Magnetic and inertial measurement unit (MIMU) systems have been universally adopted in numerous navigation applications. These include domains such as aircraft, pedestrians, home automation, robots, etc. due to their advantages referring to price, size and accuracy. The fusion of the values recorded from magnetic and inertial sensors (magnetometer, accelerometer, gyroscope) can provide orientation with respect to the navigation path. Orientation can be given as either Euler angles or quaternions representing the rotation matrix associated with the orientation. The first is the commonest way since Euler angles can be easily interpreted in terms of yaw, pitch, and roll. However, their computation is ill-conditioned for some angulations due to a bad propagation of errors. Such intrinsic computational errors limit their use for free indoor, but equally affect the comparison and assessment of sensor fusion algorithms. In this paper, we present an assessment of orientation based on quaternion distances easy to interpret in terms of rotation axis and angle. We compare our approach to the standard assessment of orientation based on Euler angles in rotational trajectories around the three axes made using a Stäubli robotic arm. Results show the more superior reliability of the quaternion distance and the intrinsic artifacts of Euler angles for representing the whole space of rotations.

Cloud computing claims lower cost, high scalability, availability raised as a more attractive option to standalone solutions. Cloud-based services are being used in numerous areas such as education, engineering, healthcare, and more. In Healthcare, these services could deliver on-demand, self-service Internet infrastructure for medical imaging, entitled from healthcare practitioners to patients. One service that can be supported by cloud-based solutions is bronchoscopy planning. The bronchoscopy endoscopic solutions allow the visualization inside the airways for the diagnostic of possible pulmonary lesions. The infrastructure to support this kind of application might not fit precisely in existing architectures. In this paper, we present an infrastructure to deliver computing resources and services for planning and exploration of reconstructed virtual bronchoscopies using CTs. Our approach for bronchoscopy exploration is intended to support the Diagnosis as a Service (DaaS) concept using backend services, with a simple frontend. Like so, it will contribute and cover two main shortcomings: the performance improvement of our methods by gathering, and testing new data and to make research more accessible to the clinical community. Our tests demonstrate the flexibility, efficiency, and elasticity to supply a bronchoscopy on-demand service.

A main bottleneck in bronchoscopic biopsy sampling is to efficiently reach the lesion navigating across bronchial levels. Any guidance system should be able to localize the scope position during the intervention with minimal costs and alteration of clinical protocols. With the final goal of an affordable image-based guidance, this work presents a novel strategy to extract and codify the anatomical structure of bronchi, as well as, the scope navigation path from videobronchoscopy. Experiments using interventional data show that our method accurately identifies the bronchial structure. Meanwhile, experiments using simulated data verify that the extracted navigation path matches the 3D route.

There are tools to ease the 2D/3D graphics development for programmers. Sometimes, these are not directly accessible for all users requiring commercial licenses or based on trials, or long learning periods before to use them. In the modern world, the time to release final programs is crucial for the company successfully, also for saving money. Then, if programmers can handle tools to minimize the development time using well-known programming languages, they can deliver final programs on time, with minimum effort. This concept is the goal of this paper, offering a tool to create 3D renders over a familiarize programming language to speed up the web development time process. We present an extension of an interpreted programming language with an easy syntax to display 3D graphics on the web generating a template in a well-known web programming language, which can be customized and extended. Our proposal is based on Lua programming language as the input language for programmers, offering a web editor which interprets its syntax and exporting templates in WebGL over Javascript, also getting immediate output in a web browser. Tests show the effectiveness of our approach focus on the written code lines, also getting the expected output using a few computational resources.

In Education, is constant the searching of techniques to strengthen and extend the educational strategies in order to achieve that students get knowledge received in classroom, training personal courses and workshops. Serious games are part of that set of educational strategies to reinforce or extend the knowledge using a set of rules and policies in an interactive and amuse way. Nowadays, using technology, it is possible to add images and sounds into serious games under a digital platform. In this paper, we present a solution based on serious games to reinforce the mathematical knowledge in the preschool education following the study plan of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. Thus, we offer a tool with expectation of improving skills and knowledge of children on a specific area, also allowing follow the student track getting information of the activities performed. This compilation is made performing reports which will be available for teachers and facilitators. Reports allow adjust orientation and organization of topics imparted in classroom, and to know the general overview of a preschool educational course. Test performed determine the computational performance of solution, also the impact on children and teachers. The wide attention of children was verified, accomplishing the educational tasks in an indirect way.

