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Sergio Escalera, Oriol Pujol, & Petia Radeva. (2010). Error-Correcting Output Codes Library. JMLR - Journal of Machine Learning Research, 11, 661–664.
Abstract: (Feb):661−664
In this paper, we present an open source Error-Correcting Output Codes (ECOC) library. The ECOC framework is a powerful tool to deal with multi-class categorization problems. This library contains both state-of-the-art coding (one-versus-one, one-versus-all, dense random, sparse random, DECOC, forest-ECOC, and ECOC-ONE) and decoding designs (hamming, euclidean, inverse hamming, laplacian, β-density, attenuated, loss-based, probabilistic kernel-based, and loss-weighted) with the parameters defined by the authors, as well as the option to include your own coding, decoding, and base classifier.
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David Rotger, Petia Radeva, & N. Bruining. (2010). Automatic Detection of Bioabsorbable Coronary Stents in IVUS Images using a Cascade of Classifiers. TITB - IEEE Transactions on Information Technology in Biomedicine, 14(2), 535 – 537.
Abstract: Bioabsorbable drug-eluting coronary stents present a very promising improvement to the common metallic ones solving some of the most important problems of stent implantation: the late restenosis. These stents made of poly-L-lactic acid cause a very subtle acoustic shadow (compared to the metallic ones) making difficult the automatic detection and measurements in images. In this paper, we propose a novel approach based on a cascade of GentleBoost classifiers to detect the stent struts using structural features to code the information of the different subregions of the struts. A stochastic gradient descent method is applied to optimize the overall performance of the detector. Validation results of struts detection are very encouraging with an average F-measure of 81%.
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Alicia Fornes, Josep Llados, Gemma Sanchez, & Dimosthenis Karatzas. (2010). Rotation Invariant Hand-Drawn Symbol Recognition based on a Dynamic Time Warping Model. IJDAR - International Journal on Document Analysis and Recognition, 13(3), 229–241.
Abstract: One of the major difficulties of handwriting symbol recognition is the high variability among symbols because of the different writer styles. In this paper, we introduce a robust approach for describing and recognizing hand-drawn symbols tolerant to these writer style differences. This method, which is invariant to scale and rotation, is based on the dynamic time warping (DTW) algorithm. The symbols are described by vector sequences, a variation of the DTW distance is used for computing the matching distance, and K-Nearest Neighbor is used to classify them. Our approach has been evaluated in two benchmarking scenarios consisting of hand-drawn symbols. Compared with state-of-the-art methods for symbol recognition, our method shows higher tolerance to the irregular deformations induced by hand-drawn strokes.
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Mathieu Nicolas Delalandre, Ernest Valveny, Tony Pridmore, & Dimosthenis Karatzas. (2010). Generation of Synthetic Documents for Performance Evaluation of Symbol Recognition & Spotting Systems. IJDAR - International Journal on Document Analysis and Recognition, 13(3), 187–207.
Abstract: This paper deals with the topic of performance evaluation of symbol recognition & spotting systems. We propose here a new approach to the generation of synthetic graphics documents containing non-isolated symbols in a real context. This approach is based on the definition of a set of constraints that permit us to place the symbols on a pre-defined background according to the properties of a particular domain (architecture, electronics, engineering, etc.). In this way, we can obtain a large amount of images resembling real documents by simply defining the set of constraints and providing a few pre-defined backgrounds. As documents are synthetically generated, the groundtruth (the location and the label of every symbol) becomes automatically available. We have applied this approach to the generation of a large database of architectural drawings and electronic diagrams, which shows the flexibility of the system. Performance evaluation experiments of a symbol localization system show that our approach permits to generate documents with different features that are reflected in variation of localization results.
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Jose Antonio Rodriguez, Florent Perronnin, Gemma Sanchez, & Josep Llados. (2010). Unsupervised writer adaptation of whole-word HMMs with application to word-spotting. PRL - Pattern Recognition Letters, 31(8), 742–749.
Abstract: In this paper we propose a novel approach for writer adaptation in a handwritten word-spotting task. The method exploits the fact that the semi-continuous hidden Markov model separates the word model parameters into (i) a codebook of shapes and (ii) a set of word-specific parameters.
Our main contribution is to employ this property to derive writer-specific word models by statistically adapting an initial universal codebook to each document. This process is unsupervised and does not even require the appearance of the keyword(s) in the searched document. Experimental results show an increase in performance when this adaptation technique is applied. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work dealing with adaptation for word-spotting. The preliminary version of this paper obtained an IBM Best Student Paper Award at the 19th International Conference on Pattern Recognition.
