CBL member Yen Le joins Google Research (Mountain View, CA) for a summer Software Engineering Internship in Computer Vision.

CBL member Paul Hernandez-Herrera successfully presented his PhD proposal on "Three-Dimensional Morphology Extraction of Tubular Structures". His PhD Thesis Committee is comprised by Christoph Eick (UHCS), Drs. Ioannis A. Kakadiaris (UHCS, Chairman), Fernanda Laezza (UTMB), Emmanouil Papadakis (UHCS), Ioannis Pavlidis (UHCS), Shishir Shah (UHCS). Warm Congratulations!

CBL member Bassam Almogahed successfully presented his PhD proposal on "Classification of Imbalanced Data". His PhD Thesis Committee is comprised by Drs. Ioannis A. Kakadiaris (UHCS, Chairman), Christoph Eick (UHCS), Shishir Shah (UHCS), Panagiotis Tsiamyrtzis (AUEB) and Ricardo Vilalta (UHCS). Warm Congratulations!

CBL member Yen Le Hai successfully presented her PhD proposal on "Shape Priors for Segmentation of Mouse Brain in Gene Expression Images". Her PhD Thesis Committee is comprised by Drs. Ioannis A. Kakadiaris (UHCS, Chairman), James P. Carson (Pacific Northwest National Lab), Zhigang Deng (UHCS), Christoph Eick (UHCS), Tao Ju (Washington University in St. Louis), Uday Kurkure (UHCS), and Shishir Shah (UHCS). Warm Congratulations!

CBL has moved to the new Health and Biomedical Sciences Building. It offers outstanding space for CBL's members and equipment along with wonderful opportunities for collaboration with the other occupants of the new space.

CBL member Shuyu Xu will join the Schlumberger-Doll Research Center for a summer internship in data analytics.

CBL Members and Friends volunteered at the Houston Food Bank. Houston Food Bank is a nonprofit organization that has distributed 50M meals last year. It is definitely worth contributing in any way we can.

Congratulations to Yen and Uday for the CVOPR 2013 paper: Y.H. Le, U. Kurkure and I.A. Kakadiaris, "Learning Ensemble of Local PDM-based Regressions," in Proc. IEEE Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, Portland, OR, June 23-28 2013 (In Press).

Congratulations to Panagiotis for the ICB 2013 paper. P. Moutafis and I.A. Kakadiaris, "Can we do better in Unimodal Biometric Systems? A Novel Rank-based Score Normalization Framework for Multi-sample Galleries", in Proc. 6th International Conference on Biometrics, Madrid, Spain, June 4-7 2013 (In Press).

The Pumps and Pipes Conference is featured on the Johnson Space Center website and a wonderful article on P&P (written by Kim Morris, Director BayTech) has just been published in Change_Magazine

Drs. Evangelopoulos and Kakadiaris presented recent research results by researchers at the 2012 Annual Scientific Symposium of the Michael E. DeBakey High School for Health Professions.

The UH Computational Biomedicine Lab will present two image-computing exhibits at the Pumps and Pipes Conference.

The UH Computational Biomedicine Lab will present two image-computing exhibits at the Pumps and Pipes Conference. The first exhibit will highlight the Lab’s state-of-the-art facility that allows facial data acquisition from 21 three-dimensional and 21 two-dimensional cameras simultaneously. The second will highlight the Lab’s work on Computational Life Sciences.

The sixth annual Pumps & Pipes conference will take place at The Methodist Hospital Research Institute on Monday, Dec. 3 and it will feature NASA’s Lunar Rover roving outside the Research Institute, live feeds from U.S Antarctic Program’s Palmer Station and a live case from Methodist’s hybrid operating room, that will demonstrate an innovative transcatheter device (LARIAT®).

Since its beginning six years ago, the conference has brought together Houston’s two largest industries (energy and medicine) and academia. This year NASA/JCS and Houston's aerospace industry have joined the conference. The purpose: to examine parallels and crossover technology opportunities that could benefit each, using knowledge from "the other guy's toolkit," a Pumps & Pipes trope.

The conference is organized by The Methodist DeBakey Heart & Vascular Center, ExxonMobil, and the University of Houston. Pumps & Pipes 6 program directors are Methodist DeBakey Heart & Vascular Center (MDHVC) Medical Director Alan Lumsden, M.D., ExxonMobil Drilling & Subsurface Function Manager William Kline, Ph.D., University of Houston Professor of Computer Science Ioannis Kakadiaris, Ph.D., and MDHVC Entrepreneurial Institute Director Stephen Igo and MDHVC Research & Education Director Mark G. Davies, M.D., Ph.D., M.B.A.

The presentation portion of the conference begins at 8 am and concludes at 5:30 pm. A complete program can be viewed at: http://pumpsandpipes.com/Pumps&Pipes6Program.pdf.

Two CBL papers were accepted to FG 2013. Congratulations to the authors!

• X. Zhao and S. Shah and I.A. Kakadiaris, "Illumination Alignment using lighting ratio: Application to 3D-2D Face Recognition," in Proc. 10th International Conference on Automatic Face and Gesture Recognition, Shanghai, China, April 22-26 2013 (In Press).
• D. Chu and S. Shah and I.A. Kakadiaris, "Face Recognition based on 3D Partial Data using Semi-Coupled Dictionary Learning," in Proc. 10th International Conference on Automatic Face and Gesture Recognition, Shanghai, China, April 22-26 2013 (In Press).

R. Mehrotra, D. Chu, S.A. Haider and I.A. Kakadiaris, "Towards Learning Coupled Representations for Cross-Lingual Information Retrieval", in Proc. Neural Information Processing Systems Workshop xLiTe: Cross-Lingual Technologies, Lake Tahoe, Nevada, December 3-8 2012 (In Press).

Noah Kessler, an undergraduate researcher at CBL, participated in the Computational Cancer Biology Training Program poster session at Rice University and received one of two "best presentation" awards for his poster "Development and Validation of Computational Tools for Zebrafish Image Analytics". Congratulations, Noah!

Ms. Yen Le Hai, a doctoral student at CBL, was awarded the 2012-2013 Natural Sciences and Mathematics Alumni Association (NSMAA) Eckhard Pfeiffer-Alumni Scholarship. We, at CBL, are very proud of her accomplishment and wish her the very best in their academic endeavors.

