Abstract: On the road to making self-driving cars a reality, academic and industrial researchers are working hard to continue to increase safety while meeting technical and regulatory constraints Understanding the surrounding environment is a fundamental task in self-driving cars. It requires combining complex computer vision algorithms. Although state-of-the-art algorithms achieve good accuracy, their implementations often require powerful computing platforms with high power consumption. In some cases, the processing speed does not meet real-time constraints. FPGA platforms are often used to implement a category of latency-critical algorithms that demand maximum performance and energy efficiency. Since self-driving car computer vision functions fall into this category, one could expect to see a wide adoption of FPGAs in autonomous cars. In this paper, we survey the computer vision FPGA-based works from the literature targeting automotive applications over the last decade. Based on the survey, we identify the strengths and weaknesses of FPGAs in this domain and future research opportunities and challenges.

Abstract: La mayoría de la enfermedades cardiovasculares afectan a las propiedades contráctiles de la banda ventricular helicoidal. Esto se refleja en una variación del comportamiento normal de la función ventricular. Parámetros locales tales como los strains, o la deformación experimentada por el tejido, son indicadores capaces de detectar anomalías funcionales en territorios específicos. A menudo, dichos parámetros son considerados de forma separada. En este trabajo presentamos un marco computacional (el Dominio Paramétrico Normalizado, DPN) que permite integrarlos en hiperparámetros funcionales y estudiar sus rangos de normalidad. Dichos rangos permiten valorar de forma objetiva la función regional de cualquier nuevo paciente. Para ello, consideramos secuencias de resonancia magnética etiquetada a nivel basal, medio y apical. Los hiperparámetros se obtienen a partir del movimiento intramural del VI estimado mediante el método Harmonic Phase Flow. El DPN se define a partir de en una parametrización del Ventrículo Izquierdo (VI) en sus coordenadas radiales y circunferencial basada en criterios anatómicos. El paso de los hiperparámetros al DPN hace posible la comparación entre distintos pacientes. Los rangos de normalidad se definen mediante análisis estadístico de valores de voluntarios sanos en 45 regiones del DPN a lo largo de 9 fases sistólicas. Se ha usado un conjunto de 19 (14 H; E: 30.7±7.5) voluntarios sanos para crear los patrones de normalidad y se han validado usando 2 controles sanos y 3 pacientes afectados de contractilidad global reducida. Para los controles los resultados regionales se han ajustado dentro de la normalidad, mientras que para los pacientes se han obtenido valores anormales en las zonas descritas, localizando y cuantificando así el diagnóstico empírico.

Abstract: Corners and junctions are landmarks characterized by the lack of differentiability in the unit tangent to the image level curve. Detectors based on differential operators are not, by their own definition, the best posed as they require a higher degree of differentiability to yield a reliable response. We argue that a corner detector should be based on the degree of continuity of the tangent vector to the image level sets, work on the image domain and need no assumptions on neither the image local structure nor the particular geometry of the corner/junction. An operator measuring the degree of differentiability of the projection matrix on the image gradient fulfills the above requirements. Because using smoothing kernels leads to corner misplacement, we suggest an alternative fake response remover based on the receptive field inhibition of spurious details. The combination of both orientation discontinuity detection and noise inhibition produce our inhibition orientation energy (IOE) landmark locator.

Abstract: Project-Based Learning (PBL) is an educational strategy to improve student’s learning capability that, in recent years, has had a progressive acceptance in undergraduate studies. This methodology is based on solving a problem or project in a student working group. In this way, PBL focuses on learning the necessary tools to correctly find a solution to given problems. Since the learning initiative is transferred to the student, the PBL method promotes students own abilities. This allows a better assessment of the true workload that carries out the student in the subject. It follows that the methodology conforms to the guidelines of the Bologna document, which quantifies the student workload in a subject by means of the European credit transfer system (ECTS). PBL is currently applied in undergraduate studies needing strong practical training such as medicine, nursing or law sciences. Although this is also the case in engineering studies, amazingly, few experiences have been reported. In this paper we propose to use PBL in the educational organization of the Computer Graphics subjects in the Computer Science degree. Our PBL project focuses in the development of a C++ graphical environment based on the OpenGL libraries for visualization and handling of different graphical objects. The starting point is a basic skeleton that already includes lighting functions, perspective projection with mouse interaction to change the point of view and three predefined objects. Students have to complete this skeleton by adding their own functions to solve the project. A total number of 10 projects have been proposed and successfully solved. The exercises range from human face rendering to articulated objects, such as robot arms or puppets. In the present paper we extensively report the statement and educational objectives for two of the projects: solar system visualization and a chess game. We report our earlier educational experience based on the standard classroom theoretical, problem and practice sessions and the reasons that motivated searching for other learning methods. We have mainly chosen PBL because it improves the student learning initiative. We have applied the PBL educational model since the beginning of the second semester. The student’s feedback increases in his interest for the subject. We present a comparative study of the teachers’ and students’ workload between PBL and the classic teaching approach, which suggests that the workload increase in PBL is not as high as it seems.