MUCKE aims to mine a large volume of images, to structure them conceptually and to use this conceptual structuring in order to improve large-scale image retrieval. The last decade witnessed important progress concerning low-level image representations. However, there are a number problems which need to be solved in order to unleash the full potential of image mining in applications. The central problem with low-level representations is the mismatch between them and the human interpretation of image content. This problem can be instantiated, for instance, by the incapability of existing descriptors to capture spatial relationships between the concepts represented or by their incapability to convey an explanation of why two images are similar in a content-based image retrieval framework. We start by assessing existing local descriptors for image classification and by proposing to use co-occurrence matrices to better capture spatial relationships in images. The main focus in MUCKE is on cleaning large scale Web image corpora and on proposing image representations which are closer to the human interpretation of images. Consequently, we introduce methods which tackle these two problems and compare results to state of the art methods. Note: some aspects of this deliverable are withheld at this time as they are pending review. Please contact the authors for a preview.

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/iel2/4524/12820/00592460.pdf

Image Processing

In the real world, a realistic setting for computer vision or multimedia recognition problems is that we have some classes containing lots of training data and many classes contain a small amount of training data. Therefore, how to use frequent classes to help learning rare classes for which it is harder to collect the training data is an open question. Learning with Shared Information is an emerging topic in machine learning, computer vision and multimedia analysis. There are different level of components that can be shared during concept modeling and machine learning stages, such as sharing generic object parts, sharing attributes, sharing transformations, sharing regularization parameters and sharing training examples, etc. Regarding the specific methods, multi-task learning, transfer learning and deep learning can be seen as using different strategies to share information. These learning with shared information methods are very effective in solving real-world large-scale problems. This special issue aims at gathering the recent advances in learning with shared information methods and their applications in computer vision and multimedia analysis. Both state-of-the-art works, as well as literature reviews, are welcome for submission. Papers addressing interesting real-world computer vision and multimedia applications are especially encouraged. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:  • Multi-task learning or transfer learning for large-scale computer vision and multimedia analysis • Deep learning for large-scale computer vision and multimedia analysis • Multi-modal approach for large-scale computer vision and multimedia analysis • Different sharing strategies, e.g., sharing generic object parts, sharing attributes, sharing transformations, sharing regularization parameters and sharing training examples, • Real-world computer vision and multimedia applications based on learning with shared information, e.g., event detection, object recognition, object detection, action recognition, human head pose estimation, object tracking, location-based services, semantic indexing. • New datasets and metrics to evaluate the benefit of the proposed sharing ability for the specific computer vision or multimedia problem. • Survey papers regarding the topic of learning with shared information.  Authors who are unsure whether their planned submission is in scope may contact the guest editors prior to the submission deadline with an abstract, in order to receive feedback.

IEEE transactions on pattern analysis and machine intelligence

In this work we present a simple and fast computational method, the visibility algorithm, that converts a time series into a graph. The constructed graph inherits several properties of the series in its structure. Thereby, periodic series convert into regular graphs, and random series do so into random graphs. Moreover, fractal series convert into scale-free networks, enhancing the fact that power law degree distributions are related to fractality, something highly discussed recently. Some remarkable examples and analytical tools are outlined to test the method's reliability. Many different measures, recently developed in the complex network theory, could by means of this new approach characterize time series from a new point of view.

/pdf/from-time-series-to-complex-networks-the-visibility-graph-4kx9rqqpz4.pdf

From time series to complex networks: The visibility graph

Object detection is one of the most important and challenging branches of computer vision, which has been widely applied in people's life, such as monitoring security, autonomous driving and so on, with the purpose of locating instances of semantic objects of a certain class. With the rapid development of deep learning algorithms for detection tasks, the performance of object detectors has been greatly improved. In order to understand the main development status of object detection pipeline thoroughly and deeply, in this survey, we analyze the methods of existing typical detection models and describe the benchmark datasets at first. Afterwards and primarily, we provide a comprehensive overview of a variety of object detection methods in a systematic manner, covering the one-stage and two-stage detectors. Moreover, we list the traditional and new applications. Some representative branches of object detection are analyzed as well. Finally, we discuss the architecture of exploiting these object detection methods to build an effective and efficient system and point out a set of development trends to better follow the state-of-the-art algorithms and further research.

