IAPR-TC11: Newsletter 2017/07

July, 2017

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Table of Contents

• Message from the Editor
• Dates and Deadlines
  • Deadlines
  • Upcoming Conference Dates
• New Datasets
• Calls for Papers
  • GREC 2017: Submission Deadline Extension
  • 4th International Workshop on Historical Document Imaging and Processing
  • DAS 2018
• ICDAR 2017
  • Student Travel Awards
  • Doctoral Consortium: Deadline Extension
  • Workshops
  • Competitions
• IJDAR: Special Issue and Discount
  • Special Issue: Deep Learning for Document Analysis and Recognition
  • Discount for IAPR Members
• Careers
  • PhD Position in Computerized Image Processing (Uppsala University, Sweeden)
• TC-11 Newsletter Contributions and Subscriptions

Message from the Editor

Paper decisions for ICDAR 2017 are now complete. There were 400 paper submissions, of which 214 were accepted (acceptance rate: 54%). Our thanks to all members of the community who submitted their work, and to everyone who has contributed to the paper reviewing and organization for our flagship conference.

Please note that there will be a special workshop at ICDAR 2017 concerned with exploring future directions for Document Analysis and Recognition research, which will be free of charge for participants — we hope to see you there. Details may be found online.

Here are additional points of note regarding ICDAR 2017.

• New!! Student Travel Awards. Applications for ICDAR 2017 Student Travel Awards are now open. Details may be found elsewhere in this newsletter.
• Doctoral Consortium. The deadline for submissions to the ICDAR Doctoral Consortium has been extended to September 1st (Submission Instructions).
• Workshops and Competitions. Nine workshops on a variety of topics will be held at ICDAR 2017, many of which are still accepting papers (ICDAR Workshops). Competitions run for ICDAR 2017 are listed below; details may be found in competition web pages (ICDAR Competitions).
• Tutorials. Three tutorials on state-of-the-art work in reading text in natural scenes, graph-based pattern recognition/document analysis, and word spotting will be offered at ICDAR 2017 (ICDAR Tutorials).

Regarding upcoming conferences, calls for Papers for DAS 2018 and ICFHR 2018 are also available. Please also note that the submission deadline for the IJDAR special issue on Deep Learning in Document Recognition is fast approaching (Aug. 31st).

Richard Zanibbi, TC-11 Communications Officer
(rxzvcs@rit.edu)

Dates and Deadlines

Deadlines

2017

• Aug. 31: IJDAR Special Issue: Deep Learning for Document Analysis and Recognition (Call for Papers)
• Sept. 1: ICDAR Doctoral Consortium Deadline (Submission Instructions)
• Nov. 15: ICPRAI 2018 Paper Submission (Call for Papers)
• Nov. 20: DAS 2018 Paper Submission (Call for Papers)

2018

• Jan. 19: DAS 2018 Short Paper Submission (Call for Papers)
• Mar. 2: ICFHR 2018 Submissions (Call for Papers)

Upcoming Conference Dates

• ICDAR 2017
  

Kyoto, Japan (Nov. 9-15, 2017)

• DAS 2018
  

Vienna, Austria (24-27 April, 2018)

• ICPRAI 2018
  

Montreal, Canada (May 14-17, 2018)

• ICFHR 2018
  

Niagara Falls, USA (August 5-8, 2018)

• ICFHR 2020
  

Dortmund, Germany (September 8-10, 2020)

New Datasets

The following new datasets that were recently released:

• CROHME 2016: Handwritten math recognition dataset and evaluation tools
• HANDS - Vietnamese Online Handwriting Database HANDS-VNOnDB (TUAT Nakagawa Lab) (repost)

These and many other datasets may be found online in the TC-11 Datasets Repository.

Andreas Fischer (TC-11 Dataset Curator)
(andreas.fischer@unifr.ch)

Calls for Papers

GREC 2017: Submission Deadline Extension

Important Dates

Deadline (Extended): August 7, 2017

Web Page: http://grec2017.loria.fr

The Twelfth IAPR International Workshop on Graphics Recognition (GREC 2017), organized by the IAPR TC-10 (Technical Committee on Graphics Recognition), will take place just before the 14th International Conference on Document Analysis and Recognition (ICDAR).

