============================================================================ IAPR TC-11 Newsletter August 2016 http://www.iapr-tc11.org ========== Contents ======================================================== * Message from the Editor * Dates 'n' Deadlines - ICFHR 2020, [in a nice place] October 10 (proposal for hosting) - CVPR 2017, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA November 16 (http://cvpr2017.thecvf.com/) * Call for Hosting Proposals: - Int. Conf. on Frontiers in Handwriting Recognition (ICFHR) 2020 * Request for Comments: - Digitization Choices for "The Lehigh Engineering Drawing Collection" * Announcement: - 1st International Summer School on Computational Forensics, Gjøvik, Norway, September 05-09, 2016 * Job offers: - PhD Studentships at the Computer Vision Center (Barcelona, Spain) - Marie Curie Fellowships in Computer Vision - Reading Systems - 2x Postdoctoral positions, L3i laboratory, (repost) University of La Rochelle, France - Tenure-track Associate Professor position at (repost) Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology. * New and Recently Published Datasets * Call for Dataset Submissions * Call for Contributions ============================================================================ ========== Message from the Editor ========================================= Welcome to the August edition of our newsletter. With this edition I would like to draw your attention to the call for submitting Proposals for Hosting ICFHR 2020, one of the major events organized by the TC-11 community. As you may know, the decision about bids for hosting ICFHR 2020 will be taken by a vote of the attendants of ICFHR 2016 during a special session. Therefore, if you are interested in organizing ICFHR in four years from now, please submit your proposal and prepare a nice presentation for convincing the TC-11 community gathering in Shenzhen, China in October. Additionally, you will find below a Request for Comments on Digitization Choices for "The Lehigh Engineering Drawing Collection" and the announcement of the 1st International Summer School on Computational Forensics which will take place in Gjøvik, Norway in September. Furthermore, this newsletter brings to you advertisements for three PhD positions and two Marie Curie Fellowships at the CVC in Barcelona. Gernot A. Fink, IAPR TC-11 Newsletter Editor / Education Officer Gernot.Fink@udo.edu ============================================================================ ========== Dates 'n' Deadlines ============================================= Event/Location/Web: Event Date: Deadline (paper submission): ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- * CVPR 2017, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA July 20-27, 2017 November 16 (http://cvpr2017.thecvf.com/) * ICDAR 2017, Kyoto, Japan November 10-15, 2017 March 15, 2017 (http://www.iapr.org/icdar2017) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - * BMVC 2016, York, UK September 19-22 - passed - (http://bmvc2016.cs.york.ac.uk/) * IWRR 2016, Amsterdam, The Netherlands October 9 - passed - (http://www.cvc.uab.es/IWRR2016) * ICFHR 2016, Shenzen, China October 23-26 - passed - (http://www.nlpr.ia.ac.cn/icfhr2016) * MedPRAI 2016, Tebessa, Algeria November 22-23 - passed - (http://medprai2016.sciencesconf.org/) * MANPU 2016, Cancun, Mexico December 4 - passed - (http://manpu2016.imlab.jp) * ICPR 2016, Cancun, Mexico December 4-8, 2016 - passed - (http://www.icpr2016.org/) ============================================================================ ========== New and Recently Published: TC-11 Datasets ====================== For a list of all datasets available visit: http://tc11.cvc.uab.es ============================================================================ ========== Call for Hosting Proposals: ICFHR 2020 ========================== Call for Hosting Proposals for ICFHR 2020 ----------------------------------------- Continuing a long tradition, the international research community plans to gather in Shenzhen, China for the 15th International Conference on Frontiers in Handwriting Recognition on October 23-26, 2016 (http://www.nlpr.ia.ac.cn/icfhr2016/). In keeping with the practice of the community, proposals are now being solicited for hosting ICFHR 2020, the 17th International Conference on Frontiers in Handwriting Recognition. ICFHR is the premier event for identifying, encouraging, and exchanging ideas in handwriting recognition research, as well as for promoting novel applications at the frontiers of this important field. The single-track conference brings together leading researchers and practitioners in on-line and off-line handwriting recognition. The series of the ICFHR conferences is a continuation of the ten IWFHRs (Montreal 1990, Chateau de Bonas 1991, Buffalo 1993, Taipei 1994, Colchester 1996, Taejon 1998, Amsterdam 2000, Niagara on the Lake 2002, Tokyo 2004, La Baule 2006). Previous ICFHR conferences were held in Montreal 2008, Kolkata 2010, Bari 2012, and Crete 2014. The 16th International Conference on Frontiers in Handwriting Recognition, ICFHR 2018, is scheduled to be held in Rochester, USA, on August 6-10, 2018. Individuals and groups who are interested in handwriting recognition research are invited to submit proposals for organizing and hosting ICFHR 2020. According to the normal rotation, the year 2020 would see the conference located somewhere in Europe, but proposals from other locales are encouraged as well. Proposals should be sent to: Koichi Kise, TC-11 