Abstract: Most works on image retrieval from text queries have addressed the problem of retrieving semantically relevant images. However, the ability to assess the aesthetic quality of an image is an increasingly important differentiating factor for search engines. In this work, given a semantic query, we are interested in retrieving images which are semantically relevant and score highly in terms of aesthetics/visual quality. We use large-margin classifiers and rankers to learn statistical models capable of ordering images based on the aesthetic and semantic information. In particular, we compare two families of approaches: while the first one attempts to learn a single ranker which takes into account both semantic and aesthetic information, the second one learns separate semantic and aesthetic models. We carry out a quantitative and qualitative evaluation on a recently-published large-scale dataset and we show that the second family of techniques significantly outperforms the first one.

Abstract: Multimodal image fusion allows the combination of information from different modalities, which is useful for tasks such as object detection, edge detection, and tracking, to name a few. Using the fused representation for applications results in better task performance. There are several image fusion approaches, which have been summarized in surveys. However, the existing surveys focus on image fusion approaches where the application on the loop of multimodal image fusion is not considered. On the contrary, this study summarizes deep learning-based multimodal image fusion for computer vision (e.g., object detection) and image processing applications (e.g., semantic segmentation), that is, approaches where the application module leverages the multimodal fusion process to enhance the final result. Firstly, we introduce image fusion and the existing general frameworks for image fusion tasks such as multifocus, multiexposure and multimodal. Then, we describe the multimodal image fusion approaches. Next, we review the state-of-the-art deep learning multimodal image fusion approaches for vision applications. Finally, we conclude our survey with the trends of task-driven multimodal image fusion.

Abstract: Pòster

Abstract: Skin lesion segmentation (SLS) in dermoscopic images is a crucial task for automated diagnosis of melanoma. In this paper, we present a robust deep learning SLS model, so-called SLSDeep, which is represented as an encoder-decoder network. The encoder network is constructed by dilated residual layers, in turn, a pyramid pooling network followed by three convolution layers is used for the decoder. Unlike the traditional methods employing a cross-entropy loss, we investigated a loss function by combining both Negative Log Likelihood (NLL) and End Point Error (EPE) to accurately segment the melanoma regions with sharp boundaries. The robustness of the proposed model was evaluated on two public databases: ISBI 2016 and 2017 for skin lesion analysis towards melanoma detection challenge. The proposed model outperforms the state-of-the-art methods in terms of segmentation accuracy. Moreover, it is capable to segment more than 100 images of size 384x384 per second on a recent GPU.

Abstract: Image based human detection is of paramount interest for different applications. The most promising human detectors rely on discriminatively learnt classifiers, i.e., trained with labelled samples. However, labelling is a manual intensive task, especially in cases like human detection where it is necessary to provide at least bounding boxes framing the humans for training. To overcome such problem, in Marin et al. we have proposed the use of a virtual world where the labels of the different objects are obtained automatically. This means that the human models (classifiers) are learnt using the appearance of realistic computer graphics. Later, these models are used for human detection in images of the real world. The results of this technique are surprisingly good. However, these are not always as good as the classical approach of training and testing with data coming from the same camera and the same type of scenario. Accordingly, in Vazquez et al. we cast the problem as one of supervised domain adaptation. In doing so, we assume that a small amount of manually labelled samples from real-world images is required. To collect these labelled samples we use an active learning technique. Thus, ultimately our human model is learnt by the combination of virtual- and real-world labelled samples which, to the best of our knowledge, was not done before. Here, we term such combined space cool world. In this extended abstract we summarize our proposal, and include quantitative results from Vazquez et al. showing its validity.

Abstract: With an ageing population, the issue of care provision is becoming increasingly important. The simple aspiration of the majority of older people is to live safely and well at home. Housing will be part of health & care integration in the following years and decades. A higher proportion of people will have to rely on informal care through family, friends, neighbors and others who
provide care to an older person in need of assistance (around 80% of care across the EU). They do not usually have a formal status and are usually unpaid. We need to ensure that all disabled or chronically ill people can get the help they need without overburdening their families.
The physical and emotional stress of carers is one of the dangers that this dependency can bring. To prevent carers burnout it is necessary to provide new solutions that are affordable and user friendly for the families and caregivers.