The Robust Reading Competition Annotation and Evaluation Platform

The ICDAR Robust Reading Competition (RRC), initiated in 2003 and re-established in 2011, has become a de-facto evaluation standard for robust reading systems and algorithms. Concurrent with its second incarnation in 2011, a continuous effort started to develop an on-line framework to facilitate the hosting and management of competitions. This paper outlines the Robust Reading Competition Annotation and Evaluation Platform, the backbone of the competitions. The RRC Annotation and Evaluation Platform is a modular framework, fully accessible through on-line interfaces. It comprises a collection of tools and services for managing all processes involved with defining and evaluating a research task, from dataset definition to annotation management, evaluation specification and results analysis. Although the framework has been designed with robust reading research in mind, many of the provided tools are generic by design. All aspects of the RRC Annotation and Evaluation Framework are available for research use.Comment: 6 pages, accepted to DAS 201

A fine-grained approach to scene text script identification

This paper focuses on the problem of script identification in unconstrained scenarios. Script identification is an important prerequisite to recognition, and an indispensable condition for automatic text understanding systems designed for multi-language environments. Although widely studied for document images and handwritten documents, it remains an almost unexplored territory for scene text images. We detail a novel method for script identification in natural images that combines convolutional features and the Naive-Bayes Nearest Neighbor classifier. The proposed framework efficiently exploits the discriminative power of small stroke-parts, in a fine-grained classification framework. In addition, we propose a new public benchmark dataset for the evaluation of joint text detection and script identification in natural scenes. Experiments done in this new dataset demonstrate that the proposed method yields state of the art results, while it generalizes well to different datasets and variable number of scripts. The evidence provided shows that multi-lingual scene text recognition in the wild is a viable proposition. Source code of the proposed method is made available online

A semi-supervised clustering method for payload extraction

Master of ScienceDepartment of Electrical and Computer EngineeringDon M. GruenbacherWilliam H. HsuThis thesis addresses payload extraction, the information extraction task of capturing the text of an article from a formatted document such as a PDF file, and focuses on the application and improvement of density-based clustering algorithms as an alternative or supplement to rule-based methods for this task domain. While supervised learning performs well on classification-based subtasks of payload extraction such as relevance filtering of documents or sections in a collection, the labeled data which it requires for training are often prohibitively expensive (in terms of the time resources of annotators and developers) to obtain. On the other hand, unlabeled data is often relatively easily available without cost in large quantities, but there have not been many ways to exploit them. Semi-supervised learning addresses this problem by using large amounts of unlabeled data, together with the labeled data, to build better classifiers. In this thesis, I present a semi-supervised learning-driven approach for the analysis of scientific literature which either already contains unlabeled metadata, or from which this metadata can be computed. Furthermore, machine learning-based analysis techniques are exploited to make this system robust and flexible to its data environment. The overall goal of this research is to develop a methodology to support the document analysis functions of layout-based document segmentation and section classification. This is implemented within an information extraction system within which the empirical evaluation and engineering objectives of this work are framed. As an example application, my implementation supports detection and classification of titles, authors, additional author information, abstract, and the titles and body of subsections such as ‘Introduction’, ‘Method’, ‘Result’, ’Discussion’, ‘Acknowledgement’, ’Reference’, etc. The novel contribution of this work also includes payload extraction as an intermediate functional stage within a pipeline for procedural information extraction from the scientific literature. My experimental results show that this approach outperforms a state-of-the-field heuristic pattern analysis system on a corpus from the domain of nanomaterials synthesis

Development of a tool for the construction of "ground truth" for complex color images with text

