============================================================================ IAPR TC-11 Newsletter April 2015 http://www.iapr-tc11.org ========== Contents ======================================================== * Message from the Editor * Dates 'n' Deadlines - ICCV 2015, Santiago, Chile April 22 (http://pamitc.org/iccv15/) - ICDAR 2015 Doctoral Consortium May 31 (http://2015.icdar.org/doctoral-consortium/) * New and Recently Published Datasets * Call for Nominations: ICDAR 2015 Awards (repost) * Call for Hosting Proposals: TC-10 / TC-11 Summer School 2016 June 15 * Call for Participation: - ICDAR 2015 Doctoral Consortium, in conjunction with ICDAR, August 23 (http://2015.icdar.org/doctoral-consortium/) - manuSciences '15, Franco-German summer school in manuscript studies, September 6-12 (http://humanum.ephe.fr/en/manusciences-15) * Call for Papers - 3rd Int. Workshop on Historical Document Imaging and Processing (HIP'15), in conjunction with ICDAR 2015, August 22 - 4th Int. Workshop on Automated Forensic Handwriting Analysis (AFHA) 2015, in conjunction with ICDAR 2015, August 21-22 (repost) - 6th Int. Workshop on Camera Based Document Analysis and Recognition (CBDAR 2015), in conjunction with ICDAR 2015, August 22 (repost) - Special Issue on Pattern Recognition at IEEE Intelligent Systems (repost) * Open Positions - PostDoc in Historical Document Image Analysis and Linked Open Data, University of Fribourg * Call for Dataset Submissions * Call for Contributions ============================================================================ ========== Message from the Editor ========================================= Welcome to the April edition of our newsletter. This edition brings to you the Call for Hosting Proposals for the joint TC-10 / TC-11 Summer School 2016. Furthermore, I would like to draw your attention to the second Call for Participation for the ICDAR 2015 Doctoral Consortium which will be jointly organized by IAPR TC-10 and TC-11 in conjunction with ICDAR 2015. Please note, that the submission deadline was extended to Mai 31 due to the extended notification deadline for prospective ICDAR authors. Below you will also find the Call for Participation for manuSciences '15, a Franco-German summer school in manuscript studies, and Call for Papers for the 3rd Int. Workshop on Historical Document Imaging and Processing (HIP'15) which will be organized in conjunction with ICDAR 2015. Finally, this newsletter includes the announcement of an open PostDoc position at the University of Fribourg. Gernot A. Fink, IAPR TC-11 Newsletter Editor Gernot.Fink@udo.edu ============================================================================ ========== Dates 'n' Deadlines ============================================= Event/Location/Web: Event Date: Deadline (paper submission): ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- * ICCV 2015, Santiago, Chile December 13-16, 2015 April 22 (http://pamitc.org/iccv15/) * ICDAR 2015, Gammarath, Tunisia August 23-26, 2015 - passed - (http://2015.icdar.org/) - Doctoral Consortium: August 23 May 31 (ext.!) * CBDAR 2015 in conjunction with ICDAR August 22 May 15 (http://www.cvc.uab.es/CBDAR2015) * AFHA 2015 in conjunction with ICDAR August 21-22 May 30 (http://www.dfki.uni-kl.de/afha2015) * HIP 2015 in conjunction with ICDAR August 22 June 1 (http://hip2015.irisa.fr) * ACPR 2015, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia November 3-6, 2015 June 1 (http://acpr2015.org/) * DAS 2016, Santorini, Greece April 11-14, 2016 TBA (http://www.primaresearch.org/das2016) * CVPR 2015, Boston, United States June 8-10, 2015 - passed - (http://www.pamitc.org/cvpr15/) * IDIPS 2015, Kefalonia, Greece June 21-26 - passed - (http://samosweb.aegean.gr/idips2015) * BTAS 2015, Arlington, Virginia , USA September 8 - 11 - passed - (http://www.btas2015.org/) ============================================================================ ========== New and Recently Published: TC-11 Datasets ====================== For a list of all datasets available visit: http://www.iapr-tc11.org/mediawiki/index.php/Datasets_List ============================================================================ ============================================================================ INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON DOCUMENT ANALYSIS AND RECOGNITION (ICDAR) CALL FOR NOMINATIONS FOR ICDAR 2015 AWARDS Nominations Due: May 15, 2015 (repost) ============================================================================ The ICDAR Award Program is an established program designed to recognize individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the field of Document Analysis and Recognition in one or more of