A Survey of Deep Learning-Based Object Detection

Automatic license plate recognition (ALPR) is the extraction of vehicle license plate information from an image or a sequence of images. The extracted information can be used with or without a database in many applications, such as electronic payment systems (toll payment, parking fee payment), and freeway and arterial monitoring systems for traffic surveillance. The ALPR uses either a color, black and white, or infrared camera to take images. The quality of the acquired images is a major factor in the success of the ALPR. ALPR as a real-life application has to quickly and successfully process license plates under different environmental conditions, such as indoors, outdoors, day or night time. It should also be generalized to process license plates from different nations, provinces, or states. These plates usually contain different colors, are written in different languages, and use different fonts; some plates may have a single color background and others have background images. The license plates can be partially occluded by dirt, lighting, and towing accessories on the car. In this paper, we present a comprehensive review of the state-of-the-art techniques for ALPR. We categorize different ALPR techniques according to the features they used for each stage, and compare them in terms of pros, cons, recognition accuracy, and processing speed. Future forecasts of ALPR are given at the end.

https://romisatriawahono.net/lecture/rm/survey/computer%20vision/Du%20-%20Automatic%20License%20Plate%20Recognition%20-%202013.pdf

Automatic License Plate Recognition (ALPR): A State-of-the-Art Review

A license plate recognition (LPR) system is one kind of intelligent transport systems and is of considerable interest because of its potential applications to areas such as highway electronic toll collection, traffic monitoring system and so on. This paper proposes an automatic license plate recognition system for Saudi Arabian license plates. The system captures the images of the vehicles with a digital camera. An algorithm for the extraction of license plate has been designed and an algorithm for segmentation of characters is proposed. The performance of the system has been investigated on real images of about 610 vehicles captured under various illumination conditions. Recognition of about 95% shows that the system is quite effective.

Saudi Arabian license plate recognition system

https://bura.brunel.ac.uk/bitstream/2438/2340/1/TR_03_89.pdf

A rational cubic spline with tension

Positivity-preserving interpolation of positive data by rational cubics

In order to obtain a good spline model from large measurement data, we frequently have to deal with knots as variables, which becomes a continuous, non-linear and multivariate optimization problem with many local optima. Hence, it is very difficult to obtain a global optima. We present a method to convert the original problem into a discrete combinatorial optimization problem and solve it by a genetic algorithm. We also incorporate a corner detection algorithm to detect significant points which are necessary to capture a pleasant looking spline fitting for shapes such as fonts. A parametric B-Spline has been approximated to various characters and symbols. The chromosomes have been constructed by considering the candidates of the locations of knots as genes. The best model among the candidates is searched by using the Akaike Information Criterion (AIC). The method determines the appropriate number and location of knots automatically and simultaneously. Some examples are given to show the results obtained from the algorithm.

Capturing outline of fonts using genetic algorithm and splines

License Plate recognition (LPR) system is a key to many traffic related applications such as road traffic monitoring or parking lots access control. This paper proposes an automatic license plate recognition system for Saudi Arabian license plates. The system presents an algorithm for the extraction of license plate and segmentation of characters. Recognition is done using template matching. However the proposed work seems to be the first attempt towards the recognition of Saudi Arabian license plates. The performance of the system has been investigated on real images of about 710 vehicles captured under various illumination conditions. Recognition of about 96% shows that the system is quite efficient.

Muhammad Sarfraz

Papers

Saudi Arabian license plate recognition system

A rational cubic spline with tension

Positivity-preserving interpolation of positive data by rational cubics

Capturing outline of fonts using genetic algorithm and splines

License plate recognition system