Alejandro (ALEX) Jaimes, Ph.D.

"Una ragazza e sempre un mistero: non c'e che fidarsi al suo viso e all'ispirazione del proprio cuore."

- E.De Amicis

"The man of science who concerns himself solely with science, who cannot enjoy and be enriched by art, is a mishappen man."

- Lucretius (De Rerum Natura)

NEW!

I am moving to Telefonica R&D in Madrid, Spain, where we are forming a new research group on focusing on human-centered approaches to data analysis for customer modeling, personalization, and recommender systems. There are several openings at all levels (more info..).

RECENT TUTORIALS & TALKS

· Keynote presentation on “Augmented Multiparty Interaction: from meeting recording to enhancing collaboration” at OrigAmi Symposium on Smart Surroundings, U. Twente, November, 2007.

· Keynote presentation on “Human-Centered Interaction: Perspectives on a New Paradigm and Computer Vision's Role” at ICCV 2007 International Workshop on HCI, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Oct. 14-20, 2007.

· Tutorial on “Human-Centered Multimedia Systems” at ACM Multimedia 2007, Augsburg, Germany, Sept. 24-29, 2007.

· Tutorial on “Human-Centered Computer Vision Systems” at ICCV 2007, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Oct. 14-20, 2007.

· Talk on “Human-Centered Image Retrieval” at U. Fribourg Summer school on Multimedia, U. Fribourg, November, 2007.

WORKSHOPS & CONFERENCES

· Urban Sensoria exhibition and workshop in Barcelona (part of the Barcelona International Contemporary Art Festiva

· Urban Sensoria exhibition and workshop in Barcelona (part of the Barcelona International Contemporary Art Festival

· 1st INTERNATIONAL WORKSHOP ON COMPUTER VISION FOR DEVELOPING REGIONS in conjunction with ICCV 2007

· ACM MULTIMEDIA 2007 INTERACTIVE ARTS PROGRAM

· 2nd INTERNATIONAL WORKSHOP ON HUMAN-CENTERED MULTIMEDIA in conjunction with ACM MULTIMEDIA 2007

· URBAN TYPHOON [art+participatory urban planning], Tokyo, June 26-29, 2006

EDITORIAL

· IEEE Computer Magazine, new column on Human-Centered Computing (coming soon)

· IEEE Transactions on Multimedia, special issue on Integration of Context and Content for Multimedia Management (2008)

· IEEE Computer Magazine, special issue on Human-Centered Computing (May, 2007)

· Leonardo Journal and Leonardo Electronic Almanac, special issues on selected works from the ACM Multimedia Interactive Art Program (2004-2006) (forthcoming, 2007)

Jump to: [Research Activities] [Publications] [Art website] [Background] [Professional Activities] [Invited Talks] [Past Research Experience]

[CV (Research ONLY updated 7/07)] [CV (Art + Research, updated 2/06)] [ColOmbia] [Future Plans] [Special Interests] [Contact]

Contact: ajaimes AT# tid.es [replace AT# with @]

The picture you see above is of my great great grandfather (astonishing resemblance, see my picture below) back in 1860. I discovered this photograph in 1994 in a box in the attic of my father's house. I used some image processing techniques to repair it.

Bogota-New York-Tokyo-Lausanne-Madrid!

My background

I was born with two hearts (metaphorically!), which sometimes combine their beating into a single coordinated motion. With my first salary I bought a camera (I was 14 so I had to save for a few months). Then I bought my first computer (a Commodore 64). My first photo was not memorable- I cannot remember what it was.

My first computer program

When I bought the computer, I immediately bought a magazine that contained game listings. I did not read the instructions, just plugged it in and spent 4 hours typing in pages of numbers from the magazine. That was my first program. I typed "run" and got a "syntax error.” Then I realized I was supposed to type in a program to interpret the numbers first.