the following areas: o Research o Training of students o Research/Industry interaction o Service to the profession Every two years, two awards categories are presented. Namely, the IAPR/ICDAR Young Investigator Award (less than 40 years old at the time the award is made), and the IAPR/ICDAR Outstanding Achievements Award. Each award will consist of a token gift and a suitably inscribed certificate. The recipient of the Outstanding Achievements award will be invited to give the opening key note speech at the ICDAR 2015 conference, introduced by the recipient from the previous conference. Nominations are invited for the ICDAR 2015 Awards in both categories. The nomination packet should include the following: 1. A nominating letter (1 page) including a brief citation to be included in the certificate. 2. A brief vitae (2 pages) of the nominee highlighting the accomplishments being recognized. 3. Supporting letters (1 page each) from 3 active researchers from at least 3 different countries. A nomination is usually put forward by a researcher (preferably from a different Institution than the nominee) who is knowledgeable of the scientific achievements of the nominee, and who organizes letters of support. Submission procedure is strictly confidential, and self nominations are not allowed. Please send nominations packets electronically to the Awards Committee Co-Chairs Koichi Kise and Rafael Lins . The deadline for receipt of nominations is May 15th, 2015 but early submissions are strongly encouraged. The final decision will be made by the Awards Committee which is composed of the following members : Koichi Kise, Japan (Co-Chair: TC11) Rafael Lins, Brazil (Co-Chair: TC10) Masakazu Iwamura, Japan Dimosthenis Karatzas, Spain Cheng-Lin Liu, China Josep Llados, Spain Daniel Lopresti, USA Simone Marinai, Italy Jean-Marc Ogier, France Rejean Plamondon, Canada ============================================================================ ========== Call for Hosting Proposals: TC-10 / TC-11 Summer School 2016 ==== Call for Hosting Proposals for the TC10/TC11 Summer School ---------------------------------------------------------- Part of the mission of IAPR TC11 and TC10 is to promote high quality educational activities related to Reading Systems and Graphics Recognition. Responding to this need, TC10 and TC11 are soliciting proposals for the organisation of the first "IAPR TC10/TC11 Summer School" during 2016. The "IAPR TC10/TC11 Summer School" is intended to become the prime educational activity of IAPR TC11 (Reading Systems) and TC10 (Graphics Recognition). The School is meant to be a training activity where participants are exposed to the latest trends and techniques of Reading Systems and Graphics Recognition. The aim of the School is to provide both an objective and clear overview and an in-depth analysis of the state-of-the-art research in selected topics of Reading Systems and Graphics Recognition. The School should aim to provide a stimulating opportunity for young researchers and Ph.D. students in the field. Individuals and groups who are interested in Reading Systems and Graphics Recognition are invited to submit proposals for organizing and hosting the 2016 IAPR TC10 / TC11 Summer School. It is expected that proposers familiarise themselves with the guidelines for organising the School first, to fully plan their bid. The Guidelines can be found at the TC11 Web site: http://www.iapr-tc11.org/mediawiki/index.php/Guidelines_for_Organising_and_Bidding_to_Host_the_TC10_/_TC11_Summer_School The submission of a bid implies full agreement with the rules and procedures for organising the School. Proposals should be sent to: Koichi Kise, TC-11 Chair, kise@cs.osakafu-u.ac.jp Rafael Lins, TC-10 Chair, rdl@ufpe.br Dimosthenis Karatzas, TC-11 Vice Chair, dimos@cvc.uab.es The deadline for submitting written proposals is Monday, June 15. ============================================================================ ========== Call for Participation: ICDAR 2015 Doctoral Consortium ========== In 2011 the Leadership Teams of TC-10 and TC-11 agreed to jointly organize the first Doctoral Consortium in conjunction with ICDAR 2011. This lead to a successor event that took place in conjunction with ICDAR 2013. Given the great success of these initial events the tradition of Doctoral Consortiums as satelite events to ICDAR conferences will be continued. The goal of the ICDAR 2015 Doctoral Consortium is to create an opportunity for Ph.D. students to test their research ideas, present their current progress and future plans, and receive constructive criticism and insights related to their future work and career perspectives. A mentor (a senior researcher who is