Due to a number of requests, the deadline for GREC abstract submissions (2 pages) has been extended to August 7th. Please consider submitting abstracts describing your work related to graphics recognition, including work-in-progress. Details may be found in the workshop web pages (link provided above).

Alicia Fornes and Bart Lamiroy (Co-Chairs, GREC 2017)
afornes@cvc.uab.es, Bart.Lamiroy@loria.fr

4th International Workshop on Historical Document Imaging and Processing (HIP 2017)

Important Dates

   September 1, 2017: Paper submission
     October 6, 2017: Notification of acceptance
    October 20, 2017: Camera-ready paper
November 10-11, 2017: Workshop (in conjunction with ICDAR 2017)

Website: http://events.unifr.ch/hip2017 (Call for Papers PDF available on the webpage)

It is our pleasure to announce that the 4th International Workshop on Historical Document Imaging and Processing (HIP 2017) will be held in conjunction with ICDAR 2017, on November 10-11, 2017 in Kyoto TERRSA, Japan. It will be a 1.5-days event, with sessions on the first day and a half-day excursion on the second.

The workshop brings together researchers working with historical documents and is intended to be complementary and synergistic to the work in analysis and recognition featured in the main sessions of ICDAR, the premier international forum for researchers and practitioners in the document analysis community.

Workshop topics include (but are not limited to):

• 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, Grouping and Hyperlinking of Historical Documents

We invite you to submit your recent work to HIP 2017. Accepted papers will become part of the ACM Digital Library. Papers must not exceed 6 pages in length. Authors should use the current ACM SIG Conference Proceedings Template to prepare their papers.

Best regards from the Workshop Chairs,

Andreas Fischer (University of Fribourg, Switzerland)
Angelika Garz (University of Fribourg, Switzerland)
Kengo Terasawa (Future University Hakodate, Japan)
Bill Barrett (Brigham Young University, USA)

For further inquiries, please contact us via hip2017@unifr.ch.

Andreas Fischer, Workshop Co-Chair
(andreas.fischer@unifr.ch)

DAS 2018 (repost)

13th IAPR International Workshop on Document Analysis Systems (DAS 2018)
April 24-27 2018, Vienna, Austria
http://www.das2018-conference.org

Important Dates

Full papers due:            Nov. 20, 2017  
* Decision notification:    Jan. 15, 2018  
Short papers due:           Jan. 19, 2018  
* Decision notification:    Jan. 31, 2018  
Tutorial proposals due:     Nov. 30, 2017

Overview. DAS 2018 is the 13th edition of the 100% participation single-track IAPR sponsored workshop focusing on system-level issues and approaches in document analysis and recognition. The workshop comprises invited speaker presentations, oral, poster, tutorial and demo sessions as well as working group discussions.

DAS 2018 will be organized at TU Wien (Vienna University of Technology), in the heart of Vienna’s city center, which places the attendees within walking distance to a large variety of world-famous historical and cultural attractions. The program will include long and short papers, posters and demonstrations of working or prototype systems. All submissions will undergo a rigorous review process with a minimum of 3 reviews considering the originality of work, the quality of research or analysis of experience, the relevance to document analysis systems, and quality of presentation.

Information regarding paper submissions is provided below. Note: Submission of a paper involves a commitment that, if accepted, one or more authors will attend the workshop.

Full Papers. Full papers should describe complete works of original research. Authors are invited to submit original, unpublished research papers that are not being considered in another form, up to 6 pages length.

Short Papers. Short papers provide an opportunity to report on research in progress and to present novel positions on document analysis systems. Authors may submit short papers (up to 2 pages in length). Short papers will also undergo review and will appear in an extra booklet, not in the official DAS 2018 proceedings.

Demonstrations. DAS 2018 seeks public demonstrations of novel systems, to be presented to the workshop as a whole during breaks between paper sessions. Prospective demonstrators should submit a two-page summary of the system to be demonstrated. Demonstration proposals will undergo review and summaries of accepted demonstrations will appear in the extra DAS 2018 booklet, as in the case of short papers.