Art and Photography

Buying a camera was a minor event, considering that I spent most of my high school years drawing. In college I then turned to writing, continued drawing, and “seriously” took up photography. My interest in art includes many mediums [Art] and influences my research, which focuses on computer vision, multimedia processing, and interaction (Interactive Media). The two hearts beat in a single coordinated motion…

Park Ranger in The Jungle (not New York)

In 1993 I volunteered as a Park Ranger in the Katios National Park (World Heritage Site) for about two months. Located in an area known as the Darien Gap (very dense tropical rain forest) in Colombia near the Panama border, it is said to be the most eco-diverse system in the world; this park is home to the only bear species and about 40% of all the bird species in South America. In spite of the disastrous environmental consequences it would have, there are plans to build the Pan-American highway through the region. Access to the park is only by boat on the Atrato River (highest water volume in the world) and the closest town to the park is 2 hours away. The park has been closed for several years due to Colombia's internal conflict. I made a photo essay about that experience [Art]. I have been traveling extensively since 1992, and have visited over 40 countries.

International Development

From 1990 to 1995 I participated in activities of the Rotaract Bogota-Suba club in Bogota, Colombia. I formed part of a team that represented Colombia and visited Virginia through Rotary's Group Study Exchange program. In New York, as a student I was involved with Metro International’s programs; I attended a couple of conferences on “US Policy in Latin America” and “US Policy Towards Emerging Markets” as an international student delegate. I also organized a conference on Technology and Emerging Markets (NYC 1997). In 2003 I co-founded the Workshop on Technology for Education in Developing Countries. I was one of the grand jury experts for the World Summit Award, an initiative that seeks to narrow the content gap. In this context, I participated in the World Summit on the Information Society in Tunis (November 2005). My research activities and co-founding of the IEEE Task Force on Human-Centered Computing aim to contribute to a positive impact on society through computing.

Miscellaneous

At Columbia I was chair of GSAC, Columbia's sole university-wide student government. In Colombia I worked as a part time English teacher for a few years, and now I am a French student (after Japanese it seems easier, but I am still not a very good student!).

I very much like beer but had no idea there was a pub in Arizona bearing my last name! I should definitely one day visit Jaimes (this link vanished, but here's a much more interesting Jaimes- (also vanished!).

Read more in the [Special Interests] section..

(Foot + Rat!)

Research Activities

I hold a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Columbia University.

My research focuses on creating new technical approaches for computer-understanding of multimedia content and for human interaction with computers in creative environments (Interactive Media). For most of my work I develop Computer Vision techniques that use Machine Learning, that involve humans directly, and that are rooted in principles, theories, or techniques from cognitive psychology, the arts, and information sciences, among others (Human-Centered Computing).

Some of my current and past research projects address the following problems:

Integration of interactive computer vision and multimedia signal processing techniques in novel human-centered applications for creativity (media production and management; intersection between arts and science; enhancing collaboration, communication, and engagement, etc.).
Making computers more "pro-active" so they can help us improve our work and live-in environments and habits [Posture detection].
Automatic indexing of images and video: systems that learn visual concepts from user input for automatic detection and recognition (train the computer to automatically detect scenes, objects, or events of interest). [Visual Apprentice].
Human issues related to image/video content: how do people perceive, classify, and search for images/videos? [Eye tracking, Multi-level Pyramid, art, psychology, and library sciences].
Context and memory: how can we take advantage of human memory in developing multimedia retrieval systems? [Memory-cue Retrieval]
Personal media management, creation, multimedia interaction and visualization: how can we help people organize their photographs, browse their collections, and use their multimedia content in creative ways? [Story TELLing and Albuming Application -STELLA]
Art and technology: how can this intersection make technology more accessible, impact its development, and create new modes of expression, particularly that reflect important personal, social, and cultural issues [independent of technology ...or not?]? [ACM Multimedia Interactive Art Program]
Art: interrelationship between location and culture, and between co-located and disparate cultural elements. [I work on multiple media, including performance, photography, film, video and interactive works that integrate them]

Computing acts as the gateway to most of the resources essential for human livelihood (communications, transportation, food, health, etc.) and I believe that we need to radically change the way we think about technology, and in particular the way that we develop algorithms and systems. That radical change should consider human abilities and limitations (e.g., memory, attention, cognitive load, etc.), and social and cultural factors, not only at the interface, but in the design of algorithms and systems from start to finish (think of culture as a set of algorithms!).