O. Ocegueda, T. Fang, S.K. Shah, I.A. Kakadiaris, "3D-Face Discriminant Analysis using Gauss-Markov Posterior Marginals," IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, 22 May 2012 (In Press).

E. Zacharia, M. Bondesson, J-Å.Gustafsson and I.A. Kakadiaris, "Segmentation of Zebrafish Embryonic Images using a Geometric Atlas Deformation," in Proc. 34rd Annual Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, San Diego, California, Aug 28-Sept.1, 2012 (In Press).

Y.H. Le, U. Kurkure, N. Paragios, T. Ju, J.P. Carson, and I.A. Kakadiaris, "Similarity-based Appearance Prior For Fitting A Subdivision Mesh In Gene Expression Images," in Proc. 15th International Conference on Medical Image Computing and Computer Assisted Intervention, Nice, France, October 1-5, 2012 (In Press).

E.G. Mendizabal-Ruiz and I.A. Kakadiaris, “Probabilistic Segmentation of Lumen from Intravascular Ultrasound Radio Frequency Data”, in Proc. 15th International Conference on Medical Image Computing and Computer Assisted Intervention, Nice, France, Oct 1-5, 2012 (In Press).

CBL alummi, Dr. Deepak Roy Chittajallu, joins Prof. Gaudenz Danuser at the Laboratory for Computational Cell Biology at Harvard Medical School for his postdoctoral training. We congratulate him and wish him continued success.

CBL Member Emil Bilgazyev won the Second Place Research Presentation Award for the presentation “Super-Resolution for Face Recognition” at the UHCS Second PhD Showcase Event. Congratulations Emil!

CBL member Dr. Zacharia Eleni was awarded the second year of a training fellowship from the Keck Center Computational Cancer Biology Training Program of the Gulf Coast Consortia (CPRIT Grant No. RP101489). Eleni's project is using Zebrafish as a new model to investigate impact of obesity on tumor growth, vascularization and metastasis of cancer cells. Her co-advisors are Prof. I.A. Kakadiaris, Prof. Jan-Ake Gustafsson, and Prof. Maria Bondesson. Dr. Zacharia received her B.Sc. ,M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees from University of Athens, Athens, Greece in 2004, 2006, and 2009 respectively. Her PhD thesis was on biomedical image analysis and her current research interests mainly focus on image processing.

Selected applicants will receive a grant through the summer months to pursue research with one of the faculty members of the Computer Science Department of the University of Houston. The grant will include a stipend of $5,000, room and board for 10 weeks, and limited travel reimbursement if the applicant is coming from outside the Houston metro area. The NSF REU grant mechanism is designed to promote the careers of students interested in pursuing graduate education. Participating students need to be enrolled in an accredited U.S. University and be U.S. citizens or permanent residents. More information and application can be found at: http://www.cs.uh.edu/reu

CBL member, Dr. Yifeng Jiang won an NLM Training Fellowship in Biomedical Informatics for "The development of Image-Based signatures for early Stage Alzeimer's Disease Using Nobel nano-particle Contrast Agents". His co-advisors will be Prof. I.A. Kakadiaris (UH) and Prof. A Annapragada (BCM and Texas Children's Hospital). Dr. Jiang received his B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees from Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China, in 1997 and 2000, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree from he Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, in 2007. During the period 2007 to 2011, he was a Postdoctoral Associate in the Image Processing and Analysis Group, Dept of Diagnostic Radiology, at Yale University, New Haven, CT. His PhD thesis was on shape registration and analysis, and his current research interests mainly focus on vascular image processing.

The newly elected members of the IEEE Biometrics Council are as follows: VP Conference (2012-2014): Prof. Sudeep Sarkar; VP Finance (2012-2014): Prof. Stephanie Schuckers; VP Technical Activities (2012-2014): Prof. Ioannis Kakadiaris; President Elect (2012; will take over as President in 2013): Dr. Tieniu Tan, President Nalini Ratha. The mission of the IEEE Biometrics Council is to advance and coordinate throughout IEEE, the work in the field of biometrics technologies and applications and to expand IEEE's role in this interdisciplinary area (http://ieee-biometrics.org/) .

Prof. Kakadiaris will offer a keynote talk at the the International Conference on Signal, Image and Video Processing (ICSIVP)2012, organized by the Indian Institute of Technology, Patna on January 14, 2012 (http://www.iitp.ac.in/ICSIVP2012/).

A brief shot related to UH research appears in the new 30 sec UH commercial http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQwmHZ1-GeE

Professor Ioannis Kakadiaris (http://www.cs.uh.edu/~ioannisk), noted for his cutting edge research in biometrics and cardiovascular informatics, was recently named a Hugh Roy and Lillie Cranz Cullen University Professor, one of the university's most prestigious honors.

“I am deeply indebted to the Cullen family for their generosity to the University of Houston. I am proud to be part of UH and honored to hold this professorship. I want to emphasize that the research accomplishments to date are the result of close collaboration with the students and postdoctoral fellows in my research group along with notable colleagues from a variety of fields, including mathematics, science, engineering and medicine. Interacting with our Tier-1 caliber students is one of the most gratifying aspects of my profession. This honor is dedicated to all of them.”

Kakadiaris, whose primary faculty appointment is in computer science, is also a joint faculty member for the departments of biomedical engineering and electrical & computer engineering. As director of the Computational Biomedicine Lab (CBL, http://www.cbl.uh.edu),he utilizes high performance computing facilities provided by the Texas Learning & Computation Center (TLC2) in combination with the lab’s proprietary image analysis software to develop pragmatic solutions to problems with significant societal impact.

CBL stands at the forefront of research in image computing, generating solutions to applications of computer vision and pattern recognition with an emphasis on computational life science sciences (cancer informatics, cardiovascular informatics, and neuroinformatics), non-verbal human behavior understanding (facial structure and expression analysis and human activity analysis).

For example, in the domain of cardiovascular informatics, CBL is developing a new scoring algorithm capable of identifying individuals at risk of suffering a heart attack in the next 12 months. The lab’s previous work in vasa vasorum (neovascularization) imaging pioneered a new active research area.

In the domain of biometrics, CBL has developed a proprietary 3D face recognition software that won top ranking in the 3D-shape section of the 2007 Face Recognition Vendor Test (FRVT) organized by NIST, and currently develops a 3D-aided 2D face recognition system whose initial results outperform state-of-the-art 2D-face recognition methods.

