Abstract

We describe the design and implementation of a vision based Intermodal Train Monitoring System(ITMS) for extracting various features like length of gaps in an intermodal(IM) train which can later be used for higher level inferences. An intermodal train is a freight train consisting of two basic types of loads - containers and trailers. Our system first captures the video of an IM train, and applies image processing and machine learning techniques developed in this work to identify the various types of loads as containers and trailers. The whole process relies on a sequence of following tasks - robust background subtraction in each frame of the video, estimation of train velocity, creation of mosaic of the whole train from the video and classification of train loads into containers and trailers. Finally, the length of gaps between the loads of the IM train is estimated and is used to analyze the aerodynamic efficiency of the loading pattern of the train, which is a critical aspect of freight trains. This paper focusses on the machine vision aspect of the whole system.

Abstract

In this paper, we present a new hybrid visual servoing algorithm for robot arm positioning task. Hybrid methods in visual servoing partially combine the 2D and 3D visual information to improve the performance of the traditional image-based and position-based visual servoing. Our algorithm is superior to the state of the art hybrid methods. The objective function has been designed to include the full 2D and 3D information available either from the CAD model or from the partial reconstruction process by decomposing the homography matrix between two views. Here, each of 2D and 3D error functions is used to control the six degrees of freedom. We call this method 5D visual servoing. The positioning task has been formulated as a minimization problem. Gradient decent as a first order approximation and Gauss-Newton as a second order approximation are considered in this paper. Simulation results show that these two methods provide an efficient solution to the camera retreat and features visibility problems. The camera trajectory in the Cartesian space is also shown to be satisfactory.

Abstract

A new probabilistic tracking framework for integrating information available from various visual cues is presented in this paper. The framework allows selection of “good” features for each cue, along with factors of their “goodness” to select the best combination form. Two particle filter based trackers, which use edge and texture features, run independently. The output of the master tracker is computed using democratic integration using the “goodness” weights. The final output is used as apriori for both tracker in the next iteration. Finally, particle filters are used to deal with non-Gaussian errors in feature extraction / prior computation. Results are shown for planar object tracking.

Abstract

This paper reports on the first Oromo-English CLIR system that is based on dictionary-based query translation techniques. The basic objective of the study is to design and develop an Oromo-English CLIR system with a view to enable Afaan Oromo speakers to access and retrieve the vast online information sources that are available in English by using their own (native) language queries. We describe the major approaches and procedures that have been used in designing and developing Oromo-English CLIR system together with the information retrieval evaluation experiments recently conducted at CLEF 2006 ad hoc track. The purpose of the current initial evaluation experiments was to assess the over all performance of the Oromo-English CLIR system by using different fields of Afaan Oromo topics. Thus we submitted three official runs (experiments) that differed in terms of utilized fields in the topic set, ie title run (OMT), title and description run (OMTD), and title, description and narration run (OMTDN) to CLEF 2006. Since appropriate online language processing resources and information retrieval tools are not available for Afaan Oromo, only limited linguistic resources such as Oromo-English dictionary and Afaan Oromo stemmer that had been designed and developed at our research center were used in conducting the experiments. Yet we found the performances of our evaluation experiments at CLEF 2006 very encouraging which is a good news for development and application of CLIR systems in other indigenous African languages.

Abstract

In this paper, we have considered a real world information synthesis task, generation of a fixed length multi document summary which satisfies a specific information need. This task was mapped to a topic-oriented, informative multi-document summarization. We also tried to estimate, given the human written reference summaries and the document set, the maximum performance (ROUGE1 scores) that can be achieved by an extraction-based summarization technique. Motivated by the observation that the current approaches are far behind the estimated maximum performance, we have looked at Information Retrieval techniques to improve the relevance scoring of sentences towards information need. Following information theoretic approach we have identified a measure to capture the notion of importance or prior of a sentence. Following a different decomposition of Probability Ranking Principle, the calculated importance/prior is incorporated into the final sentence scoring by weighted linear combination. In order to evaluate the performance, we have explored information sources like WWW and encyclopedia in computing the information measure in a set of different experiments. The t-test analysis of the improvement on DUC2 2005 data set is found to be significant (p∼ 0.05). The same system has outperformed rest of the systems at DUC 2006 challenge in terms of ROUGE scores with a significant margin over the next best system.