Keywords: Word-spotting; Handwriting recognition; Writer adaptation; Hidden Markov model; Document analysis
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Marçal Rusiñol, & Josep Llados. (2010). Symbol Spotting in Digital Libraries:Focused Retrieval over Graphic-rich Document Collections. Springer.
Abstract: The specific problem of symbol recognition in graphical documents requires additional techniques to those developed for character recognition. The most well-known obstacle is the so-called Sayre paradox: Correct recognition requires good segmentation, yet improvement in segmentation is achieved using information provided by the recognition process. This dilemma can be avoided by techniques that identify sets of regions containing useful information. Such symbol-spotting methods allow the detection of symbols in maps or technical drawings without having to fully segment or fully recognize the entire content.
This unique text/reference provides a complete, integrated and large-scale solution to the challenge of designing a robust symbol-spotting method for collections of graphic-rich documents. The book examines a number of features and descriptors, from basic photometric descriptors commonly used in computer vision techniques to those specific to graphical shapes, presenting a methodology which can be used in a wide variety of applications. Additionally, readers are supplied with an insight into the problem of performance evaluation of spotting methods. Some very basic knowledge of pattern recognition, document image analysis and graphics recognition is assumed.
Keywords: Focused Retrieval , Graphical Pattern Indexation,Graphics Recognition ,Pattern Recognition , Performance Evaluation , Symbol Description ,Symbol Spotting
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Miquel Ferrer, Ernest Valveny, F. Serratosa, K. Riesen, & Horst Bunke. (2010). Generalized Median Graph Computation by Means of Graph Embedding in Vector Spaces. PR - Pattern Recognition, 43(4), 1642–1655.
Abstract: The median graph has been presented as a useful tool to represent a set of graphs. Nevertheless its computation is very complex and the existing algorithms are restricted to use limited amount of data. In this paper we propose a new approach for the computation of the median graph based on graph embedding. Graphs are embedded into a vector space and the median is computed in the vector domain. We have designed a procedure based on the weighted mean of a pair of graphs to go from the vector domain back to the graph domain in order to obtain a final approximation of the median graph. Experiments on three different databases containing large graphs show that we succeed to compute good approximations of the median graph. We have also applied the median graph to perform some basic classification tasks achieving reasonable good results. These experiments on real data open the door to the application of the median graph to a number of more complex machine learning algorithms where a representative of a set of graphs is needed.
Keywords: Graph matching; Weighted mean of graphs; Median graph; Graph embedding; Vector spaces
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Antonio Lopez, Joan Serrat, Cristina Cañero, Felipe Lumbreras, & T. Graf. (2010). Robust lane markings detection and road geometry computation. IJAT - International Journal of Automotive Technology, 11(3), 395–407.
Abstract: Detection of lane markings based on a camera sensor can be a low-cost solution to lane departure and curve-over-speed warnings. A number of methods and implementations have been reported in the literature. However, reliable detection is still an issue because of cast shadows, worn and occluded markings, variable ambient lighting conditions, for example. We focus on increasing detection reliability in two ways. First, we employed an image feature other than the commonly used edges: ridges, which we claim addresses this problem better. Second, we adapted RANSAC, a generic robust estimation method, to fit a parametric model of a pair of lane lines to the image features, based on both ridgeness and ridge orientation. In addition, the model was fitted for the left and right lane lines simultaneously to enforce a consistent result. Four measures of interest for driver assistance applications were directly computed from the fitted parametric model at each frame: lane width, lane curvature, and vehicle yaw angle and lateral offset with regard the lane medial axis. We qualitatively assessed our method in video sequences captured on several road types and under very different lighting conditions. We also quantitatively assessed it on synthetic but realistic video sequences for which road geometry and vehicle trajectory ground truth are known.
Keywords: lane markings
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David Geronimo, Angel Sappa, & Antonio Lopez. (2010). Stereo-based Candidate Generation for Pedestrian Protection Systems. In Binocular Vision: Development, Depth Perception and Disorders (189–208). NOVA Publishers.
