============================================================================ IAPR TC-11 Newsletter October 2016 http://www.iapr-tc11.org ========== Contents ======================================================== * Message from the Editor * Dates 'n' Deadlines - CVPR 2017, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA November 16 (http://cvpr2017.thecvf.com/) - ASAR 2017, Nancy, France December 1 (http://asar.ieee.tn/) * New and Recently Published Datasets - DIVA-HisDB_1 - A dataset with very challenging historical documents * Announcements: - ICFHR 2016: Agenda for TC-11 Session * Call for Proposals: - ICDAR 2017 Workshops, Tutorials, and Competitions December 15 - DAS 2018: Call for Hosting Proposals December 31 * Call for Participation: - 1st Int. Workshop on Arabic Script Analysis and Recognition (repost) (ASAR 2017), April 3-5, Nancy, France - Text Detection and Recognition Evaluation (TRAIT) (repost) * Call for Dataset Submissions * Call for Contributions ============================================================================ ========== Message from the Editor ========================================= Welcome to the October edition of our newsletter. First I would like to draw your attention to the TC-11 Session that will be held on the afternoon of Tuesday, October 25 during the upcoming ICFHR 2016 in Shenzen, China. If you are attending ICFHR, please also attend the TC-11 session because, by tradition, there the location of ICFHR in 2020 will be determined from two competing bids by the ICFHR audience. Furthermore, you will find in this newsletter the Calls for Proposals of Workshops, Tutorials, and Competitions to be held in conjunction with ICDAR 2017 as well as the Call for Proposals for Hosting DAS 2018. See you in Shenzhen soon! 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/) * ASAR 2017, Nancy, France April 3-5, 2017 December 1 (http://asar.ieee.tn/) * ICDAR 2017, Kyoto, Japan November 10-15, 2017 March 15, 2017 (http://www.iapr.org/icdar2017) - Call for Workshops November 10-11, 2017 December 15 - Call for Tutorials November 12, 2017 December 15 - Call for Competitions December 15 * DAS 2018, [in a nice place] Fall 2018 December 31 (proposal for hosting) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - * 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 ====================== DIVA-HisDB_1 - A new dataset with very challenging historical documents: A new dataset has been added to the tc11 dataset site. The process of submitting this dataset took less than 30 minutes and we would like to ask everyone having a dataset in the lab to do a good deed for the community and submit it to the datasets site. http://tc11.cvc.uab.es/datasets/DIVA-HisDB_1 ------------- For a list of all datasets available visit: http://tc11.cvc.uab.es ============================================================================ ========== Announcement: Agenda of TC-11 Session at ICFHR 2016 ============= TC-11 Session at ICFHR 2016, Shenzen, China ------------------------------------------- Tuesday, October 25, 16:20 - 17:00 ---------------------------------- 16:20-16:30 Introduction by Koichi Kise (TC-11 Chair) Distributing paper ballots 16:30-16:40 Proposal of Dortmund (presented by Gernot A. Fink) 16:40-16:50 Proposal of Vienna (presented by Robert Sablatnig & Florian Kleber) 16:50-17:00 Voting & Closing The results of voting will be announced at the banquet. ============================================================================ ========== Call for Proposals: ICDAR 2017 Workshops, Tutorials, Competitions Call for ICDAR2017 Workshops http://www.iapr.org/icdar2017/call_for_workshops.html ----------------------------------------- The ICDAR 2017 Organizing Committee invites proposals for workshops that will be held during November 10-11, 2017, before the commencement of the main conference. Researchers interested in organizing workshops at ICDAR2017 are invited to submit a proposal, including: - Title - Preference for duration (full day or half day) and date (November 10 or 11) - Scope and motivation - Topics - Relevance for ICDAR - Potential program committee - Short CV of organizers In order to facilitate innovative collaboration and engagement between members of other research communities and the document analysis community, the Workshop Chairs strongly encourage researchers to submit proposals on recent important topics such as deep-learning, machine vision etc. as these topics are also very much related to the document analysis community. Notes: - The ICDAR organizers will handle the workshop registration and provide workshop space, coffee breaks and other facilities required to organize workshops (c.f., a room, a projector and a screen). In addition, a free registration is provided to the workshop organizers. - Workshop proceedings will be published by the IEEE through the ICDAR organizers if the camera-ready paper due date is set to September 1, 2017 or prior, and the front matter (preface, title page and so on) and the paper order with session dividers are provided from the workshop organizers to the ICDAR2017 Publication Chairs by August 25, 2017. Proceeding costs will also be borne by the ICDAR organizers.