To whom it may concern,
On behalf of Mimos Berhad, I have the honour to invite you and your colleagues to the presentation of Prof. Dr. Sergio Velastin, Kingston University, U.K., one of the leading expert in the field of digital imaging, smart notion and the analysis of human behavioural images in crowded situations, to take place on
Monday, 16th November 2009, 10:30a.m.
Mimos Berhad, Technology Park Malaysia, Bukit Jalil ( Seminar Room to be announced)
Prof. Dr. Sergio presentation will focus on "
CCTV Video Analytics: Recent Advances and Limitations". Abstract of the presentation and a short biography of Prof. Dr. Sergio can be found below.
AbstractThe installation of closed circuit television (CCTV) cameras in urban environments is now commonplace and well-known. The UK leads the world with an estimated 4 million public cameras installed (20% of the world's deployment). Public attitudes to these systems reflect the balance needed between two conflicting requirements:
a) Concerns over invasion of privacy and fears of authoritarian control of the population. b) Welcoming the increased safety in public spaces and reductions in crime and antisocial behavior.
Recent events and what appears to be the effectiveness of the CCTV infrastructure in assisting law enforcers to understand how the events took place and the people involved, seem to have tipped the balance towards (b), at least momentarily. What we should not forget however, is that such events are thankfully very rare but that there is a cumulative significant effect of mundane daily events that we need to deal with. For example, it has been estimated that what in the UK is called "antisocial behavior" costs the country around € 5000 million a year. A single London Borough (municipality) spends annually around € 1 million to remove graffiti, 44% of women feel unsafe at bus stops at night, a single bus company in a major city is known to have replaced 8,000 windows in one year and a study showed that in a single day in the UK there were around 66,000 reports of nuisance or loutish behavior. At the same time, there are reports that when CCTV has been installed there has been a 35% reduction in crime over 5 years. Indeed, crime in general is decreasing while uncivil behavior is on the increase.
It turns out that one of the major limitations of conventional CCTV systems is the impracticality of deploying sufficient number of people to be in front of television screens observing largely uneventful video. As long as this is the case, CCTV will tend to remain a reactive tool. The inability of being truly pro-active, producing timely alarms and eventually being able to prevent incidents, is what ultimately limits these systems. There is a need to automate at least simple observation tasks through computer vision, a functionality that has become known popularly as "video analytics". The large size of CCTV systems and the requirement of high detection rates and low false alarms are major challenges., this talk will
illustrate some of the efforts that the research and industrial communities are making towards realizing automated means of detecting video events involving human activity. It will show the kind of progress made but also the current limitations of this technology.
Biography
Prof. Dr Sergio A. Velastin received the B.Sc. degree in Electronics, M.Sc. (Research) degree in Digital Image Processing and the Ph.D. from the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST) in the UK, in 1978, 1979 and 1982, respectively.
Prof. Dr Sergio Velastin founded Ipsotek in 2001 and is widely considered a leading expert in the field of digital imaging, smart motion detection and the analysis of human behavioural images in crowded situations. Prof. Dr Velastin has now returned to academia where he is the Director of the Digital Imaging Research Centre (DIRC) at Kingston University. However, Prof. Dr. Velastin remains involved with Ipsotek in an advisory capacity. Prof. Dr. Velastin has published 2 books and over 150 papers refereed journal and conference. His research interests include computer vision for pedestrian monitoring and personal security as well as distributed visual surveillance systems.
Prof. Dr Sergio Velastin is a member of the IET, IEEE and the British Machine Vision Association (BMVA). He also served as a EPSRC grant reviewer and member of the International Union Public Transport (UIPT). Recently, Prof. Dr. Sergio has been awarded £11 million funding from the EU FP7 for a research project named "PROTECTRAIL".
The presentation will end approx. at 11.30a.m.
We would appreciate receiving confirmation of participation before 13.11.2009 (email: cs.chan@mimos.my or tel. 02 8995 5000 ext. 6270). Please be informed that light refreshment will be provided after the presentation. See you there !
Regards,
CS, CHAN
----------------------
Dr Chee Seng Chan
Senior Reseacher
Mimos Berhad
Technology Park Malaysia
57000 Kuala Lumpur
MALAYSIA
Email: cs.chan@mimos.my
Contact: +(60)3 8995 5000 ext. 6270
