On Deep Machine Learning for Multi-view Object Detection and Neural Scene Rendering

This thesis addresses two contemporary computer vision tasks using a set of multiple-view imagery, namely the joint use of multi-view images to improve object detection and neural scene rendering via a novel volumetric input encoding for Neural Radiance Fields (NeRF). While the former focuses on improving the accuracy of object detection, the latter contribution allows for better scene reconstruction, which ultimately can be exploited to generate novel views and perform multi-view object detection. Notwithstanding the significant advances in automatic object detection in the last decade, multi-view object detection has received little attention. For this reason, two contributions regarding multi-view object detection in the absence of explicit camera pose information are presented in this thesis. First, a multi-view epipolar filtering technique is introduced, using the distance of the detected object centre to a corresponding epipolar line as an additional probabilistic confidence. This technique removes false positives without a corresponding detection in other views, giving greater confidence to consistent detections across the views. The second contribution adds an attention-based layer, called Multi-view Vision Transformer, to the backbone of a deep machine learning object detector, effectively aggregating features from different views and creating a multi-view aware representation. The final contribution explores another application for multi-view imagery, namely novel volumetric input encoding of NeRF. The proposed method derives an analytical solution for the average value of a sinusoidal (inducing a high-frequency component) within a pyramidal frustum region, whereas previous state-of-the-art NeRF methods approximate this with a Gaussian distribution. This parameterisation obtains a better representation of regions where the Gaussian approximation is poor, allowing more accurate synthesis of distant areas and depth map estimation. Experimental evaluation is carried out across multiple established benchmark datasets to compare the proposed methods against contemporary state-of-the-art architectures such that the efficacy of the proposed methods can be both quantitively and qualitatively illustrated

The Projected Al Qaeda Use of Body Cavity Suicide Bombs Against High Value Targets

This work is initially derived from a non-public disclosure series of early warning presentations, first delivered in September 2006, by the author on the projected terrorist use of body cavity suicide bombs against high value targets. Subsequent terrorist use of such a device, in August 2009 in Saudi Arabia by an Al Qaeda operative, has allowed for this body of research (along with post-incident analysis) to now be published in an open venue. The work provides a historical overview of the use of suicide bombs by military forces and terrorists; addresses the co-evolution of suicide bombs and countermeasures by security groups; analyzes future suicide bomb placement options; and explores Islamic views on the acceptability of foreign object placement in body cavities. It then focuses on issues pertaining to body cavity bomb placement options; bomb components, assembly, and detonation issues; putty, cheese, and the Fadhel al-Maliki incident; Al Qaeda use validation— the Abdullah al-Asiri incident; and concludes with a discussion on body cavity bomb countermeasures and strategic use implications. The work signifies the value of early warning and futures analysis applied to counter-terrorism activities and also highlights the tensions and inherent contradictions involved with individuals who wear the dual hats of practitioner and scholar. These individuals, given the requirements of operational security and secrecy, are challenged with ensuring that open discourse and publication in no way threatens the greater public good

Annual Report Of Research and Creative Productions, January to December, 2010

2010 Annual Report of Research and Creative Productions, Morehead State University, Division of Academic Affairs, Research and Creative Productions Committee

How Discourses Cast Airport Security Characters: A Discourse Tracing and Qualitative Analysis of Identity and Emotional Performances