The usage of medical images is part of the clinical daily in several healthcare centers around the world. Particularly, Computer Tomography (CT) images are an important key in the early detection of suspicious lung lesions. The CT image exploration allows the detection of lung lesions before any invasive procedure (e.g. bronchoscopy, biopsy). The effective localization of lesions is performed using different image processing and computer vision techniques. Lately, the usage of deep learning models into medical imaging from detection to prediction shown that is a powerful tool for Computer-aided software. In this paper, we present an approach to localize pulmonary lung lesion using fuzzy deep learning. Our approach uses a simple convolutional neural network based using the LIDC-IDRI dataset. Each image is divided into patches associated a probability vector (fuzzy) according their belonging to anatomical structures on a CT. We showcase our approach as part of a full CAD system to exploration, planning, guiding and detection of pulmonary lesions.

In Education, is constant the searching of techniques to strengthen and extend the educational strategies in order to achieve that students get knowledge received in classroom, training personal courses and workshops. Serious games are part of that set of educational strategies to reinforce or extend the knowledge using a set of rules and policies in an interactive and amuse way. Nowadays, using technology, it is possible to add images and sounds into serious games under a digital platform. In this paper, we present a solution based on serious games to reinforce the mathematical knowledge in the preschool education following the study plan of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. Thus, we offer a tool with expectation of improving skills and knowledge of children on a specific area, also allowing follow the student track getting information of the activities performed. This compilation is made performing reports which will be available for teachers and facilitators. Reports allow adjust orientation and organization of topics imparted in classroom, and to know the general overview of a preschool educational course. Test performed determine the computational performance of solution, also the impact on children and teachers. The wide attention of children was verified, accomplishing the educational tasks in an indirect way.

Virtual bronchoscopy (VB) is a non-invasive exploration tool for intervention planning and navigation of possible pulmonary lesions (PLs). A VB software involves the location of a PL and the calculation of a route, starting from the trachea, to reach it. The selection of a VB software might be a complex process, and there is no consensus in the community of medical software developers in which is the best-suited system to use or framework to choose. The authors present Bronchoscopy Exploration (BronchoX), a VB software to plan biopsy interventions that generate physician-readable instructions to reach the PLs. The authors' solution is open source, multiplatform, and extensible for future functionalities, designed by their multidisciplinary research and development group. BronchoX is a compound of different algorithms for segmentation, visualisation, and navigation of the respiratory tract. Performed results are a focus on the test the effectiveness of their proposal as an exploration software, also to measure its accuracy as a guiding system to reach PLs. Then, 40 different virtual planning paths were created to guide physicians until distal bronchioles. These results provide a functional software for BronchoX and demonstrate how following simple instructions is possible to reach distal lesions from the trachea.

Bronchoscopy examinations allow biopsy of pulmonary nodules with minimum risk for the patient. Even for experienced bronchoscopists, it is difficult to guide the bronchoscope to most distal lesions and obtain an accurate diagnosis. This paper presents an image-based codification of the bronchial anatomy for bronchoscopy biopsy guiding. The 3D anatomy of each patient is codified as a binary tree with nodes representing bronchial levels and edges labeled using their position on images projecting the 3D anatomy from a set of branching points. The paths from the root to leaves provide a codification of navigation routes with spatially consistent labels according to the anatomy observes in video bronchoscopy explorations. We evaluate our labeling approach as a guiding system in terms of the number of bronchial levels correctly codified, also in the number of labels-based instructions correctly supplied, using generalized mixed models and computer-generated data. Results obtained for three independent observers prove the consistency and reproducibility of our guiding system. We trust that our codification based on viewer's projection might be used as a foundation for the navigation process in Virtual Bronchoscopy systems.

