Publications by authors named "Stelian Nicola"

In the context of global warming and increasing exposure to UV radiation, skin diseases are becoming more prevalent. Some of the most widespread skin conditions are solar lentigo and actinic keratosis. In this paper, we propose a technical approach related to the use of Azure Custom Vision services to classify these two conditions.

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This paper describes the latest development in the classification stage of our Speech Sound Disorder (SSD) Screening algorithm and presents the results achieved by using two classifier models: the Classification and Regression Tree (CART)-based model versus the Single Decision Hyperplane-based Linear Support Vector Machine (SVM) model. For every single speech sound in medial position, 10 features extracted from the audio samples along with an 11th feature representing the validation of the (mis)pronunciation by the Speech Language Pathologist (SLP) were fed into the 2 classifiers to compare and discuss their performance. The accuracy achieved by the two classifiers on a data test size of 30% of the analyzed samples was 98.

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Rheumatoid arthritis is a common disease which affects the joints of the wrist, fingers, feet and in the end the daily activities. Nowadays, gestures and virtual reality are used in many activities supporting recovery, games, learning as technology is present more and more in different fields. This paper presents results related to the grip movement detected by a Leap Motion device using binary classification and machine learning algorithms.

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Hand and joint mobility recovery involve performing a set of exercises. Gestures are often used in the hand mobility recovery process. This paper discusses the selection and the use of 2 models of neural networks for the classification of data that describe Leap Motion gestures.

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This paper presents a current situation of studies and applications which are using serious games and artificial intelligence (AI) in rehabilitation of rheumatoid arthritis, and possible future directions. The objectives of this paper are: to highlight the technologies used for recovery of patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), to summarize the state of the art of existing applications and to present the authors work, a software application that aims contributing to the recovery of the specific patients. At this stage the application was tested by a group of 10 patients from Medical Centre Sf.

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Static and dynamic gestures are frequently used in activities supporting learning, recovery healthcare, engineering, and 3D games to increase the interactivity between man and machine. The gestures are detected via hardware devices and data is processed using different software methods. This paper presents the manner of detection and interpretation of two gestures, a hand rotation gesture and a palm closing and opening gesture, using the Leap Motion device.

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This paper presents a Support-Vector Machine (SVM) based method of classification of cross-correlated phoneme segments as part of the development of an automated Speech Sound Disorder (SSD) Screening tool. The pre-processing stage of the algorithm uses cross-correlation to segment the target phoneme and extracts data from the new homogeneously trimmed audio samples. Such data is then fed into the SVM-based classification script which currently achieves an accuracy of 97.

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The importance of using the new technologies to develop educational and training applications for medical students is given by the times we live in and also by the continued development of the IT industry. New concepts used in 3D applications such as gamification bring added value to the use of learning applications. The introduction of technologies-based on virtual and augmented reality contributes to increasing of the interactivity.

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This paper presents a complex application for rehabilitation of patients with first and second stage rheumatoid arthritis (RA). The application contains a module for the doctor, for the kinetotherapist, and a module as a game matching the symptoms for each stage of RA. The purpose of this application is to achieve the rehabilitation of the RA hand with support of digital technology and multimodal interaction: leap motion, serious gaming, and neuronal networks.

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The goal of this paper is to present a word-final target phoneme automated segmentation method based on cross-correlation coefficients computed between a reference sound wave and a sample sound wave. Most existing Speech Sound Disorder (SSD) Screening solutions require human intervention to a greater or lesser extent and use segmentation methods based on hard-coded time frames. Moreover, existing solutions extract features from the frequency domain, which entails large amounts of computational power to the detriment of real-time feedback.

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This paper presents an audio file segmentation method in an attempt to mitigate the issue of variable durations of the same utterance by different individuals, e.g.: Speech-Language Pathologist (SLP) and dyslalic subjects.

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Currently, Virtual Reality-based 3D applications are more and more in use. Education is a field that makes use of this technology providing the users with a pleasant way of learning. Thus, the human-computer/smart phone interactivity increases.

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This paper presents a convolutional neural network-based classification of the hand flexion and extension gestures used in wrist recovery after injury. The hand gesture recognition device used in our study is the Leap Motion controller. The Leap Motion device's inability to accurately differentiate the left hand from the right hand when performing hand rotation gestures was eliminated by introducing hand and thumb direction vectors into the database used to train the neural network.

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This paper presents an improved solution for detecting gestures with a better precision using the Leap Motion sensor and Machine Learning support. A neural network is trained to recognize a hand rotation gesture expressing the grade of recovery, with a supination and pronation exercise. The supination-pronation movement is divided into 4 levels because the users are not usually able to perform a complete rotation gesture in hand recovery after injury.

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The paper presents new learning support for medical students exemplifying with several 3D applications for training on specific topics in medicine and investigates the impact on medical students. The applications were built using new concepts: Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, as environments agreed by young people, and gamification to make learning easy and fun. Leap Motion and the VR headset are the devices to control the applications and provide a better human-computer/mobile phone interaction as compared to the current ones.

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The paper presents a 3D healthcare informatics support for Hand Rehabilitation after injury. As a novelty, the application uses the Leap Motion sensor for patient's gestures recognition, and videos to illustrate to the users the hand exercise to perform. The implemented application provides feedback to users regarding the correctness of the performed recovery gestures/exercises.

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This paper reviews several architectures of Computer-Based Speech Therapy (CBST) systems and solutions and describes an architecture for an Entropy-Based Sound Speech Disorder (SSD) Screening System aimed at by our research project. The proposed architecture and data flow scenario aim to provide a fully-automated Entropy-based SSD Screening System, to be connected with CBSTs and to be used as a research infrastructure for further refinement of the objectives of our research project.

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The work described in this paper summarizes the development process and presents the results of a human genetics training application, studying the 20 amino acids formed by the combination of the 3 nucleotides of DNA targeting mainly medical and bioinformatics students. Currently, the domain applications using recognized human gestures of the Leap Motion sensor are used in molecules controlling and learning from Mendeleev table or in visualizing the animated reactions of specific molecules with water. The novelty in the current application consists in using the Leap Motion sensor creating new gestures for the application control and creating a tag based algorithm corresponding to each amino acid, depending on the position in the 3D virtual space of the 4 nucleotides of DNA and their type.

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The new virtual reality based medical applications is providing a better understanding of healthcare related subjects for both medical students and physicians. The work presented in this paper underlines gamification as a concept and uses VR as a new modality to study the human skeleton. The team proposes a mobile Android platform application based on Unity 5.

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