CALL FOR APPLICATIONS

PhD/Postdoctoral/Sabbatical researcher position

Learning salient
elements from videos using structural and temporal
information

(FAPESP fellowship)

Isabelle Bloch, Télécom ParisTech, CNRS LTCI, Paris, France

Roberto M. Cesar-Jr., University of São Paulo - USP, São Paulo, Brazil

(Published on April/2014)


Description

    Recently, the field of action and activity recognition in sport videos has been receiving a lot of attention. However, in order to be able to classify the actions in the scene, it is necessary to first identify or detect the actors or objects involved. Many authors either annotate manually the position of each of them, or assume they are already given. In either case, these approaches greatly restrict the amount of videos that can be used. Therefore, methods for automatic object or player detection are necessary. Several works address the detection of each object as an individual task, i.e. do not consider the possible relationships between objects (i.e. a structural approach). This project proposes a novel framework to learn important elements from sport video sequences. The basic idea behind the proposal is that some key elements are salient in sport video and we would like to devise strategies for automatically learning them. For instance, in table tennis, despite the large possible variations in terms of camera pose, background, colors, etc., some key elements are consistently present in such videos: the table, two players moving around it, the rackets, the ball.

    We are looking for PhD/post-doctoral/Sabbatical candidates to apply for a FAPESP fellowship (see the conditions below) to develop research based on these ideas. The project will be developed under the co-supervision (PhD, Postdoc) / collaboration (Sabbatical) of professors Isabelle Bloch and Roberto M. Cesar Jr. The research will be carried out at USP, São Paulo Brazil, but visiting periods to the Télécom ParisTech lab are expected.

    The successful candidate will actively participate in R&D and also in team activities such as organization of seminars, short courses, study group meetings and co-supervision of undergraduate and graduate students. All these activities are related to the Research Support Centers NAP e-Science of the University of São Paulo.

Required qualifications / skills
  • Undergraduate/Graduate degree with strong background in computation (Computer Science, Engineering, Physics, Math or proven ability to design and implement computer algorithms/systems)
  • Research experience in one or more of the following areas: signal/image processing, image analysis, pattern recognition/analysis, machine learning, multivariate data analysis
  • Oral and written communication skills (English)
    Additional desired qualifications/skills
    • Knowledge of statistical data analysis
    • Proven ability to design data analysis experiments and evaluate their results
    • Programming skills
Application procedure and schedule
    Application deadline: We accept applications on a rolling basis.
    Required documents:
    • CV
    • Summary of the MSc/doctoral thesis and other relevant works
    • Names, positions and emails of two people that may provide you with references

    Fellowship conditions: The selected candidate will apply for a fellowship from FAPESP (São Paulo Research Foundation) with the one of the following conditions: PhD (3-4 years, fellowship US$ 16K/year plus US$ 4.9K/year for  for travel expenses such as attending to conferences); Postdoc (2-4 years, fellowship US$ 30K/year plus US$ 4.5K/year for travel expenses such as attending to conferences); Sabbatical (1 year, fellowship US$ 50K-70K/year ). All fellowships may cover expenses for moving to São Paulo/Brasil (including flight tickets). PhD and Postdoc fellowships may apply for an extra period (4 months to 1 year) to do part of the research in any top research university abroad (FAPESP BEPE fellowship). Medical care at the University of São Paulo hospital is also available. The Sabbatical fellowship includes health insurance for non-brazilians.

    Please email applications and inquiries to Prof. Roberto M. Cesar Jr.:

      cesar@ime.usp.br
      Subject: NAP/USP Postdoc application


Télécom ParisTech, Paris, France

IME/USP - Institute of Mathematics and Statistics, USP, São Paulo, Brazil