Deformable Prototypes for Encoding Shape Categories in Image Databases

We describe a method for shape-based image database search that uses deformable prototypes to represent categories. Rather than directly comparing a candidate shape with all shape entries in the database, shapes are compared in terms of the types of nonrigid deformations (differences) that relate them to a small subset of representative prototypes. To solve the shape correspondence and alignment problem, we employ the technique of modal matching, an information-preserving shape decomposition for matching, describing, and comparing shapes despite sensor variations and nonrigid deformations. In modal matching, shape is decomposed into an ordered basis of orthogonal principal components. We demonstrate the utility of this approach for shape comparison in 2-D image databases.Office of Naval Research (Young Investigator Award N00014-06-1-0661

Clustering Educational Categories in a Heterogeneous Labour Market

In most countries, the systems of educational classification are based on administrative criteria. For labour market analyses, however, a classification that demarcates an individual''s competences obtained by the courses attended is a better alternative. In this paper we will develop an educational classification that is based on the observed substitution possibilities of workers with different educational backgrounds within similar jobs. As an additional criterion we use the recognisability of the groups distinguished. In addition, we incorporate the criterion of statistical reliability. This results in an educational classification with 113 distinct categories.education, training and the labour market;

Registration and Fusion of Multi-Spectral Images Using a Novel Edge Descriptor

In this paper we introduce a fully end-to-end approach for multi-spectral image registration and fusion. Our method for fusion combines images from different spectral channels into a single fused image by different approaches for low and high frequency signals. A prerequisite of fusion is a stage of geometric alignment between the spectral bands, commonly referred to as registration. Unfortunately, common methods for image registration of a single spectral channel do not yield reasonable results on images from different modalities. For that end, we introduce a new algorithm for multi-spectral image registration, based on a novel edge descriptor of feature points. Our method achieves an accurate alignment of a level that allows us to further fuse the images. As our experiments show, we produce a high quality of multi-spectral image registration and fusion under many challenging scenarios