active in the field) will be assigned to each student to provide individual feedback. In addition, students will have the opportunity to present an overview of their research plan during a special poster session. Participation in the ICDAR 2015 Doctoral Consortium will be limited to 25 students. Prospective participants are encouraged to submit their application by May 31 (submission procedure to be announced). The Doctoral Consortium Chairs will then review all applications received. Preference will be given to students who are at a stage in their studies most likely to benefit (i.e., they have identified a research direction and published some initial results, but the thesis is not yet set in stone). As in previous years, the event will be organized such that the registration fees for participating students will be minimal. The ICDAR 2015 Doctoral Consortium will take place the day before the main conference, i.e., on August 23. For up-to-date information on the ICDAR 2015 Doctoral Consortium please visit the DC's web pages: http://2015.icdar.org/doctoral-consortium/ The important dates are: Submission deadline: May 31 (extended!) Acceptance notification and Mentor assignment: June 10 (extended) Final material due: July 15 (extended) Doctoral Consortium: August 23 We are looking forward to your participation! Alicia Forn?s & Gernot A. Fink ICDAR 2015 Doctoral Consortium Chairs ============================================================================ ========== Call for Participation: manuSciences '15 ======================== We accept applications to participate at manuSciences '15 a Franco-German summer school in manuscript studies combining perspectives from philology, material sciences, computer sciences and digital humanities. SCOPE: Manuscripts are the main source of our culture and their historical development. The aim of the summer school is to illustrate the interdisciplinary approaches to manuscript studies combining lectures in history and philology with non-textual information from materials analysis, imaging techniques, digital humanities and computer science. Lectures will be complemented with practical courses in small groups on mobile instruments (e.g. x-ray fluorescence XRF, multispectral imaging MSI, and Reflectance Transformation Imaging RTI) and on computer programs. WHEN: 6-12 september 2015, WHERE: on the beautiful island Frauenw?rth D-83256 Frauenchiemsee (Germany) - www.frauenwoerth.de PARTICIPANTS: Up to 40 (max.) M.A. or Ph.D. students, researchers and university lecturers from all countries are welcome. Active participation and contribution is expected (including posters). The school language will be English. Participating masters students may obtain ECTS credit points from FU Berlin, Fachbereich Physik. Participants interested in this option should indicate so in their application. FINANCIAL SUPPORT (e.g. for lodging and food) can be granted based on the application (letter of recommendation, CV). Please specify when applying. We expect to be able to financially support a large number of participants. Deadline for application: May 26, 2015 For details see http://humanum.ephe.fr/en/manusciences-15 http://www.topoi.org/event/29403/ or https://www.academia.edu/11836976/manuSciences_15_-_Franco-German_Summerschool_on_manuscripts_materials_sciences_computer_science_and_digital_humanities Looking forward to hearing from you, the organizers Heinz-Eberhard Mahnke (FU Berlin) Daniel St?kl Ben EZRA (EPHE, Paris). ============================================================================ ========== Call for Papers: HIP 2015 ======================================= We are pleased to announce that the 3rd International Workshop on Historical Document Imaging and Processing (HIP'15) (Endorsed by the IAPR) http://hip2015.irisa.fr will take place on August 22, 2015, the day before ICDAR(http://2015.icdar.org) at the Ramada Plaza Hotel in Gammarth on the border of the Mediterranean Sea. HIP'15 will bring together leading researchers in Historical Document Imaging and Processing from all over the world. Workshop topics include Imaging and Image Acquisition; Digital Archiving Considerations; Document Restoration and Improving Readability of documents; Content Extraction in the context of Historical Documents; Family History Documents and Genealogies; Automated Classification; and Grouping and Hyperlinking of Historical Documents. We invite you to submit your recent work to HIP'15. Accepted papers will become part of the ACM Digital Library (2011: http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2037342, 2013: http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2501115). (See also HIP'11: http://www.comp.nus.edu.sg/~hdocp and HIP'13: http://www.cvc.uab.es/~vfrinken/HIP2013.) Important Dates: June 1, 2015: Paper submission July 1, 2015: Notification of Acceptance July 20, 2015: Camera-ready paper Please feel free to share this announcement with your colleagues and those who would benefit from attending HIP'15 (http://hip2015.irisa.fr). Best wishes from the HIP'15 Chairs, - Bertrand Co?asnon - Volkmar Frinken - Volker M?rgner - Hamid Amiri - Bill Barrett ============================================================================ ========== Call for Papers: AFHA 2015 ======================= (repost) ===== 4th Int. Workshop on Automated Forensic Handwriting Analysis (AFHA 2015) The 4th International Workshop on Automated Forensic Handwriting Analysis (AFHA 2015) will be organized in Gammarth, Tunisia, on August 21st-22nd, 2015 in conjunction with the ICDAR 2015. http://www.dfki.uni-kl.de/afha2015 Building on the success of the previous three AFHA workshops in 2011 (Beijing, China), in 2013 (Washington DC, USA), and in 2014 (Hawaii, USA), the AFHA 2015 will continue the approach of bringing together researchers in the fields of automated handwriting/signature analysis and experts from the forensic handwriting examination community. The AFHA 2015 will be organized as a two-day combined workshop and tutorials, thereby drawing the attention of the PR community to the most relevant and generally neglected areas of forensic handwriting analysis and the concerned cutting edge research topics. On the first day, 21st August, various tutorials will be delivered by renowned handwriting experts and PR researchers working in the area of handwriting analysis. Note that there have been tutorials in 2011, 2013, and 2014, but every time, we cover new aspects and due to interactive discussions the tutorials will be interesting for regular attendees as well. On the second day, 22nd August, we invite researchers (from both PR and forensic science communities) to present novel results of their research related to the following topics. Topics of Interest - Forensic handwriting verification/identification - Forensic signature verification/identification - Strength of evidence: Bayesian statistics/networks - Within writer versus between writer variations - Determining the frequency of occurrence of handwriting features - Automated signature identification and verification - Automated handwriting identification and verification - Extraction of movement order features out of the ink trace - Expert results vs. system outputs - Allograph matching and clustering - Classification of signatures: legible vs. illegible, complex vs. simple - Taxonomy of features Every registration is for the combined workshop/tutorial. Workshop Format AFHA is a 100% participation, two-day, single-track workshop/tutorial featuring keynote talks, tutorials, oral/poster presentations, and panel discussions. Publication Electronic copies of the workshop proceedings containing all accepted papers will be distributed at the workshop. After the workshop, all the authors will be invited to submit revised versions of their accepted papers for publication in the Journal of the American Society of Questioned Document Examiners, USA. Submission Information AFHA 2015 invites the submission of original, previously unpublished work and welcomes, with some restrictions, submissions which are closely related to work submitted to ICDAR 2015. This workshop employs single-blind review, in which referees remain anonymous for the authors throughout the process. Papers should not exceed 6 pages in IEEE format (double column). Link to full details of the formatting instructions, templates for LaTeX and MS-Word users are available at the AFHA 2015 homepage. Important Dates Paper submission due: May 30, 2015 Author Notification: June 25, 2015 Camera-ready paper due: July 15, 2015 ============================================================================ ========== CBDAR 2015: Call for Papers ====================== (repost) ===== 6th Int. Workshop on Camera Based Document Analysis and Recognition ------------------------------------------------------------------- The 6th International Workshop on Camera Based Document Analysis and Recognition (CBDAR 2015) will be held in Gammarth, Tunisia, on August 22nd 2015 in conjunction with ICDAR 2015. http://www.cvc.uab.es/CBDAR2015 The pervasiveness and widespread availability of camera phones, hand-held digital still/video cameras and more recently wearable cameras have led the community to recognize camera captured images as a promising and growing field of research for document analysis and recognition. Document digitization techniques are gradually getting closer