Kakadiaris’ research is supported by grants from federal sources (National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Defense, and U.S. Department of Justice), the state (Norman Hackerman Advanced Research Program), and industry. Awards from such prestigious funding entities are another strong testament to the value of his research.

One of the many significant outgrowths of Kakadiaris’ pioneering efforts is co-founding the Pumps & Pipes conference along with Drs. Alan B. Lumsden (Methodist DeBakey Heart and Vascular Center) and William E. Kline. This prodigious annual event unites cardiovascular researchers with energy scientists and engineers from two of the nation’s largest and most vital industries, medicine and energy, along with researchers from the University of Houston to develop complementary technologies.

In addition, Kakadiaris recently co-founded and participated in a community outreach program called “UH Researcher for a Day,” designed to expose high school students to the challenges and rewards of hands-on scientific research.

“One of our missions as academic researchers is to promote the value of basic research to find solutions to problems with high societal impact. This has the potential to be a life-changing experience for some kids who come from a very economically challenged area of our city,” said Kakadiaris.

It is easy to discern why Kakadiaris was nominated for a Cullen designation given his many notable achievements as a researcher, professor, and mentor.

"Ioannis Kakadiaris conducts groundbreaking research that transcends traditional boundaries between disciplines and generates highly interesting results with potential for great impact,” said TLC2 Director Lennart Johnsson. “He also demonstrates a strong commitment to community outreach and peer-based training. His approach closely reflects TLC2’s mission, and his contributions to research and the community are significant and laudable. Awarding a Cullen Distinguished Professor designation to Ioannis Kakadiaris is well-deserved."

The nomination originated from Eckhard Pfeiffer Professor of Computer Science Ioannis Pavlidis with support from Chair of Computer Science Jaspal Subhlok. It was then reviewed by a committee of Cullen professors along with internal and external recommendations from his peers, culminating in a recommendation to the provost.

Pavlidis spoke highly of his colleague when asked to comment on the award. “The attainment of the Cullen Distinguished University Professor status signifies due recognition for Professor Kakadiaris’ illustrious research, teaching, and service record to the imaging community and this university. It also brings to the fore the first class human capital the computer science department has cultivated in the last decade.”

Subhlok shared his reasons for endorsing the nomination. "Dr. Kakadiaris is an invaluable asset to the University of Houston. His record of research at the intersection of health and computing is phenomenal, judged by technical publications and societal impact. His leadership in the university and professional community has clearly helped raise the profile of the computer science department and the University of Houston. No less impressive is his record as a teacher and mentor. I am delighted that he has been awarded a richly deserved Cullen Professorship."

Dr. Kakadiaris joined UH in August 1997 following a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Kakadiaris earned his B.Sc. in Physics at the University of Athens in Greece, his M.Sc. in Computer Science from Northeastern University, and his Ph.D. in Computer Science at the University of Pennsylvania.

He has received numerous awards throughout his career, including the NSF Early Career Development Award, and the James Muller Vulnerable Plaque Young Investigator Prize.

His research has also garnered significant media attention from the Discovery Channel, National Public Radio, KPRC NBC News, and KHOU CBS News.

CBL member, Dr. Michail Mavroforakis, receives the EURASIP Ph.D. Award for the year 2011 CBL member, Research Assistant Professor Michail Mavroforakis, receives the EURASIP Ph.D. Award for the year 2011 for his thesis work entitled: "Geometric Approach to Statistical Learning Theory through Support Vector Machines (SVM) with Application to Medical Diagnosis". The European Signal Processing Association (http://www.eurasip.org/) maintains a database of PhD manuscripts at http://www.arehna.di.uoa.gr/thesis/, which is presently world's largest one in the area of signal processing. The database also keeps tracks of monthly downloads and publishes regularly in its page the 10 top downloaded theses. The selection process was based on the evaluation of the impact of the theses, their subsequent publications and related citations received, on the review reports of three independent reviewers as well as on the download statistics. The download statistics was instrumental only in forming a short-list of the top 20 theses. This year theses only in the time window of the years 2006 through 2008 were considered. The award will be presented during EUSIPCO2011: The 19th European Signal Processing Conference to be held at Barcelona, Spain from August 29 to September 2 (http://www.eusipco2011.org/). The award ceremony will take place in the gala dinner of the conference on September 1, Thursday. CBL congratulates Dr. Mavroforakis on his past thesis work as well as continued scholarly activities.

Congratulations to Emil and Boris for their paper "Sparse Representation-Based Super Resolution for Face Recognition At a Distance" which was accepted to BMVC 2011

The Computational Biomedicine Lab (CBL) of the University of Houston is looking for volunteers to participate in a study to collect facial imaging data.
The purpose of this research is to create a database of human faces for the purpose of face recognition and biometrics in general. Color and stereoscopic cameras will be used to take images (pictures) of your face under different pose and lighting conditions. These images will become part of a large database of facial images that will be used to build facial models, which will assist the investigators in developing face/ear recognition systems.

• The total anticipated time commitment is estimated to be around 20 min per session including the time to read and sign a consent form and ask any questions you might have.
• There are no physical risks associated with participation in this project, and you will only be having your picture taken.
• The experiment is non-invasive and low risk. Any personal data will be kept confidential and volunteers will be identified by code names throughout the study.
• You cannot participate in this study if you are under the age of 18.

Warm Congratulations! Ms. Yen Le Hai and Mr. Dat Chu, doctoral students at CBL, were awarded the 2011-2012 Natural Sciences and Mathematics Alumni Association (NSMAA) Eckhard Pfeiffer-Alumni Scholarship. We, at CBL, are very proud of their accomplishment and wish them the very best in their academic endeavors.

Turn your creativity and ideas into funded research mini-projects

The Computational Biomedicine Lab (www.cbl.uh.edu), University of Houston, is seeking to promote your creativity, independent thinking, and innovative research ideas by funding short-term research projects during the summer of 2011. Our intention is to provide internships to motivated and creative students (both undergraduates and graduates) and an opportunity to propose, support and implement individual or team research projects. We will provide guidance, infrastructure and funding for innovative projects of up to 3 months in duration, for teams of 1 to 3 students. Applications are encouraged from a variety of disciplines, including, but not limited to, data mining, machine intelligence, computer vision, computer graphics, computer engineering, game design and animation, biomedical engineering, imaging, human-computer interaction, smart interfaces, and ubiquitous computing. All research mini-project proposals are required to lead to a prototype system to be demonstrated within the time-frame of proposed project completion.

