Καβαλλιεράτου Εργίνα

Περίληψη:
Kalypso is a 3D-printed underwater robotic system developed to enhance aquaculture management in the Mediterranean Sea, particularly for species such as sea bream, sea bass, carp, and catfish. It functions in two modes: autonomously as an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) for routine inspections, and as a teleoperated Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) for more complex interventions. In AUV mode, Kalypso detects critical issues such as structural damage to nets, the presence of dead fish, and biofouling or plant growth on net surfaces. In ROV mode, it enables operators to address these challenges directly, including repairing nets, removing debris, and retrieving dead fish. By facilitating proactive maintenance, improving fish welfare, and optimizing resource allocation, Kalypso represents a significant advancement in aquaculture technology. Its innovative use of 3D printing and dual operational modes ensures a cost-effective, flexible, and sustainable solution tailored to the specific needs of Mediterranean fish farms.

Περίληψη:
This paper introduces the El Greco Platform, a Python programming platform for distance learning that employs an educational robot. This website allows prospective learners to remotely control El Greco, a social humanoid robot designed to be cost-effective, simple to construct, and appropriate for use in education. El Greco is capable of performing multiple tasks, including combined movements. These Robot capabilities can be programmed using either Python code or the Blockly library, which adds an editor to an application that visualizes coding concepts as interlocking blocks. Programming a robot appears to be a significantly more effective and creative method for students to learn a programming language. This educational tool was designed primarily for use by students and allows anyone to learn Python while controlling a robot for free. El Greco Platform features gamification elements that increase the enjoyment and engagement of the learning experience while reinforcing the concepts taught. The survey results on students aged 13–18 revealed that the El Greco Platform captivated the study participants and positively affected their attitudes toward programming and robotics. In addition, it significantly impacted their comprehension of programming and motivated them to seek additional opportunities to expand their knowledge of robotics and programming.

Περίληψη:
Getting students motivated and interested in their education can be challenging in any classroom setting, even more so in an online learning environment. In this spectrum, educational robotics (ER) has demonstrated numerous advantages in the educational environment, not only by facilitating teaching, but also enabling the cultivation of manyfold skills, including creativity, problem-solving, and teamwork. Meanwhile, many methods have been developed with the aid of technology to improve the teaching process and boost students' ability to learn. Blended learning is one approach that integrates conventional classroom methods with digital resources in an effort to foster students' creativity. But how can blended learning be combined with robotics? The objective of this paper is to evaluate the impact of employing an underwater vehicle, called educational underwater vehicle (EDUV), in conjunction with a dedicated programming learning platform within the context of a programming course that is offered at the high school level. In this work, this platform is utilized by students in secondary education, and a survey was conducted prior and after using the underwater vehicle's platform based on two questionnaires. The survey included 112 Greek participants, 64 males and 48 females in the age range of 14–18 years old. The experimental results show an increase in their motivation and creativity. In other words, they are more engaged in the classroom and the lesson becomes more enjoyable. More specifically, the survey revealed that most participants are familiar with computers but have limited knowledge of robotics and programming. After training on the EDUV platform, participants showed a significant increase in correct responses for Python and Blockly environments, with an average of 50.7% in four programming-related questions. The platform also reduced “do not know” replies, which means that the student's self-esteem increased. The paired sample T-test showed that the EDUV platform positively influenced participants' perceptions of robotics and motivated them to further their education. In this paper, the related work is discussed, and the architecture of the vehicle is analyzed, along with the integration with the online platform. In addition, the methodology performed is explained and divided into steps. Finally, the experimental results are discussed. Instructions, 3D models, and code can be found in the github repository https://github.com/MariosVasileiou/EDUV.

Περίληψη:
In fish farms a major issue is the net cage wear, resulting in fish escapes and negative impact of fish quality, due to holes and biofouling of the nets. To minimize fish losses, fisheries utilize divers to inspect net cages on a weekly basis. Aquaculture companies are looking for ways to maximize profit and reduce maintenance costs is one of them. Kefalonia Fisheries spend 250 thousand euros yearly on diver expenses for net cages maintenance. This work is about the design, fabrication, and control of an inexpensive autonomous underwater vehicle intended for inspection in net cages at Kefalonia Fisheries S.A. in Greece. Its main body is 3D-printed, and its eight-thruster configuration grants it six degrees of freedom. The main objective of the vehicle is to limit maintenance costs by increasing inspection frequency. The design, fabrication as well as the electronics and software architecture of the vehicle are presented. In addition, the forces affecting Kalypso, mobility realization, navigation, and modeling are quoted along with a flow simulation and the experimental results. The proposed design is adaptable and durable while remaining cost effective, and it can be used for both manual and automatic operations.