to camera based solutions, offering certain advantages (e.g. for scanning large scale or fragile documents), and presenting interesting new challenges and open problems which cannot be directly resolved by traditional techniques. Building on the success of the previous five CBDAR workshops in 2005 (Seoul, Korea), 2007 (Curitiba, Brazil), 2009 (Barcelona, Spain), 2011 (Beijing, China), and Washington DC (USA), CBDAR 2015 will be held in Gammarth, Tunisia in conjunction with ICDAR 2015. The aim of the workshop is to provide a natural link between document image analysis and the wider computer vision community by attracting cutting edge research on the topic. Topics of Interest: - camera based acquisition of written information - restoration of camera captured documents (dewarping, deblurring, etc.) - image degradation models for camera captured characters/documents - document image quality analysis - character segmentation / recognition from scene images - layout analysis for camera captured documents - text in video - document image retrieval - devices and algorithms for camera-based document analysis and recognition - device constrained techniques and algorithms - performance evaluation and metrics - applications such as translation, reading text for the blind, etc - human-document interaction Workshop Chairs: Dr Dimosthenis Karatzas (Computer Vision Centre - Spain) Dr Faisal Shafait (University of Western Australia -Australia) Program Committee: -- tentative -- Michael Blumenstein (Griffith University, Austraria) Saqib Bukhari (DFKI, Germany) Basilis Gatos (NCSR Demokritos, Greece) Lluis Gomez (Computer Vision Centre, Spain) Muhammad Shehzad Hanif (King AbdulAziz University, Saudi Arabia) Masakazu Iwamura (Osaka Prefecture Univ., Japan) Gaofeng Meng (Chinese Academy of Sciences, China) Majid Mirmehdi (Bristol University, UK) Lukas Neumann (Czech Technical University in Prague, Czech Republic) Umapada Pal (ISI, India) Lu Shijian (Institute for Infocomm Research, A*STAR, Singapore) Jun Sun (Fujitsu R&D Center, China) Seiichi Uchida (Kyushu Univ., Japan) Szilard Vajda (National Institutes of Health, USA) Workshop Format: CBDAR is a 100% participation, one-day, single-track workshop featuring keynote talks, oral/poster presentations, a demo session, and a panel discussion. Publications: Electronic copies of the workshop proceedings containing all contributed papers will be distributed at the workshop. After the workshop, revised versions of selected papers will be published in Springer LNCS series as post-proceedings. Submission Information: CBDAR 2015 invites the submission of original, previously unpublished work and welcomes, with some restrictions, submissions which are closely related to work submitted to ICDAR 2015. This workshop employs single-blind review, in which referees remain anonymous for the authors throughout the process. Papers should not exceed 6 printed pages in IEEE CS format. Full details of the formatting instructions, a sample document and templates for LaTeX and MS-Word users will be available at the CBDAR 2015 homepage soon. Important Dates: Paper submission due: May 15, 2015 Author Notification: June 25, 2015 Camera-ready paper due: July 8, 2015 ============================================================================ ========== CfP: Special Issue on Pattern Recognition ========== (repost) === Special Issue on Pattern Recognition at IEEE Intelligent Systems ---------------------------------------------------------------- Submission Deadline: 25 May 2015 Publication: November/December 2015 Pattern Recognition (PR) is one of the key abilities in human and machine intelligence, and an important branch of the more broad area of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Pattern recognition endows machines the ability of environmental perception, while cognition (including reasoning, knowledge engineering, and language understanding), is addressed by other branches of AI. PR and AI are often interwoven in intelligent systems (for example, the perceptron process exploits knowledge to solve ambiguities in recognition). The scope of Pattern Recognition includes pattern classification (statistical and structural PR, neural networks, kernel methods, ensemble methods, etc.), clustering, feature extraction and selection, data pre-processing (such as image processing and segmentation), visual object recognition, video analysis, applications in document analysis, biometrics, medical imaging, remote sensing image analysis, multimedia, video surveillance, intelligent transportation, and so on. Methods and applications have both seen tremendous advances in recent years. For example, deep learning methods have