Abstract: Previous work from Wloka et al. (2017) presented the Selective Tuning Attentive Reference model Fixation Controller (STAR-FC), an active vision model for saccade prediction. Although the model is able to efficiently predict saccades during free-viewing, it is well known that stimulus and task instructions can strongly affect eye movement patterns (Yarbus, 1967). These factors are considered in previous Selective Tuning architectures (Tsotsos and Kruijne, 2014)(Tsotsos, Kotseruba and Wloka, 2016)(Rosenfeld, Biparva & Tsotsos 2017), proposing a way to combine bottom-up and top-down contributions to fixation and saccade programming. In particular, task priming has been shown to be crucial to the deployment of eye movements, involving interactions between brain areas related to goal-directed behavior, working and long-term memory in combination with stimulus-driven eye movement neuronal correlates. Initial theories and models of these influences include (Rao, Zelinsky, Hayhoe and Ballard, 2002)(Navalpakkam and Itti, 2005)(Huang and Pashler, 2007) and show distinct ways to process the task requirements in combination with bottom-up attention. In this study we extend the STAR-FC with novel computational definitions of Long-Term Memory, Visual Task Executive and a Task Relevance Map. With these modules we are able to use textual instructions in order to guide the model to attend to specific categories of objects and/or places in the scene. We have designed our memory model by processing a hierarchy of visual features learned from salient object detection datasets. The relationship between the executive task instructions and the memory representations has been specified using a tree of semantic similarities between the learned features and the object category labels. Results reveal that by using this model, the resulting relevance maps and predicted saccades have a higher probability to fall inside the salient regions depending on the distinct task instructions.

Abstract: Segmentation of airways in Computed Tomography (CT) scans is a must for accurate support of diagnosis and intervention of many pulmonary disorders. In particular, lung cancer diagnosis would benefit from segmentations reaching most distal airways. We present a method that combines descriptors of bronchi local appearance and graph global structural analysis to fine-tune thresholds on the descriptors adapted for each bronchial level. We have compared our method to the top performers of the EXACT09 challenge and to a commercial software for biopsy planning evaluated in an own-collected data-base of high resolution CT scans acquired under different breathing conditions. Results on EXACT09 data show that our method provides a high leakage reduction with minimum loss in airway detection. Results on our data-base show the reliability across varying breathing conditions and a competitive performance for biopsy planning compared to a commercial solution.

Abstract: Text watermark detection in video images is challenging because text watermark characteristics are different from caption and scene texts in the video images. Developing a successful model for detecting text watermark, caption, and scene texts is an open challenge. This study aims at developing a new Deep End-to-End model for Text Watermark Detection (TWD), caption and scene text in video images. To standardize non-uniform contrast, quality, and resolution, we explore the U-Net3+ model for enhancing poor quality text without affecting high-quality text. Similarly, to address the challenges of arbitrary orientation, text shapes and complex background, we explore Stacked Hourglass Encoded Fourier Contour Embedding Network (SFCENet) by feeding the output of the U-Net3+ model as input. Furthermore, the proposed work integrates enhancement and detection models as an end-to-end model for detecting multi-type text in video images. To validate the proposed model, we create our own dataset (named TW-866), which provides video images containing text watermark, caption (subtitles), as well as scene text. The proposed model is also evaluated on standard natural scene text detection datasets, namely, ICDAR 2019 MLT, CTW1500, Total-Text, and DAST1500. The results show that the proposed method outperforms the existing methods. This is the first work on text watermark detection in video images to the best of our knowledge

Abstract: In this paper, we propose a deformable convolution-based generative adversarial network (DCNGAN) for perceptual quality enhancement of compressed videos. DCNGAN is also adaptive to the quantization parameters (QPs). Compared with optical flows, deformable convolutions are more effective and efficient to align frames. Deformable convolutions can operate on multiple frames, thus leveraging more temporal information, which is beneficial for enhancing the perceptual quality of compressed videos. Instead of aligning frames in a pairwise manner, the deformable convolution can process multiple frames simultaneously, which leads to lower computational complexity. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed DCNGAN outperforms other state-of-the-art compressed video quality enhancement algorithms.

Abstract: This paper summarizes the top contributions to the first semi-supervised hyperspectral object detection (SSHOD) challenge, which was organized as a part of the Perception Beyond the Visible Spectrum (PBVS) 2022 workshop at the Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR) conference. The SSHODC challenge is a first-of-its-kind hyperspectral dataset with temporally contiguous frames collected from a university rooftop observing a 4-way vehicle intersection over a period of three days. The dataset contains a total of 2890 frames, captured at an average resolution of 1600 × 192 pixels, with 51 hyperspectral bands from 400nm to 900nm. SSHOD challenge uses 989 images as the training set, 605 images as validation set and 1296 images as the evaluation (test) set. Each set was acquired on a different day to maximize the variance in weather conditions. Labels are provided for 10% of the annotated data, hence formulating a semi-supervised learning task for the participants which is evaluated in terms of average precision over the entire set of classes, as well as individual moving object classes: namely vehicle, bus and bike. The challenge received participation registration from 38 individuals, with 8 participating in the validation phase and 3 participating in the test phase. This paper describes the dataset acquisition, with challenge formulation, proposed methods and qualitative and quantitative results.

Abstract: Neural video compression has emerged as a novel paradigm combining trainable multilayer neural net-works and machine learning, achieving competitive rate-distortion (RD) performances, but still remaining impractical due to heavy neural architectures, with large memory and computational demands. In addition, models are usually optimized for a single RD tradeoff. Recent slimmable image codecs can dynamically adjust their model capacity to gracefully reduce the memory and computation requirements, without harming RD performance. In this paper we propose a slimmable video codec (SlimVC), by integrating a slimmable temporal entropy model in a slimmable autoencoder. Despite a significantly more complex architecture, we show that slimming remains a powerful mechanism to control rate, memory footprint, computational cost and latency, all being important requirements for practical video compression.

Abstract: This paper details the results and main findings of the second iteration of the Multi-modal Aerial View Object Classification (MAVOC) challenge. The primary goal of both MAVOC challenges is to inspire research into methods for building recognition models that utilize both synthetic aperture radar (SAR) and electro-optical (EO) imagery. Teams are encouraged to develop multi-modal approaches that incorporate complementary information from both domains. While the 2021 challenge showed a proof of concept that both modalities could be used together, the 2022 challenge focuses on the detailed multi-modal methods. The 2022 challenge uses the same UNIfied Coincident Optical and Radar for recognitioN (UNICORN) dataset and competition format that was used in 2021. Specifically, the challenge focuses on two tasks, (1) SAR classification and (2) SAR + EO classification. The bulk of this document is dedicated to discussing the top performing methods and describing their performance on our blind test set. Notably, all of the top ten teams outperform a Resnet-18 baseline. For SAR classification, the top team showed a 129% improvement over baseline and an 8% average improvement from the 2021 winner. The top team for SAR + EO classification shows a 165% improvement with a 32% average improvement over 2021.