Human identification from video using advanced gait recognition techniques

The solutions proposed in this thesis contribute to improve gait recognition performance in practical scenarios that further enable the adoption of gait recognition into real world security and forensic applications that require identifying humans at a distance. Pioneering work has been conducted on frontal gait recognition using depth images to allow gait to be integrated with biometric walkthrough portals. The effects of gait challenging conditions including clothing, carrying goods, and viewpoint have been explored. Enhanced approaches are proposed on segmentation, feature extraction, feature optimisation and classification elements, and state-of-the-art recognition performance has been achieved. A frontal depth gait database has been developed and made available to the research community for further investigation. Solutions are explored in 2D and 3D domains using multiple images sources, and both domain-specific and independent modality gait features are proposed.

Towards pose-robust face recognition on video

This thesis investigates face recognition in video under the presence of large pose variations. It proposes a solution that performs simultaneous detection of facial landmarks and head poses across large pose variations, employs discriminative modelling of feature distributions of faces with varying poses, and applies fusion of multiple classifiers to pose-mismatch recognition. Experiments on several benchmark datasets have demonstrated that improved performance is achieved using the proposed solution.

Healthcare-associated infections in Australia : time for national surveillance

Abstract Objective. Healthcare-associated infection (HAI) surveillance programs are critical for infection prevention. Australia does not have a comprehensive national HAI surveillance program. The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of established international and Australian statewide HAI surveillance programs and recommend a pathway for the development of a national HAI surveillance program in Australia. Methods. This study examined existing HAI surveillance programs through a literature review, a review of HAI surveillance program documentation, such as websites, surveillance manuals and data reports and direct contact with program representatives. Results. Evidence from international programs demonstrates national HAI surveillance reduces the incidence of HAIs. However, the current status of HAI surveillance activity in Australian states is disparate, variation between programs is not well understood, and the quality of data currently used to compose national HAI rates is uncertain. Conclusions. There is a need to develop a well-structured, evidence-based national HAI program in Australia to meet the increasing demand for validated reliable national HAI data. Such a program could be leveraged off the work of existing Australian and international programs.

An MRF based abnormal event detection approach using motion and appearance features

Abnormal event detection has attracted a lot of attention in the computer vision research community during recent years due to the increased focus on automated surveillance systems to improve security in public places. Due to the scarcity of training data and the definition of an abnormality being dependent on context, abnormal event detection is generally formulated as a data-driven approach where activities are modeled in an unsupervised fashion during the training phase. In this work, we use a Gaussian mixture model (GMM) to cluster the activities during the training phase, and propose a Gaussian mixture model based Markov random field (GMM-MRF) to estimate the likelihood scores of new videos in the testing phase. Further-more, we propose two new features: optical acceleration, and the histogram of optical flow gradients; to detect the presence of any abnormal objects and speed violations in the scene. We show that our proposed method outperforms other state of the art abnormal event detection algorithms on publicly available UCSD dataset.

Piecing the puzzle together : enhancing the quality of road trauma surveillance through linkage of police and health data

This program of research linked police and health data collections to investigate the potential benefits for road safety in terms of enhancing the quality of data. This research has important implications for road safety because, although police collected data has historically underpinned efforts in the area, it is known that many road crashes are not reported to police and that these data lack specific injury severity information. This research shows that data linkage provides a more accurate quantification of the severity and prevalence of road crash injuries which is essential for: prioritising funding; targeting interventions; and estimating the burden and cost of road trauma.

Incidence and fatality of serious suicide attempts in a predominantly rural population in Shandong, China : a public health surveillance study

Objectives To estimate the incidence of serious suicide attempts (SSAs, defined as suicide attempts resulting in either death or hospitalisation) and to examine factors associated with fatality among these attempters. Design A surveillance study of incidence and mortality. Linked data from two public health surveillance systems were analysed. Setting Three selected counties in Shandong, China. Participants All residents in the three selected counties. Outcome measures Incidence rate ( per 100 000 person-years) and case fatality rate (%). Methods Records of suicide deaths and hospitalisations that occurred among residents in selected counties during 2009–2011 (5 623 323 person-years) were extracted from electronic databases of the Disease Surveillance Points (DSP) system and the Injury Surveillance System (ISS) and were linked by name, sex, residence and time of suicide attempt. A multiple logistic regression model was developed to examine the factors associated with a higher or lower fatality rate. Results The incidence of SSAs was estimated to be 46 (95% CI 44 to 48) per 100 000 person-years, which was 1.5 times higher in rural versus urban areas, slightly higher among females, and increased with age. Among all SSAs, 51% were hospitalised and survived, 9% were hospitalised but later died and 40% died with no hospitalisation. Most suicide deaths (81%) were not hospitalised and most hospitalised SSAs (85%) survived. The fatality rate was 49% overall, but was significantly higher among attempters living in rural areas, who were male, older, with lower education or with a farming occupation. With regard to the method of suicide, fatality was lowest for non-pesticide poisons (7%) and highest for hanging (97%). Conclusions The incidence of serious suicide attempts is substantially higher in rural areas than in urban areas of China. The risk of death is influenced by the attempter’s sex, age, education level, occupation, method used and season of year.