boosted performance in many fields such as handwriting recognition, facial recognition, speech recognition, traffic sign recognition, and so on. This special issue aims to report on and discuss the state of the art in pattern recognition theory and applications - particularly, new ideas, methods, and innovative applications. The topics of interest include, but are not limited to: . Cognitive mechanism and mathematical foundation of PR . Pattern classification . Feature extraction and selection . Machine learning for pattern recognition . Object detection and recognition . Image and Video analysis . Applications in document analysis, biometrics, data mining, intelligent transportation, etc. Guest Editors . Cheng-Lin Liu, Institute of Automation of Chinese Academy of Sciences, China . Brian Lovell, University of Queensland, Australia . Dacheng Tao, University of Technology Sydney, Australia . Massimo Tistarelli, University of Sassari, Italy Submission Guidelines Submissions should be 3,000 to 5,400 words (counting a standard figure or table as 200 words) and should follow IEEE Intelligent Systems style and presentation guidelines ( www.computer.org/intelligent/author). The manuscripts cannot have been published or be currently submitted for publication elsewhere. We strongly encourage submissions that include audio, video, and community content, which will be featured on the IEEE Computer Society Website along with the accepted papers. ============================================================================ ========== PostDoc Position: University of Fribourg ======================== PostDoc position in Historical Document Image Analysis and Linked Open Data The Document Image and Voice Analaysis (DIVA) Group at the University of Fribourg offers a 100% post-doc position for the duration of 18 months Description of the Project In HisDoc 2.0 we will investigate the yet missing ingredients for automatic large-scale analysis of historical documents, and how to make the results useful for historians. It will build upon the foundations laid in the HisDoc project and continue research on textual heritage preservation in a novel direction. HisDoc 2.0 will take the approach a step further: it will be dedicated to palaeographical studies and incorporate semantic domain knowledge automatically extracted from existing document databases into Document Image Analysis (DIA) methods in order to facilitate large-scale processing. The applicant will be responsible for incorporating additional domain knowledge into DIA algorithms. He/She will investigate how existing image analysis methods and new approaches can be improved by integrating domain knowledge derived from semantic document descriptions which will be extracted from public sources like e-codices and manuscripta mediaevalia. Furthermore, he/she will study how results of DIA can be used for generating meaningful semantic information (i.e., human-readable and useful for scholars) in order to enhance and possibly verify existing descriptions. Requirements The ideal candidates will have a Ph.D in Computer Science with a background in Linked Open Data and an interest for DIA methods for Historical Manuscripts. Furthermore, an excellent English level is required. Starting Date The starting date is flexible. A soon start is welcome. Contact Applications including a motivation letter, a CV, graduation records, references, and a research statement should be sent via email to Prof. Rolf Ingold and Prof. Marcus Eichenberger-Liwicki (rolf.ingold@unifr.ch, macus.liwicki@unifr.ch). Prof. Dr. habil. Marcus Eichenberger-Liwicki Lecturer (Ma?tre Assistant) University of Fribourg Bd. de Perolles 90, 1700 Fribourg, Switzerland, Room B.428 ============================================================================ ========== Call for Dataset Submissions ==================================== We would like to remind you that the TC10 and TC11 welcome contributions of new datasets or other resources related to the community. We would like to particularly encourage authors of articles that introduce new datasets, software or other material to submit such material to TC11 for hosting. Please check the TC11 site on information about how to submit datasets for archiving ( http://www.iapr-tc11.org/mediawiki/index.php/Datasets) also feel free to contact Marcus Liwicki, the TC11 dataset curator, for any doubts you might have on the process. Marcus Liwicki, TC-11 Dataset Curator liwicki@dfki.uni-kl.de ============================================================================ ========== 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 ============================================================================