PURPOSE:Personalized computational simulations of the heart could open up new improved approaches to diagnosis and surgery assistance systems. While it is fully recognized that myocardial fiber orientation is central for the construction of realistic computational models of cardiac electromechanics, the role of its overall architecture and connectivity remains unclear. Morphological studies show that the distribution of cardiac muscular fibers at the basal ring connects epicardium and endocardium. However, computational models simplify their distribution and disregard the basal loop. This work explores the influence in computational simulations of fiber distribution at different short-axis cuts.METHODS:We have used a highly parallelized computational solver to test different fiber models of ventricular muscular connectivity. We have considered two rule-based mathematical models and an own-designed method preserving basal connectivity as observed in experimental data. Simulated cardiac functional scores (rotation, torsion and longitudinal shortening) were compared to experimental healthy ranges using generalized models (rotation) and Mahalanobis distances (shortening, torsion).RESULTS:The probability of rotation was significantly lower for ruled-based models [95% CI (0.13, 0.20)] in comparison with experimental data [95% CI (0.23, 0.31)]. The Mahalanobis distance for experimental data was in the edge of the region enclosing 99% of the healthy population.CONCLUSIONS:Cardiac electromechanical simulations of the heart with fibers extracted from experimental data produce functional scores closer to healthy ranges than rule-based models disregarding architecture connectivity.

Computing indirect illumination is a challenging and complex problem for real-time rendering in 3D applications. We present a global illumination approach that computes indirect lighting in real time using a simplified version of the outgoing radiance and the scene stored in voxels. This approach comprehends two-bounce indirect lighting for diffuse, specular and emissive materials. Our voxel structure is based on a directional hierarchical structure stored in 3D textures with mipmapping, the structure is updated in real time utilizing the GPU which enables us to approximate indirect lighting for dynamic scenes. Our algorithm employs a voxel-light pass which calculates voxel direct and global illumination for the simplified outgoing radiance. We perform voxel cone tracing within this voxel structure to approximate different lighting phenomena such as ambient occlusion, soft shadows and indirect lighting. We demonstrate with different tests that our developed approach is capable to compute global illumination of complex scenes on interactive times.

We present EZ3.js, a modern, robust and flexible WebGL-based JavaScript engine for developing interactive and real-time 3D graphics applications on the web. This engine tackles the problem of rendering 3D models with complex instructions, non-portable code, and well documented code focus on software engineers which works over web browsers. EZ3.js offers a simple code-structure to load, transform and render 3D models applying different effects over them, based on efficient data structures and rendering algorithms. Template models for diffuse and specular reflection are included, joined with local lighting and texture mapping techniques. The full management of resources is optimized to obtain an outstanding performance, also reducing the memory consumption. Our engine is an open source library which provides an available entire documentation that can be extended in future for the graphics community of developers, being a great contribution in comparison to similar existing web 3D engines. Tests executed evaluated the performance, the memory consumption, and the number of required lines of code to render complex models, showing remarkable aspects of EZ3.js as a WebGL-based 3D engine.

During medicine studies, visualization of certain elements is common and indispensable in order to get more information about the way they work. Currently, we resort to the use of photographs -which are insufficient due to being static- or tests in patients, which can be invasive or even risky. Therefore, a low-cost approach is proposed by using a 3D visualization. This paper presents a holographic system built with low-cost materials for teaching obstetrics, where student interaction is performed by using voice and gestures. Our solution, which we called HoloMed, is focused on the projection of a euthocic normal delivery under a web-based infrastructure which also employs a Kinect. HoloMed is divided in three (3) essential modules: a gesture analyzer, a data server, and a holographic projection architecture, which can be executed in several interconnected computers using different network protocols. Tests used for determining the user's position, illumination factors, and response times, demonstrate HoloMed's effectiveness as a low-cost system for teaching, using a natural user interface and 3D images.