Areas of interest

Recently there has been an increased focus of public, commercial and academic attention on interfaces and motion-controlled computers, e.g., Microsoft’s Kinect controller for gaming applications. In that respect, we are especially interested on using face/gesture/body motion and depth sensing for 3D scene reconstruction and human-computer interaction, with applications on rehabilitation and to assist elders and people with disabilities. Example topics and areas include, but are not limited to:
• Face Reconstruction, using Kinect sensor data, for persons with disabilities.
• Kinect-based applications for rehabilitation purposes and/or edlerly.
• Pain expression recognition.

Application process

Eligible applicants are undergraduate and graduate students, currently enrolled in programs at the University of Houston. Prospective applicants should prepare a 5-page summary of their project describing their goals, work-plans, and project requirements. Applicants should be enthusiastic and support the proposed research by mentioning the importance (why did you decide to be involved with the specific problem/application?), effectiveness (how feasible do you think is your idea ?) and qualifications for pursuing it (what skills does your team have to achieve the project objectives ?). A strong project description application should cover the followings topics:
• Purpose, goal and objectives
• (optional) Short review or relevant methods
• Research/implementation plans
• Team organization and member roles
• Tentative time-plan towards completion
• (optional) Data and equipment that will be required
• Budget

Awards & Deadlines

The applications will be evaluated as soon as they are submitted. For further information and feedback concerning initial ideas, please contact Prof. I. Kakadiaris (ioannisk@uh.edu), with subject line "StudentProjects-CBL: (your name)". For immediate consideration, submit the 5-page project description and CV’s of the team members.

Deadline for the submission of applications (with the research project proposals) is May 15, 2011.

On the heels of gaining Tier One recognition from the prestigious Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, the University of Houston has been named one of the nation’s best institutions for undergraduate education, according to The Princeton Review, the widely known education services company. For the first time, UH will be included in the upcoming edition of its "best colleges" guidebook, The Best 376 Colleges: 2012 Edition that will be available in bookstores in early August 2011. http://www.uh.edu/about/tier-one/princeton-review/

The following papers were accepted to CVPR 2011 to be held at Colorado Springs, CO, from June 21-23, 2011:
U. Kurkure, Y.H. Le, N. Paragios, J. Carson, T. Ju, and I.A. Kakadiaris, "Landmark/Image-based Deformable Registration of Gene Expression Data,"
O. Ocegueda, S. Shah and I.A. Kakadiaris, "Which parts of the face give out your identity?,"

Carnegie Foundation Gives University of Houston its Highest Classification for Research Success, Elevating UH to Tier One Status For more information see http://www.uh.edu/news-events/stories/2011articles/Jan2011/011811CarnegieTierOne.php

In the tradition of previous years, CBL is announcing the 2011 CBL Scholarships. Scholarships for Spring 2011 are $1000 and applications are accepted at any time. The committee will convene as needed to examine the applications. To apply please email your CV to Prof. Kakadiaris (ioannisk@uh.edu) along with statement of interests.

CBL students Deepak Roy Chittajallu (Ph.D. in CS), Trupti Wadadekar (M.Sc. in ECE), and Uttam Manchikatla (M.Sc. in CS) will be graduating tomorrow. Warm Congratulations!!!!

The following papers were accepted to FG 2011:
(1) B. Efraty, M. Papadakis, A. Profitt, S.K. Shah, and I.A. Kakadiaris, "Facial component landmark detection"
(2) E. Bilgazyev, S.K. Shah, and I.A. Kakadiaris "Comparative Evaluation of Wavelet based Super-Resolution from Video for Face Recognition at a Distance". http://www.fg2011.org/
(3) T. Fang, X. Zhao, O. Ocegueda, S. Shah and I.A. Kakadiaris, "3D Facial Expression Recognition: A Perspective on Promises and Challenges," in Proc. 9th IEEE International Conference on Automatic Face and Gesture Recognition, Santa Barbara, CA, Mar. 21-25, 2011

11-18-2010: Prof. Kakadiaris visits UCF and USF and presents CBL's research. Fro more information see http://www.eecs.ucf.edu/eecs-files/seminar_flyers/18Nov2010.pdf

Dr. Kakadiaris to serve as Program Co-Chair for the International Workshop on Computer Vision for Computer Games at CVPR 2011, to be held Jun 21-23, 2011 in Colorado Springs, CO. For details, visit http://cvpr2011.org/index.html.

Get ready for Pumps and Pipes 4: No Boundaries http://www.pumpsandpipes.com

CPRIT Awards UH $2.4 Million for New, Multidisciplinary Research. The University of Houston (UH) received a $2.4 million grant to fund the most promising young cancer researchers who are working at the cutting-edge of a new multidisciplinary approach to fighting cancer.
For more Information click here

Prof. Mubarak Shah visits CBL and talks about "Detecting Key Motion Patterns".

Prof. Kakadiaris was honored during the Heart Disease Awareness Night for his contributions to the pumps and Pipes Initiative (http://www.pumpsandpipes.com). Bill Kline and Frank Perez where also recognized for their efforts as Pumps & Pipes partners.

Ms. Eleni Sgouritsa has received an ISBI Travel Award to attend the ISBI Conference in Rotterdam, The Netherlands.

Two papers from members of the Computational Biomedicine Lab have been accepted to the 2010 IEEE International Symposium on Biomedical Imaging (ISBI) taking place in Rotterdam, The Netherlands (http://www.biomedicalimaging.org/). M.Sc. student Eleni Sgouritsa will be presenting the paper "Neck localization and geometry quantification of intracranial aneurysms" based on research done in conjunction with A. Mohamed, H. Morsi, H., Shaltoni, M. Mawad, and I.A. Kakadiaris. Ph.D. student Raja Yalamanchili will be presenting the paper "Automatic segmentation of the diaphragm in non-contrast CT images" based on research done in conjunction with D.R. Chittajallu, P. Balanca, D. Dey, D. Berman, and I.A. Kakadiaris.

Dr. Kakadiaris recently delivered a keynote lecture at CIARP 2009 titled "Challenges and opportunities for extracting cardiovascular risk biomarkers from non-contrast CT data". CIARP is the Iberoamerican Congress on Pattern Recognition, and took place in Guadalajara, Mexico, Nov. 15-18 2009.

