Automatic age and gender classification using supervised appearance model

YesAge and gender classification are two important problems that recently gained popularity in the research community, due to their wide range of applications. Research has shown that both age and gender information are encoded in the face shape and texture, hence the active appearance model (AAM), a statistical model that captures shape and texture variations, has been one of the most widely used feature extraction techniques for the aforementioned problems. However, AAM suffers from some drawbacks, especially when used for classification. This is primarily because principal component analysis (PCA), which is at the core of the model, works in an unsupervised manner, i.e., PCA dimensionality reduction does not take into account how the predictor variables relate to the response (class labels). Rather, it explores only the underlying structure of the predictor variables, thus, it is no surprise if PCA discards valuable parts of the data that represent discriminatory features. Toward this end, we propose a supervised appearance model (sAM) that improves on AAM by replacing PCA with partial least-squares regression. This feature extraction technique is then used for the problems of age and gender classification. Our experiments show that sAM has better predictive power than the conventional AAM

Individualised model of facial age synthesis based on constrained regression

YesFaces convey much information. Interestingly we humans have a remarkable ability of identifying, extracting, and interpreting this information. Recently automatic facial ageing (AFA) has gained popularity due to its numerous applications which include search for missing people, biometrics, and multimedia. The problem of AFA is faced with various challenges, including incomplete training datasets, unrestrained environments, ethnic and gender variations to mention but a few. This work presents a new approach to automatic facial ageing which involves the development of a person specific facial ageing system. A color based Active Appearance Model (AAM) is used to extract facial features. Then, regression is used to model an age estimator. Age synthesis is achieved by computing a solution that minimises the distance from the original face with the use of constrained regression. The model is tested on a challenging database of single image per person. Initial results suggest that plausible images can be rerendered at different ages, automatically using the AAM representation. Using the constrained regressor we are guaranteed to get estimated ages that are exact for an individual at a given age

Bradford Multi-Modal Gait Database: Gateway to Using Static Measurements to Create a Dynamic Gait Signature

YesAims: To create a gait database with optimum accuracy of joint rotational data and an accu-rate representation of 3D volume, and explore the potential of using the database in studying the relationship between static and dynamic features of a human’s gait. Study Design: The study collected gait samples from 38 subjects, in which they were asked to walk, run, walk to run transition, and walk with a bag. The motion capture, video, and 3d measurement data extracted was used to analyse and build a correlation between features. Place and Duration of Study: The study was conducted in the University of Bradford. With the ethical approval from the University, 38 subjects’ motion and body volumes were recorded at the motion capture studio from May 2011- February 2013. Methodology: To date, the database includes 38 subjects (5 females, 33 males) conducting walk cycles with speed and load as covariants. A correlation analysis was conducted to ex-plore the potential of using the database to study the relationship between static and dynamic features. The volumes and surface area of body segments were used as static features. Phased-weighted magnitudes extracted through a Fourier transform of the rotation temporal data of the joints from the motion capture were used as dynamic features. The Pearson correlation coefficient is used to evaluate the relationship between the two sets of data. Results: A new database was created with 38 subjects conducting four forms of gait (walk, run, walk to run, and walking with a hand bag). Each subject recording included a total of 8 samples of each form of gait, and a 3D point cloud (representing the 3D volume of the subject). Using a Pvalue (P<.05) as a criterion for statistical significance, 386 pairs of features displayed a strong relationship. Conclusion: A novel database available to the scientific community has been created. The database can be used as an ideal benchmark to apply gait recognition techniques, and based on the correlation analysis, can offer a detailed perspective of the dynamics of gait and its relationship to volume. Further research in the relationship between static and dynamic features can contribute to the field of biomechanical analysis, use of biometrics in forensic applications, and 3D virtual walk simulation

Battlefield Casualty: The Archaeology of a Captured Gun

Many artefacts in museums lack adequate information about the context from which they were collected. Not surprisingly, this often applies to artefacts recovered from battlefields, where chaotic conditions can result in uncertainty about their origins. This paper examines the case of a Second World War German 88 mm gun preserved in an Australian museum. The museum had little contextual information for this weapon, except that the Australian Army captured it in North Africa in 1942, probably after the Second Battle of El Alamein. However, an archaeological analysis of the gun, particularly of damage incurred during battle, can link it to photographs taken after the battle and re-establish its historical context and the circumstances of its acquisition. In this way, a museum artefact can become more than a mere exhibit: it can be made to document its own past

Estimating individual cone fundamentals from their color-matching functions

Estimation of individual spectral cone fundamentals from color-matching functions is a classical and longstanding problem in color science. In this paper we propose a novel method to carry out this estimation based on a linear optimization technique, employing an assumption of a priori knowledge of the retinal absorptance functions. The result is an estimation of the combined lenticular and macular filtration for an individual, along with the nine coefficients in the linear combination that relates their color-matching functions to their estimated spectral-cone fundamentals. We test the method on the individual Stiles and Burch color-matching functions and derive cone-fundamental estimations for different viewing fields and matching experiment repetition. We obtain cone-fundamental estimations that are remarkably similar to those available in the literature. This suggests that the method yields results that are close to the true fundamentals

Predicting visible image degradation by colour image difference formulae

Abstract We carried out a CRT monitor based psychophysical experiment to investigate the quality of three colour image difference metrics, the CIEΔE ab equation, the iCAM and the S-CIELAB metrics. Six original images were reproduced through six gamut mapping algorithms for the observer experiment. The result indicates that the colour image difference calculated by each metric does not directly relate to perceived image difference

Reflectance recovery in humans and machines

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Artifact of Empire: The Tale of a Gun

The historical archaeology of later colonialism in tropical Africa has had little attention. An example of its potential is provided by a 9-Pounder Naval gun preserved in Kampala, the capital of Uganda, nearly 600 mi. (900 km) from the nearest coast. Manufactured in 1870 in London, it is a rifled muzzle-loader made at a time when British gun-production briefly (and finally) reverted to muzzle-loading because of a lack of confidence in early breech mechanisms. When already obsolete, it seems to have been supplied by the Royal Navy for use on a colonial government vessel on Lake Victoria at the beginning of the 20th century and to have served with distinction during the First World War, 44 years after its manufacture. Apparently preserved as a memento in a Kampala public park, its colonial associations subsequently led to a less public role but it has nevertheless survived, having a relevance for both European and African history