Abstract: This chapter describes a stereo-based algorithm that provides candidate image windows to a latter 2D classification stage in an on-board pedestrian detection system. The proposed algorithm, which consists of three stages, is based on the use of both stereo imaging and scene prior knowledge (i.e., pedestrians are on the ground) to reduce the candidate searching space. First, a successful road surface fitting algorithm provides estimates on the relative ground-camera pose. This stage directs the search toward the road area thus avoiding irrelevant regions like the sky. Then, three different schemes are used to scan the estimated road surface with pedestrian-sized windows: (a) uniformly distributed through the road surface (3D); (b) uniformly distributed through the image (2D); (c) not uniformly distributed but according to a quadratic function (combined 2D-3D). Finally, the set of candidate windows is reduced by analyzing their 3D content. Experimental results of the proposed algorithm, together with statistics of searching space reduction are provided.
Keywords: Pedestrian Detection
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Francesco Ciompi, Oriol Pujol, Carlo Gatta, O. Rodriguez-Leor, J. Mauri, & Petia Radeva. (2010). Fusing in-vitro and in-vivo intravascular ultrasound data for plaque characterization. IJCI - International Journal of Cardiovascular Imaging, 26(7), 763–779.
Abstract: Accurate detection of in-vivo vulnerable plaque in coronary arteries is still an open problem. Recent studies show that it is highly related to tissue structure and composition. Intravascular Ultrasound (IVUS) is a powerful imaging technique that gives a detailed cross-sectional image of the vessel, allowing to explore arteries morphology. IVUS data validation is usually performed by comparing post-mortem (in-vitro) IVUS data and corresponding histological analysis of the tissue. The main drawback of this method is the few number of available case studies and validated data due to the complex procedure of histological analysis of the tissue. On the other hand, IVUS data from in-vivo cases is easy to obtain but it can not be histologically validated. In this work, we propose to enhance the in-vitro training data set by selectively including examples from in-vivo plaques. For this purpose, a Sequential Floating Forward Selection method is reformulated in the context of plaque characterization. The enhanced classifier performance is validated on in-vitro data set, yielding an overall accuracy of 91.59% in discriminating among fibrotic, lipidic and calcified plaques, while reducing the gap between in-vivo and in-vitro data analysis. Experimental results suggest that the obtained classifier could be properly applied on in-vivo plaque characterization and also demonstrate that the common hypothesis of assuming the difference between in-vivo and in-vitro as negligible is incorrect.
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Simone Balocco, O. Basset, G. Courbebaisse, E. Boni, Alejandro F. Frangi, P. Tortoli, et al. (2010). Estimation Of Viscoelastic Properties Of Vessel Walls Using a Computational Model and Doppler Ultrasound. PMB - Physics in Medicine and Biology, 55(12), 3557–3575.
Abstract: Human arteries affected by atherosclerosis are characterized by altered wall viscoelastic properties. The possibility of noninvasively assessing arterial viscoelasticity in vivo would significantly contribute to the early diagnosis and prevention of this disease. This paper presents a noniterative technique to estimate the viscoelastic parameters of a vascular wall Zener model. The approach requires the simultaneous measurement of flow variations and wall displacements, which can be provided by suitable ultrasound Doppler instruments. Viscoelastic parameters are estimated by fitting the theoretical constitutive equations to the experimental measurements using an ARMA parameter approach. The accuracy and sensitivity of the proposed method are tested using reference data generated by numerical simulations of arterial pulsation in which the physiological conditions and the viscoelastic parameters of the model can be suitably varied. The estimated values quantitatively agree with the reference values, showing that the only parameter affected by changing the physiological conditions is viscosity, whose relative error was about 27% even when a poor signal-to-noise ratio is simulated. Finally, the feasibility of the method is illustrated through three measurements made at different flow regimes on a cylindrical vessel phantom, yielding a parameter mean estimation error of 25%.
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Simone Balocco, O. Camara, E. Vivas, T. Sola, L. Guimaraens, H. A. van Andel, et al. (2010). Feasibility of Estimating Regional Mechanical Properties of Cerebral Aneurysms In Vivo. MEDPHYS - Medical Physics, 37(4), 1689–1706.
Abstract: PURPOSE:
In this article, the authors studied the feasibility of estimating regional mechanical properties in cerebral aneurysms, integrating information extracted from imaging and physiological data with generic computational models of the arterial wall behavior.