CIARP 2009 is organized by the Mexican Association for Computer Vision, Neural Computing and Robotics (MACVNR), supported by IAPR and sponsored by and other five PR iberoamerican PR societies. CIARP 2009, as all the thirteen previous conferences, was a fruitful forum for the exchange of scientific results and experiences, as well as the sharing of new knowledge, and the increase of the co-operation between research groups in pattern recognition and related areas.

More details about Dr. Kakadiaris' keynote lecture can be found at http://www.gdl.cinvestav.mx/ciarp2009/invitedspeakers.php.

"Partial matching of interpose 3D facial data for face recognition," a conference paper by CBL members G. Passalis, P. Perakis, T. Theoharis, G. Toderici, and I.A. Kakadiaris, has been chosen as a Best-Reviewed Paper at the 3rd IEEE International Conference on Biometrics: Theory, Applications and Systems taking place in Arlington, VA at the end of September. For a complete list of CBL publications, see our publications page.

CBL members Dat Chu, Michael Fang, and Eleni Sgouritsa have been awarded 2009 scholarships from the College of Natural Science and Mathematics Alumni Association. Dat and Michael are PhD students working on the URxD face recognition project, and Eleni is a PhD student working on the CAPETA project. The awards recognize the scholarship, leadership, and civic and community involvement of these dedicated lab members.

Congratulations to Dr. Mavroforakis, Research Assistant Professor at CBL, on being awarded the IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks 2006 Outstanding Paper Award (bestowed in 2008) for the paper: M.E. Mavroforakis and S. Theodoridis, "A geometric approach to support vector machine classification", IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks, Vol. 17, No. 3, May 2006, pp. 671-682. This award recognizes outstanding papers published in the IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks.

Dr. Mavroforakis, Research Assistant Professor at CBL, has been chosen to receive the very prestigious "2010 IEEE Computational Intelligence Society Outstanding PhD Dissertation Award". This award recognizes outstanding Ph.D. dissertations that have contributed to the advancement of the theory and/or applications of computational intelligence.

The title of Dr. Mavroforakis' dissertation is "Geometric Approach to Statistical Learning Theory through Support Vector Machines with Application to Medical Diagnosis".

Pumps and Pipes is a unique collaborative effort between Houston's largest industries to explore potential crossover ideas and extract shared technologies. Houston, one of the US's largest and fastest-growing cities, is closely tied with its two primary industries: medicine and energy. Combined with Houston's higher education community, the city is home to world-class research.

Pumps and Pipes 3 will be held on December 7, 2009 at the University of Houston. The theme for Pumps and Pipes 3 is “Better Together,” and focuses on how inter-disciplinary research between the medicine and energy industries can lead to exciting benefits in both sectors.

Sponsoring members include ExxonMobil, the Methodist DeBakey Heart and Vascular Center and the University of Houston. Program directors are Bill E. Kleine (ExxonMobil), Alan B. Lumsden (Methodist DeBakey Heart and Vascular Center) and Ioannis A. Kakadiaris (University of Houston).

Pumps and Pipes 3 (official page)

You can now follow CBL on twitter to hear about lab news, job openings, research advances and more! Find us at http://twitter.com/uh_cbl.

The following papers by CBL members have been accepted for publications at international conferences this summer and fall:

• D.R. Chittajallu, G. Brunner, U. Kurkure, R. Yalamanchili, and I.A. Kakadiaris, "Fuzzy-cuts: A knowledge-driven graph-based method for medical image segmentation," in Proc. IEEE Computer Society Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, Miami Beach, FL, Jun. 20-25 2009.
• D.R. Chittajallu, P. Balança, and I.A. Kakadiaris, "Automatic delineation of the inner thoracic region in non-contrast CT data," in Proc. 31st International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, Minneapolis, MN, Sep. 2-6 2009.
• I.A. Kakadiaris, U. Kurkure, E.G. Mendizabal-Ruiz, and M. Naghavi, "Towards cardiovascular risk stratification using imaging data," in Proc. 31st International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, Minneapolis, MN, Sep. 2-6 2009.
• E.G. Mendizabal-Ruiz, G. Biros, and I.A. Kakadiaris, "An inverse scattering algorithm for the segmentation of the luminal border on intravascular ultrasound data," in Proc. 12th International Conference on Medical Image Computing and Computer Assisted Intervention, London, UK, Sep. 20-24 2009.
• S. Tan and I.A. Kakadiaris, "Kernel active contour," in Proc. 12th IEEE International Conference on Computer Vision, Kyoto, Japan, Sep. 29 - Oct. 2 2009.

Congratulations to all on the publication of these papers!

A quote by Mr. Dat Chu, Research Assistant at the Computational Biomedicine Lab, about Intel Parallel Amplifier appears in their final product brief.

"Thanks Intel, you guys rock! I decided to give Parallel Amplifier a run. I was delighted when it pointed me to the right source line that was taking much of the time. I made the change, and voilá our app is now almost 10 times faster. The GUI is very easy to use in my opinion." - Dat Chu, Research Assistant, Computational Biomedicine Lab, University of Houston

On Saturday March 28, 2009, members of CBL will be making presentations at Frontier Fiesta about the research and accomplishments of the group. There will be half-hour presentations from 11am - 5pm made by graduate students and research scientists with the group on topics in biometrics and biomedicine, with topics ranging from early heart attack risk detection to facial recognition. Come out and hear about some of the work being done by our group members! Please see the Frontier Fiesta website (http://www.uh.edu/fiesta/) for more information about location, hours, and other Frontier Fiesta activities.

Ms. Eleni Sgouritsa, PhD student at the Computational Biomedicine Lab working on the CAPETA project, won a 2009 Hellenic Professional Society of Texas Scholarship as a recognition for her scholarly achievements.

Pumps and Pipes is a unique collaborative effort between Houston's largest industries to explore potential crossover ideas and extract shared technologies. Houston, one of the US's largest and fastest-growing cities, is closely tied with its two primary industries: medicine and energy. Combined with Houston's higher education community, the city is home to world-class research.

Pumps and Pipes 2 will be held on December 8, 2008 at the University of Houston. The theme for Pumps and Pipes 2 is “The Other Guy’s Toolkit,” and focuses on “tools” which a presenter from one sector, medicine or energy, believes could have an application in the other industry. These tools will range from modifications of existing equipment or practices to visionary out-of-the-box paradigm shifts.

