A stable graph-based representation for object recognition through high-order matching

Many Object recognition techniques perform some flavour of point pattern matching between a model and a scene. Such points are usually selected through a feature detection algorithm that is robust to a class of image transformations and a suitable descriptor is computed over them in order to get a reliable matching. Moreover, some approaches take an additional step by casting the correspondence problem into a matching between graphs defined over feature points. The motivation is that the relational model would add more discriminative power, however the overall effectiveness strongly depends on the ability to build a graph that is stable with respect to both changes in the object appearance and spatial distribution of interest points. In fact, widely used graph-based representations, have shown to suffer some limitations, especially with respect to changes in the Euclidean organization of the feature points. In this paper we introduce a technique to build relational structures over corner points that does not depend on the spatial distribution of the features. © 2012 ICPR Org Committee.

The geometric correction and registration of airborne line-scanned imagery for temporal thermal studies

This thesis begins by providing a review of techniques for interpreting the thermal response at the earth's surface acquired using remote sensing technology. Historic limitations in the precision with which imagery acquired from airborne platforms can be geometrically corrected and co-registered has meant that relatively little work has been carried out examining the diurnal variation of surface temperature over wide regions. Although emerging remote sensing systems provide the potential to register temporal image data within satisfactory levels of accuracy, this technology is still not widely available and does not address the issue of historic data sets which cannot be rectified using conventional parametric approaches. In overcoming these problems, the second part of this thesis describes the development of an alternative approach for rectifying airborne line-scanned imagery. The underlying assumption that scan lines within the imagery are straight greatly reduces the number of ground control points required to describe the image geometry. Furthermore, the use of pattern matching procedures to identify geometric disparities between raw line-scanned imagery and corresponding aerial photography enables the correction procedure to be almost fully automated. By reconstructing the raw image data on a truly line-by-line basis, it is possible to register the airborne line-scanned imagery to the aerial photography with an average accuracy of better than one pixel. Providing corresponding aerial photography is available, this approach can be applied in the absence of platform altitude information allowing multi-temporal data sets to be corrected and registered.

Supply management:is it a discipline?

Purpose – To examine management literature for guidance on what constitutes a discipline. To examine supply management publications to determine whether the field constitutes a discipline or an emerging discipline. To contribute a structured evaluation to the body of supply management theory/discipline development knowledge. Design/methodology/approach – Literature review of what constitutes a discipline and an initial assessment of whether supply management is a discipline. Development of research questions used to design tests, using combinations of qualitative pattern matching, journal quality rankings, and social science citations index impact factor. Application of the tests, to evaluate field coherence, quality and the existence of a discipline-debate, to determine whether supply management is an emerging discipline. Findings – An initial literature review finds supply management not to be a discipline, as the field lacks quality of theoretical development and discussion, and coherence. Tests for increasing evidence of coherence, quality and impact yield positive results, indicating that supply management is progressing in its theoretical development. The test findings combined with the existence of the start of a discipline-debate indicate that supply management should be judged to be an emerging discipline. Originality/value – Drawing from the management literature, the paper provides a unique structured evaluation of the field of supply management, finding it not to be a discipline, but showing evidence of being an emerging discipline.

Public scientific communication on Twitter:visual analytic approach

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to assess high-dimensional visualisation, combined with pattern matching, as an approach to observing dynamic changes in the ways people tweet about science topics. Design/methodology/approach - The high-dimensional visualisation approach was applied to three scientific topics to test its effectiveness for longitudinal analysis of message framing on Twitter over two disjoint periods in time. The paper uses coding frames to drive categorisation and visual analytics of tweets discussing the science topics. Findings - The findings point to the potential of this mixed methods approach, as it allows sufficiently high sensitivity to recognise and support the analysis of non-trending as well as trending topics on Twitter. Research limitations/implications - Three topics are studied and these illustrate a range of frames, but results may not be representative of all scientific topics. Social implications - Funding bodies increasingly encourage scientists to participate in public engagement. As social media provides an avenue actively utilised for public communication, understanding the nature of the dialog on this medium is important for the scientific community and the public at large. Originality/value - This study differs from standard approaches to the analysis of microblog data, which tend to focus on machine driven analysis large-scale datasets. It provides evidence that this approach enables practical and effective analysis of the content of midsize to large collections of microposts.

The role of texture amplitude in shape from shading: evidence from a haptic matching task

The pattern of illumination on an undulating surface can be used to infer its 3-D form (shape from shading). But the recovery of shape would be invalid if the shading actually arose from reflectance variation. When a corrugated surface is painted with an albedo texture, the variation in local mean luminance (LM) due to shading is accompanied by a similar modulation in texture amplitude (AM). This is not so for reflectance variation, nor for roughly textured surfaces. We used a haptic matching technique to show that modulations of texture amplitude play a role in the interpretation of shape from shading. Observers were shown plaid stimuli comprising LM and AM combined in-phase (LM+AM) on one oblique and in anti-phase (LM-AM) on the other. Stimuli were presented via a modified ReachIN workstation allowing the co-registration of visual and haptic stimuli. In the first experiment, observers were asked to adjust the phase of a haptic surface, which had the same orientation as the LM+AM combination, until its peak in depth aligned with the visually perceived peak. The resulting alignments were consistent with the use of a lighting-from-above prior. In the second experiment, observers were asked to adjust the amplitude of the haptic surface to match that of the visually perceived surface. Observers chose relatively large amplitude settings when the haptic surface was oriented and phase-aligned with the LM+AM cue. When the haptic surface was aligned with the LM-AM cue, amplitude settings were close to zero. Thus the LM/AM phase relation is a significant visual depth cue, and is used to discriminate between shading and reflectance variations. [Supported by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, EPSRC].

Handwritten and machine-printed text discrimination using a template matching approach

We propose a novel template matching approach for the discrimination of handwritten and machine-printed text. We first pre-process the scanned document images by performing denoising, circles/lines exclusion and word-block level segmentation. We then align and match characters in a flexible sized gallery with the segmented regions, using parallelised normalised cross-correlation. The experimental results over the Pattern Recognition & Image Analysis Research Lab-Natural History Museum (PRImA-NHM) dataset show remarkably high robustness of the algorithm in classifying cluttered, occluded and noisy samples, in addition to those with significant high missing data. The algorithm, which gives 84.0% classification rate with false positive rate 0.16 over the dataset, does not require training samples and generates compelling results as opposed to the training-based approaches, which have used the same benchmark.

QoE-aware power management in vehicle-to-grid networks:a matching-theoretic approach

Frequency, time and places of charging and discharging have critical impact on the Quality of Experience (QoE) of using Electric Vehicles (EVs). EV charging and discharging scheduling schemes should consider both the QoE of using EV and the load capacity of the power grid. In this paper, we design a traveling plan-aware scheduling scheme for EV charging in driving pattern and a cooperative EV charging and discharging scheme in parking pattern to improve the QoE of using EV and enhance the reliability of the power grid. For traveling planaware scheduling, the assignment of EVs to Charging Stations (CSs) is modeled as a many-to-one matching game and the Stable Matching Algorithm (SMA) is proposed. For cooperative EV charging and discharging in parking pattern, the electricity exchange between charging EVs and discharging EVs in the same parking lot is formulated as a many-to-many matching model with ties, and we develop the Pareto Optimal Matching Algorithm (POMA). Simulation results indicates that the SMA can significantly improve the average system utility for EV charging in driving pattern, and the POMA can increase the amount of electricity offloaded from the grid which is helpful to enhance the reliability of the power grid.