News
In search of talent
USP and Unicamp will pick 65 students from Brazil and abroad to take part this July in the São Paulo Advanced Course on Computer Image Processing and Vision, one of the courses supported by the FAPESP São Paulo School of Advanced Science (SPSAS)
By Fábio de Castro
Agência FAPESP – Seeking to attract new talent from Brazil and abroad, three of the leading postgraduate information technology programs in the state of São Paulo are selecting young researchers to take part in an intense learning experience in the field of image processing and computer vision.
The São Paulo Advanced School in Computing Image Processing and Visualization will be held July 12-17, 2010, with applications accepted until May 15. The course is being offered by the Instituto de Matemática e Estatística da Universidade de São Paulo (IME-USP, Institute of Mathematics and Statistics of the University of São Paulo), the Instituto de Ciências Matemáticas e da Computação da Universidade de São Paulo, São Carlos (ICMC-USP, Institute of Mathematics and Information Technology at the São Carlos campus of USP), and the Instituto de Computação da Universidade Estadual de Campinas (IC-Unicamp, Information Technology Institute of the State University at Campinas).
Sixty-five postgraduate students will be selected to attend the course, which is supported the Escola São Paulo de Ciência Avançada (São Paulo School of Advanced Science, SPSAS), a funding program launched by FAPESP in October of 2009 and having approved seven proposals to date. Of the 65 students selected, 45 (15 from Brazil and 30 from abroad) will be eligible for financial assistance for travel and lodging.Participants will attend five mini-courses – for a total of 6 hours and 45 minutes – and will have the chance to hear lectures by some of the leading specialists in the field of image processing and computer vision.
The goal of the ESPCA – the funds for which are made available via the research support mechanism designated “Organization of a Scientific and/or Technological Meeting” – is to allow researchers in the state of São Paulo to organize courses featuring international specialists that attract students or postdoctoral researchers from other countries and other Brazilian states, encouraging them to interact with local students and researchers and debate cutting-edge scientific topics.
According to the organizer of the event, Carlos Eduardo Ferreira, a professor in the IME-USP Department of Information Technology, the São Paulo Advanced Course on Computer Image Processing and Vision will kick off a biannual series of courses designed for students in the final stages of their doctoral studies.
“The courses will deal with subjects that are not only cutting-edge, but which are areas of excellence at the leading institutions in the state of São Paulo. We want to attract high-level students to come and do research with us. In São Paulo, we have strong postgraduate programs in information technology, and strong programs need excellent students,” Ferreira told FAPESP News.
According to Ferreira, the field of image processing and computer vision is growing in importance. “Over recent years, we have seen a flood of information in fields ranging from astronomy to medicine. However, obtaining an image is not enough, one must also be able to detect what is relevant in an image, and that means processing. After that, millions of data points extracted by processing need to be presented to the user – and that means creating visualization interfaces,” he explained.
Data processing and visualization techniques not only push the frontiers of human knowledge but have countless important applications in diverse areas, according to Ferreira. “We chose this field for our ESPCA proposal because we have researchers who really stand out, both in Brazil and abroad,” he said.
Three of the mini-courses will be led by Brazilian professors: Roberto Marcondes Cesar Junior, of the IME-USP; Alexandre Falcão, of the IC-Unicamp; and Maria Cristina de Oliveira, of the ICMC-USP.
Cesar Junior – a member of the FAPESP Information Technology and Computer Engineering Council – will lead a mini-course entitled “Shape analysis and classification: structural approach and applications”. “He will talk about methods for shape analysis, a field related to statistical and structural pattern recognition with a number of important applications, such as image segmentation and object detection,” Ferreira said.
Falcão will lead the mini-course “Image processing using graphs”. The course will explain the steps required to select an object within an image. “The image needs to be segmented into its essential components, and from there it is possible to locate objects and classify patterns. The course will show how to work with mathematical objects through the use of graphs,” Ferreira explained.
The mini-course “Visual analysis of multidimensional data” will be taught by Oliveira, who, together with Agma Traina and Rosan Minghim (both also of the ICMC-USP), will demonstrate techniques and methods for clearly displaying complex datasets as graphical representations. “Google Analytics, a tool for analyzing and visualizing website traffic data, is a good example of a solution for visualizing multidimensional data,” Ferreira notes.
Two prominent foreign professors will participate in the event: Jayaram Udupa, of the Department of Radiology, University of Pennsylvania (United States), and Alexandru Telea, of the Department of Mathematics and Information Technology, University of Groningen (The Netherlands).
Udupa, an editor of several information technology journals, works with tools for image manipulation and pattern recognition. “His presence should attract a lot of people interested in medical image analysis, a field in which he is internationally renowned,” Ferreira noted
Telea is the author of the book “Data Visualization: Principles and Practice”, published in 2007. According to Ferreira, the book is considered the “bible” of data visualization. “He [Telea] works with scientific visualization of flows, hierarchical data representations and visual metaphors,” Ferreira said.
To apply for the course, Ferreira explained, each candidate should send an e-mail including academic details (name of institution, name of adviser and personal data), a letter explaining his or her reason for wishing to attend, a summary of his or her current research project, a résumé and two letters of recommendation.
“The submissions will be studied by the organizing committee. Students who are not eligible for financial support will be chosen using the same criteria,” Ferreira said.
For more information or to apply: www.vision.ime.usp.br/~mh/SP-ASC
ESPCA: www.fapesp.br/espca