QUEST Hierarchy for Hyperspectral Face Recognition

Face recognition is an attractive biometric due to the ease in which photographs of the human face can be acquired and processed. The non-intrusive ability of many surveillance systems permits face recognition applications to be used in a myriad of environments. Despite decades of impressive research in this area, face recognition still struggles with variations in illumination, pose and expression not to mention the larger challenge of willful circumvention. The integration of supporting contextual information in a fusion hierarchy known as QUalia Exploitation of Sensor Technology (QUEST) is a novel approach for hyperspectral face recognition that results in performance advantages and a robustness not seen in leading face recognition methodologies. This research demonstrates a method for the exploitation of hyperspectral imagery and the intelligent processing of contextual layers of spatial, spectral, and temporal information. This approach illustrates the benefit of integrating spatial and spectral domains of imagery for the automatic extraction and integration of novel soft features (biometric). The establishment of the QUEST methodology for face recognition results in an engineering advantage in both performance and efficiency compared to leading and classical face recognition techniques. An interactive environment for the testing and expansion of this recognition framework is also provided

Face Recognition via Ensemble Sift Matching of Uncorrelated Hyperspectral Bands and Spectral PCTS

Face recognition is not a new area of study, but facial recognition using through hyperspectral images is a somewhat new concept which is still in its infancy. Although the conventional method of face recognition using Red-Green-Blue (RGB) or grayscale images has been advanced over the last twenty years, these methods are still shown to have weak performance whenever there are variations or changes in lighting, pose, or temporal aspect of the subjects. A hyperspectral representation of an image captures more information that is available within a scene than a RGB image therefore it is beneficial to study the performance of face recognition using a hyperspectral representation of the subjects\u27 faces. We studied the results of a variety of methods for performing face recognition using the Scale Invariant Transformation Feature (SIFT) algorithm as a matching function on uncorrelated spectral bands, principal component representation of the spectral bands, and the ensemble decision of the two. We conclude that there is no dominating method in the scope of our research; however, we do obtain three methods with leading performances despite some trade-off between performance at lower ranks and performance at higher ranks...that outperform the results obtained from a previous study which only considered a SIFT application on a single hyperspectral band which also performs very well under temporal variation

Hyperspectral Data Acquisition and Its Application for Face Recognition

Current face recognition systems are rife with serious challenges in uncontrolled conditions: e.g., unrestrained lighting, pose variations, accessories, etc. Hyperspectral imaging (HI) is typically employed to counter many of those challenges, by incorporating the spectral information within different bands. Although numerous methods based on hyperspectral imaging have been developed for face recognition with promising results, three fundamental challenges remain: 1) low signal to noise ratios and low intensity values in the bands of the hyperspectral image specifically near blue bands; 2) high dimensionality of hyperspectral data; and 3) inter-band misalignment (IBM) correlated with subject motion during data acquisition. This dissertation concentrates mainly on addressing the aforementioned challenges in HI. First, to address low quality of the bands of the hyperspectral image, we utilize a custom light source that has more radiant power at shorter wavelengths and properly adjust camera exposure times corresponding to lower transmittance of the filter and lower radiant power of our light source. Second, the high dimensionality of spectral data imposes limitations on numerical analysis. As such, there is an emerging demand for robust data compression techniques with lows of less relevant information to manage real spectral data. To cope with these challenging problems, we describe a reduced-order data modeling technique based on local proper orthogonal decomposition in order to compute low-dimensional models by projecting high-dimensional clusters onto subspaces spanned by local reduced-order bases. Third, we investigate 11 leading alignment approaches to address IBM correlated with subject motion during data acquisition. To overcome the limitations of the considered alignment approaches, we propose an accurate alignment approach ( A3) by incorporating the strengths of point correspondence and a low-rank model. In addition, we develop two qualitative prediction models to assess the alignment quality of hyperspectral images in determining improved alignment among the conducted alignment approaches. Finally, we show that the proposed alignment approach leads to promising improvement on face recognition performance of a probabilistic linear discriminant analysis approach

Visually-Enabled Active Deep Learning for (Geo) Text and Image Classification: A Review

This paper investigates recent research on active learning for (geo) text and image classification, with an emphasis on methods that combine visual analytics and/or deep learning. Deep learning has attracted substantial attention across many domains of science and practice, because it can find intricate patterns in big data; but successful application of the methods requires a big set of labeled data. Active learning, which has the potential to address the data labeling challenge, has already had success in geospatial applications such as trajectory classification from movement data and (geo) text and image classification. This review is intended to be particularly relevant for extension of these methods to GISience, to support work in domains such as geographic information retrieval from text and image repositories, interpretation of spatial language, and related geo-semantics challenges. Specifically, to provide a structure for leveraging recent advances, we group the relevant work into five categories: active learning, visual analytics, active learning with visual analytics, active deep learning, plus GIScience and Remote Sensing (RS) using active learning and active deep learning. Each category is exemplified by recent influential work. Based on this framing and our systematic review of key research, we then discuss some of the main challenges of integrating active learning with visual analytics and deep learning, and point out research opportunities from technical and application perspectives-for application-based opportunities, with emphasis on those that address big data with geospatial components