For Topics & Technologies and Commitees, please see the DAS 2018 website: http://www.das2018-conference.org

Contact: das2018@caa.tuwien.ac.at

Robert Sablatnig and Florian Kleber, DAS 2018 General Chairs
(sab@caa.tuwien.ac.at, kleber@caa.tuwien.ac.at)

ICDAR 2017

Student Travel Awards

Important Dates

Applications received before * August 15, 2017 * will receive 
full consideration, but applications will be accepted 
until all student volunteer positions are filled. 

Online Description: ICDAR Financial Assistance Web Page
Online Application: Application Form

The ICDAR 2017 Organizing Committee is offering Student Travel Awards to provide financial financial assistance for 20 full-time students attending the conference. The maximum Student Travel Award will be 200,000 JPY per person (currently equivalent to 1520 Euro or US $1820).

Please note that applicants need to register and make all necessary travel arrangements on their own. Awards will be announced before the early registration deadline (by email and on this webpage), and the awards themselves will be distributed to the winners in person at the ICDAR conference.

Recipients of the Student Travel Awards will be asked to do approximately 3 hours of volunteer work during the conference and pre-events. This work might include:

• Registration
• Microphone runner of the main conference
• etc.

If you have any questions, please contact the ICDAR2017 Financial Chair (Dr. Masakazu Iwamura) via: icdar2017-inquiry@m.cs.osakafu-u.ac.jp.

Masakazu Iwamura, (Financial Chair, ICDAR 2017)
masa@cs.osakafu-u.ac.jp

ICDAR Doctoral Consortium: Deadline Extension

Important Dates

Submission Deadline: September 1st, 2007

Web Page: http://u-pat.org/ICDAR2017/call_for_dc.html

ICDAR 2017 is providing a Doctoral Consortium for PhD Students. The Consortium will run on Sunday November 12, the day before the ICDAR main conference. The goal of the 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.

If you are Ph.D. student planning to attend ICDAR 2017, we would like to invite you to join the Doctoral Consortium. If you are supervisor of PhD students, we encourage you to speak with your Ph.D students about the event and invite them to participate. Scheduled activities in the DC will be beneficial for both of you: suggestions that the students will receive from mentors will be beneficial for the Ph.D work and their research plan and will also be opportunities to develop new ideas for future work.

Participation in the Doctoral Consortium will be free of charge for all accepted students who are registered for ICDAR, and affordable hotel options are also included at the time of registration.

Thank you in advance for participating.

Véronique Eglin and Rafael Dueire Lins, DC - Organizers
(veronique.eglin@insa-lyon.fr, rdl@ufpe.br)

Workshops

Nine workshops will be offered at ICDAR 2017. Please see below a list of these Workshops and the names of the corresponding organizers. Web pages and submission deadlines for each Workshop may be found online: http://u-pat.org/ICDAR2017/program_workshops.html.

HDI: First International Workshop on Human-Document Interaction
Organizers: Jean-Christophe Burie, Mickaël Coustaty, Dimosthenis Karatzas and Koichi Kise

CBDAR: 7th International Workshop on Camera-Based Document Analysis and Recognition
Organizers: Lluis Gomez-Bigorda, Muhammad Muzzamil Luqman and Dimosthenis Karatzas

MANPU: 2nd International Workshop on coMics Analysis, Processing and Understanding
Organizers: Jean-Christophe Burie, Toshihiko Yamasaki and Motoi Iwata

ICDAR-WML: Workshop on Machine Learning
Organizers: Umapada Pal and Eric Granger

HIP: 4th International Workshop on Historical Document Imaging and Processing
Organizers: Andreas Fischer, Angelika Garz, Kengo Terasawa and Bill Barrett

IWCDF: 1st International Workshop on Computational Document Forensics
Organizers: Jean-Marc Ogier, Utpal Garain and Apostolos Antonacopoulos

ICDAR-OST: 1st International Workshop on Open Services and Tools for Document Analysis
Organizers: Marcel Würsch and Joseph Chazalon

GREC: 12th International Workshop on Graphics Recognition
Organizers: Alicia Fornés and Bart Lamiroy

MOCR: 6th International Workshop on Multilingual OCR
Organizers: Venu Govindaraju, Prem Natarajan, Santanu Chaudhury and Srirangaraj Setlur

We are looking forward to your submissions for these Workshops. We also solicit your gracious support in circulating this information among your students, colleagues and scientific/research community to give it higher visibility.