Abstract

This paper explores the possibility of using convex optimization to address a class of problems in visual servoing. This work is motivated by the recent success of convex optimization methods in solving geometric inference problems in computer vision. We formulate the visual servoing problem with feature visibility constraints as a convex optimization of a function of the camera position i.e. the translation of the camera. First, the path is planned using potential field method that produces unconstrained but straight line path from the initial to the desired camera position. The problem is then converted to a constrained convex optimization problem by introducing the visibility constraints to the minimization problem. The objective of the minimization process is to find for each camera position the closest alternate position from which all features are visible. This algorithm ensures that the solution is optimal. This formulation allows the introduction of more constraints, like joint limits of the arm, into the visual servoing process. The results have been illustrated in a simulation framework.

Abstract

This paper presents an efficient indexing and retrieval scheme for searching in document image databases. In many non-European languages, optical character recognizers are not very accurate. Word spotting - word image matching - may instead be used to retrieve word images in response to a word image query. The approaches used for word spotting so far, dynamic time warping and/or nearest neighbor search, tend to be slow. Here indexing is done using locality sensitive hashing (LSH) - a technique which computes multiple hashes - using word image features computed at word level. Efficiency and scalability is achieved by content-sensitive hashing implemented through approximate nearest neighbor computation. We demonstrate that the technique achieves high precision and recall (in the 90% range), using a large image corpus consisting of seven Kalidasa’s (a well known Indian poet of antiquity) books in the Telugu language. The accuracy is comparable to using dynamic time warping and nearest neighbor search while the speed is orders of magnitude better - 20000 word images can be searched in milliseconds.

Abstract

In this paper, we explain a personalized agricultural advisory system called eSagu, which has been developed to improve the performance and utilization of agriculture technology and help Indian farmers. In eSagu, rather than visiting the crop in person, the agricultural expert delivers the expert advice at regular intervals (once in one or two weeks) to each farm by getting the crop status in the form of digital photographs and other information. During 2004-06, through eSagu, agricultural expert advices delivered for about 6000 farms covering six crops. The results show that the expert advices helped the farmers to achieve savings in capital investment and improved the crop yield. Mainly, the data warehouse of farm histories has been developed which is providing the crop related information to the agricultural expert in an integrated manner for generating a quality agricultural expert advice. In this paper, after explaining eSagu and its advantages, we discuss how data warehouse of farm histories is enabling agricultural expert to deliver a quality expert advice. We also discuss some research issues to improve the performance of eSagu.

Abstract

Abstract The trans Watson-Crick/Watson-Crick family of base pairs represent a geometric class which play important structural and possible functional roles in the ribosome, tRNA and other functional RNA molecules. They nucleate base triplets and quartets, participate as loop closing terminal base pairs in hair pin motifs and are also responsible for several tertiary interactions which enable sequentially distant regions to interact with each other in. Eleven representative examples spanning nine systems belonging to this geometric family of RNA base pairs, having widely different occurrence statistics in the PDB database, were studied at the HF/6-31G (d, p) level using Morokuma decomposition, Atoms in Molecule as well as Natural Bond Orbital methods in the optimized gas phase geometries and in their crystal structure geometries respectively. The BSSE and deformation energy corrected interaction energy values for the optimized geometries for non protonated base pairs ranged from -8.19 kcal/mol to -21.84 kcal/mol and compared favorably with those of canonical base pairs. The interaction energies of these base pairs, in their respective crystal geometries, were however lesser to varying extents and in one case, that of A:A W:W trans, it was actually found to be positive. The variation in RMSD between the two geometries was also large and ranged from 0.32 2.19 . Our analysis shows that the hydrogen bonding characteristics and interaction energies obtained, correlated with the nature and type of hydrogen bonds between base pairs; but the occurrence frequencies, interaction energies and geometric variabilities were conspicuous by the absence of any apparent correlation. Instead, the functional geometry of base pairs and the nature of their local interaction energy hyperspace, in conjunction with tertiary and neighboring group interaction potentials in the global context, could be correlated with the identities of free and bound hydrogen bond donor/acceptor groups present in interacting bases. It also suggests that the concept of isostericity alone may not always determine covariation potentials for base pairs, particularly those which may be participating in functional dynamics. These considerations are more important than the absolute values of the interaction energies in their respective optimized geometries in rationalizing their occurrences in functional RNAs. They highlight the importance of revising some of the existing DNA based structure analysis approaches and may have significant implications for RNA structure and dynamics, especially in the context of structure prediction algorithms.

Abstract

In this paper, we focus on the information in speech data and discuss the research issues involved in collecting, organizing,indexing, retrieving and summarization of speech data. We share our experience about the problems and prospects in collection of spoken language data. We highlight some of the procedures,standards that need to be adapted in collecting the speech data, and discuss our plan to collect the speech data for all the languages in Indian sub-continent and from the neighboring countries