King Mongkut's University of Technology Thonburi

About: King Mongkut's University of Technology Thonburi is a education organization based out in Bangkok, Thailand. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Heat transfer & Fixed point. The organization has 5295 authors who have published 9384 publications receiving 165415 citations.

An Improved Adaptive Background Mixture Model for Real-time Tracking with Shadow Detection

Abstract: Real-time segmentation of moving regions in image sequences is a fundamental step in many vision systems including automated visual surveillance, human-machine interface, and very low-bandwidth telecommunications A typical method is background subtraction Many background models have been introduced to deal with different problems One of the successful solutions to these problems is to use a multi-colour background model per pixel proposed by Grimson et al [1, 2,3] However, the method suffers from slow learning at the beginning, especially in busy environments In addition, it can not distinguish between moving shadows and moving objects This paper presents a method which improves this adaptive background mixture model By reinvestigating the update equations, we utilise different equations at different phases This allows our system learn faster and more accurately as well as adapts effectively to changing environment A shadow detection scheme is also introduced in this paper It is based on a computational colour space that makes use of our background model A comparison has been made between the two algorithms The results show the speed of learning and the accuracy of the model using our update algorithm over the Grimson et al’s tracker When incorporate with the shadow detection, our method results in far better segmentation than The Thirteenth Conference on Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence that of Grimson et al

Averting biodiversity collapse in tropical forest protected areas

Abstract: The rapid disruption of tropical forests probably imperils global biodiversity more than any other contemporary phenomenon(1-3). With deforestation advancing quickly, protected areas are increasingly becoming final refuges for threatened species and natural ecosystem processes. However, many protected areas in the tropics are themselves vulnerable to human encroachment and other environmental stresses(4-9). As pressures mount, it is vital to know whether existing reserves can sustain their biodiversity. A critical constraint in addressing this question has been that data describing a broad array of biodiversity groups have been unavailable for a sufficiently large and representative sample of reserves. Here we present a uniquely comprehensive data set on changes over the past 20 to 30 years in 31 functional groups of species and 21 potential drivers of environmental change, for 60 protected areas stratified across the world's major tropical regions. Our analysis reveals great variation in reserve 'health': about half of all reserves have been effective or performed passably, but the rest are experiencing an erosion of biodiversity that is often alarmingly widespread taxonomically and functionally. Habitat disruption, hunting and forest-product exploitation were the strongest predictors of declining reserve health. Crucially, environmental changes immediately outside reserves seemed nearly as important as those inside in determining their ecological fate, with changes inside reserves strongly mirroring those occurring around them. These findings suggest that tropical protected areas are often intimately linked ecologically to their surrounding habitats, and that a failure to stem broad-scale loss and degradation of such habitats could sharply increase the likelihood of serious biodiversity declines.