The future of video analytics for surveillance and its ethical implications

The current state of the art and direction of research in computer vision aimed at automating the analysis of CCTV images is presented. This includes low level identification of objects within the field of view of cameras, following those objects over time and between cameras, and the interpretation of those objects’ appearance and movements with respect to models of behaviour (and therefore intentions inferred). The potential ethical problems (and some potential opportunities) such developments may pose if and when deployed in the real world are presented, and suggestions made as to the necessary new regulations which will be needed if such systems are not to further enhance the power of the surveillers against the surveilled.

Video surveillance : past, present, and now the future

Video surveillance is a part of our daily life, even though we may not necessarily realize it. We might be monitored on the street, on highways, at ATMs, in public transportation vehicles, inside private and public buildings, in the elevators, in front of our television screens, next to our baby?s cribs, and any spot one can set a camera.

The ideal self at play: the appeal of video games that let you be all you can be

Video games constitute a popular form of entertainment that allows millions of people to adopt virtual identities. In our research, we explored the idea that the appeal of games is due in part to their ability to provide players with novel experiences that let them “try on” ideal aspects of their selves that might not find expression in everyday life. We found that video games were most intrinsically motivating and had the greatest influence on emotions when players’ experiences of themselves during play were congruent with players’ conceptions of their ideal selves. Additionally, we found that high levels of immersion in gaming environments, as well as large discrepancies between players’ actual-self and ideal-self characteristics, magnified the link between intrinsic motivation and the experience of ideal-self characteristics during play.

A method to assess individual research outputs

We present here a straightforward method which can be used to obtain a quantitative indication of an individual research output for an academic. Different versions, selections and options are presented to enable a user to easily calculate values both for stand-alone papers and overall for the collection of outputs for a person. The procedure is particularly useful as a metric to give a quantitative indication of the research output of a person over a time window. Examples are included to show how the method works in practice and how it compares to alternative techniques.

Routing protocols and quality of services for security based applications using wireless video sensor networks

Wireless video sensor networks have been a hot topic in recent years; the monitoring capability is the central feature of the services offered by a wireless video sensor network can be classified into three major categories: monitoring, alerting, and information on-demand. These features have been applied to a large number of applications related to the environment (agriculture, water, forest and fire detection), military, buildings, health (elderly people and home monitoring), disaster relief, area and industrial monitoring. Security applications oriented toward critical infrastructures and disaster relief are very important applications that many countries have identified as critical in the near future. This paper aims to design a cross layer based protocol to provide the required quality of services for security related applications using wireless video sensor networks. Energy saving, delay and reliability for the delivered data are crucial in the proposed application. Simulation results show that the proposed cross layer based protocol offers a good performance in term of providing the required quality of services for the proposed application.

Video stimuli reduce object-directed imitation accuracy: a novel two-person motion-tracking approach

Imitation is an important form of social behavior, and research has aimed to discover and explain the neural and kinematic aspects of imitation. However, much of this research has featured single participants imitating in response to pre-recorded video stimuli. This is in spite of findings that show reduced neural activation to video vs. real life movement stimuli, particularly in the motor cortex. We investigated the degree to which video stimuli may affect the imitation process using a novel motion tracking paradigm with high spatial and temporal resolution. We recorded 14 positions on the hands, arms, and heads of two individuals in an imitation experiment. One individual freely moved within given parameters (moving balls across a series of pegs) and a second participant imitated. This task was performed with either simple (one ball) or complex (three balls) movement difficulty, and either face-to-face or via a live video projection. After an exploratory analysis, three dependent variables were chosen for examination: 3D grip position, joint angles in the arm, and grip aperture. A cross-correlation and multivariate analysis revealed that object-directed imitation task accuracy (as represented by grip position) was reduced in video compared to face-to-face feedback, and in complex compared to simple difficulty. This was most prevalent in the left-right and forward-back motions, relevant to the imitator sitting face-to-face with the actor or with a live projected video of the same actor. The results suggest that for tasks which require object-directed imitation, video stimuli may not be an ecologically valid way to present task materials. However, no similar effects were found in the joint angle and grip aperture variables, suggesting that there are limits to the influence of video stimuli on imitation. The implications of these results are discussed with regards to previous findings, and with suggestions for future experimentation.

Vehicle subtype, make and model classification from side profile video

This paper addresses the challenging domain of vehicle classification from pole-mounted roadway cameras, specifically from side-profile views. A new public vehicle dataset is made available consisting of over 10000 side profile images (86 make/model and 9 sub-type classes). 5 state-of-the-art classifiers are applied to the dataset, with the best achieving high classification rates of 98.7% for sub-type and 99.7- 99.9% for make and model recognition, confirming the assertion made that single vehicle side profile images can be used for robust classification.

Meeting detection in video through semantic analysis

In this paper we present a novel approach to detect people meeting. The proposed approach works by translating people behaviour from trajectory information into semantic terms. Having available a semantic model of the meeting behaviour, the event detection is performed in the semantic domain. The model is learnt employing a soft-computing clustering algorithm that combines trajectory information and motion semantic terms. A stable representation can be obtained from a series of examples. Results obtained on a series of videos with different types of meeting situations show that the proposed approach can learn a generic model that can effectively be applied on the behaviour recognition of meeting situations.

On fusion for robust motion segmentation

While a multitude of motion segmentation algorithms have been presented in the literature, there has not been an objective assessment of different approaches to fusing their outputs. This paper investigates the application of 4 different fusion schemes to the outputs of 3 probabilistic pixel-level segmentation algorithms. We performed an extensive experimentation using 6 challenge categories from the changedetection.net dataset demonstrating that in general simple majority vote proves to be more effective than more complex fusion schemes.

In vitro analysis of human tooth pulp chamber temperature after low-intensity laser therapy at different power outputs

In vitro studies have provided conflicting evidence of temperature changes in the tooth pulp chamber after low-level laser irradiation of the tooth surface. The present study was an in vitro evaluation of temperature increases in the human tooth pulp chamber after diode laser irradiation (GaAlAs, lambda = 808 nm) using different power densities. Twelve human teeth (three incisors, three canines, three premolars and three molars) were sectioned in the cervical third of the root and enlarged for the introduction of a thermocouple into the pulp chamber. The teeth were irradiated with 417 mW, 207 mW and 78 mW power outputs for 30 s on the vestibular surface approximately 2 mm from the cervical line of the crown. The highest average increase in temperature (5.6A degrees C) was observed in incisors irradiated with 417 mW. None of the teeth (incisors, canines, premolars or molars) irradiated with 207 mW showed temperature increases higher than 5.5A degrees C that could potentially be harmful to pulp tissue. Teeth irradiated with 78 mW showed lower temperature increases. The study showed that diode laser irradiation with a wavelength of 808 nm at 417 mW power output increased the pulp chamber temperature of certain groups of teeth, especially incisors and premolars, to critical threshold values for the dental pulp (5.5A degrees C). Thus, this study serves as a warning to clinicians that ""more"" is not necessarily ""better"".

An enhanced content selection mechanism for personalization of video news programmes

In this paper, we propose a content selection framework that improves the users` experience when they are enriching or authoring pieces of news. This framework combines a variety of techniques to retrieve semantically related videos, based on a set of criteria which are specified automatically depending on the media`s constraints. The combination of different content selection mechanisms can improve the quality of the retrieved scenes, because each technique`s limitations are minimized by other techniques` strengths. We present an evaluation based on a number of experiments, which show that the retrieved results are better when all criteria are used at time.