Michael Blumenstein & Umapada Pal, ICDAR-2017 Workshop Co-Chairs
(Michael.Blumenstein@uts.edu.au, umapada_pal@yahoo.com)

Competitions

HANDWRITTEN HISTORICAL DOCUMENT LAYOUT RECOGNITION

• Competition on Baseline Detection in Archival Documents: https://scriptnet.iit.demokritos.gr/competitions/5/
• Competition on Layout Analysis for Challenging Medieval Manuscripts: http://diuf.unifr.ch/main/hisdoc/icdar2017-hisdoc-layout-comp
• Competition on Historical Book Analysis: http://icdar2017hba.litislab.eu

HISTORICAL HANDWRITTEN SCRIPT ANALYSIS

• Competition on the Classification of Medieval Handwritings in Latin Script: http://icfhr2016-clamm.irht.cnrs.fr/icdar-2017/
• Competition on Historical Document Writer Identification: http://scriptnet.iit.demokritos.gr/competitions/6/
• Competition on Multi-script Writer Identification Using LAMIS-MSHD and CERUG Databases: https://icdar2017cmswi.sciencesconf.org/

CHARACTER/WORD SPOTTING

• Competition on Query-by-Example Glyph Spotting of Southeast Asian Palm Leaf Manuscript Images: http://amadi.univ-lr.fr/ICDAR2017_Competition/
• Handwritten Keyword Spotting Competition: https://scriptnet.iit.demokritos.gr/competitions/7

HANDWRITING RECOGNITION

• Competition on Handwritten Text Recognition on the READ Dataset: https://scriptnet.iit.demokritos.gr/competitions/4
• Competition on Information Extraction in Historical Handwritten Records: http://www.cvc.uab.es/5cofm/competition/

DOCUMENT IMAGE BINARIZATION

• Document Image Binarization Competition: https://vc.ee.duth.gr/dibco2017/

DOCUMENT RECOGNITION (LAYOUT ANALYSIS & TEXT RECOGNITION)

• Competition on Recognition of Documents with Complex Layouts: http://www.primaresearch.org/RDCL2017/
• Competition on Early Indian Printed Documents: http://www.primaresearch.org/REID2017/
• Competition on Page Object Detection in Document Images: http://www.icst.pku.edu.cn/cpdp/ICDAR2017_PODCompetition/index.html

DOCUMENT DOCUMENT RECONSTRUCTION

• Smartphone-captured Document Image Reconstruction from Multiple Views: http://smartdoc.univ-lr.fr

POST OCR CORRECTION

• Competition on Post-OCR Text Correction: http://l3i.univ-larochelle.fr/ICDAR2017PostOCR

ROBUST READING COMPETITIONS

• Competition on Reading Chinese Text in the Wild: http://mclab.eic.hust.edu.cn/icdar2017chinese/
• Challenge on COCO-Text: http://rrc.cvc.uab.es/?ch=5
• Challenge on Text Extraction from Biomedical Literature Figures: http://prir.ustb.edu.cn/DeTEXT/ICDAR2017Competition/
• Challenge on Robust Reading Challenge on Omnidirectional Video: http://rrc.cvc.uab.es/?ch=7
• Competition on Multi-lingual scene text detection and script identification: http://rrc.cvc.uab.es/?ch=8

TEXT IN VIDEO

• Competition on Arabic Text Detection and Recognition in Multiresolution Video Frames (AcTiVComp17) http://diuf.unifr.ch/diva/AcTiVComp/index.html
• Competition on Video Script Identification: http://www.ict.griffith.edu.au/cvsi2017

FORENSICS

• Competition on File Type and Altered Image Identification: http://icsdweb.aegean.gr/icdar2017

MISCELLANEOUS COMPETITIONS

• Competition on Multi-font and Multi-size Digitally Represented Arabic Text: http://diuf.unifr.ch/diva/APTI/competitionICDAR2017.html

IJDAR: Special Issue and Discount

Special Issue: Deep Learning for Document Analysis and Recognition (repost)

In recent years, applying Deep Learning techniques to Document Analysis and Recognition (DAR) tasks has produced significant performance gains. These have included impressive advances in handwriting recognition, word-spotting in document images, document segmentation, and text detection in natural scenes.