ã??If the conditions above are not met, the proceedings will not be published by the IEEE, and they will need to be published locally by the workshop organizers. - If a workshop incurs costs for invited speakers, the workshop organizers are required to bear that cost. The workshop organizers may solicit sponsorship to cover the relevant costs. They may use the free registration for the invited speaker. *** Submission Guidelines *** All proposals should be submitted by electronic mail to the Workshop Chairs (Michael Blumenstein and Umapada Pal) via: icdar2017-workshop@m.cs.osakafu-u.ac.jp *** Important Dates: *** - Proposal Due: December 15, 2016 - Acceptance Notification: January 15, 2017 - Date of Workshops: Either November 10 or 11, 2017 *** Inquiries *** For any inquiries you may have regarding the workshops, please contact the ICDAR2017 Workshop Chairs (Michael Blumenstein and Umapada Pal) via: icdar2017-workshop@m.cs.osakafu-u.ac.jp ============================================================================ Call for ICDAR2017 Tutorials http://www.iapr.org/icdar2017/call_for_tutorials.html ----------------------------------------- The ICDAR 2017 Organizing Committee invites proposals for Tutorials, to be held on November 12th, 2017 (Sunday). ICDAR2017 Tutorials should serve one or more of the following objectives: - Introduce students and newcomers to major topics of Document Analysis and Recognition (DAR) research. - Provide instructions on established practices and methodologies. - Survey a mature area of DAR research and/or practice. - Motivate and explain a DAR topic of emerging importance. - Introduce expert non-specialists to a DAR subarea. Proposals should be up to four pages in length, and should contain the following information: - A brief description of the tutorial, suitable for inclusion in the conference registration brochure. - A detailed outline of the tutorial, including preferred length (1/2 or 1 day). Due to the ICDAR organization 1/2 day tutorials are preferred. - Characterization of the potential target audience for the tutorial, including prerequisite knowledge. - A description of why the tutorial topic would be of interest to a substantial part of the ICDAR audience. - A brief resume of the presenter(s), which should include name, postal address, phone number, e-mail address, web page, background in the tutorial area, any available example of work in the area (ideally, a published tutorial-level article on the subject), evidence of teaching experience (including references that address the proposer's presentation skills), and evidence of scholarship in the area. - The name and e-mail address of the corresponding presenter. The corresponding presenter should be available for e-mail correspondence during the evaluation process, in case clarifications and discussions on the scope and content of the proposal are needed. The evaluation of the proposal will take into account its general interest for ICDAR attendees, the quality of the proposal (e.g., a tutorial that simply lists a set of concepts without any apparent rationale behind them will not be approved) as well as the expertise and skills of the presenters. We emphasize that the primary criteria for evaluation will be whether a proposal is interesting, well-structured, and motivated in relation to Document Analysis and Recognition, rather than the perceived experience/standing of the proposer(s). Last but not least, the tutorial should attract a meaningful audience, cover hot topics and incorporate new knowledge to the community. Those submitting a proposal should keep in mind that tutorials are intended to provide an overview of the field; they should present reasonably well established information in a balanced way. Tutorials should not be used to advocate a single avenue of research, nor should they promote a product. *** Submission Guidelines *** All proposals should be submitted by electronic mail to the Tutorial Chairs (Simone Marinai and Josep Lladós) via: icdar2017-tutorial@m.cs.osakafu-u.ac.jp Feedback, comments and/or suggestions would be provided within two weeks of receiving the proposal. Final acceptance (or rejection) would be decided by January 15, 2017. *** Important Dates *** - Proposal Due: December 15, 2016 - Acceptance Notification: January 15, 2017 - Date of Tutorials: November 12, 2017 *** Inquiries *** For any inquiries you may have regarding the tutorials, please contact the ICDAR2017 Tutorial Chairs (Simone Marinai and Josep Lladós) via: icdar2017-tutorial@m.cs.osakafu-u.ac.jp ============================================================================ Call for ICDAR2017 Competitions http://www.iapr.org/icdar2017/call_for_competitions.html ----------------------------------------- The ICDAR 2017 Organizing Committee invites proposals for competitions that aim at evaluating the performance of algorithms and methods related to areas of document analysis and recognition. You are cordially invited to submit a proposal, that should contain the following information: 1. A brief description of the competition, including what the particular task under evaluation is and why this competition is of interest to the ICDAR community. 2. A draft of the outline of the competition describing competition schedule, the expected number of participants and its rationale, which data is planned to be used, how will the submitted methods be evaluated and which performance measures will be used. 3. The names, contact information, and brief CVs of the competition organizers, outlining previous experience in performance evaluation and/or organizing competitions. The following rules shall apply to the accepted Competitions: - Name of competition must be standardized by starting with "ICDAR2017" e.g. "ICDAR2017 Competition on ..." or "ICDAR2017 ... Competition." - Datasets used in the competitions must be made available after the end of the competitions. In principle, the organizers should submit the dataset to http://tc11.cvc.uab.es/ - Evaluation methodologies and metrics used must be described in detail so that results can be replicated later. - The