Com o advento da quimioterapia, associado a modificações sócio-econômicas, a mortalidade por tuberculose apresentou um acentuado declínio no decorrer dos anos, atingindo níveis que a tornam pouco sensível como indicador epidemiológico para o acompanhamento da endemia. No Município de São Paulo o registro dos óbitos apresenta qualidade que pode ser considerada satisfatória e existem sérias dificuldades operacionais para a obtenção de indicadores de morbidade. Levando em conta estes aspectos, a perspectiva de reformulação do sistema de saúde e a importância da vigilância epidemiológica neste processo, optou-se por desenvolver um estudo que permitisse verificar a possibilidade de usar de forma mais adequada os indicadores de mortalidade na Vigilância da Tuberculose, a partir da análise de sua ocorrência e tendência no Município. A mortalidade por tuberculose foi então estudada nos seguintes aspectos: tendência secular, no período de 1900 a 1985; tendência por grupos etários (curvas de idade atual e de coortes); em menores de 1 ano, no período de 1970 a 1985; e a distribuição geográfica por áreas homogêneas, regiões administrativas da Secretaria de Estado da Saúde e distritos/subdistritos de paz do Município. Os resultados mostraram que após uma fase de estabilização de 45 anos a mortalidade por tuberculose apresentou um progressivo declínio atingindo o coeficiente de 3,67 óbitos por 100.000 habitantes em 1985, mudanças no padrão da mortalidade a partir do uso da quimioterapia, com deslocamento dos óbitos para as idades mais avançadas; acentuação na velocidade de declínio no grupo de menores de 1 ano provavelmente devido ao BCG intra-dérmico; coeficientes de valor mais elevado nas áreas homogêneas onde predominam cortiços e favelas grande variação na distribuição por Escritórios Regionais de Saúde CERSAs) e por distritos/subdistritos, indicando diferenças tanto do ponto de vista epidemiológico como em relação aos serviços de saúde. Quanto ao uso da mortalidade na Vigilância da Tuberculose concluiu-se por sua validade e oportunidade, desde que os coeficientes não sejam usados de forma isolada e para grandes contingentes populacionais; a utilização do coeficiente específico por grupos etários pode ser útil para a avaliação das medidas de controle, a distribuição dos coeficientes por quartis indica as áreas prioritárias para a vigilância; o coeficiente pode ter sua sensibilidade aumentada se os dados forem relacionados a segmentos populacionais menores que os distritos/subdistritos identificando grupos homogêneos do ponto de vista epidemiológico. Concluiu-se ainda que os indicadores de mortalidade por tuberculose podem sar usados na metodologia de \"Cartas de Avaliação\". / With the advent of chemotherapy associated with socioeconomical changes, mortality due to tuberculosis declined warkedly throughout the years attaining levels that are innefective as epidemiological indicators regarding endemic follow-up. Death records in the city of São Paulo, Brasil, are trustworthy as regards quality whilst there are serious operational difficuties impairing morbidity registries. Considering these aspects as well as the perspective of a general reformulation of the whole health system in the country besides the important role played by epidemiological surveillance in the process, the present study was undertaken so as to check wheter mortality Indicators could be employed for tuberculosis surveillance taking into account analysis of its ocurrence and tendencies within the municipality. Mortality due to Tuberculosis was then studied under the following aspects: its secular tendency, from 1900 to 1985, tendency by age brackets (age specific curves and those of cohorts), in chlldren under a year of age from 1970 to 1985 and its geographical distribution by homogeneous areas, admnistrative regions of the State Health Department and the municipality\'s districts of the peace. Results show that after 45 years of the stabilization the tuberculosis mortality rate decreased progressively attaining a level of 3.67 deaths per 100.000 inhabtants, changes of the mortality patterns after institulon of the chemoterapy with displacement of deaths to older people, higher speed in the reduction rate of mortality due to tuberculosis in the children under one year of age probably due to BCG intradermal vaccination, higher rates in homogeneous areas where slums predominate, a great variety in the distribution by admonistrative region and by districts of the peace, indicatíng differences from the epidemiologlcal point of view or regarding health services. As to the use of the mortality indicator in tuberculosis surveillance this study pointed out to its validity and oportunity, as long as the rates are not used isolatedly as well as for huge populations. The use of a specific rate by age-groups can be useful for evaluating control measures. The rate distribution in quartiles indicates surveillance priority areas; the rate can have its sensibllity enhanced if data are related to smaller segents of population than the districts identifying homogeneous groups taking the epidemiological aspects into account. It was also concluded that the tuberculosis mortality indicators can also be used in the \"Eyaluation Chart\" methodology.