This special issue aims to report new advances in DAR using deep learning methods. Articles presenting reviews, perspectives, new methods and applications in DAR are cordially invited. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to uses of Deep Learning for: - Document image processing and segmentation - Layout analysis - Character and text recognition - Scene text detection and recognition - Writer identification and signature analysis - Document retrieval - Context modeling - Graphics and symbol recognition - Other DAR tasks

Paper submissions are due August 31, 2017. For further information, please see the Call for Submissions.

Koichi Kise, Daniel Lopresti and Simone Marinai, IJDAR Editors-in-Chief
( kise@cs.osakafu-u.ac.jp, lopresti@cse.lehigh.edu, simone.marinai@unifi.it )

Discount for IAPR Members (repost)

IAPR is pleased to announce a partnership agreement with Springer, the publisher of IJDAR, the International Journal on Document Analysis and Recognition. This new agreement will allow IAPR members to receive a subscription to the electronic version of IJDAR at a discount of nearly 50%. For additional details, see the links below:

• http://www.iapr.org/publications/intjournal.php
• http://www.iapr.org/publications/intjrnlsub.php

Koichi Kise, Daniel Lopresti and Simone Marinai, IJDAR Editors-in-Chief
( kise@cs.osakafu-u.ac.jp, lopresti@cse.lehigh.edu, simone.marinai@unifi.it )

Careers

PhD Position in Computerized Image Processing (Uppsala University, Sweeden)

Important Dates

Deadline: August 20, 2017

Description: The PhD student will be working in a project aiming at analysis of handwritten text manuscripts using computational methods from image analysis and linguistics. It sets out to develop a manuscript analysis technology providing automatic tools for large-scale transcription, linguistic analysis, digital palaeography and generic data mining of historical manuscripts.

The PhD student will focus on the development of methods for semi-automatic transcription, where new word spotting and transcription techniques will be developed. The idea is to develop a useful transcript tool that can be used by researchers in digital humanities but also for crowd sourcing. This will involve both the use of state of the art machine learning techniques and GUI development for the transcription tool as well as applying state of the art HCI methods.

Qualifications: Candidates must have an MSc degree in computer Science or a related area relevant to the PhD topics. Good programming skills are required and expertise in digital image processing/analysis and machine learning is meriting. The PhD position is highly interdisciplinary and an understanding and/or interest in digital humanities applications is meriting. Good communication skills in English, both spoken and written, are required.

Appointment period: The position is for four years, but may be extended by teaching and department duties (at most 20%). The PhD education also includes participation in courses related to the research subject.

How to apply: The applicant should include a letter describing her- or himself and motivating why applying for the position, relevant qualifications, and research interests. The application should also include a CV, copies of relevant certificates, degrees and grades, the MSc thesis and other documents (e.g., letter(s) of recommendation and a list of reference persons). We would also like to know the earliest possible date for starting.

Additional Details Regarding the institution, research group, and application process may be found online here.

Anders Hast (Associate Professor, Uppsala University)
anders.hast@it.uu.se

Contributions and Subscriptions

Call for Contributions: To contribute news items, please send a short email to the editor, Richard Zanibbi ([1]). Contributions might include conference and workshop announcements/updates/reports, career opportunities, book reviews, or anything else of interest to the TC-11 community.

Subscription: This newsletter is sent to subscribers of the IAPR TC11 mailing list. To join the TC-11 mailing list, please click on this link: Join the TC-11 Mailing List. To manage your subscription, please visit the mailing list homepage: TC-11 Mailing List Homepage.

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