Sponsoring members include ExxonMobil, the Methodist DeBakey Heart and Vascular Center and the University of Houston.

Using the Other Guy’s Toolkit: Similarities of Pumping Blood, Oil Examined (UH Press Release)
Pumps and Pipes 2 (Methodist page)
Pumps and Pipes 2 (official page)

The National Science Foundation has recently awarded $780,000 to a team of researchers including Prof. Kakadiaris (Co-Principal Investigator) from the Computational Biomedicine Lab, Prof. Tao Ju (Principal Investigator) from the Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering at Washington University in St. Luis and Dr. James Carson from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. The award is entitled "Building Geometric Databases for Anatomy-Based Spatial Queries".

The use of biological imaging in science continues to grow, and it has thus become critical to many research efforts to be able to efficiently utilize the enormous resources of spatial information being generated. The aim of this grant is to develop an atlas-based database architecture suited for organizing 3D anatomical images for efficient spatial queries. Utilizing a new form of atlas, the project will develop tools for accurate and efficient alignment of 3D images collected from a large number of subjects with varying anatomical shapes. The resulting database will facilitate convenient, web-based spatial queries of functional, metabolic, mechanical, and structural data within customizable regions of interest among stored images. As a test-bed application, the project will construct two web-based databases of 3D gene expression patterns for the mouse brain and heart from stacks of 2D tissue sections. The gene expression databases resulted from the project will enable querying and clustering of genes based on similarity of 3D expression patterns, which may lead to significant breakthroughs in understanding biological processes.

Applications are invited for a Research Scientist / Research Assistant Professor position at the Computational Biomedicine Lab (http://www.cbl.uh.edu), University of Houston in the area of Face Recognition.

CBL's Face recognition software (URxD) ranked first in the 3D-shape section of the recent Face Recognition Vendor Test (FRVT) organized by NIST (http://www.uh.edu/admin/media/nr/2007/07july/073007urxd.html). The Computational Biomedicine Lab provides a unique interdisciplinary research environment with internationally recognized collaborators. The position entails research in novel biometrics (http://www.cbl.uh.edu/URxD). The candidate will benefit from mentorship of a diverse research team and will be exposed to cutting-edge technology.

Applicants should have a doctoral degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Applied Mathematics or a related field. The successful applicant will have solid research, interpersonal, and communication skills. Prior biometrics experience is required.

The position is open immediately and the salary compensation is very competitive. For consideration, please submit your application preferably in one single PDF-document including cover letter, a full CV, a statement of research interests and career goals and the names and email addresses of three references to ioannisk@uh.edu, with subject line "PDF/RSP: (your name)".

For more information please email Prof. Kakadiaris (ioannisk@uh.edu).

Kiplinger has selected Houston as it's overall #1 Best City to Live, Work, and Play for 2008 and Forbes as Top 5 Up & Coming Tech City, #1 City for Recent College Grads, and #3 City for Young Professionals. Houston offers an outstanding environment for research and professional opportunities for growth and collaboration. UH is an equal employment opportunity employer and smoke-free environment. Women and minority candidates are strongly encouraged to apply.

The Computational Biomedicine Lab (CBL) is a research group whose research is motivated by fundamental open problems in the broad areas of biomedical computing and biometrics, with emphasis on applications that address some of society’s greatest challenges. This summer, CBL is mentoring three high school and two undergraduate students in projects designed to encourage scientific exploration and learning.

Undergraduates participating in this summer research program with CBL are funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) through a Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) site grant (http://www.cbl.uh.edu/~reu/) to the University of Houston Department of Computer Science. The high school students are involved on a volunteer basis.

Each student is mentored by Professor Ioannis Kakadiaris and a research scientist or a graduate student guiding the intern in his or her endeavors. This summer the projects involve creating a virtual environment of surveillance cameras, facial recognition from sketches, and analysis of computed tomography images. The students are learning scientific programming languages and software, such as MATLAB and 3D Studio MAX.

Sam Messina, a senior at Cinco Ranch High School working on 3D animation of camera control, was surprised and happy with how fast he could learn the software and create a complex animation. Zach L'Anglois, a junior at the Academy of Science and Health Professions at Conroe High School working on a similar project, looks forward to extending his work this summer to a school science project.

For Sachin Subramanian, a senior at Bellaire High School, interaction with a mentor while working on a project is a good fit with his self-directed learning style. He wants to study aerospace engineering and knows that learning MATLAB this summer will help him in college. Hossam Abdelmunim, CBL research scientist who co-mentored Sachin, is impressed by Sachin’s motivation and independent learning.

Scott Wood, a computer science student at Harding University, is working on a project involving facial recognition in sketches. Being exposed to research in biometrics has been a valuable experience and will help him decide if he will pursue graduate school after he finishes his degree. Michael Fang, graduate student at CBL and a first-time co-mentor, says he admires Scott’s willingness to learn and how much he has accomplished.

For Bárbara E. Morales-Quiñones, a computer engineering student at the University of Puerto Rico, this research internship has been a great experience. She’s working on detecting lower boundaries of the heart with dynamic programming using CT data and is enthusiastic about this immersion in biomedical image analysis. She likes photography and images and “integrating something I enjoy with something I know how to do, like programming.” Barbara is looking forward to continuing in academia after she graduates. Deepak Chittajallu, graduate student at CBL, is Barbara’s co-mentor. “I wish I had had something like it when I was an undergrad, ” he says.

Professor Kakadiaris, who is overseeing CBL’s summer research program, is excited with the progress of all the students. “It’s about their own exploration,” he says. “We provide the students with a scientific playground where they can learn about the research process and develop skills in the areas that interest them.”

This is the fourth year that CBL has had mentored summer research students, and Professor Kakadiaris anticipates many more successful summers. “Experiences like this change people’s lives,” he says. “We need more young people studying science and engineering, and this program is a great way to get them excited about research in these areas.”

Prof. Theoharis (and co-authors) have just published an outstanding textbook titled 'Graphics & Visualization: Principles & Algorithms'. This 750 page book is a comprehensive introduction to visual computing, dealing with the modeling and synthesis of visual data by means of computers. What sets this book apart from other computer graphics texts is the integrated coverage of computer graphics and visualization topics, including important techniques such as subdivision and multi-resolution modeling, scene graphs, shadow generation, ambient occlusion, and scalar and vector data visualization. Students and practitioners will benefit from the comprehensive coverage of the principles that are the basic tools of their trade, from fundamental computer graphics and classic visualization techniques to advanced topics. The publisher is AK Peters, Wellesley, MA.