abstract: Since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and subsequent creation of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), airport security has become an increasingly invasive, cumbersome, and expensive process. Fraught with tension and discomfort, "airport security" is a dirty phrase in the popular imagination, synonymous with long lines, unimpressive employees, and indignity. In fact, the TSA and its employees have featured as topic and punch line of news and popular culture stories. This image complicates the TSA's mission to ensure the nation's air travel safety and the ways that its officers interact with passengers. Every day, nearly two million people fly domestically in the United States. Each passenger must interact with many of the approximately 50,000 agents in airports. How employees and travelers make sense of interactions in airport security contexts can have significant implications for individual wellbeing, personal and professional relationships, and organizational policies and practices. Furthermore, the meaning making of travelers and employees is complexly connected to broad social discourses and issues of identity. In this study, I focus on the communication implications of identity and emotional performances in airport security in light of discourses at macro, meso, and micro levels. Using discourse tracing (LeGreco & Tracy, 2009), I construct the historical and discursive landscape of airport security, and via participant observation and various types of interviews, demonstrate how officers and passengers develop and perform identity, and the resulting interactional consequences. My analysis suggests that passengers and Transportation Security Officers (TSOs) perform three main types of identities in airport security contexts--what I call Stereotypical, Ideal, and Mindful--which reflect different types and levels of discourse. Identity performances are intricately related to emotional processes and occur dynamically, in relation to the identity and emotional performances of others. Theoretical implications direct attention to the ways that identity and emotional performances structure interactions, cause burdensome emotion management, and present organizational actors with tension, contradiction, and paradox to manage. Practical implications suggest consideration of passenger and TSO emotional wellbeing, policy framing, passenger agency, and preferred identities. Methodologically, this dissertation offers insight into discourse tracing and challenges of embodied "undercover" research in public spaces.Dissertation/ThesisPh.D. Communication Studies 201

View synthesis for kinetic depth X-ray imaging

This thesis reports the development and analysis of feature based synthesis of transmission X-ray images. The synthetic imagery is formed through matching and morphing or warping line-scan format images produced by a novel multi-view X-ray machine. In this way video type sequences, which periodically alternate between synthetic and detector based views, may be formed. The purpose of these sequences is to provide depth from motion or kinetic depth effect (KDE) in a visual display; while the role of the synthesis is to reduce the total number of detector arrays, associated collimators and X-ray flux per inspection. A specific challenge is to explore the bounds for producing synthetic imagery that can be seamlessly introduced into the resultant sequences. This work is distinct from the image collection and display technique, termed KDEX, previously undertaken by the Imaging Science Group at NTU. The ultimate aim of the research programme in collaboration with The UK Home Office and The US Dept. of Homeland Security is to enhance the detection and identification of threats in X-ray scans of luggage. A multi-view „KDEX scanner‟ was employed to collect greyscale and colour coded image sequences of 30 different bags; each sequence comprised of 7 perspective views separated from one another by 10. This imagery was organised and stored in a database to enable a coherent series of experiments to be conducted. Corresponding features in sequential pairs of images, at various different angular separations, were identified by applying a scale invariant feature transform (SIFT)

Social work with airports passengers

Social work at the airport is in to offer to passengers social services. The main methodological position is that people are under stress, which characterized by a particular set of characteristics in appearance and behavior. In such circumstances passenger attracts in his actions some attention. Only person whom he trusts can help him with the documents or psychologically

Homeland security lessons for the United States

After the attacks of September 11, 2001, officials of the United States government realized that this was a new type of war that would be fought on all fronts, including inside the United States. For this reason, the Bush Administration reorganized a large part of the bureaucracy and spent billions of dollars to protect its citizens. This problem of terrorism, however, is a global problem and one that the United States shares with countries all over the world. The People's Republic of China and Singapore are the focus of this thesis in order to determine what if any homeland security policies developed by their governments could be used to better protect citizens of the United States. Several policies such as legislation, education and internal security measures were evaluated for the United States to institute. Each chosen policy is followed by a brief description of how these laws might come into being within the U.S. governmental system.http://archive.org/details/homelandsecurity109451590Civilian, Center for Civil Military RelationsApproved for public release; distribution is unlimited

Improving Oncology Worldwide

This open access book describes strategies and experiences of highly skilled professionals in improving oncology care worldwide. The book is structured into three main sections with several chapters each, reflecting the authors' individual, real-life experiences. It explores ways to improve oncology education and scientific training, how to set up and run a clinical research facility ethically and efficiently in low- and middle-income settings, addressing the challenges that the workforce encounters in the real world. The main challenges of today’s oncologists seem to be the ever-growing patient care and administrative workload and the risk of burn-out. What are the best strategies to maintain a healthy work-life for the benefit of the patients, the physicians and society, taking into account the different needs, depending on factors like peace, social and gender equality? This book addresses oncologists all over the world and their allies throughout the associated industries to highlight the importance of shared and sustainable education, clinical research and global cancer care