At Columbia, my Ph.D. advisor was Prof. Shih-Fu Chang in the Digital Video Multimedia Group. Columbia-related publications appear below and in the database of the DVMM page. Non-Columbia papers (with IBM, Fuji Xerox, and others) do not appear in the DVMM database but are listed below. Please e-mail me if you need one of my publications and it is not listed.

Copyright: the publications below are posted for personal use, not for redistribution. This material is presented to ensure timely dissemination of scholarly and technical work. Copyright and all rights therein are retained by authors or by other copyright holders. All persons copying this information are expected to adhere to the terms and constraints invoked by each author's copyright. These works may not be reposted without the explicit permission of the copyright holder.

Publications

2008

· “Facial Expression Recognition as A Creative Interface”, R. Valenti, A. Jaimes, N. Sebe, International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces (IUI 2008), Canary Islands, Spain, January 2008.

2007

"Recording, Indexing, Summarizing, and Accessing Meeting Videos: An Overview of the AMI Project," invited paper, 14th Intl. Conference on Image Analysis and Processing (ICIAP 2007) & Workshop on Visual and Multimedia Digital Libraries (VMDL 2007), Modena, Italy, Sept. 10-14, 2007. (A. Jaimes, H. Bourlard, S. Renals, and J. Carletta) [PDF].

"Human-Centered Computing: Toward a Human Revolution," IEEE Computer Magazine, guest editors' introduction, special issue on Human-Computer Computing. (A. Jaimes, D. Gatica-Perez, N. Sebe, and T.S. Huang) [PDF].

"Multimodal Human Computer Interaction: A Survey," to appear Computer Vision and Image Understanding journal, special issue on Human-Computer Interaction. (A. Jaimes and N. Sebe) [PDF].

2006

“Human-Centered Computing: A Multimedia Perspective,” ACM Multimedia 2006, Oct. 22-29, Augsburg, Barbara, CA, 2006. [PDF]
“Posture and Activity Silhouettes for Self-Reporting, Interruption Management, and Attentive Interfaces,” 2006 International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces (IUI ’06), Sydney, Australia, Jan. 28-Feb. 1, 2006. (A. Jaimes)[abstract] [PDF].
“Human Factors in Automatic Image Retrieval System Design and Evaluation”, invited paper, IS&T/SPIE Internet Imaging 2006. San Jose, CA, January 2006. (A. Jaimes)[abstract] [PDF].
"Moments of the Maiden: Time, Space, and Intercultural Communication in Tokyo,” After Midnight column, Leonardo Journal, Vol. 39, No. 2 (Spring 2006). (A. Jaimes)[abstract] [PDF] <due to copyright restrictions, this article cannot be posted on-line yet. Send me e-mail if you wish to obtain a copy>.

"Presence/Absence: The 2005 ACM Multimedia Interactive Art Exhibition” IEEE Multimedia Magazine (Spring 2006) (A. Jaimes)[abstract] [PDF].

“Human-Centered Multimedia: Culture, Deployment, and Access”, IEEE Multimedia Magazine (Spring 2006) (A. Jaimes)[abstract] [PDF].