Prof. Kakadiaris, Eckhard Pfeiffer Professor, and Prof. Shah, Assistant Professor, in collaboration with Prof. Jejelowo (Texas Southern University) received an ARP award of $149,944 for two years for their proposal "Video-Based Surveillance in Distributed Environments". In addition, Prof. Kakadiaris in collaboration with Prof. Loveland (UT Health Science Center at Houston) received an ARP award of $149,751 for two years for their proposal "Facial Expression Analysis Using 6D Data: Application to Autism". The Texas ARP 2007 program funded 121 proposals out of a total of 1952 proposal submissions. The funding rate was about 6%. Nine awards were made in the computer science area and similarly nine awards were made in the Engineering area. More...

Ms.Barbara Morales-Quinones (University of Puerto Rico,Mayaguez Campus) and Mr.Scott Wood (Harding University, Searcy,Arkansas), participants of the UHCS REU 2008 program, have joined the Computational Biomedicine Lab for the summer to perform research in the areas of biomedical image analysis and biometrics, respectively.

This section features topics ranging from local community outreach to regional economic impact and on to research discoveries that change the world. Please visit UH Marking Our Mark page for more information.

We are proud to announce that Uday Kurkure, a CBL lab member, has successfully defended his doctoral dissertation. Two other lab members, Dat Chu and Olga Avila-Montes, have also completed their Bachelor degrees.

CBL's Face recognition work was featured in the 2008 UH President's Annual Report. For more information on "Facial Recognition Software Excels in Government Testing" please check the annual report.

Dr. Kakadiaris to deliver a lecture co-sponsored by the Rice Institute of Bioscience and Bioengineering and the Ken Kennedy Institute for Information Technology on March 18, 2008.

Dr. Kakadiaris gave an invited talk at the Houston Society for Engineering in Medicine and Biology (HSEMB) Conference held on Feb 07, 2008. The oral session involved the talk on "In-vivo Imaging of Coronary Neovascularization" - Medical Imaging & Image Analysis I. Click here for more on HSEMB 08 - Preliminary Program in Medical Imaging and Image Analysis.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded a REU Site grant to the Computer Science Department of the University of Houston recently. The REU program supports active research participation by undergraduate students during the summer for the next three years. In addition to the $310,001 provided by the NSF, the University also committed $126,000 to the project bringing the budget total to $436,001. This is the second REU awarded to the group of computer science professors consisting of Drs. Huang, Leiss, Kakadiaris, Pavlidis, and Verma.

Drs.Brunner and Santamaria present the research of the Computational Biomedicine Lab to the participants of the RICE University, Institute of Biosciences and Bioengineering on January 16, 2008.

We are proud to announce that CBL lab members, George Toderici and Alberto Santamaria-Pang have successfully defended their doctoral dissertations.

A unique collaborative effort between Houston's largest Industries to explore potential crossover ideas and extract shared technologies has taken place on November 12, 2007 at the Pumps and Pipes 1 Conference. Much like moving oil through a pipeline, the heart must pump blood through the body. Our intention was to stimulate discussion, spark ideas and share new technologies between these industries that face similar challenges, even if on a very different scale. The sponsoring members were ExxonMobil, the Methodist DeBakey Heart Center of The Methodist Hospital, and the University of Houston.

For more information, please see our press release

Immediate openings are available in the Computational Biomedicine Lab (CBL). The positions are Post Doctoral Fellow / Research Scientist.

Applications are invited for the above positions in the following areas

Registration Ultrasound (2 open positions)

The positions entail research in multimodal registration and ultrasound image analysis in collaboration with researchers from the Methodist Research Institute at the Methodist Hospital. The candidate will benefit from mentorship of a diverse research team and will be exposed to cutting-edge technology.

Applicants should have a doctoral degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Applied Mathematics or a related field. The successful applicants will have solid research, interpersonal, and communication skills. Prior biomedical image analysis training is welcome but not required.

The position is open immediately and the salary compensation is very competitive. For consideration, please submit your application preferably in one single PDF-document including cover letter, a full CV, a statement of research interests and career goals and the names and email addresses of three references to ioannisk@uh.edu, with subject line "PDF/RSP: (your name)".

More information

For more information please email Prof. Kakadiaris (ioannisk@uh.edu).

The Computational Biomedicine Lab (CBL) is a cutting-edge research facility with many ongoing projects in the fields of Biomedical Image Analysis, Computational Biomedicine and Multi-spectral Biometrics. CBL provides a unique interdisciplinary research environment with internationally recognized collaborators from Medicine, Biology, Mathematics, and Engineering.

Houston offers an outstanding environment for research and professional opportunities for growth and collaboration, including the largest medical center in the country. UH is an equal employment opportunity employer and smoke-free environment. Women and minority candidates are strongly encouraged to apply.

Immediate openings are available in the Computational Biomedicine Lab (CBL). The positions are Post Doctoral Fellow / Research Scientist.

Applications are invited for the above positions in the following areas

Biometrics (1 open position)

The position entails research in novel biometrics. The candidate will benefit from mentorship of a diverse research team and will be exposed to cutting-edge technology.

Applicants should have a doctoral degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Applied Mathematics or a related field. The successful applicant will have solid research, interpersonal, and communication skills. Prior biometrics experience is required.

The position is open immediately and the salary compensation is very competitive. For consideration, please submit your application preferably in one single PDF-document including cover letter, a full CV, a statement of research interests and career goals and the names and email addresses of three references to ioannisk@uh.edu, with subject line "PDF/RSP: (your name)".

More information

For more information please email Prof. Kakadiaris (ioannisk@uh.edu).

The Computational Biomedicine Lab (CBL) is a cutting-edge research facility with many ongoing projects in the fields of Biomedical Image Analysis, Computational Biomedicine and Multi-spectral Biometrics. CBL provides a unique interdisciplinary research environment with internationally recognized collaborators from Medicine, Biology, Mathematics, and Engineering.

Houston offers an outstanding environment for research and professional opportunities for growth and collaboration, including the largest medical center in the country. UH is an equal employment opportunity employer and smoke-free environment. Women and minority candidates are strongly encouraged to apply.