Resumo Introdução: A Vigilância Sanitária se constitui como campo de intervenção da Saúde Pública tendo como uma de suas responsabilidades, garantir o controle sanitário de aeroportos e a proteção da saúde dos viajantes. Objetivo: Neste sentido, o presente estudo teve como objetivo conhecer, descrever e analisar a prática sanitária adotada frente à Pandemia de Influenza A (H1N1) 2009, pela Vigilância Sanitária no Terminal de Passageiros do Aeroporto de Guarulhos. Metodologia: A pesquisa qualitativa foi adotada, tendo como referencial teórico as representações sociais. Utilizou-se o referencial metodológico da hermenêutica dialética, fazendo uso de uma abordagem interpretativa reconstrutiva das falas dos entrevistados. A construção das três categorias empíricas Trabalho, Comunicação, Intersetorialidade - permitiu resgatar junto às falas dos profissionais pesquisados a prática vivenciada pela Vigilância Sanitária durante a pandemia. Resultados: Pôde-se apreender que as dificuldades evidenciadas durante a Pandemia de H1N1 estiveram relacionadas aos recursos humanos, à estrutura física e de material, ao fluxo de procedimentos e de informações. Conclusões: Os resultados evidenciaram a prática da VISA associada diretamente a sua estrutura organizacional; a uma atuação coadunada com o desenvolvimento atual do país; e uma experiência que serviu como o mais importante e único teste de enfrentamento para uma pandemia de influenza / Abstract Introduction: The Health Surveillance is a field of Public Health with the one of its responsibilities to ensure the sanitary control of airports and heath protection of travelers. Objective: In this sense, the present study aimed to understand, describe and analyze the sanitary practice adopted on the face of Influenza A (H1N1) Pandemic in 2009, by the Health Surveillance Agency in the passengers arrival gates of Guarulhos Airport. Methodology: The qualitative research was adopted in this study, using as a theoretical reference the social representations. In this document it was used the referral method of Hermeneutic Dialectic, using the interpretation of the interviews. It was built three empirics categories, which allowed retrieving in the interviews the practical experience of the employees of the Health Surveillance during the Pandemic period. Outcomes: It could be learnt that the difficulties during the A H1N1 Pandemic was related to the human resources, physical and material infrastructure and the process and information flows. Conclusion: The outcomes emphasized the way the Health Surveillance works directly linked to its organizational structure; its behavior, aligned with the current Brazil situation; and the experience which was a unique test of how they face the Influenza pandemic

Les applications des systèmes de positionnement par satellites (GNSS) se sont largement répandues dans les transports urbains. Certaines applications exigent cependant une grande fiabilité qui ne tolère pas d’erreurs de positionnement importantes. Malheureusement, les environnements urbains présentent de grands défis pour les GNSS à cause de l'existence d’effets locaux. Le concept d'intégrité GNSS, qui est défini comme une mesure de confiance placée dans l'exactitude des informations fournies par le système de navigation qualifie cette exigence. L'objectif de cette thèse est d'améliorer les performances de précision et d'intégrité GNSS en milieu urbain. Deux directions de travail ont été prises : La première direction consiste à caractériser les erreurs de mesure GNSS afin d'améliorer la précision. Plusieurs modèles d'erreur existant sont étudiés. Un modèle hybride est proposé qui implique la contribution de la carte numérique en 3D. La seconde direction contribue aux techniques de détection et d'exclusion des défauts (FDE) afin d'améliorer l'intégrité de la position GNSS. Différentes méthodes FDE sont comparées avec des données GPS collectées dans des canyons urbains. Les FDE améliore la précision dans une première étape. Le calcul du niveau de protection horizontal (HPL) est ajouté en 2ème étape. Une nouvelle méthode de calcul HPL prenant en compte un potentiel défaut immédiatement antérieur est proposée. Enfin, ces deux directions de travail sont combinées afin de construire un système complet de surveillance de l'intégrité. Les résultats avec les données réelles montrent que la précision et l'intégrité du positionnement sont améliorées avec le système proposé. / In the last decades, Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS)-based positioning systems are increasingly spread in urban environments, where great challenges exist for GNSS because of the local effects. Yet, for new GNSS land applications, knowing the certainty of one's localization is of great importance especially for the liability/safety critical applications. The concept of GNSS integrity, which is defined as a measure of trust to be placed in the correctness of the information supplied by the total system, can help to meet this requirement. The main objective of this PhD research work is to improve the accuracy and integrity performances of GNSS positioning in urban environments. Two research directions were investigated: The first direction consists of GNSS measurement error characterizations in order to improve the positioning accuracy. Several error models existing in the literature are evaluated. A new hybrid model is proposed while involving the digital map. The second direction contributes to the Fault Detection and Exclusion (FDE) techniques so as to improve the GNSS integrity. Different FDE methods are investigated and compared with real GPS data collected in urban canyons. The computation of Horizontal Protection Level (HPL) is added at the next step. A new method of HPL computation by taking into consideration of the potential prior fault is proposed. Then, these two research directions are combined together so that a complete integrity monitoring scheme is constructed. The results with real GPS data collected in urban canyons show that the positioning accuracy and integrity can be improved by the proposed scheme compared to the traditional approaches.