Aquesta memoria resumeix el treball de final de carrera d'Enginyeria Superior d'Informàtica. Explicarà les principals raons que han motivat el projecte així com exemples que il·lustren l'aplicació resultant. En aquest cas el software intentarà resoldre la actual necessitat que hi ha de tenir dades de Ground Truth per als algoritmes de segmentació de text per imatges de color complexes. Tots els procesos seran explicats en els diferents capítols partint de la definició del problema, la planificació, els requeriments i el disseny fins a completar la il·lustració dels resultats del programa i les dades de Ground Truth resultants.Esta memoria resume el trabajo de final de carrera de la Ingeniería Superior de Informática. Explicará las principales razones que han motivado la realización del proyecto así como ejemplos que ilustran la consecuente aplicación. En este caso se intentará resolver la actual necesidad que hay en tener datos Ground Truth para los algoritmos de segmentación de texto para imágenes de color complejas. Todos los procesos serán explicados en los diferentes capítulos partiendo de la definición del problema, la planificación, los requerimientos y el diseño, hasta una completa ilustración de los resultados del programa y de los datos de Ground Truth resultantes.This thesis summaries the work of the Computer Engineering of degree project. It will explain the main reasons to do the project as well examples that illustrated the resulting application that will try to solve the need, in this case for the creation of Ground Truth data sets for algorithms of complex color text segmentation. All the processes of the creation will explained in different chapters from the definition of problem, the work plan, the requirements and the design, to a complete illustration of the resulting software and corresponding data sets

A PHYSIOCRATIC SYSTEMS FRAMEWORK FOR OPEN SOURCE AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT

This dissertation presents a new participatory approach to agricultural research and development. It surveys the biological, sociological, economic, and technical landscape and proposes a framework for adaptive management based on the 18th century Physiocratic school of land-based economics. Industrial specialization and heavy emphasis on deductive approaches to science have contributed to the disconnection of large portions of the population from natural systems. Conventional agriculture and agricultural research methods following this pattern have created expensive social, environmental, and economic external costs, while adaptive management and resilient agricultural systems have been hindered by the cost and complexity of quantifying environmental services. However, the convergence of low cost computing, sensors, memory, and resulting data analytic methods, combined with new collaborative tools and social media, have created an exciting open source environment with the potential to engage more people in analyzing and managing our natural environment

An evaluation of imagery from an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) for the mapping of intertidal macroalgae on Seal Sands, Tees Estuary, UK

The Seal Sands area of Teesmouth is designated a Special Protection Area under the habitats directive because guideline concentrations of nutrients in coastal waters are exceeded. This may be responsible for extensive growth of the green filamentous macroalgae Enteromorpha sp., and literature suggests that algal cover in the intertidal zone is detrimental to the feeding behaviour of wading bird species. Although numerous studies have highlighted the causes and consequences of macroalgal cover, the complex spatial and temporal dynamics of macroalgal bloom growth are not as well understood, and hence there is a need to develop a precise and cost effective monitoring method for the mapping and quantifying of algal biomass. Previous studies have highlighted several image processing techniques that could be applied to high resolution airborne imagery in order to predict algal biomass. In order to test these methods, high resolution imagery was acquired in the Sea լ Sands area using a lightweight SmartPlanes SmartOne unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) equipped with a near-infrared sensitive 5-megapixel Canon IXUS compact camera, a standard 6-megapixel Canon IXUS compact camera and a Garmin Geko 201 handheld GPS device. Imagery was acquired in November 2006 and June 2007 in order to examine the spectral response of Enteromorpha sp. at different time periods within a macroalgal growth cycle. Images were mosaicked and georeferenced using ground control points located with a Leica 1200 differential GPS and processed to allow for analysis of their spectral and textural properties. Samples of macroalgal cover were collected, georeferenced and their dry biomass content obtained for ground truthing. Although textural entropy and inertia did not correlate significantly with macroalgal biomass, normalised green-red difference index (NGRDI), normalised difference vegetation index (NDVI) and colour saturation computed on the imagery showed a good degree of linear correlation with Enteromorpha sp. dry weight, achieving coefficients of determination in excess of r(^2)= 0.6 for both the November2006 and June 2007 image sets. Linear regression was used to establish predictive models to estimate macroalgal biomass from image spectral properties. Enteromorpha sp. Biomass estimations of 71.4 g DW m(^-2) and 7.9g DW m(^-2) were established for the November 2006 and June2007 data acquisition sessions respectively. Despite a lack of previous biomass quantification for Seal Sands, the favourable performance of a UAV in terms of operating cost and man hours required for image acquisition suggests that unmanned aerial vehicles may present a viable method for the mapping of intertidal algal biomass on an annual basis