The Methodist Hospital, the University of Houston, and Weill Cornell Medical College of Cornell University are combining their expertise in biomedical imaging to advance discoveries in this growing field of biomedical science and its clinical applications. The three institutions have jointly founded the Institute for Biomedical Imaging Science (IBIS). The UH representatives to the Steering Committee are: Prof. Jack Fletcher, Prof. H. Julia Hannay, Prof. Ioannis Kakadiaris and Prof. Ogmen. Prof. Kakadiaris, Eckhard Pfeiffer Professor of Computer Science and Director of the Computational Biomedicine Lab, will serve as the Chair of Steering Committee this year and as the Director next year.

Web links
Press Release
Daily Cougar

This coming Spring semester of 2007, a new course COSC 7397 on Advanced Biomedical Image Computing will be taught by Prof. Shah and Prof. Kakadiaris. More information on this course along with topics covered and requisites can be found on COSC7397-13915 course page.

Immediate openings are available in the Computational Biomedicine Lab (CBL). The positions are Post Doctoral Fellow / Research Scientist and PhD Research Assistant.

Applications are invited for the above positions in the area of Biomedical Image Analysis

Postdoctoral Fellow / Research Scientist

The position entails research in Cardiovascular Image Analysis in collaboration with Methodist Hospital. The candidate will benefit from mentorship of a diverse research team and will be exposed to cutting-edge technology.

Applicants should have a doctoral degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Applied Mathematics or a related field. The successful applicant will have solid research, interpersonal, and communication skills. Prior biomedical image analysis training is welcome but not required.

PhD Research Assistant

The position entails research in Cardiovascular Image Analysis in collaboration with Methodist Hospital. The candidate will benefit from mentorship of a diverse research team and will be exposed to cutting-edge technology.

Applicants should have a B.Sc. in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Applied Mathematics or a related field. The successful applicant will have solid research, interpersonal, and communication skills. Prior biomedical image analysis training is welcome but not required.

More information

For more information please email Prof. Kakadiaris (ioannisk@uh.edu).

The Computational Biomedicine Lab (CBL) is a cutting-edge research facility with many ongoing projects in the fields of Biomedical Image Analysis, Computational Biomedicine and Multi-spectral Biometrics. CBL provides a unique interdisciplinary research environment with internationally recognized collaborators from Medicine, Biology, Mathematics, and Engineering.

Houston offers an outstanding environment for research and professional opportunities for growth and collaboration, including the largest medical center in the country. UH is an equal employment opportunity employer and smoke-free environment. Women and minority candidates are strongly encouraged to apply.

The 3D Face recognition team attended Sigma XI research day and recieved a graduate student poster award. The team also attended the Computer Science Open House event and won the Grand Prize for best poster! Congratulations to Dr. Ioannis Kakadiaris, George Toderici, and Najam Murtuza.

The event was held in the PGH building of University of Houston.

The Computational Biomedicine Lab is proud to announce that in the 2006 UH Sigma Xi competition, Sean O’Malley and George Toderici have each won a poster award in the category of Graduate Computer/Computational Sciences and Math. Their poster titles were “Intravascular Ultrasound-Based Imaging of Vasa Vasorum for the Detection of Vulnerable Atherosclerotic Plaque” and “Expression-Invariant Multispectral Face Recognition: You Can Smile Now!”, respectively.

We have an opening for a research assistant position working in the Computational Biomedicine Laboratory in the Computer Science Department. The position entails tackling an important and exciting medical image analysis problem in a collaborative effort with institutions at the Texas Medical Center. Experience in signal or image analysis and object-oriented programming is desirable but not necessary. The Computational Biomedicine Laboratory is a cutting-edge research facility at the University Houston with many ongoing projects in the fields of Biomedical Image Analysis, Computational Biomedicine and Multispectral Biometrics. We have continued collaborations with Baylor College of Medicine, Methodist Hospital, and the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. You can learn about our research and the many people involved in our projects at the following website: http://www.cbl.uh.edu.

Prof. Ioannis Kakadiaris and graduate student Sean O’Malley (Computational Biomedicine Laboratory) are collaborating with leading cardiologists, scientists and engineers from the Association for Eradication of Heart Attack, the University of Athens Medical School, the Cardiovascular Research Foundation, Aarhus University, and the University of Houston to enable physicians, for the first time, to detect microvessels growing in atherosclerotic plaques. These microvessels may indicate whether a plaque is inflamed; plaque inflammation is suspected to be a key factor deciding whether the plaque is vulnerable to future rupture (leading to heart attack or stroke). Early detection of these vulnerable plaques is essential in order to reduce the number of fatalities occurring every year due to heart disease. A press release about their technology is available here.

PDF available by clicking on the thumbnail below.

Press release here.

’Tis the season to be jolly... Experts from the University of Houston can help keep your holidays happy by offering insight on selecting the right wine, maintaining a healthy lifestyle and protecting yourself from identity theft. As you consider these and other holiday story ideas, please keep in mind these tips from UH. For more information or to arrange interviews, give us a call at 713-743-8153. Continue Reading...

The 3-D "Face on Your Fridge" data capture project was a success. Over the course of two days, the ears and faces of over 500 University of Houston students, staff, and faculty were captured for the purposes of face and ear recognition research. Photos of the event are available here. Images from last year's project are also available.

• S.M. O'Malley. A Simple, Effective System for Automated Capture of High Dynamic Range Images. Proc. of the IEEE International Conference on Computer Vision Systems (ICVS), New York, NY, January 2006.

Dr. Kakadiaris presents the CBL'S work on "Signal Processing Approaches to Cardiovascular Risk Screening" at the John P. McGovern Lectures in Biomedical Computing and Imaging

A quarterly newsletter of the College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics.

We have an immediate opening for a research assistant position working in the Visual Computing Laboratory in the Computer Science Department. The position entails tackling an important and exciting medical image analysis problem in a collaborative effort with institutions at the Texas Medical Center. Experience in signal or image analysis and object-oriented programming is desirable but not necessary. The Visual Computing Laboratory is a cutting edge research facility here at the University Houston with many ongoing projects in the fields of Biomedical Image Analysis and Computer Vision. We have continued collaborations with NASA, Rice University, Baylor College of Medicine, Texas Heart Institute, and the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. You can learn about our research and the many people involved in our projects at the following website: http://www.vcl.uh.edu/~ioannisk/ For more information, please contact Professor Kakadiaris at ioannisk@uh.edu (713) 743-1255