Abstract: We present an application of gesture recognition using an extension of Dynamic Time Warping (DTW) to recognize behavioural patterns of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). We propose an extension of DTW using one-class classifiers in order to be able to encode the variability of a gesture category, and thus, perform an alignment between a gesture sample and a gesture class. We model the set of gesture samples of a certain gesture category using either GMMs or an approximation of Convex Hulls. Thus, we add a theoretical contribution to classical warping path in DTW by including local modeling of intra-class gesture variability. This methodology is applied in a clinical context, detecting a group of ADHD behavioural patterns defined by experts in psychology/psychiatry, to provide support to clinicians in the diagnose procedure. The proposed methodology is tested on a novel multi-modal dataset (RGB plus Depth) of ADHD children recordings with behavioural patterns. We obtain satisfying results when compared to standard state-of-the-art approaches in the DTW context.

Abstract: The sixteen papers in this special section focus on human pose recovery and behavior analysis (HuPBA). This is one of the most challenging topics in computer vision, pattern analysis, and machine learning. It is of critical importance for application areas that include gaming, computer interaction, human robot interaction, security, commerce, assistive technologies and rehabilitation, sports, sign language recognition, and driver assistance technology, to mention just a few. In essence, HuPBA requires dealing with the articulated nature of the human body, changes in appearance due to clothing, and the inherent problems of clutter scenes, such as background artifacts, occlusions, and illumination changes. These papers represent the most recent research in this field, including new methods considering still images, image sequences, depth data, stereo vision, 3D vision, audio, and IMUs, among others.

Abstract: This paper introduces the use of single-layer and deep convolutional networks for remote sensing data analysis. Direct application to multi- and hyperspectral imagery of supervised (shallow or deep) convolutional networks is very challenging given the high input data dimensionality and the relatively small amount of available labeled data. Therefore, we propose the use of greedy layerwise unsupervised pretraining coupled with a highly efficient algorithm for unsupervised learning of sparse features. The algorithm is rooted on sparse representations and enforces both population and lifetime sparsity of the extracted features, simultaneously. We successfully illustrate the expressive power of the extracted representations in several scenarios: classification of aerial scenes, as well as land-use classification in very high resolution or land-cover classification from multi- and hyperspectral images. The proposed algorithm clearly outperforms standard principal component analysis (PCA) and its kernel counterpart (kPCA), as well as current state-of-the-art algorithms of aerial classification, while being extremely computationally efficient at learning representations of data. Results show that single-layer convolutional networks can extract powerful discriminative features only when the receptive field accounts for neighboring pixels and are preferred when the classification requires high resolution and detailed results. However, deep architectures significantly outperform single-layer variants, capturing increasing levels of abstraction and complexity throughout the feature hierarchy.

Abstract: Despite the large amount of methods and applications of augmented reality, there is little homogenizatio n on the software platforms that support them. An exception may be the low level control software that is provided by some high profile vendors such as Qualcomm and Metaio. However, these provide fine grain modules for e.g. element tracking. We are more co ncerned on the application framework, that includes the control of the devices working together for the development of the AR experience. In this paper we describe the development of a software framework for AR setups. We concentrate on the modular design of the framework, but also on some hard problems such as the calibration stage, crucial for projection – based AR. The developed framework is suitable and has been tested in AR applications using camera – projector pairs, for both fixed and nomadic setups

Abstract: Pedestrian detection for autonomous driving is one of the hardest tasks within computer vision, and involves huge computational costs. Obtaining acceptable real-time performance, measured in frames per second (fps), for the most advanced algorithms is nowadays a hard challenge. Taking the work in [1] as our baseline, we propose a CUDA implementation of a pedestrian detection system that includes LBP and HOG as feature descriptors and SVM and Random forest as classifiers. We introduce significant algorithmic adjustments and optimizations to adapt the problem to the NVIDIA GPU architecture. The aim is to deploy a real-time system providing reliable results.

Abstract: The big data transformation currently revolutionizing science and industry forges novel possibilities in multimodal analysis scarcely imaginable only a decade ago. One of the important economic and industrial problems that stand to benefit from the recent expansion of data availability and computational prowess is the prediction of electricity demand and renewable energy generation. Both are correlates of human activity: spatiotemporal energy consumption patterns in society are a factor of both demand (weather dependent) and supply, which determine cost – a relation expected to strengthen along with increasing renewable energy dependence. One of the main drivers of European weather patterns is the activity of the Atlantic Ocean and in particular its dominant Northern Hemisphere current: the Gulf Stream. We choose this particular current as a test case in part due to larger amount of relevant data and scientific literature available for refinement of analysis techniques.
This data richness is due not only to its economic importance but also to its size being clearly visible in radar and infrared satellite imagery, which makes it easier to detect using Computer Vision (CV). The power of CV techniques makes basic analysis thus developed scalable to other smaller and less known, but still influential, currents, which are not just curves on a map, but complex, evolving, moving branching trees in 3D projected onto a 2D image.
We investigate means of extracting, from several image modalities (including recently available Copernicus radar and earlier Infrared satellites), a parameterized presentation of the state of the Gulf Stream and its environment that is useful as feature space representation in a machine learning context, in this case with the EC’s H2020-sponsored ‘See.4C’ project, in the context of which data scientists may find novel predictors of spatiotemporal energy flow. Although automated extractors of Gulf Stream position exist, they differ in methodology and result. We shall attempt to extract more complex feature representation including branching points, eddies and parameterized changes in transport and velocity. Other related predictive features will be similarly developed, such as inference of deep water flux long the current path and wider spatial scale features such as Hough transform, surface turbulence indicators and temperature gradient indexes along with multi-time scale analysis of ocean height and temperature dynamics. The geospatial imaging and ML community may therefore benefit from a baseline of open-source techniques useful and expandable to other related prediction and/or scientific analysis tasks.