Human-computer interaction has had continuous changes in recent year, with a significant improvement in touch screens and motion sensors. New sensing technologies, like Microsoft Kinect, provide a low-cost way to add interactivity with gestures and postures. The current tendency is to develop software for the web. Interactions through the Kinect can be an additional benefit for these applications. While there is a solution to use the Kinect in the web, it is only supported on Windows platform by using Internet Explorer browser. In this paper, we propose a robust, interoperable, elegant and efficient server-client open source framework which allows interacting with the Kinect or similar capture device from browsers. The tests support our hypothesis, resulting in a low consumption of memory/time in different modern browsers. Also, an experimental test was performed to prove its usefulness, getting a rate of 30 fps successfully.

In computer science, an algorithm is an ordered set of instructions that allow you to perform a task by consecutive steps, taking input data for an initial state to obtain an output. Thus, an algorithm can be expressed in different ways: using natural language, some programming language, flowcharts, pseudo code, and others. Particularly, the pseudo code offers a high-level description of an algorithm by mixing the natural language syntax with one or several programming languages. The pseudo code is widely used in various textbooks, scientific papers, university departments, and as an intermediate product during the software development process. However, the pseudo code is not standard-based or any notation offering a large disparity between different research and development groups. In this paper, we present a notation for algorithms and data structures development that are simple, effective and modern, allowing a quick conversion between the pseudo code and a programming language. Then, a detailed syntax and conventions used in the notation proposed is described, offering a powerful and useful tool to support different programming approaches. The performed tests show its use in the construction of complex data structures while verifying its impact in an Algorithms course.

El ser humano puede de forma intuitiva seleccionar un grupo de fotografias de un conjunto e identificarlas como similares. Para ello, se emplean criterios basados en procesos cognitivos de aprendizaje centrados en sus caracteristicas visuales. En un computador, se trata de emular dicho proceso al calcular un vector de caracteristicas para una imagen, el cual permite identificarlas por sus atributos como su luminosidad, color predominante, intensidad, tonalidad, entre otros. El estandar MPEG-7 es una representacion de imagenes y video que define, entre diversos atributos, caracteristicas llamadas descriptores visuales los cuales pueden ser empleados para la aplicacion de funciones de similitud entre imagenes. Sin embargo, el costo computacional de obtener estos descriptores es elevado. En este trabajo proponemos realizar estos calculos empleando arquitecturas paralelas ofrecidas por las tarjetas graficas. De esta forma, se realizan modificaciones a la propuesta original de MPEG-7 para ser ajustadas a las GPUs y obtener resultados en menores tiempos manteniendo la eficacia. La experimentacion realizada justifica nuestra propuesta al implementar descriptores visuales de color, textura y forma, aplicados a una gran cantidad de imagenes permitiendo determinar con precision la similitud entre pares.

ABSTRACT In computer science, an algorithm is an ordered set of instructions that allow you to perform a task by consecutive steps, taking input data for an initial state to obtain an output. Thus, an algorithm can be expressed in different ways: using natural language, some programming language, flowcharts, pseudo code, and others. Particularly, the pseudo code offers a high-level description of an algorithm by mixing the natural language syntax with one or several programming languages. The pseudo code is widely used in various textbooks, scientific papers, university departments, and as an intermediate product during the software development process. However, the pseudo code is not standard-based or any notation offering a large disparity between different research and development groups. In this paper, we present a notation for algorithms and data structures development that are simple, effective and modern, allowing a quick conversion between the pseudo code and a programming language. Then, a detailed syntax and conventions used in the notation proposed is described, offering a powerful and useful tool to support different programming approaches. The performed tests show its use in the construction of complex data structures while verifying its impact in an Algorithms course. Keywords : algorithm notation, algorithms, programming, pseudo code.

In this paper, we present an approach to create assets using proceduralalgorithms in maps generation and dynamic adaptation of characters for a MOBA video game, preserving the balancing feature to players. Maps arecreated based on offering equal chances of winning or losing for both teams. Also, a character adaptation system is developed which allows changing the attributes of players in real-time according to their behaviour, always maintaining the game balanced. Our tests show the effectiveness of the proposed algorithms to establish the adequate values in a MOBA videogame.