Περίληψη:
Underwater vehicles utilized in net cages at aquaculture facilities are commonly utilized for the purpose of examining the deterioration of nets and the accumulation of biofouling. The implementation of a robotic system for repairing damages has the potential to decrease the expenses associated with employing divers while reducing the risk of their injury. This study details the development, fabrication, and simulation of a cost-effective subaquatic manipulator, denoted as MURA, which can be seamlessly incorporated into submersible vehicles. The Kalypso unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV) is utilized in this study. MURA exhibits a high degree of modularity, enabling seamless alteration of the end-effector tool. Additionally, its low-cost nature renders it a viable option for integration with any underwater vehicle. Three end-effectors were subjected to testing, one designed for the purpose of disposing fish morts, another intended for removing litters from net cages in fisheries, and a third for repairing net tears. This study outlines the MURA design, including the arm’s fabrication and constituent components. In addition, the modeling of the manipulator is presented accompanied by a water flow simulation of the three manipulators. Ultimately, the experimental findings are analyzed and evaluated. These include the field experiments performed at Kefalonia fisheries, along with the duration to complete each task. For instance, the capture of fish morts typically necessitates approximately 30 s, encompassing the entire process from initial targeting to actual capture. In a similar vein, the procedure of mending tears in a net necessitates an approximate duration of 70 s on average, encompassing the stages of initial identification and subsequent detachment. The suggested design exhibits adaptability and durability while upholding affordability when utilized in aquaculture.

Περίληψη:
Nowadays, the number of people that utilize either digital applications or machines is increasing exponentially. Therefore, trustworthy verification schemes are required to ensure security and to authenticate the identity of an individual. Since traditional passwords have become more vulnerable to attack, the need to adopt new verification schemes is now compulsory. Biometric traits have gained significant interest in this area in recent years due to their uniqueness, ease of use and development, user convenience and security. Biometric traits cannot be borrowed, stolen or forgotten like traditional passwords or RFID cards. Fingerprints represent one of the most utilized biometric factors. In contrast to popular opinion, fingerprint recognition is not an inviolable technique. Given that biometric authentication systems are now widely employed, fingerprint presentation attack detection has become crucial. In this review, we investigate fingerprint presentation attack detection by highlighting the recent advances in this field and addressing all the disadvantages of the utilization of fingerprints as a biometric authentication factor. Both hardware- and software-based state-of-the-art methods are thoroughly presented and analyzed for identifying real fingerprints from artificial ones to help researchers to design securer biometric systems.

Περίληψη:
Nowadays, while steganography is the main mean of illegal secret communication, the need of detecting steganographic content and especially stego images is becoming more compulsory. Since multimedia content can be easily spread over the internet and more complicated steganography algorithms in different domains i.e. spatial, transform are utilized, the task of identifying stego images becomes very difficult. Early steganalysis methods deploy statistical attacks on stego images while more recent ones use deep learning techniques. The latter ones mainly utilize convolutional neural networks and show promising results. In this paper we propose a novel method to identify stego images derived from two different steganographic algorithms S-UNIWARD (Spatial-UNIversal WAvelet Relative Distortion) and WOW (Wavelet Obtained Weights) for various embedding rates. The proposed method initially utilizes a dilated convolutional neural network as a feature extractor and afterwards the extracted feature vector trains a random forest classifier. More specifically it is proved that in steganalysis, a dilated convolutional neural network could be an excellent feature extractor and the traditional softmax layer could be replaced by another machine learning classifier. Extensive experiments were conducted, and the proposed model was also compared against state-of the-art convolutional neural networks utilized in spatial image steganalysis, and other feature extraction methods. Results showed that the proposed method achieves high classification accuracy and outperforms other analogous steganalysis approaches.

Περίληψη:
Slope and slant correction of offline handwritten word images are two of the major pre-processing steps in document image processing, because these reduce the variations in writing, thereby make further processing of the same much easier. This paper presents novel slope and slant correction methods that are applied in three different script handwritten words namely Devanagari, Bangla and Roman. The language dependency and the computational complexity of state-of-the-art approaches towards the word level slope and slant correction are addressed here. A new technique for approximate core region detection is introduced here for skew detection and then linear regression is recursively applied to de-skew the word image. Whereas, in case of slant correction, a novel cost function over the vertical projection of de-skewed image is designed and optimized to fix the uniform slant angle of text words. A new …

Περίληψη:
We survey the AI research carried out in Greece recently. We concentrate on the case of linked geospatial data, an area with significant practical importance, very interesting research results, and implemented systems developed by a Greek research team.

