Premi Internacional al millor treball de fusió d'imatges de satèl·lit

Un grup de recerca multidisciplinari format per Xavier Otazu (Centre de Visió per Computador, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona), Octavi Fors i Jorge Núñez (ambdós del Departament d'Astronomia i Meteorologia, Universitat de Barcelona) i María González-Audícana (Departament de Projectes i Enginyeria Rural, Universitat Pública de Navarra) ha estat guardonat amb un presitigiós premi internacional per desenvolupar una tècnica de fusió d'imatges obtingudes per satèl·lits.Un grupo de investigación multidisciplinario formado por Xavier Otazu(Centro de Visión per Computador, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona),Octavi Fors y Jorge Núñez (ambos del Departamento de Astronomía yMeteorología, Universitat de Barcelona) y María González-Audícana(Departamento de Proyectos e Ingeniería Rural, Universidad Pública deNavarra) ha sido galardonado con un presitigioso premio internacionalpor desarrollar una técnica de fusión de imágenes obtenidas porsatélites

The family too: Integration and family reunification procedures for refugees in the European Union

El grado de inclusión y protección que se podrá ofrecer a la población refugiada en los países de asilo de la Unión Europea depende de factores adicionales a los tradicionalmente considerados en relación al procedimiento de asilo o de los derechos en el asilo. Este artículo reivindica la centralidad de la familia como uno de dichos factores. Asimismo, examinando diversos procedimientos de reunificación familiar, tanto en el marco del Sistema Europeo Común de Asilo como al margen de él, reclama una coherencia entre los hallazgos de los estudios sobre integración de personas refugiadas y la tibia respuesta en el uso de las distintas vías para la reunificación familiar que se está dando en la actualidadThe degree of inclusion and protection which the refugee population can be offered in countries of asylum within the European Union depends on factors above and beyond those traditionally considered, and which refer to asylum procedures or rights to asylum. This article puts forward the centrality of the family as one such factor. Likewise, through an examination of various family reunification procedures —both within the Common Asylum System and outwith it—, it calls for coherence between the findings of studies on refugee integration and the present lukewarm application of family reunificatio

Tecnologia de la UAB millora imatges de satèl·lits

Els satèl·lits observen silenciosos els fenòmens naturals que succeeixen al nostre planeta. No obstant, les imatges reproduïdes per aquests ulls mecànics no són tan fiables com voldríem. Per alleugerir aquesta miopia dels satèl·lits, un equip de la UAB proposa un mètode de fusió d'imatges anomenat WiSpeR.Los satélites observan silenciosos los fenómenos naturales que ocurren en nuestro planeta. Sin embargo, las imágenes reproducidas por estos ojos mecánicos no son tan fiables como quisiéramos. Para atenuar esta miopía satelital un equipo de la UAB propone un método de fusión de imágenes llamado WiSpeR

Modeling Bottom-Up and Top-Down Attention with a Neurodynamic Model of V1

Previous studies in that line suggested that lateral interactions of V1 cells are responsible, among other visual effects, of bottom-up visual attention (alternatively named visual salience or saliency). Our objective is to mimic these connections in the visual system with a neurodynamic network of firing-rate neurons. Early subcortical processes (i.e. retinal and thalamic) are functionally simulated. An implementation of the cortical magnification function is included to define the retinotopical projections towards V1, processing neuronal activity for each distinct view during scene observation. Novel computational definitions of top-down inhibition (in terms of inhibition of return and selection mechanisms), are also proposed to predict attention in Free-Viewing and Visual Search conditions. Results show that our model outpeforms other biologically-inpired models of saliency prediction as well as to predict visual saccade sequences during free viewing. We also show how temporal and spatial characteristics of inhibition of return can improve prediction of saccades, as well as how distinct search strategies (in terms of feature-selective or category-specific inhibition) predict attention at distinct image contexts.Comment: 32 pages, 19 figure

Computations of top-down attention by modulating V1 dynamics

The human visual system processes information defining what is visually conspicuous (saliency) to our perception, guiding eye movements towards certain objects depending on scene context and its feature characteristics. However, attention has been known to be biased by top-down influences (relevance), which define voluntary eye movements driven by goal-directed behavior and memory. We propose a unified model of the visual cortex able to predict, among other effects, top-down visual attention and saccadic eye movements. First, we simulate activations of early mechanisms of the visual system (RGC/LGN), by processing distinct image chromatic opponencies with Gabor-like filters. Second, we use a cortical magnification function to reproduce foveation towards V1 retinotopy. Third, we feed these signals to an excitatory-inhibitory neurodynamic model of lateral interactions in V1 as a saliency mechanism. Fourth, projections towards the SC (modeled as WTA-like computations) determine the targets of fixations and saccade sequences. Fifth and last, we integrate a top-down inhibition process by simulating retrieval of visual representations as goal-directed selection processes (DLPFC/FEF), later projected towards V1/SC. These top-down representations will modulate the prediction of visual relevance during visual search tasks, where its weights (orientation, scale and opponency) are mapped as cortical signals from early visual areas for each exemplar/category. Our results show that our model predictions of eye movements improve by including the aforementioned top-down computations. In addition, our model has previously seen to simultaneously reproduce visual discomfort, brightness and chromatic induction effects