METHODS:
A data assimilation framework was developed to incorporate patient-specific geometries into a given biomechanical model, whereas wall motion estimates were obtained from applying registration techniques to a pair of simulated MR images and guided the mechanical parameter estimation. A simple incompressible linear and isotropic Hookean model coupled with computational fluid-dynamics was employed as a first approximation for computational purposes. Additionally, an automatic clustering technique was developed to reduce the number of parameters to assimilate at the optimization stage and it considerably accelerated the convergence of the simulations. Several in silico experiments were designed to assess the influence of aneurysm geometrical characteristics and the accuracy of wall motion estimates on the mechanical property estimates. Hence, the proposed methodology was applied to six real cerebral aneurysms and tested against a varying number of regions with different elasticity, different mesh discretization, imaging resolution, and registration configurations.
RESULTS:
Several in silico experiments were conducted to investigate the feasibility of the proposed workflow, results found suggesting that the estimation of the mechanical properties was mainly influenced by the image spatial resolution and the chosen registration configuration. According to the in silico experiments, the minimal spatial resolution needed to extract wall pulsation measurements with enough accuracy to guide the proposed data assimilation framework was of 0.1 mm.
CONCLUSIONS:
Current routine imaging modalities do not have such a high spatial resolution and therefore the proposed data assimilation framework cannot currently be used on in vivo data to reliably estimate regional properties in cerebral aneurysms. Besides, it was observed that the incorporation of fluid-structure interaction in a biomechanical model with linear and isotropic material properties did not have a substantial influence in the final results.
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Simone Balocco, Carlo Gatta, Oriol Pujol, J. Mauri, & Petia Radeva. (2010). SRBF: Speckle Reducing Bilateral Filtering. UMB - Ultrasound in Medicine and Biology, 36(8), 1353–1363.
Abstract: Speckle noise negatively affects medical ultrasound image shape interpretation and boundary detection. Speckle removal filters are widely used to selectively remove speckle noise without destroying important image features to enhance object boundaries. In this article, a fully automatic bilateral filter tailored to ultrasound images is proposed. The edge preservation property is obtained by embedding noise statistics in the filter framework. Consequently, the filter is able to tackle the multiplicative behavior modulating the smoothing strength with respect to local statistics. The in silico experiments clearly showed that the speckle reducing bilateral filter (SRBF) has superior performances to most of the state of the art filtering methods. The filter is tested on 50 in vivo US images and its influence on a segmentation task is quantified. The results using SRBF filtered data sets show a superior performance to using oriented anisotropic diffusion filtered images. This improvement is due to the adaptive support of SRBF and the embedded noise statistics, yielding a more homogeneous smoothing. SRBF results in a fully automatic, fast and flexible algorithm potentially suitable in wide ranges of speckle noise sizes, for different medical applications (IVUS, B-mode, 3-D matrix array US).
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Sergio Escalera, R. M. Martinez, Jordi Vitria, Petia Radeva, & Maria Teresa Anguera. (2010). Deteccion automatica de la dominancia en conversaciones diadicas. EP - Escritos de Psicologia, 3(2), 41–45.
Abstract: Dominance is referred to the level of influence that a person has in a conversation. Dominance is an important research area in social psychology, but the problem of its automatic estimation is a very recent topic in the contexts of social and wearable computing. In this paper, we focus on the dominance detection of visual cues. We estimate the correlation among observers by categorizing the dominant people in a set of face-to-face conversations. Different dominance indicators from gestural communication are defined, manually annotated, and compared to the observers' opinion. Moreover, these indicators are automatically extracted from video sequences and learnt by using binary classifiers. Results from the three analyses showed a high correlation and allows the categorization of dominant people in public discussion video sequences.
Keywords: Dominance detection; Non-verbal communication; Visual features
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Wenjuan Gong, Andrew Bagdanov, Xavier Roca, & Jordi Gonzalez. (2010). Automatic Key Pose Selection for 3D Human Action Recognition. In 6th International Conference on Articulated Motion and Deformable Objects (Vol. 6169, 290–299). Springer Verlag.
Abstract: This article describes a novel approach to the modeling of human actions in 3D. The method we propose is based on a “bag of poses” model that represents human actions as histograms of key-pose occurrences over the course of a video sequence. Actions are first represented as 3D poses using a sequence of 36 direction cosines corresponding to the angles 12 joints form with the world coordinate frame in an articulated human body model. These pose representations are then projected to three-dimensional, action-specific principal eigenspaces which we refer to as aSpaces. We introduce a method for key-pose selection based on a local-motion energy optimization criterion and we show that this method is more stable and more resistant to noisy data than other key-poses selection criteria for action recognition.
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