Chair, kise@cs.osakafu-u.ac.jp Dimosthenis Karatzas, TC-11 Vice Chair, dimos@cvc.uab.es The deadline for submitting written proposals is Monday, October 10. In addition, proposers should be prepared to make a brief presentation to the community during a special session at ICFHR 2016 after which a vote will be taken to determine the winning bid. The special session is scheduled just before the social event (Wednesday afternoon, October 25, 2016). Questions concerning the proposal process can be addressed to Koichi Kise and Dimosthenis Karatzas. ============================================================================ ========== RFC: Digitization Choices ======================================= The Lehigh Engineering Drawing Collection Request for Comment on Digitization Choices During GREC 2015 in Nancy, in the wake of the Lehigh Engineering Drawing Challenge, the TC-10 community decided to commit ressources to digitizing and making broadly available a roughly 5000 items large collection of engineering drawings. We have finally come around collecting a big part of the required funding to at least digitize a large subset of these documents. In order to proceed, we need your help to take a look at the first digitization tests, and help us determine what level of quality you think is best suited for your research. We have set up a survey for you to complete: http://enquetes.univ-lorraine.fr/index.php/829953?lang=en The digitized documents are available for browsing and bulk downloading from the following URLs: http://dae.cse.lehigh.edu/DAE/?q=browse/dataitem/605933 http://dae.cse.lehigh.edu/DOWNLOADS/Archive.zip Please take a moment to go over the documents, and possibly even run some of your favourite algorithms on them. Your contributions and input will be greatly appreciated, and will have a quite positive impact on the TC-10 and TC-11 community at large. Thank you for your help, Bart Lamiroy Dan Lopresti ============================================================================ ========== Announcement: SuCoFo2016 ======================================== SuCoFo2016: 1st International Summer School on Computational Forensics Date: September 05-09, 2016 Venue: Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Gjøvik, Norway. Registration: Before 15 August 2016 Weblink: https://testimon.ccis.no/2016/03/summer-school-on-computational-forensics-sucofo2016/ Wikilink: http://www.wikicfp.com/cfp/servlet/event.showcfp?eventid=56718©ownerid=90779 Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) and the International Association of Pattern Recognition (IAPR) - TC 6 on Computational Forensics (IAPR sponsorship has been applied for), would like to invite you to the 1st International Summer School on Computational Forensics (SuCoFo2016). SuCoFo2016 will be held from 05 September - 9 September and take place at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Gjøvik, Norway. The course is open for PhD students as well as researchers in academia, government and industry needing an advanced knowledge of digital forensics. This school will mostly concentrate on pattern recognition and computer vision based techniques for forensic data analysis. The courses will be delivered by world renowned experts in the field, from both academia and industry. It will give participants a unique opportunity to hear the world famous keynote speakers and to interact with international experts in the field. The courses will cover both theoretical and practical aspects of Computational Forensics problems as well as examples of their successful commercialisation. The school aims to provide a stimulating opportunity for young researchers and Ph.D. students. The participants will benefit from direct interaction and discussions with world leaders in Computational Forensics. Participants will also have the possibility to present the results of their research, and to interact with their scientific peers, in a friendly and constructive environment. Speakers Sujeet Shenoi, University of Tulsa, USA Raymond Choo, University of South Australia, Australia Zeno Geradts, Netherlands Forensic Institute, Netherlands Ali Dehghantanha, University of Salford, United Kingdom Utpal Garain, Indian Statistical Institute, India Thomas Walmann, Økokrim, Norway Katrin Franke, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway Slobodan Petrovic, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway Stefan Axelsson, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway Carl Leichter, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway Mariusz Nowostawski, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway Andrii Shalaginov, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway ============================================================================ ========== Job Offer: PhD Positions at the CVC, Barcelona ================== --------------------------------------------------------------------- PhD Studentships at the Computer Vision Center (Barcelona, Spain) --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Computer Vision Center at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) offers three PhD student positions in the field of historical document image analysis. Candidates must prove that they hold university-awarded Master's degree or equivalent at the time of signing the contract. Candidates cannot already hold a PhD degree. DATES - The call will open in september (tentative). - (probable) Start date: October-December 2016. Research contact: Josep