Realistic Environment Audiometric Booth: Development and Clinical Validation.

BACKGROUND: Technological developments to treat hearing loss with different types of hearing aids and auditory implants have improved the auditory perception of patients, particularly in highly complex listening conditions. These devices can be fitted and adapted to enhance speech perception. Audiological tests that assess hearing with and without auditory devices have traditionally taken place in sound-attenuated audiometric booths. Although the insights gained from these tests are extremely useful, they do not accurately reflect everyday listening situations, and accurate information about the potential benefits of the hearing device in real acoustic scenarios cannot be established. Consequently, it is difficult to optimize this technology since fitting cannot be customized. OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to validate an audiological testing method using a new development, the Realistic Environment Audiometric Booth (REAB), in clinical practice. MATERIALS: We used specifically designed software to perform audiological tests in an 8 m2 sound-attenuated booth. The REAB was designed to conduct audiological tests in standard testing conditions and in new hearing scenarios that simulate real-life situations since sound can be emitted simultaneously or alternately 360° around the patient, along with 3D images. METHODS: Prospective study in which subjects were tested randomly in the REAB and the conventional booth (CB) in free field. RESULTS: 150 subjects were recruited, mean age 56 ± 20.7 years. Auditory outcomes for pure-tone audiometry showed a high correlation; this was also the case for speech audiometries in quiet and in noise. The outcome of the new scenarios with real-life noise was plotted, including the mean values and their confidence intervals. A decreasing trend was observed in the results obtained by the different groups, according to their hearing levels. CONCLUSIONS: We have developed and validated a new audiological testing method that enables hearing ability to be assessed in listening conditions similar to those found in real life. The REAB complements the tests performed in CBs, thereby aiding the diagnostic process by reproducing acoustic and visual scenarios that conventional tests do not offer.

Sensors on the Move: Onboard Camera-Based Real-Time Traffic Alerts Paving the Way for Cooperative Roads.

European road safety has improved greatly in recent decades. However, the current numbers are still far away to reach the European Commission's road safety targets. In this context, Cooperative Intelligent Transport Systems (C-ITS) are expected to significantly improve road safety, traffic efficiency and comfort of driving, by helping the driver to make better decisions and adapt to the traffic situation. This paper puts forward two vision-based applications for traffic sign recognition (TSR) and real-time weather alerts, such as for fog-banks. These modules will support operators in road infrastructure maintenance tasks as well as drivers, giving them valuable information via C-ITS messages. Different state-of-the-art methods are analysed using both publicly available datasets (GTSB) as well as our own image databases (Ceit-TSR and Ceit-Foggy). The selected models for TSR implementation are based on Aggregated Chanel Features (ACF) and Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) that reach more than 90% accuracy in real time. Regarding fog detection, an image feature extraction method on different colour spaces is proposed to differentiate sunny, cloudy and foggy scenes, as well as its visibility level. Both applications are already running in an onboard probe vehicle system.

Real-Time Visual Tracking of Deformable Objects in Robot-Assisted Surgery.

One of the most challenging problems in robot-assisted surgical systems is to provide surgical realism at interactive simulation rates. The proposed visual tracking system can track and register object deformations in real time using a physically based formulation, despite the occlusions produced by the robotic system itself. The results obtained provide an accurate visual representation of the deformed solid and will thus enable new assistance approaches to help surgeons during surgical procedures.

Review and Challenges of Brain Analysis through DTI Measurements.

Medical images are being studied to analyse the brain in neurological disorders. Measurements extracted from Diffusion tensor image (DTI) such as Fractional Anisotropy (FA) describe the brain changes caused by diseases. However, there is no single best method for the quantitative brain analysis. This paper presents a review of the existing methods and software tools for brain analysis through DTI measurements. It also states some challenges that current software tools still have to meet in order to improve automation and usability and become smarter software tools.

Study of a Ray Casting Technique for the Visualization of Deformable Volumes.

Deformable models are widely used in many disciplines such as engineering and medicine. Real objects are usually scanned to create models in such applications. In many cases the shape of the object is extracted from volumetric data acquired during the scanning phase. At the same time, this volume can be used to define the model's appearance. In order to achieve a visualization that unifies the shape (physical model) and appearance (scanned volume) specially adapted volume rendering techniques are required. One of the most common volumetric visualization techniques is ray casting, which also enables the use of different corrections or improvements such as adaptive sampling or stochastic jittering. This paper presents an extensive study about a ray casting method for tetrahedral meshes with an underlying structured volume. This allows a direct visualization of the deformed model without losing the information contained in the volume. The aim of this study is to analyse and compare the different methods for ray traversal and illumination correction, resulting in a comprehensive relation of the different methods, their computational cost and visual performance.

A review of surgical robots for spinal interventions.

BACKGROUND: This study aimed to describe the state of the art in surgical robotics for spinal interventions, a challenging problem for which robots can provide valuable assistance. METHODS: Multiple electronic databases were searched for articles published during the last 10 years (2002-2012). Results were refined by defined inclusion criteria. RESULTS: A total of 18 different robots were found. Among them, five are commercially available systems: one specifically designed for spinal surgery, one for percutaneous needle-based interventions, two are radiosurgical systems with reported applications on the spine and another is a commercial robot which has been experimentally tested on spinal surgery. The remaining projects are research prototypes which are still on validation stages. CONCLUSIONS: A comprehensive state of the art is presented, showing that spinal robotic surgery is still at an early stage of development but with great potential for improvement.