This paper gives a brief review and short summary on physiological and biochemical evaluations of human mental workloads. Physiological evaluations consist of peripheral physiological evaluations and central physiological evaluations. Peripheral physiological evaluations mainly include heart rate and heart rate variability (HRV) recorded from electrocardiograms (ECGs), blood pressure, respiration, eye blinks, skin potential, and hemodynamic indices. Central physiological evaluations mainly refer to the cerebral cortex, including electroencephalograms (EEGs) and event‐related potentials (ERPs). Biochemical evaluations mainly include catecholamines, cortisol, and immunoglobulin A (IgA) collected from blood, salivary, or urinary samples. They are all objective measurements to evaluate mental workloads when particular mental tasks are performed. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

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Obstacle detection and classification in a complex urban area are highly demanding, but desirable for pedestrian protection, stop & go, and enhanced parking aids. The most difficult task for the system is to segment objects from varied and complicated background. In this paper, a novel position-based object segmentation method has been proposed to solve this problem. According to the method proposed, object segmentation is performed in two steps: in depth map ( - plane) and in layered images ( - planes). The stereovision technique is used to reconstruct image points and generate the depth map. Objects are detected in the depth map. Afterwards, the original edge image is separated into different layers based on the distance of detected objects. Segmentation performed in these layered images can be easier and more reliable. It has been proved that the proposed method offers robust detection of potential obstacles and accurate measurement of their location and size.

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