Reconstructing the 3D geometry of scenes based on monocular image sequences is a long-standing problem in computer vision. Structure from motion (SfM) aims at a data-driven approach without requiring a priori models of the scene. When the scene is rigid, SfM is a well understood problem with solutions widely used in industry. However, if the scene is non-rigid, monocular reconstruction without additional information is an ill-posed problem and no satisfactory solution has yet been found. Current non-rigid SfM (NRSfM) methods typically aim at modelling deformable motion globally. Additionally, most of these methods focus on cases where deformable motion is seen as small variations from a mean shape. In turn, these methods fail at reconstructing highly deformable objects such as a flag waving in the wind. Additionally, reconstructions typically consist of low detail, sparse point-cloud representation of objects. In this thesis we aim at reconstructing highly deformable surfaces by modelling them locally. In line with a recent trend in NRSfM, we propose a piecewise approach which reconstructs local overlapping regions independently. These reconstructions are merged into a global object by imposing 3D consistency of the overlapping regions. We propose our own local model – the Quadratic Deformation model – and show how patch division and reconstruction can be formulated in a principled approach by alternating at minimizing a single geometric cost – the image re-projection error of the reconstruction. Moreover, we extend our approach to dense NRSfM, where reconstructions are preformed at the pixel level, improving the detail of state of the art reconstructions. Finally we show how our principled approach can be used to perform simultaneous segmentation and reconstruction of articulated motion, recovering meaningful segments which provide a coarse 3D skeleton of the object.

視頻監控通常是指為了管理、引導和保護人們，通過電子設備監視和人們有關的行為、活動或者信息變化，例如使用閉路電視或者攔截遠距離電子傳輸的信息，如網絡流量，手機通信。視頻監控的潛在應用包括國土安全，反犯罪，交通控製，小孩、老人和病人的遠程看護。視頻監控技術為打擊恐怖主义和异常事件提供一小重要的防護。通過使用闭路电視摄像机等廉份的現代电子技朮使得視頻監控可成為可能。但是，除非一直監視著來自這些攝像機的反饋，否則它們提供僅僅是一些心理上安全。僱用足夠的人員來監督這些成千上萬的屏幕是不現實的，然而使用具有高度智能的現代自動化系統可以彌補這一空缺。 / 對于全天候地準確地管理成千上萬地攝像機，人工智能化的視頻監控是非常必要而且重要的。通常來說，智能監控包括以下部分: 1 信息獲取，如利用一個或者多個攝像機或者熱感成像或深度成像攝像機; 2 視頻分析，如目標檢測，識別，跟蹤，再識別或分割。3 存儲和傳輸，如編碼，分類和製片。在本文中，我們構建一個智能監控系統，其包括三個相互協作的摄像機用來估計感興趣物體的3D位置並且進行研究和跟蹤。為了識別物體，我們提出級聯頭肩檢測器尋找人臉區域進行識別。感興趣物體分割出來用于任意形狀物體編碼器對物體進行壓縮。 / 在第一部分中，我們討論如何使多個攝像頭在一起工作。在我們系統中，兩個固定的攝像機像人眼一樣註視著整個監控場景，搜尋非正常事件。如果有警報被非正常事件激活， PTZ攝像機會用來處理該事件，例如去跟蹤或者調查不明物體。利用相機標定技術，我們可以估計出物體的3D信息并將其傳輪到三個攝像機。 / 在第二部分中，我們提出級聯頭肩檢測器來檢測正面的頭肩并進行高級別的物體分析，例如識別和異常行為分析。在檢測器中，我們提出利用級聯結構融閤兩種強大的特徵， Harar-like 特微和HOG特徽，他們能有傚的檢測人臉和行人。利用Harr-like特徵，頭肩檢測器能夠在初期用有限的計算去除非頭肩區域。檢測的區域可以用來識別和分割。 / 在第三部分中，利用訓練的糢型，人臉區域可以從檢測到的頭肩區域中提取。利用CAMshift對人臉區域進行細化。在視頻監控的環境中，人臉識別是十分具有挑戰性的，因為人臉圖像受到多種因素的影響，例如在不均勻光綫條件下變化姿態和非聚焦糢糊的人臉。基于上述觀測，我們提出一種使用OLPF特微結閤AGMM糢型的人臉識別方法，其中OLPF特徵不僅不受糢糊圖像的影響，而且對人臉的姿態很魯棒。AGMM能夠很好地構建多種人臉。對標準測試集和實際數據的實驗結果證明了我們提出的方法一直地优于其它最先進的人臉識別方法。 / 在第四部分中，我們提出一種自動人體分割系統。首先，我們用檢測到的人臉或者人體對graph cut分割模型初始化并使用max-flow /min-cut算法對graph進行優化。針對有缺點的檢測目標的情況，采用一種基于coarse-to-fine的分割策略。我們提出抹除背景差別技術和自適應初始化level set 技術來解決存在于通用模型中的讓人頭疼的分割問題，例如發生在高差別的物體邊界區域或者在物體和背景中存在相同顏色的錯誤分割。實驗結果證明了我們的人體分割系統在實時視頻圖像和具有復雜背景的標準測試序列中都能很好的運作。 / 在最后部分中，我們專註于怎么樣對視頻內容進行智能的壓縮。在最近幾十年里，視頻編碼研究取得了巨大的成就，例如H.264/AVC標準和下一代的HEVC標準，它們的壓縮性能大大的超過以往的標準，高于50% 。但是相對于MPEG-4 ，在最新的編碼標準中缺少了壓縮任意形狀物體的能力。雖然在現在的H.264/AVC 中提供了片組結構和彈性模塊組閤技術，但是它仍然不能準確地高效地處理任意形狀區域。為了解決H.264/AVC 的這一缺點，我們提出基于H.264/AVC編碼框架的任意形狀物體編碼，它包括二值圖像編碼，運動補償和紋理編碼。在我們系統里，我們采用了1) 用新的運動估計改進的二值圖像編碼，它對二值塊的預測很有用。2) 在紋理編碼中，采用新的任意形狀整型變換來壓縮紋理信息，它是一種從4x4的ICT衍生出來的變換。3)和一些讓該編碼器勻新的框架兼容的相關編碼技術。我們把編碼器應用到高清視頻序列並且從客觀方便和主觀方面對編碼器進行評估。實驗結果證明了我們的編碼器遠遠超越以前的物體編碼方法並且十分接近H.264/AVC 的編碼性能。 / Surveillance is the process of monitoring the behaviour, activities, or changing information, usually of people for the purpose of managing, directing or protecting by means of electronic equipment, such as closed-circuit television (CCTV) camera or interception of electronically transmitted information from a distance, such as Internet or phone calls. Some potential surveillance applications are homeland security, anti-crime, traffic control, monitoring children, elderly and patients at a distance. Surveillance technology provides a shield against terrorism and abnormal event, and cheap modern electronics makes it possible to implement with CCTV cameras. But unless the feeds from those cameras are constantly monitored, they only provide an illusion of security. Finding enough observers to watch thousands of screens simply is impractical, yet modern automated systems can solve the problems with a surprising degree of intelligence. / Surveillance with intelligence is necessary and important to accurately mange the information from millions of sensors in 7/24 hours. Generally, intelligent surveillance includes: 1. information acquirement, like a single or the collaboration of multiple cameras, thermal or depth camera; 2. video analysis, like object detection, recognition, tracking, re-identification and segmentation; 3. storage and transmission, like coding, classification, and footage. In this thesis, we build an intelligent surveillance system, in which three cameras working collaboratively to estimate the position of the object of interest (OOI) in 3D space, investigate and track it. In order to identify the OOI, Cascade Head-Shoulder Detector is proposed to find the face region for recognition. The object can be segmented out and compressed by arbitrarily shaped object coding (ASOC). / In the first part, we discuss how to make the multiple cameras work together. In our system, two stationary cameras, like human eyes, are focusing on the whole scene of the surveillance region to observe abnormal events. If an alarm is triggered by abnormal instance, a PTZ camera will be assigned to deal with it, such as tracking orinvestigating the object. With calibrated cameras, the 3D information of the object can be estimated and communicated among the three cameras. / In the second part, cascade head-shoulder detector (CHSD) is proposed to detect the frontal head-shoulder region in the surveillance videos. The high-level object analysis will be performed on the detected region, e.g., recognition and abnormal behaviour analysis. In the detector, we propose a cascading structure that fuses the two powerful features: Haar-like feature and HOG feature, which have been used to detect face and pedestrian efficiently. With the Haar-like feature, CHSD can reject most of non-headshoulder regions in the earlier stages with limited computations. The detected region can be used for recognition and segmentation. / In the third part, the face region can be extracted from the detected head-shoulder region with training the body model. Continuously adaptive mean shift (CAMshift) is proposed to refine the face region. Face recognition is a very challenging problem in surveillance environment because the face image suffers from the concurrence of multiple factors, such as a variant pose with out-of-focused blurring under non-uniform lighting condition. Based on this observations, we propose a face recognition method using overlapping local phase feature (OLPF) feature and adaptive Gaussian mixture model (AGMM). OLPF feature is not only invariant to blurring but also robust to pose variations and AGMM can robustly model the various faces. Experiments conducted on standard dataset and real data demonstrate that the proposed method consistently outperforms the state-of-art face recognition methods. / In the forth part, we propose an automatic human body segmentation system. We first initialize graph cut using the detected face/body and optimize the graph by maxflow/ min-cut. And then a coarse-to-fine segmentation strategy is employed to deal with the imperfectly detected object. Background contrast removal (BCR) and selfadaptive initialization level set (SAILS) are proposed to solve the tough problems that exist in the general graph cut model, such as errors occurred at object boundary with high contrast and similar colors in the object and background. Experimental results demonstrate that our body segmentation system works very well in live videos and standard sequences with complex background. / In the last part, we concentrate on how