Abstract: An efficient method to overcome adverse effects of occlusion upon object tracking is presented. The method is based on matching paths of objects in time and solves a complex occlusion-caused problem of merging separate segments of the same path.

Abstract: Joint attention, which is the ability of coordination of a common point of reference with the communicating party, emerges as a key factor in various interaction scenarios. This paper presents an image-based method for establishing joint attention between an experimenter and a robot. The precise analysis of the experimenter's eye region requires stability and high-resolution image acquisition, which is not always available. We investigate regression-based interpolation of the gaze direction from the head pose of the experimenter, which is easier to track. Gaussian process regression and neural networks are contrasted to interpolate the gaze direction. Then, we combine gaze interpolation with image-based saliency to improve the target point estimates and test three different saliency schemes. We demonstrate the proposed method on a human-robot interaction scenario. Cross-subject evaluations, as well as experiments under adverse conditions (such as dimmed or artificial illumination or motion blur), show that our method generalizes well and achieves rapid gaze estimation for establishing joint attention.

Abstract: The Human Pose Recovery and Behaviour Analysis group (HuPBA), University of Barcelona, is developing a line of research on multi-modal analysis of humans in visual data. The novel technology is being applied in several scenarios with high social impact, including sign language recognition, assisted technology and supported diagnosis for the elderly and people with mental/physical disabilities, fitness conditioning, and Human Computer Interaction.

Abstract: This paper describes an affect-responsive interactive photo-frame application that offers its user a different experience with every use. It relies on visual analysis of activity levels and facial expressions of its users to select responses from a database of short video segments. This ever-growing database is automatically prepared by an offline analysis of user-uploaded videos. The resulting system matches its user’s affect along dimensions of valence and arousal, and gradually adapts its response to each specific user. In an extended mode, two such systems are coupled and feed each other with visual content. The strengths and weaknesses of the system are assessed through a usability study, where a Wizard-of-Oz response logic is contrasted with the fully automatic system that uses affective and activity-based features, either alone, or in tandem.

Abstract: In some Thai documents, a single text line of a printed document page may contain words of both Thai and Roman scripts. For the Optical Character Recognition (OCR) of such a document page it is better to identify, at first, Thai and Roman script portions and then to use individual OCR systems of the respective scripts on these identified portions. In this article, an SVM-based method is proposed for identification of word-wise printed Roman and Thai scripts from a single line of a document page. Here, at first, the document is segmented into lines and then lines are segmented into character groups (words). In the proposed scheme, we identify the script of a character group combining different character features obtained from structural shape, profile behavior, component overlapping information, topological properties, and water reservoir concept, etc. Based on the experiment on 10,000 data (words) we obtained 99.62% script identification accuracy from the proposed scheme.

Abstract: non-indexed
This article explains how two projects implement semi-automated transcription routines: for census sheets in Norway and marriage protocols from Barcelona. The Spanish system was created to transcribe the marriage license books from 1451 to 1905 for the Barcelona area; one of the world’s longest series of preserved vital records. Thus, in the Project “Five Centuries of Marriages” (5CofM) at the Autonomous University of Barcelona’s Center for Demographic Studies, the Barcelona Historical Marriage Database has been built. More than 600,000 records were transcribed by 150 transcribers working online. The Norwegian material is cross-sectional as it is the 1891 census, recorded on one sheet per person. This format and the underlining of keywords for several variables made it more feasible to semi-automate data entry than when many persons are listed on the same page. While Optical Character Recognition (OCR) for printed text is scientifically mature, computer vision research is now focused on more difficult problems such as handwriting recognition. In the marriage project, document analysis methods have been proposed to automatically recognize the marriage licenses. Fully automatic recognition is still a challenge, but some promising results have been obtained. In Spain, Norway and elsewhere the source material is available as scanned pictures on the Internet, opening up the possibility for further international cooperation concerning automating the transcription of historic source materials. Like what is being done in projects to digitize printed materials, the optimal solution is likely to be a combination of manual transcription and machine-assisted recognition also for hand-written sources.