Llados(josep@cvc.uab.es), Alicia Fornes(afornes@cvc.uab.es) ============================================================================ ========== Job Offer: Marie Curie Fellowships at the CVC, Barcelona ======== --------------------------------------------------------------- Marie Curie Fellowships in Computer Vision - Reading Systems --------------------------------------------------------------- The Computer Vision Centre is looking for two researchers with excellent academic track record to work in the areas of reading systems. The Marie Curie fellows will become members of the Computer Vision Centre, in Barcelona, Spain, a research institute comprising more than 100 researchers and support staff, dedicated to computer vision research and knowledge transfer. The fellows will join a vibrant team of researchers pertaining to Consolidated Research Groups (SGRs) within the Catalan research system, with background on machine learning, reading systems, scene classification and object recognition. The P-SPHERE project is coordinated by the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona with the participation of the Computer Vision Centre. It aims to foster excellence in the training, mobility and professional improvement of researchers. The fellowship is co-financed by the P-SPHERE project, a Marie Sklodowska-Curie COFUND action financed through the H2020 framework. ** Positions The two fellowships advertised here are linked to the Document Analysis Group (DAG). The successful candidates will work on reading systems, capable to detect and recognise textual information in either: 1. Images in challenging conditions such as urban scenery, born-digital images, videos and images recorded with wearable devices. 2. Images of historical documents stored in archives and libraries. The Marie Curie fellows are expected to align their research to the research priorities of the host group and develop their research plan in one of the following areas: Scene text localisation, object proposals for text, script identification, word spotting, handwriting recognition, language models, deep network architectures for robust reading, camera-based document image analysis, human-document interaction, information extraction, context-aware recognition (syntactic and semantic recognition), indexation in large scale document collections, among others. ** Candidate´s profile A PhD in computer science or a related field is required. The applicants must have experience in pattern recognition and machine learning techniques, and be able to demonstrate strong analytical and programming skills. Prior research experience in computer vision, and publications in top computer vision journals and conferences will be highly valued. The applicants are expected to be fluent in both oral and written communication in English. They should work well in a team, while demonstrating initiative and independence. Candidates should have been awarded their PhD before the call deadline and must not have resided or carried out their main activity (work, studies, etc) in Spain for more than twelve months in the three years immediately prior to the call deadline. The official application period will open during September 2016. ** Research contact Dimosthenis Karatzas (dimos@cvc.uab.es), Josep Llados (josep@cvc.uab.es), Alicia Fornes (afornes@cvc.uab.es). More information: http://www.uab.cat/psphere/ (fresh information will be available from September onwards) http://www.cvc.uab.es ============================================================================ ========== Job Offer: PostDoc Univ. La Rochelle (1) =============== repost = PROPOSITION OF POSTDOCTORAL POSITION L3i laboratory University of La Rochelle France TOPIC Document analysis and description for hybrid document authentication SUMMARY OF THE PROPOSED WORK The recruited person will integrate the SHADES project within the L3i lab (University of La Rochelle in France). The objective of this project is to provide a new tool for authenticating the entirety of the content of a document through an advanced compact signature in order to fight against fraud and falsification. This signature is based on the document's content (text and graphics) and structure (spatial relationships) what we call a semantic signature. Thanks to a hashing of the documentâs information during the signature computation, no information from the original document will be deduced from its signature alone. The signature can then be inserted in the document or used in company content management software in order to check the authenticity of the document without compromising its confidentiality. Currently, there is ongoing working on this subject. The objective of this postdoctoral position is to propose, based on this work, stable algorithms for document content analysis and description methods, as well as hashing. KEY WORDS Image/document processing, stability of image/document analysis algorithms, hashing, document authentication CONTEXT The L3i is a research lab in La Rochelle. La Rochelle is a city in the south west of France on the Atlantic coast and is one of the most attractive and dynamic cities in France. The L3i works since several years on fraud detection in documents and document security and has become a worldwide reference in this domain. The SHADES (Semantic Hash for Advanced Document Electronic Signature) project is an interdisciplinary project on document authentication, financed by the French National Research Agency (ANR). It involves the company