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The Special Issue “Document Image Processing” in the Journal of Imaging aims at presenting approaches which contribute to access the content of document images. These approaches are related to low level tasks such as image preprocessing, skew/slant corrections, binarization and document segmentation, as well as high level tasks such as OCR, handwriting recognition, word spotting or script identification. This special issue brings together 12 papers that discuss such approaches. The first three articles deal with historical document preprocessing. The work by Hanif et al.[1] aims at removing bleed-through using a non-linear model, and at reconstructing the background by an inpainting approach based on non-local patch similarity. The paper by Almeida et al.[2] proposes a new binarization approach that includes a decision-based process for finding the best threshold for each RGB channel. In the paper by Kavallieratou et al.[3], a segmentation-free approach based on the Wigner-Ville distribution is used to detect the slant of a document and correct it. Once a document image is preprocessed, a next step described in the paper by Ghosh et al.[4] consists in separating text components from non-text ones, using a classifier based on LBP features. Following steps may consist in recognizing text components or searching from word queries. In the paper by Nashwan et al.[5] a holistic-based approach for the recognition of printed Arabic words is proposed, coupled with an efficient dictionary reduction. In the work by Nagendar et al.[6] it is shown that using a query specific fast Dynamic Time Warping distance, improves the Direct Query Classifier …

Περίληψη:
Slanted text has been demonstrated to be a salient feature of handwriting. Its estimation is a necessary preprocessing task in many document image processing systems in order to improve the required training. This paper describes and evaluates a new technique for removing the slant from historical document pages that avoids the segmentation procedure into text lines and words. The proposed technique first relies on slant angle detection from an accurate selection of fragments. Then, a slant removal technique is applied. However, the presented slant removal technique may be combined with any other slant detection algorithm. Experimental results are provided for four document image databases: two historical document databases, the TrigraphSlant database (the only database dedicated to slant removal), and a printed database in order to check the precision of the proposed technique.

Περίληψη:
Steganalysis and steganography are the two different sides of the same coin. Steganography tries to hide messages in plain sight while steganalysis tries to detect their existence or even more to retrieve the embedded data. Both steganography and steganalysis received a great deal of attention, especially from law enforcement. While cryptography in many countries is being outlawed or limited, cyber criminals or even terrorists are extensively using steganography to avoid being arrested with encrypted incriminating material in their possession. Therefore, understanding the ways that messages can be embedded in a digital medium –in most cases in digital images-, and knowledge of state of the art methods to detect hidden information, is essential in exposing criminal activity. Digital image steganography is growing in use and application. Many powerful and robust methods of steganography and steganalysis …

Περίληψη:
Isolating non-text components from the text components present in handwritten document images is an important but less explored research area. Addressing this issue, in this paper, we have presented an empirical study on the applicability of various Local Binary Pattern (LBP) based texture features for this problem. This paper also proposes a minor modification in one of the variants of the LBP operator to achieve better performance in the text/non-text classification problem. The feature descriptors are then evaluated on a database, made up of images from 104 handwritten laboratory copies and class notes of various engineering and science branches, using five well-known classifiers. Classification results reflect the effectiveness of LBP-based feature descriptors in text/non-text separation.

Περίληψη:
In this paper, a hybrid technique for complex layout analysis is presented. Morphological operations are applied to both the foreground and the background, in order to connect neighboring regions and detect separator lines and columns respectively. Contour tracing is used for the extraction of shape and size information and classification of the connected components. Evaluated on the RDCL-2015 dataset, the method achieved state-of-art results in less than three seconds per page.

Περίληψη:
Computer Science and it focuses on the acquisition, preservation and analysis of digital evidence, in a way that that these evidences are suitable for presentation in a court of law. Forensic investigators follow a standard set of procedures. One major and difficult problem is the correct identification of file types. Criminals often hide evidence in a digital device, by changing the file type. It is very common, a child predator to try to hide image files with immoral content in order to fool police authorities. In this paper we examine a methodology for file type identification, which uses computational intelligence techniques for feature selection and classification. This methodology was applied to the three most common image file types (jpg, png and gif). In order to ascertain the method’s accuracy, different machine learning classifiers were utilized. A three stage process involving feature extraction (Byte Frequency Distribution), feature selection (genetic algorithm) and classification (decision tree, support vector machine, neural network, logistic regression and k-nearest neighbor) was examined. Experiments were conducted having files altered in a digital forensics perspective and the results are presented. The examined methodology showed-in most casesvery high and exceptional accuracy in file type identification.

Περίληψη:
A technique appropriate for extracting textual information from documents with complex layouts, such as newspapers and journals, is presented. It is a combination of a foreground analysis and a text localization method. The first one is used to segment the page in text and nontext blocks, whereas the second one is used to detect text that may be embedded inside images, charts, diagrams, tables, etc. Detailed experiments on two public databases showed that mixing layout analysis and text localization techniques can lead to improved page segmentation and text extraction results.

Περίληψη:
In this paper, a feature that is based on statistical directional features is presented. Specifically, an improvement of the statistical feature: edge hinge distribution, is attempted. Furthermore, different matching techniques are applied. For the evaluation, the Firemaker DB was used, which consists of samples from 250 writers, including 4 pages per writer. The suggested feature, the skeleton hinge distribution, achieved accuracy of 90.8% using nearest neighbor with Manhattan distance for matching.