Air Force Institute of Technology Research Report 2011

This report summarizes the research activities of the Air Force Institute of Technology’s Graduate School of Engineering and Management. It describes research interests and faculty expertise; lists student theses/dissertations; identifies research sponsors and contributions; and outlines the procedures for contacting the school. Included in the report are: faculty publications, conference presentations, consultations, and funded research projects. Research was conducted in the areas of Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering, Electrical Engineering and Electro-Optics, Computer Engineering and Computer Science, Systems and Engineering Management, Operational Sciences, Mathematics, Statistics and Engineering Physics

Gaze Stability for Liveness Detection

Spoofing attacks on biometric systems are one of the major impediments to their use for secure unattended applications. This paper explores features for face liveness detection based on tracking the gaze of the user. In the proposed approach, a visual stimulus is placed on the display screen, at apparently random locations, which the user is required to follow while their gaze is measured. This visual stimulus appears in such a way that it repeatedly directs the gaze of the user to specific positions on the screen. Features extracted from sets of collinear and colocated points are used to estimate the liveness of the user. Data is collected from genuine users tracking the stimulus with natural head/eye movements and impostors holding a photograph, looking through a 2D mask or replaying the video of a genuine user. The choice of stimulus and features are based on the assumption that natural head/eye coordination for directing gaze results in a greater accuracy and thus can be used to effectively differentiate between genuine and spoofing attempts. Tests are performed to assess the effectiveness of the system with these features in isolation as well as in combination with each other using score fusion techniques. The results from the experiments indicate the effectiveness of the proposed gaze-based features in detecting such presentation attacks

The study of biographical trajectory of portuguese 12th century illuminated manuscript: LECCIONARIUM ALC. 433 from Alcobaça Collection held by The Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal

This thesis presents an interdisciplinary approach to a 12th century illuminated manuscript, a Leccionarium (Alc. 433), produced in Alcobaça Monastery which currently is being preserved at Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal in Lisbon. The aim of the work was to trace the biography of this illuminated manuscript, through the liturgical studies and to obtain the chronological timeline of the use of materials in Alcobaça scriptorium, through centuries. The representative folia of Alc. 433 were characterised with h-XRF, UV-Vis-NIR-FORS, and hyperspectral images. The result indicates that Alc. 433 was produced in the last quarter of the 12th century, followed by addition of some folia in 13th, 14th, and the beginning of 17th century. Materials identification revealed the use of different pigments in different periods: vermilion and minium (red), copper proteinate (bottle green), yellow lake pigments, azurite and lapis lazuli (blue). The PCA study of yellow lake dye reproduction indicates the use of turmeric yellow lake pigment in the initial core. Furthermore, the analysis of iron gall ink also shows that the initial core of Alc. 433 contains the similar ratios of elements with Alc. 11 (primitive manuscript of Alcobaça) thus proved the Alc. 433 was also the produced in the earliest period of the active year of Alcobaça scriptorium; RESUMO: O Estudo da Trajetória Biográfica do Manuscrito Português Iluminado do Século XII: Leccionarium Alc. 433 da Coleção de Alcobaça Detida pela Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal Esta tese apresenta uma abordagem interdisciplinar de um manuscrito iluminado do século XII, um Leccionarium (Alc. 433), produzido no Mosteiro de Alcobaça e que se encontra preservado na Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal em Lisboa. O objetivo deste trabalho foi traçar a biografia deste manuscrito iluminado, através do seu estudo litúrgico e obter a linha cronológica da utilização de materiais no scriptorium de Alcobaça, ao longo dos séculos. Os fólios mais representativos do Alc. 433 foram caracterizados h-XRF, UV-Vis-NIR-FORS e imagens hiperespectrais. O resultado indica que o Alc. 433 foi produzido no último quarto do século XII, e que foi enriquecido com a adição de fólios e/ou cadernos nos séculos XIII, XIV e inícios do século XVII. A identificação dos materiais revelou o uso de diferentes pigmentos em diferentes períodos: vermelhão e minium (vermelho), proteinato de cobre (verde garrafa), pigmento lago amarelo, azurite e lápis-lazúli (azul). O estudo PCA da reprodução do corante lago amarelo indica o uso de açafrão no núcleo inicial do pigmento. Além disso, a análise das tintas de escrita evidenciou uma analogia de composição da tinta ferrogálica utilizada no núcleo inicial do manuscrito Alc.433 e da tinta ferrogálica utilizada no texto do Alc.11 (outro manuscrito produzido nos primeiros anos do scriptorium de Alcobaça) o que comprovou assim que também o Alc. 433 foi produzido na mesma época, isto é, em torno de 1175