International Perspectives on Business Innovation and Disruption in the Creative Industries : Film, Video and Photography

This volume examines how disruptive innovations are reshaping industry boundaries and challenging conventional business models and practices in the industries for film, video and photography. The thirteen chapters provide a rich and diverse account of these processes from a wide range of country contexts. The book fills the gap between the study of disruption by innovation scholars in business schools and the recognition of disruption by academics and practitioners from non-business school disciplines and contexts, including the broader social sciences.

Surveillance snapshot of Clostridium difficile infection in hospitals across Queensland detects binary toxin producing ribotype UK 244

In North America and Europe, the binary toxin positive Clostridium difficile strains of the ribotypes 027 and 078 have been associated with death, toxic megacolon and other adverse outcomes. Following an increase in C. difficile infections (CDIs) in Queensland, a prevalence study involving 175 hospitals was undertaken in early 2012, identifying 168 cases of CDI over a 2 month period. Patient demographics and clinical characteristics were recorded, and C. difficile isolates were ribotyped and tested for the presence of binary toxin genes. Most patients (106/168, 63.1%) were aged over 60 years. Overall, 98 (58.3%) developed symptoms after hospitalisation; 89 cases (53.0%) developed symptoms more than 48 hours after admission. Furthermore, 27 of the 62 (67.7%) patients who developed symptoms in the community ad been hospitalised within the last 3 months. Thirteen of the 168 (7.7%) cases identified had severe disease, resulting in admission to the Intensive Care Unit or death within 30 days of the onset of symptoms. The 3 most common ribotypes isolated were UK 002 (22.9%), UK 014 (13.3%) and the binary toxin-positive ribotype UK 244 (8.4%). The only other binary toxin positive ribotype isolated was UK 078 (n = 1). Of concern was the detection of the binary toxin positive ribotype UK 244, which has recently been described in other parts of Australia and New Zealand. No isolates were of the international epidemic clone of ribotype UK 027, although ribotype UK 244 is genetically related to this clone. Further studies are required to track the epidemiology of ribotype UK 244 in Australia and New Zealand. Commun Dis Intell 2014;38(4):E279–E284.

User perceived video quality modelling on mobile devices for Vp9 and H265 encoders

This study constructs performance prediction models to estimate the end-user perceived video quality on mobile devices for the latest video encoding techniques –VP9 and H.265. Both subjective and objective video quality assessments were carried out for collecting data and selecting the most desirable predictors. Using statistical regression, two models were generated to achieve 94.5% and 91.5% of prediction accuracies respectively, depending on whether the predictor derived from the objective assessment is involved. These proposed models can be directly used by media industries for video quality estimation, and will ultimately help them to ensure a positive end-user quality of experience on future mobile devices after the adaptation of the latest video encoding technologies.

Searching for semantic person queries using channel representations

It is not uncommon to hear a person of interest described by their height, build, and clothing (i.e. type and colour). These semantic descriptions are commonly used by people to describe others, as they are quick to relate and easy to understand. However such queries are not easily utilised within intelligent surveillance systems as they are difficult to transform into a representation that can be searched for automatically in large camera networks. In this paper we propose a novel approach that transforms such a semantic query into an avatar that is searchable within a video stream, and demonstrate state-of-the-art performance for locating a subject in video based on a description.

All about that base : differing player experiences in video game genres and the unique case of MOBA games

Video games provide unique interactive player experiences (PX) often categorised into different genres. Prior research has looked at different game genres, but rarely through a PX lens. Especially, PX in the emerging area of massive online battle arena (MOBA) games is not well understood by researchers in the field. We address this knowledge gap by presenting a PX study of different game genres, which we followed up with a second semi-structured interview study about PX in MOBA games. Among the results of our analyses are that games that are likely played with other players, such as MOBA games, stimulate less immersion and presence for players. Additionally, while challenge and frustration are significantly higher in this genre, players get a sense of satisfaction from teamwork, competition and mastery of complex gameplay interactions. Our study is the first to contribute a comprehensive insight into key motivators of MOBA players and how PX in this genre is different from other genres.

Using augmented video to test in-car user experiences of context analog HUDs

Automotive interactive technologies represent an exemplar challenge for user experience (UX) designers, as the concerns for aesthetics, functionality and usability add up to the compelling issues of safety and cognitive demand. This extended abstract presents a methodology for the user-centred creation and evaluation of novel in-car applications, involving real users in realistic use settings. As a case study, we present the methodologies of an ideation workshop in a simulated environment and the evaluation of six design idea prototypes for in-vehicle head up display (HUD) applications using a semi-naturalistic drive. Both methods rely on video recordings of real traffic situations that the users are familiar with and/or experienced themselves. The extended abstract presents experiences and results from the evaluation and reflection on our methods.