ITESOFT, the FNTC (a professional federation representing the trusted third parties at national and international level), and two research labs in computer science (the L3i of University of La Rochelle and the LIPADE of the Paris Descartes University) and one in law (the CEJEP of the University of La Rochelle). The recruited person will work in strong collaboration with the LIPADE and ITESOFT, but will also interact with the other partners. DESCRIPTION OF THE SUBJECT Many documents need to be secured, ideally by the means of an electronic signature. Typically, the electronic signature is obtained by computing a hash code on the documentâs pixels values. If two documents have the same signature, then they are authentic copies of each other and if their signatures are different, one of the two documents is fraudulent or at least different from the other one. This concept works well for naturally born digital documents. However, nowadays a document, the so-called hybrid document, is often used in electronic or paper form according to the need. Hence, the hybrid document undergoes a life cycle of printing and scanning and thus different degraded versions of the document exist as the printing and scanning process introduces specific degradations, such as print and scan noise, in the document. Thus, the concept of electronic signature cannot be applied. For this reason, our work intends to develop an advanced electronic signature for the field of securing hybrid documents, the so-called hybrid security. Our idea is to extract the layout, the text and the images from the document, to describe the page in a stable manner, and to compute a hash that will be the same for all the authentic copies of the document. In consequence, this requires document analysis techniques with an extreme stability especially with regard to print and scan noise. Many document analysis algorithms have been evaluated with respect to accuracy. Anyhow, the concept of accuracy does not apply to our security context. The two concepts of accuracy and stability should not be confused. Accuracy requires a ground truth to evaluate how close a result is to this ground truth. Accuracy can be evaluated with only one result as long as there is also a ground truth. Stability does not require a ground truth. Stability requires at least two results with similar inputs to see how close these results are together compared to how close the inputs were. In our case, similar inputs are two photocopies of the same document. A consequence of this is that an algorithm can be very stable and yet not be accurate. For instance, this can be an algorithm that always makes the same mistakes or for instance in the case of a segmentation algorithm, an algorithm producing always one region covering the whole image. Such an algorithm would have an absolute stability and zero accuracy. The contrary is not true. An algorithm with an absolute accuracy will always produce results that are identical to the ground truth and hence will be identical between each other. Furthermore, stability should also not be confused with robustness. A robust algorithm is an algorithm capable of providing a relevant output even when a certain amount of noise is contained in its input. The variation of this output is not constrained as it is for stability. Our recent work has shown that traditional document analysis algorithms such as optical character recognition (OCR) and segmentation algorithms are unstable [1,4] as they contain thresholds and parameters [3]. Our first approach of developing a layout descriptor, without using thresholds and parameters, shows that stable algorithms can be achieved. The objective of this postdoctoral position is continue the ongoing work and to develop stable document analysis algorithms and description methods. PROFILE The applicant should have a completed PhD in computer science, signal processing or applied mathematics. The ideal candidate will have a strong background in image or document analysis. Good programming skills are required. The recruited person will be involved in the management of the project, participate to consortium meetings and contribute to deliverables. Therefore, good communication skills and autonomy are mandatory. HOW TO APPLY The application should include a brief description of research interests and past experience, a CV, degrees and grades, motivation letter, relevant publications, letter(s) of recommendation and contact information of reference persons. DETAILS Starting date: preferably between September and December 2016 Duration: 18 months Salary: approximately 2300 EUR net per month CONTACTS Petra Gomez-Krämer: petra.gomez@univ-lr.fr Jean-Marc Ogier: jean-marc.ogier@univ-lr.fr REFERENCES [1] S. Eskenazi, P. Gomez-Krämer, and J.-M. Ogier. Evaluation of the stability of four document segmentation algorithms. In International Workshop on Document Analysis Systems (DAS), 2016. [2] S. Eskenazi, P. Gomez-Krämer, and J.-M. Ogier. The Delaunay document layout descriptor. In ACM International Symposium on Document Engineering (DocEng), 2015. [3] S. Eskenazi, P. Gomez-Krämer, and J.-M. Ogier. Let's be done with thresholds. In International Conference on Document Analysis and Recognition (ICDAR), 2015. [4] S. Eskenazi, P. Gomez-Krämer, and J.