results of competitions will be announced during a dedicated session of the ICDAR2017 conference. - The basic length of reports of competitions is the same as the regular paper (i.e., 6 pages). If there are circumstances to be considered, upon request, Competition Chairs may allow additional pages. - The results of competitions will be announced during a dedicated session of the ICDAR2017 conference. - Each competition has to be presented with a poster at a prominent place at the conference venue, selected competitions will get the chance to be presented orally in the dedicated session mentioned above. Based on the analysis of the received proposals, the competitions chairs will first synchronize with the competition organizers and then submit a proposal to the program committee, in order to finalize the organization of the competitions. *** Submission Guidelines *** All proposals should be submitted by electronic mail to the Competition Chairs (Jean-Marc Ogier and Marcus Liwicki) via: icdar2017-competition@m.cs.osakafu-u.ac.jp *** Important Dates *** - Proposal Due: December 15, 2016 - Acceptance Notification: January 15, 2017 - Initial Submission of Competition Reports Deadline: August 1, 2017 (Papers must be sent directly to the Competition Chairs) - Camera-Ready Papers Due: September 1, 2017 *** Inquiries *** For any inquiries you may have regarding the competitions, please contact the ICDAR2017 Competition Chairs (Jean-Marc Ogier and Marcus Liwicki) via: icdar2017-competition@m.cs.osakafu-u.ac.jp ============================================================================ ========== Call for Hosting Proposals: DAS 2018 ============================ Call for Hosting Proposals for DAS 2018 --------------------------------------- Following the successful organisation of the 12th IAPR International Workshop on Document Analysis Systems in Santorini (Greece) last April, by our colleagues Apostolos Antonacopoulos and Basilis Gatos, we are now soliciting proposals for organising and hosting DAS 2018. The DAS workshop has become one of the signature events for TC-11. DAS 2018 will build on the tradition established by past DAS workshops held in Kaiserslautern, Germany (1994), Malvern, PA (1996), Nagano, Japan (1998), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (2000), Princeton, NJ (2002), Florence, Italy (2004), Nelson, New Zealand (2006), Nara, Japan (2008), Boston, MA (2010), and Gold Coast, Australia (2012), Tours-Loire Valley, France (2014), and Santorini, Greece (2016). Individuals and groups who are interested in Document Analysis Systems are invited to submit proposals for organizing and hosting DAS 2018. The event should preferably take place in late summer/fall, but is not limited to this period. The submission deadline is December 31st, 2016. Proposals should be submitted to the TC11 chair (Koichi Kise) and vice-chair (Dimosthenis Karatzas). If you already know whether you are interested in preparing a proposal, please send us your expression of interest. Note that an expression of interest is not a commitment to make a formal proposal nor an official bid. If you need further information concerning DAS, please feel free to contact us. The final selection among competing proposals will be made short after the deadline by the DAS Steering Committee, which is composed of all those who have themselves organized or contributed substantially to past DAS workshops. Prof Koichi Kise, TC11 Chair (kise@cs.osakafu-u.ac.jp ) Dr Dimosthenis Karatzas, TC11 Vice-chair (dimos@cvc.uab.es ) ============================================================================ ========== Call for Participation: ASAR 2017 ==================== (repost) = It is our pleasure to invite you to participate in the 1st International Workshop on Arabic Script Analysis and Recognition (ASAR 2017) http://asar.ieee.tn/, which will be hosted by LORIA laboratory (University Lorraine, France), in collaboration with the REGIM-Lab. (University of Sfax, Tunisia), and will be held in Nancy (France) from April 3-5, 2017. The first ASAR 2017 workshop provides an excellent opportunity for researchers and practitioners at all levels of experience to meet colleagues and to share new ideas and knowledge about Arabic script document analysis and recognition methods. The workshop enjoys strong participation from researchers in both industry and academia. IMPORTANT DATES Paper submission: December 1st, 2016 Acceptance notified: January 1st, 2017 Registration and Camera Ready Submission: February 1st, 2017 ============================================================================ ========== Call for Participation: TRAIT 2016 ============================== We would like to invite you to participate in Text Detection and Recognition Evaluation (TRAIT). https://www.nist.gov/programs-projects/text-recognition-algorithm-independent-evaluation-trait-2016 We have released the final Phase 3 API for the TRAIT 2016 evaluation supporting use of text detection and recognition in child-exploitation investigations. https://www.nist.gov/sites/default/files/documents/2016/09/08/nist_textrec_concept_and_api.pdf The deadline for submission of algorithms for Phase 3 is October 31, 2016. We look forward to your participation. Best regards, NIST TRAIT organizers TRAIT2016@nist.gov ============================================================================ ========== 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 ============================================================================ ========== 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 ============================================================================