to intelligently compress the video context. In recent decades, video coding research has achieved great progress, such as inH.264/AVC and next generation HEVC whose compression performance significantly exceeds previous standards by more than 50%. But as compared with the MPEG-4, the capability of coding arbitrarily shaped objects is absent from the following standards. Despite of the provision of slice group structures and flexible macroblock ordering (FMO) in the current H.264/AVC, it cannot deal with arbitrarily shaped regions accurately and efficiently. To solve the limitation of H.264/AVC, we propose the arbitrarily shaped object coding (ASOC) based on the framework H.264/AVC, which includes binary alpha coding, motion compensation and texture coding. In our ASOC, we adopt (1) an improved binary alpha Coding with a novel motion estimation to facilitate the binary alpha blocks prediction, (2) an arbitrarily shaped integer transform derivative from the 4×4 ICT in H.264/AVC to code texture and (3) associated coding techniques to make ASOC more compatible with the new framework. We extent ASOC to HD video and evaluate it objectively and subjectively. Experimental results prove that our ASOC significantly outperforms previous object-coding methods and performs close to the H.264/AVC. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Liu, Qiang. / "November 2012." / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2013. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 123-135). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstract also in Chinese. / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Dedication --- p.ii / Acknowledgments --- p.iii / Abstract --- p.vii / Publications --- p.x / Nomenclature --- p.xii / Contents --- p.xviii / List of Figures --- p.xxii / List of Tables --- p.xxiii / Chapter 1 --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 1.1 --- Motivation and objectives --- p.1 / Chapter 1.2 --- A brief review of camera calibration --- p.2 / Chapter 1.3 --- Object detection --- p.5 / Chapter 1.3.1 --- Face detection --- p.5 / Chapter 1.3.2 --- Pedestrian detection --- p.7 / Chapter 1.4 --- Recognition --- p.8 / Chapter 1.5 --- Segmentation --- p.10 / Chapter 1.5.1 --- Thresholding-based methods --- p.11 / Chapter 1.5.2 --- Clustering-based methods --- p.11 / Chapter 1.5.3 --- Histogram-based methods --- p.12 / Chapter 1.5.4 --- Region-growing methods --- p.12 / Chapter 1.5.5 --- Level set methods --- p.13 / Chapter 1.5.6 --- Graph cut methods --- p.13 / Chapter 1.5.7 --- Neural network-based methods --- p.14 / Chapter 1.6 --- Object-based video coding --- p.14 / Chapter 1.7 --- Organization of thesis --- p.16 / Chapter 2 --- Cameras Calibration --- p.18 / Chapter 2.1 --- Introduction --- p.18 / Chapter 2.2 --- Basic Equations --- p.21 / Chapter 2.2.1 --- Parameters of Camera Model --- p.22 / Chapter 2.2.2 --- Two-view homography induced by a Plane --- p.22 / Chapter 2.3 --- Pair-wise pose estimation --- p.23 / Chapter 2.3.1 --- Homography estimation --- p.24 / Chapter 2.3.2 --- Calculation of n and λ --- p.24 / Chapter 2.3.3 --- (R,t) Estimation --- p.25 / Chapter 2.4 --- Distortion analysis and correction --- p.27 / Chapter 2.5 --- Feature detection and matching --- p.28 / Chapter 2.6 --- 3D point estimation and evaluation --- p.30 / Chapter 2.7 --- Conclusion --- p.34 / Chapter 3 --- Cascade Head-Shoulder Detector --- p.35 / Chapter 3.1 --- Introduction --- p.35 / Chapter 3.2 --- Cascade head-shoulder detection --- p.36 / Chapter 3.2.1 --- Initial feature rejecter --- p.37 / Chapter 3.2.2 --- Haar-like rejecter --- p.39 / Chapter 3.2.3 --- HOG feature classifier --- p.40 / Chapter 3.2.4 --- Cascade of classifiers --- p.45 / Chapter 3.3 --- Experimental results and analysis --- p.46 / Chapter 3.3.1 --- CHSD training --- p.46 / Chapter 3.4 --- Conclusion --- p.49 / Chapter 4 --- A Robust Face Recognition in Surveillance --- p.50 / Chapter 4.1 --- Introduction --- p.50 / Chapter 4.2 --- Cascade head-shoulder detection --- p.53 / Chapter 4.2.1 --- Body model training --- p.53 / Chapter 4.2.2 --- Face region refinement --- p.54 / Chapter 4.3 --- Face recognition --- p.56 / Chapter 4.3.1 --- Overlapping local phase feature (OLPF) --- p.56 / Chapter 4.3.2 --- Fixed Gaussian Mixture Model (FGMM) --- p.59 / Chapter 4.3.3 --- Adaptive Gaussian mixture model --- p.61 / Chapter 4.4 --- Experimental verification --- p.62 / Chapter 4.4.1 --- Preprocessing --- p.62 / Chapter 4.4.2 --- Face recognition --- p.63 / Chapter 4.5 --- Conclusion --- p.66 / Chapter 5 --- Human Body Segmentation --- p.68 / Chapter 5.1 --- Introduction --- p.68 / Chapter 5.2 --- Proposed automatic human body segmentation system --- p.70 / Chapter 5.2.1 --- Automatic human body detection --- p.71 / Chapter 5.2.2 --- Object Segmentation --- p.73 / Chapter 5.2.3 --- Self-adaptive initialization level set --- p.79 / Chapter 5.2.4 --- Object Updating --- p.86 / Chapter 5.3 --- Experimental results --- p.87 / Chapter 5.3.1 --- Evaluation using real-time videos and standard sequences --- p.87 / Chapter 5.3.2 --- Comparison with Other Methods --- p.87 / Chapter 5.3.3 --- Computational complexity analysis --- p.91 / Chapter 5.3.4 --- Extensions --- p.93 / Chapter 5.4 --- Conclusion --- p.93 / Chapter 6 --- Arbitrarily Shaped Object Coding --- p.94 / Chapter 6.1 --- Introduction --- p.94 / Chapter 6.2 --- Arbitrarily shaped object coding --- p.97 / Chapter 6.2.1 --- Shape coding --- p.97 / Chapter 6.2.2 --- Lossy alpha coding --- p.99 / Chapter 6.2.3 --- Motion compensation --- p.102 / Chapter 6.2.4 --- Texture coding --- p.105 / Chapter 6.3 --- Performance evaluation --- p.108 / Chapter 6.3.1 --- Objective evaluations --- p.108 / Chapter 6.3.2 --- Extension on HD sequences --- p.112 / Chapter 6.3.3 --- Subjective evaluations --- p.115 / Chapter 6.4 --- Conclusions --- p.119 / Chapter 7 --- Conclusions and future work --- p.120 / Chapter 7.1 --- Contributions --- p.120 / Chapter 7.1.1 --- 3D object positioning --- p.120 / Chapter 7.1.2 --- Automatic human body detection --- p.120 / Chapter 7.1.3 --- Human face recognition --- p.121 / Chapter 7.1.4 --- Automatic human body segmentation --- p.121 / Chapter 7.1.5 --- Arbitrarily shaped object coding --- p.121 / Chapter 7.2 --- Future work --- p.122 / Bibliography --- p.123

This dissertation is an examination of the UK’s counter-terrorism policies and practices that have been adopted since the attacks of 9/11 in the United States. Using a theoretical framework of ‘power’ and ‘hegemony’ to guide the research, and an investigative research approach, the dissertation examines how the UK has, in the name of confronting an ideologically and religiously motivated global opponent, enacted a two pronged approach that integrates key aspects of counterinsurgency doctrine and practice. The first ties into the use of ‘coercion’ that is undertaken under the policy heading of ‘Pursue’ and covers activities that revolve around the use of policing, military, juridical and executive powers to investigate, prosecute and take preventative and pre-emptive action against suspected terrorists and the second ties into the use of ‘propaganda’ and ‘communication’ that is undertaken through the ‘Prevent’ policy, which attempts to challenge and counter those individuals who do not promulgate unlawful or violent views but support al-Qaida’s grievances and ideology and are thus claimed to be more likely to become involved in terrorism. In order to inform Prevent activity, information and intelligence – a cardinal principle of counterinsurgency – is a prerequisite. This dissertation therefore shows how intelligence and information is collected and used by examining Prevent activity at UK universities. It then proceeds to contextualise counter-terrorism policy and practice through an examination of counterinsurgency doctrine, and in particular, ‘strategic communication’. The dissertation argues that the integration of key elements of counterinsurgency doctrine into counter-terrorism policy and practice suggests that the policy, rather than being a mere response to terrorism, is an organised and strategic effort to use coercion and propaganda to control the behaviour and activity of Muslim communities and thereby constitutes a form of state-terrorism.

"Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have been widely used in modern warfare for surveillance, reconnaissance and even attack missions. They can provide valuable battlefield information and accomplish dangerous tasks with minimal risk of loss of lives and personal injuries. However, existing UAV systems are far from perfect to meet all possible situations. One of the most notable situations is the support for individual troops. Besides the incapability to always provide images in desired resolution, currently available systems are either too expensive for large-scale deployment or too heavy and complex for a single solder. Intelligent Portable Aerial Surveillance System (IPASS), sponsored by the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), is aimed at developing a low-cost, light-weight unmanned aerial vehicle that can provide sufficient battlefield intelligence for individual troops. The main contributions of this thesis are two-fold (1) the development and verification of a model-based flight simulation for the aircraft, (2) comparison of image stitching techniques to provide a comprehensive aerial surveillance information from multiple vision. To assist with the design and control of the aircraft, dynamical models are established at different complexity levels. Simulations with these models are implemented in Matlab to study the dynamical characteristics of the aircraft. Aerial images acquired from the three onboard cameras are processed after getting the flying platform built. How a particular image is formed from a camera and the general pipeline of the feature-based image stitching method are first introduced in the thesis. To better satisfy the needs of this application, a homography-based stitching method is studied. This method can greatly reduce computation time with very little compromise in the quality of the panorama, which makes real-time video display of the surroundings on the ground station possible. By implementing both of the methods for image stitching using OpenCV, a quantitative comparison in the performance is accomplished."

A Constituição brasileira de 1988 estabeleceu o direito à inviolabilidade da intimidade, da vida privada e do sigilo das comunicações, apresentando-se os dois primeiros como princípios e o último como regra. A regra da inviolabilidade do sigilo das comunicações se fez acompanhar de cláusula de exceção pela qual o constituinte admitiu hipóteses de restrição a esse direito, notadamente para fins de investigação criminal ou instrução processual penal, nas hipóteses e na forma que a lei estabelecer. Uma das formas de restrição vem a ser a interceptação das comunicações telemáticas, que o trabalho se propõe a analisar, de modo a verificar os limites da atuação estatal no uso desse método de investigação. Em tal análise, de modo a definir o âmbito de proteção dos direitos acima citados, o autor considera, além dos dispositivos da Constituição e legislação brasileiras, convenções internacionais de direitos humanos e a interpretação que lhes é dada por cortes regionais de direitos humanos e adota, como critérios e métodos, o princípio da proporcionalidade, os padrões doutrinariamente concebidos para a construção de um processo penal que se aproxime de uma meta de eficiência e garantismo e as experiências de outros países pesquisados. / The Brazilian Constitution of 1988 established the rights to inviolability of intimacy, privacy and confidentiality of communications, presenting the first two as principles and the last one as a rule. The rule of the inviolability of the secrecy of communications was followed by an exception clause which specifies the hypotheses in which such right may be restricted, notably for purposes of criminal investigation or criminal procedure, in the cases and in the form provided by statutory law. One of the possibilities of such restriction is the interception of electronic communications, which this paper aims to analyze in order to verify the limits for state action in the use of such criminal investigation method. In such analysis, in order to define the scope of protection of the abovementioned right, the author considers, in addition to the provisions set forth in the Brazilian Constitution and law, international human rights conventions and their interpretation given and adopted by regional human rights courts, and, as criteria and methods, the principle of proportionality, the doctrinally conceived standards for the construction of a criminal procedure system closer to an objective of efficiency and fundamental individual rights protection, as well as the experiences of other researched countries.

