different arguments for the immortality of the soul: The Argument from Opposites, the Theory of Recollection, the Argument from Affinity, and the Final Argument, given as a response to Cebes’ objection. He does not seem to place equal weight on all four of these arguments. For instance, it is suggested that the Argument from Affinity by no means proves the immortality of the soul, but only shows that it is quite likely. The Theory of Recollection and the Final Argument seem to be given the greatest importance, as both of them follow directly from the Theory of Forms. But while the Theory of Recollection can only show that the soul existed before birth, and not that it will also exist after death, the Final Argument purports to fully establish the immortality of the soul, and is considered by Plato to be unobjectionable and certain. Like his third argument Plato’s Final Argument addresses the question of what the relation is between the seemingly divine and immortal ideas and the soul. With reference to the Final argument’s successful conclusion the soul must be shown to be immortal and indestructible as highlighted by the discussion of certain elements such a the distinction between partial immortality and full immortality, the redefinition of death, the promise to consider “coming-into-being and passing-away” and the alternative “withdraw or perish”. The argument from opposite forms succeeds only in showing that the soul is immortal. The soul is characterized by life and the opposite of life is death. The soul therefore is immortal, in just the way in which fire is notcold and three is not-even. Plato supposes that the only time when the soul could perish would be at the time of separation from the body. The argument from opposite forms and the distinction of accidental and essential predication shows that the soul always survives separation from the body. The soul therefore is being always immortal and indestructible. Socrates argues that the soul is not merely similar to the immortal ideas but that the soul always possesses within itself the immortal idea of life. Consequently, he concludes that the soul is not merely “completely” or “almost so” but that “the soul is immortal”

Hermeneutical paradoxes in the trial of Socrates

The logical role of the paradox is not to state a truth whose paradoxical nature lies in the difficulty we feel in maintaining it as true, but rather to state somefhing thaf will cause fo feel as fa/se something else we previously believed to be true. The Socrafic paradox, somefimes called the "moral paradox, " is convincing and true because if implicitly raises the question about the true good. The drama of Socrates' trial and death indeed iIIustrates a dilemma, in which on the one hand the philosopher cannot accept the way of I ife prescribed by his tradition but 0 n the other hand cannot offer an unquestionable alternative to it. The best approach to the Socratic problem is an ec/ectic one, using all the ancient sourees instead of championing a single author at the expense of the rest

Aristotle on intellectual and character education

The aim of this paper is to explain Aristotle’s views on education with specific reference to Intellectual and Character education. Aristotle asserts that the theory and practice of education in general must undoubtedly be build upon a solid foundation of a philosophy of life especially in the fields of ethics and politics. His original works of Nicomachean Ethics, Politics and Metaphysics were also consulted in this regard. The educational implications of his teachings on actuality, potentiality, causality and character formation are also discussed. Though Aristotle had the background of Athenian education in mind, yet his philosophical thoughts is of universal significance and are not restricted to any time or place.Criminology and Security Scienc

Clinical characteristics and premorbid variables in childhoodonset schizophrenia: a descriptive study of twelve cases from a schizophrenia founder population

Objective: To analyze clinical and demographic data of childhood-onset (12 years and younger) schizophrenia patients collected for a genetic study in schizophrenia, undertaken nationally in South Africa, using multiple parameters. Method: Patients with an onset of schizophrenia at 12 years or younger, were included. From the Diagnostic Interview for Genetic Studies (DIGS), patients’ information and summary report data was tabulated and analyzed. Specific subgroups were further compared. This sub-population of 12 subjects was further compared with a group of the adult sample. Results: Of the 12 patients recruited, prominent resultswere: male to female ratio of 1:1; all had insidious onset of psychosis; a third had all 3 multidimensional impairment (MDI) symptoms; all patients that received ADHD treatment had ADHD treatment failure; two thirds had milestone delay; 58% had birth complications; a third were predominantly bottle fed; 42% had family history of schizophrenia; a third had family history of other major psychiatric conditions; all patients had at least one non-psychotic deviant behaviour (NPDB); no patient used cannabis; alldelusions were paranoid; 92% had school achievement difficulty and a third had treatment resistance. Gender comparison included: earlier onset of psychosis in females; all females had aggression versus a third of males; more females had school achievement difficulty than males; males had more treatment resistance. Patients with MDI, compared to the sample average had: earlier onset of non-psychotic deviant behaviour; lower school drop-out rate; less social difficulty and no treatment resistance. Conclusion: The results compare well to previous research on this topic. The new concepts introduced by the present studyrequire further investigation

Can we close the barn door before the horses get out? A case study of high genetic loading and subsequent development of psychosis

No abstract available.http://www.journals.co.za/ej/ejour_medjda.htm

DynaMoN: Motion-Aware Fast And Robust Camera Localization for Dynamic NeRF

Dynamic reconstruction with neural radiance fields (NeRF) requires accurate camera poses. These are often hard to retrieve with existing structure-from-motion (SfM) pipelines as both camera and scene content can change. We propose DynaMoN that leverages simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) jointly with motion masking to handle dynamic scene content. Our robust SLAM-based tracking module significantly accelerates the training process of the dynamic NeRF while improving the quality of synthesized views at the same time. Extensive experimental validation on TUM RGB-D, BONN RGB-D Dynamic and the DyCheck's iPhone dataset, three real-world datasets, shows the advantages of DynaMoN both for camera pose estimation and novel view synthesis.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure

SurgRIPE challenge: Benchmark of surgical robot instrument pose estimation

Accurate instrument pose estimation is a crucial step towards the future of robotic surgery, enabling applications such as autonomous surgical task execution. Vision-based methods for surgical instrument pose estimation provide a practical approach to tool tracking, but they often require markers to be attached to the instruments. Recently, more research has focused on the development of markerless methods based on deep learning. However, acquiring realistic surgical data, with ground truth (GT) instrument poses, required for deep learning training, is challenging. To address the issues in surgical instrument pose estimation, we introduce the Surgical Robot Instrument Pose Estimation (SurgRIPE) challenge, hosted at the 26th International Conference on Medical Image Computing and Computer-Assisted Intervention (MICCAI) in 2023. The objectives of this challenge are: (1) to provide the surgical vision community with realistic surgical video data paired with ground truth instrument poses, and (2) to establish a benchmark for evaluating markerless pose estimation methods. The challenge led to the development of several novel algorithms that showcased improved accuracy and robustness over existing methods. The performance evaluation study on the SurgRIPE dataset highlights the potential of these advanced algorithms to be integrated into robotic surgery systems, paving the way for more precise and autonomous surgical procedures. The SurgRIPE challenge has successfully established a new benchmark for the field, encouraging further research and development in surgical robot instrument pose estimation