The performance of intelligent video surveillance systems is always degraded under complicated scenarios, like dynamic changing backgrounds and extremely bad weathers. Dynamic changing backgrounds make the foreground/background segmentation, which is often the first step in vision-based algorithms, become unreliable. Bad weathers, such as foggy scenes, not only degrade the visual quality of the monitoring videos, but also seriously affect the accuracy of the vision-based algorithms. In this thesis, a fast and robust texture-based background modeling technique is first presented for tackling the problem of foreground/background segmentation under dynamic backgrounds. An adaptive multi-modal framework is proposed which uses a novel texture feature known as scale invariant local states (SILS) to model an image pixel. A pattern-less probabilistic measurement (PLPM) is also derived to estimate the probability of a pixel being background from its SILS. Experimental results show that texture-based background modeling is more robust than illumination-based approaches under dynamic backgrounds and lighting changes. Furthermore, the proposed background modeling technique can run much faster than the existing state-of-the-art texture-based method, without sacrificing the output quality. Two fast adaptive defogging techniques, namely 1) foreground decremental preconditioned conjugate gradient (FDPCG), and 2) adaptive guided image filtering are next introduced for removing the foggy effects on video scenes. These two methods allow the estimation of the background transmissions to converge over consecutive video frames, and then background-defog the video sequences using the background transmission map. Results show that foreground/background segmentation can be improved dramatically with such background-defogged video frames. With the reliable foreground/ background segmentation results, the foreground transmissions can then be recovered by the proposed 1) foreground incremental preconditioned conjugate gradient (FIPCG), or 2) on-demand guided image filtering. Experimental results show that the proposed methods can effectively improve the visual quality of surveillance videos under heavy fog and bad weathers. Comparing with state-of-the-art image defogging methods, the proposed methods are shown to be much more efficient. / published_or_final_version / Computer Science / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

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Substantial technology developments over the past two decades have dramatically transformed today’s workplaces. It became easier to perform work functions. However, these changes made employers to think about productive and effective working time usage in the electronic working place. Companies began to use electronic surveillance. The appliance of this equipment determined the appearance of legal problems. Hence the usage of control technologies brings the conflict among the interests of employer and employee. There arises necessity to decide to whose interests to give the preference. There is offered to seek the balance of the interests in order to retain the confidence and trustworthy atmosphere in the workplace. In fact, this is achieved when the fundamental data protection principles – legitimacy, transparency, proportionality and security – are being applied. The legal regulation of USA and European Union differently estimates the problem of the privacy in the electronic working place. The United States inclined to give the preference to business interests because employer posses the electronic equipment. Besides here the employer can use the provider exception. This shows that the employee in the United States can have no reasonable expectation of privacy in the electronic working place. However, in Europe the electronic surveillance is morally illegal and infringes the constitutional right of privacy. European Union values the data protection principles and the... [to full text]

Networks of cameras such as building security systems can be a source of localization information for a mobile robot assuming a map of camera locations as well as calibration information for each camera is available. This thesis describes an automated system to acquire such information. A fully automated camera calibration system uses fiducial markers and a mobile robot in order to drastically improve ease-of-use compared to standard techniques. A 6DOF EKF is used for mapping and is validated experimentally over a 50 m hallway environment. Motion planning strategies are considered both in front of a single camera to maximize calibration accuracy and globally between cameras in order to facilitate accurate measurements. For global motion planning, an adaptive exploration strategy based on heuristic search allows compromise between distance traveled and final map uncertainty which provides the system a level of autonomy which could not be obtained with previous techniques.

Thesis (Ph.D.) - Carleton University, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 287-306). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 115-121).

Thesis (doctoral)--Universiteit Leiden, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (p. [231]-241).

The systematic monitoring of citizens by the state in Peru was revealed in 2000, after the collapse of the second administration of ex-president Alberto Fujimori (1995-2000). Fujimori resigned in his last year in office, after a network of government espionage and corruption was revealed. This included video recordings of secret meetings and alleged communications surveillance conducted and managed by presidential advisor Vladimiro Montesinos, working with the National Intelligence Service (SIN). This systematic surveillance by the state resulted in the dissemination of private information, recordings and videos of public officials, journalists and many other influential people. These events sparked the beginning of the debate around the purpose of surveillance in Peru, and the violation of the right to private communications by state agencies and private entities – and what legislation could be developed to regulate this. This discussion is ongoing, with more cases of communications interception being revealed.

Since 1984 in the U.S., electronic monitoring has been gradually incorporated into corrections as a means of verifying offenders' curfew compliance in programs of house arrest or home confinement. Programs of electronically monitored house arrest combine practices of community supervision found in probation, with practices of surveillance and policing found in prisons. Their combination produces a hybrid carceral form. The species of 'intermediate punishment' that is created expands the possibilities of criminal sentencing and classification. These programs have been heralded as humane and cost efficient in managing mainly 'low risk' offenders, and as a potentially effective method of dealing with prison crowding. The recent inauguration of electronic monitoring in a program of house arrest in the province of British Columbia is the first deployment of this new type of penal form in Canada. The present research investigation focuses on this program run by the B.C. Corrections Branch. Prior to a consideration of this program as the site for the present research, a necessary task in the first part of this dissertation is to review the recent literature describing programs of electronically monitored house arrest. This review describes recent electronic monitoring programs in U.S. criminal justice and correctional spheres where virtually all developments have occurred to date. After this literature review, the British Columbia research site is described and a summary of the findings of an exploratory research investigation describing the effects of this sanction on offenders is given. Despite methodological limitations of the research sample some important insights are provided about how this sanction works to control, punish, and discipline offenders. The main research question considered in this empirical investigation - how does this sanction affect offenders and their consociates? - is addressed through subjective reports provided by open-ended interviewing of a cohort of 60 offenders placed on electronically monitored house arrest in the B.C. EMS Pilot Project program. The second part of the dissertation establishes a social analytic basis, drawing on the work of Michel Foucault, for critically evaluating the local use of this new correctional option. Part II of the dissertation evaluates the disciplinary and organizational or systemic effects of the deployment of this sanction within the correctional enterprise. A framework for assessing the possibility of achieving the four penal aims of punishment, incapacitation, deterrence, and rehabilitation is employed in a re-assessment of the sanction's normalizing effects and disciplinary potential. The picture provided of the achievement of these penal objectives is mixed and indicates that more research is required. Finally, and of more overarching significance, various data sources relating to the local development and implementation of this program in B.C. are examined in order to evaluate the applicability of the hypothesis that penal reforms expand the apparatus of deviancy control, a pattern found among many recent studies of 'community-based alternatives to incarceration'. The discursive rationality accompanying the introduction of such programs suggests that costs for social control will be decreased and implies that correctional staffing can be reduced through greater efficiency. Contrary to these claims, evidence from the EMS program points to systemic expansion rather than contraction, a trend sufficiently visible to warrant further study and confirmation. The thesis concludes with a discussion of the larger significances entailed in the adoption of the new information technology, of which electronic monitoring is one pertinent example. / Arts, Faculty of / Sociology, Department of / Graduate

The purpose of this study is: to explore and analyze the Communication Assistance for Law Enforcement Act of 1994 (CALEA), to identify problems related to CALEA, to identify solutions devised by other countries to overcome problems similar to CALEA's, and to propose feasible solutions to CALEA problems.