-M. Ogier. When document security brings new challenges to document analysis. In International Workshop on Computational Forensics (IWCF), Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS 8915), pages 104-116. Springer, 2015. ============================================================================ ========== Job Offer: PostDoc Univ. La Rochelle (2) =============== repost = Postdoctoral researcher position Robust biometrics (face authentication) under spoofing attacks on mobile platforms The L3i lab of the University of La Rochelle (France) is looking for a talented young researcher to join a team working on mobile authentication using identity documents capture and video interaction. You will work closely with approx. 8 persons (professors, associate professors, software engineers, postdoctoral researchers and PhD students) in 2 labs and 2 companies to design, prototype, evaluate and disseminate a new solution for the robust distant authentication of individuals using identity document scans and a live video session. CONTEXT As part of the MOBIDEM project ("Mobile Identity for the Masses"), which aims at lowering the barrier for the acquisition of digital certificates for online signatures, the L3i is in charge of conceiving and developing an efficient and effective solution for the authentication of individuals during the creation of the digital identity. This projects involves two industrials and another academic lab, and will lead to new solutions to build online trust. The MOBIDEM project is funded by the French government. WORKING ENVIRONMENT The L3i lab ("Image Interaction Informatics") is the ICT research component of the University of La Rochelle, France. Located on the seaside in one of the most touristic cities in France, the L3i lab has grown a solid experience in collaborative research projects with many academics labs and industrial partners. The L3i lab has a huge team of researchers (postdocs, software engineers, professors), who have been working on R&D projects in the domain of document image analysis (DIA). The L3i lab has several state of the art document scanners and sophisticated equipment for conducting high quality research. Composed of a hundred staff members, we value scientific excellence, initiative, and cooperation. PRACTICAL INFORMATION Duration: 1 year (renewable for 1 extra year) Salary and benefits: starting at EUR 2000 per month after tax, regular French health care, 25+ days annual leave Starting date: before dec. 2016 Position open until : sept. 2016 EXPECTED QUALIFICATIONS AND SKILLS PhD in Computer Science, Mathematics, or other relevant field with a sound publication record Experience in biometrics, ideally in face recognition / authentication Proficiency in C/C++/Matlab/OpenCV and/or Scientific Python Strong mathematical knowledge Experience in collaborative academic / industrial projects is a plus Experience in machine learning and computer vision in general Very good communication skills in English, both spoken and written Speaking French is a plus, willingness to learn is expected otherwise Experience in video processing is a plus Experience with one or more deep learning framework would be greatly appreciated Willingness to prototype with mobile devices Highly motivated and enthusiast Autonomous and problem-solver Team-player For more information about the position, please contact: muriel.visani(at)univ-lr.fr and joseph.chazalon(at)univ-lr.fr TO APPLY, PLEASE: 1. Review the current state of the position at http://l3i.univ-larochelle.fr/recrutementMOBIDEM 2. Send an application to muriel.visani(at)univ-lr.fr and joseph.chazalon(at)univ-lr.fr with: Your contact information (name, email, address with country) A resume with relevant experience (1 or 2 pages) A cover letter presenting key skills and motivations 2 references (letters if possible, names and contacts at least) [optional, if available] reviews of the PhD thesis by recognized scholars [optional but well received] short summary of research project ============================================================================== ========== Job Offer: Associate Professor, Tokyo ================ (repost) = A tenure-track associate professor position is available at Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology. Area name is: Cognitive Interactive Technology, related with (1) Data Engineering, (2) Media Information Processing, (3) Machine Learning, (4) Pattern Recognition. https://jrecin.jst.go.jp/seek/SeekJorDetail?D01A9990=30A3079FDDAFD866D3418515F39CFA88&fn=4&dt=1&id=D116030987&ln_jor=1 If you are interested in the position, please e-mail to Prof. Nakagawa at nakagawa@cc.tuat.ac.jp ============================================================================ ========== Call for Contributions ========================================== This newsletter needs your support in order to provide useful information to the TC11 community. Therefore, please contribute relevant news by sending a short notice to the newsletter editor Gernot A. Fink . Such news could be the obvious announcements of conferences and workshops, job opportunities, reports on past conferences, book reviews, or anything that might be of interest to a wider audience involved in the construction of reading systems. ============================================================================ ========== Subscription Information ======================================== This newsletter is sent to subscribers of the IAPR TC11 mailing list. To manage your subscription, please visit the mailing list homepage at: https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=IAPR-TC11 The homepage for IAPR TC11 is http://www.iapr-tc11.org ============================================================================