Este trabalho tem por finalidade reunir informações para que em um local de produção de leite com finalidade econômica se possa ter um produto com o minimo possível de bactérias, não patogênicas para o consumo humano. Descrevemos o desenvolvimento da glândula mamária, porque, é aí que começa o problema do leite: podemos chamá-la de \"Fábrica de leite\", com todos os seus incovenientes. Tomamos a precaução de informar sobre os cuidados higiênicos e mecânicos quando houver a manipulação do úbere para a extração do leite. Ressaltamos as possíveis fontes de contaminação do lei te iniciando com o animal passando pelo meio ambiente, pelo ordenhador, transporte e distribuição. Relacionamos os locais utilizados para o manejo dos animais em produção e as condições higiênicas necessárias para tal. Sobre microrganismos, lembramos os que se desenvolvem no leite e os transformam causando alterações prejudiciais ao produto e os outros que prejudicam os consumidores causando-lhe doenças, algumas muito graves, outras menos graves; mas todas quebrando a higidez do consumidor e por consequência avolumando o rol das doenças notificáveis. Analisamos os componentes do leite, frente a legislação vigente, apresentando uma tabela com a composição do leite das diversas espécies animais. Repassamos as análises químicas e físicas que os regulamentos impõem e apresentamos as recomendações do Ministério da Saúde quanto á flora bacteriana mínima permitida. Os objetivos são bem claros, pois há necessidade de uma assistência sanitária aos criadores, uma orientação aos comerciantes e esclarecimentos às autoridades administrativas, da saúde e educação. As tabelas obtidas com as análises realizadas, demonstram claramente as distorções encontradas nas amostras de leite colhidas nas regiões de Itapecerica da Serra e Juquitiba. A porcentagem de amostras de leite que estariam condenadas somam, para Itapecerica da Serra 76,18% e para Juquitiba 71,72%. Esse quadro dá idéia perfeita de que a produção de leite naquela região está abandonada pelas autoridades responsáveis pela Vigilância Sanitária (Setor Saúde) e pela Defesa Sanitária Animal (Setor Econômico). / This paper aims at assembling information in order that the least number possible of non-pathogenic bacteria for human consumption can be achieved in a site designed for a profitable dairy. The development of the mammary gland is described since it is there that the problem of milk begins; it can be called a \"milk-factory\", with all its inconveniences. All precautions are taken to inform about sanitary and mechanical procedures on the process of milk-extraction carried out by ubre handling. Some possible sources of milk contamination are emphasized, beginning with those related to the animal and going on with those originated from the enviroment, the milker, and the milk transportation and distribuition. The most common sites used for managing animals in production are mentioned, as well as the needed sanitary conditions for such end. In what microorganisms are concerned to, we point out the ones which are developed within the milk, transforming it and causing harmfull alterations to the product and others that injure the consumer\'s health causing diseases, some of them very serious, other less serious, but all of them breaking the consumer\'s state of health and, as a consequence, increasing the roll communicable diseases. Milk components are analysed in face of the current legislation with the presentation of a table containing the milk-composition concerning various animal species. A review on the chemical and psysical analyses required by law is made, presenting the recommendations of the Ministry oh Health as to the minimal bacterial flora allowed. The objectives of the paper are rather clear, since there is a need for sanitary assistance on the part of the cattle breeders, orientation to be provided to milk-traders and englightenment to both, the health and education administrative authorities. Data from the analyses carried out clearly demonstrate the distortions found out in milk-samples collected along the Itapecerica da Serra and Juquitiba regions. The percentage of milk-samples which would be condemned by health authorities sums up 76.18% for Itapecerica da Serra and 71.72% for Juquitiba. This picture gives a perfect idea of how the milk-production in that region is left abandonmed by the authorities in charge of the sanitary surveillance (Health sector) and the Animal sanitary Defense (Economic Sector).

In multi-camera surveillance, association of people detected in different camera views over time, known as person re-identification, is a fundamental task. Re-identification is a challenging problem because of changes in the appearance of people under varying camera conditions. Existing approaches focus on improving the re-identification accuracy, while no specific effort has yet been put into efficiently utilising the available resources that are normally limited in a camera network, such as storage, computation and communication capabilities. In this thesis, we aim to perform and improve the task of re-identification under constrained resources. More specifically, we reduce the data needed to represent the appearance of an object through a proposed feature selection method and a difference-vector representation method. The proposed feature-selection method considers the computational cost of feature extraction and the cost of storing the feature descriptor jointly with the feature's re-identification performance to select the most cost-effective and well-performing features. This selection allows us to improve inter-camera re-identification while reducing storage and computation requirements within each camera. The selected features are ranked in the order of effectiveness, which enable a further reduction by dropping the least effective features when application constraints require this conformity. We also reduce the communication overhead in the camera network by transferring only a difference vector, obtained from the extracted features of an object and the reference features within a camera, as an object representation for the association. In order to reduce the number of possible matches per association, we group the objects appearing within a defined time-interval in un-calibrated camera pairs. Such a grouping improves the re-identification, since only those objects that appear within the same time-interval in a camera pair are needed to be associated. For temporal alignment of cameras, we exploit differences between the frame numbers of the detected objects in a camera pair. Finally, in contrast to pairwise camera associations used in literature, we propose a many-to-one camera association method for re-identification, where multiple cameras can be candidates for having generated the previous detections of an object. We obtain camera-invariant matching scores from the scores obtained using the pairwise re-identification approaches. These scores measure the chances of a correct match between the objects detected in a group of cameras. Experimental results on publicly available and in-lab multi-camera image and video datasets show that the proposed methods successfully reduce storage, computation and communication requirements while improving the re-identification rate compared to existing re-identification approaches.