2005

Interview on the state of e-content in Japan, in e-Content: Voices from the Ground (the Sequel) (Peter A. Bruck and Osama Manzar, editors), book published by Digital Empowerment Foundation and the World Summit Award Office, 2005. (A. Jaimes). [PDF]
“Multimedia Information Retrieval: What it is, and why isn't anyone using it?” in ACM Multimedia Information Retrieval in conjunction with ACM Multimedia 2005 (MIR 2005), Singapore, Nov. 11, 2005. (A. Jaimes, M. Christel, S. Gilles, R. Sarukkai, and W.-Y. Ma) [PDF]
“Sit Straight (and tell me what I did today): A Human Posture Alarm and Activity Summarization System,” 2^nd ACM Workshop on Capture, Archival, and Retrieval of Personal Experiences in conjunction with ACM Multimedia 2005 (CARPE 2005), Singapore, Nov. 11, 2005. (A. Jaimes and J. Liu)[abstract] [PDF].
“A Component-Based Multimedia Data Model,” ACM Workshop on Multimedia for Human Communication - From Capture to Convey, in conjunction with ACM Multimedia 2005 (MHC 2005), Singapore, Nov. 12, 2005. (A. Jaimes) [abstract] [PDF].

"ACM Multimedia Interactive Art Program: An Introduction to the Absence/Presence Exhibition” ACM Multimedia 2005, Singapore, November 2005. (A. Jaimes, A. Senior, W. Muench) [PDF]

“A Knowledge-Based Model For Meeting Video Analysis,” 2nd Joint Workshop on Multimodal Interaction and Related Machine Learning Algorithms (MLMI 2005), Edinburgh, Scotland, July 11-13, 2005. (A. Jaimes) [abstract] [PDF] <see MHC article>
“On Human-Centered Multimedia”, Special Interest Group in Multimedia (SIGMM) website (http://www.sigmm.org/), May 2005. [go to article] <see IEEE Multimedia magazine article, which is an updated version>
"Configurable Hotspots for Ubiquitous Interaction," 7^th International Conference on Ubiquitous Computing (ACM Ubicomp 2005), Tokyo, Japan, Sept. 11- 14, 2005. (A. Jaimes and J. Liu)[abstract] [PDF]
"Hotspot Components for Gesture-Based Interaction,” Interact 2005, Rome, Italy, Sept. 12-14, 2004. (A. Jaimes and J. Liu)[abstract] [PDF].
"Multimodal Human Computer Interaction: A Survey," invited paper, IEEE International Workshop on Human-Computer Interaction (HCI 2005) in conjunction with IEEE International Conference on Computer Vision (ICCV 2005), Beijing, China, Oct. 15-21, 2005. (A. Jaimes and N. Sebe)[abstract] [PDF]

"Affective Meeting Video Analysis," in IEEE ICME 2005, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, July 2005 (A. Jaimes, J. Liu, and N. Sebe) [abstract] [PDF]

"Building a Smart Meeting Room: From Infrastructure to the Video Gap (Research and Open Issues)," 1st IEEE International Workshop on Managing Data for Emerging Multimedia Applications (EMMA) in conjunction with 21th IEEE Conference on Data Engineering (ICDE) 2005. (A. Jaimes, and J. Miyazaki) [abstract] [PDF]

2004

"On the Image Content of a Web Segment- Chile as a Case Study" invited paper, International Journal of Web Engineering, 2004. (A. Jaimes, J. Ruiz-del-Solar, R. Verschae, R. Baeza-Yates, C. Castillo, E. Davis) [abstract] [PDF]

"Digital Boundaries: The ACM Multimedia Interactive Art Program Exhibition," in IEEE Multimedia Magazine, Vol. 11, No. 4, Oct.-Dec., 2004 (A. Jaimes, P. Jennings, H. Ortega, M. Tribe, and C. Yang). [PDF]

"ACM Multimedia Interactive Art Program: An Introduction to the Digital Boundaries Exhibition” ACM Multimedia 2004, New York, NY, USA, October 2004. (A. Jaimes, P. Jennings) [PDF]

"Memory Cues for Meeting Video Retrieval” 1^st ACM Workshop on Continuous Archival and Retrieval of Personal Experiences in conjunction with ACM Multimedia 2004, New York, NY, USA, October 2004. (A. Jaimes, K. Omura, T. Nagamine, and K. Hirata) [ abstract] [ PDF]

· "A Visuospatial Memory Cue System for Meeting Video Retrieval” ACM Multimedia 2004, New York, NY, USA, October 2004. (T. Nagamine, A. Jaimes, K. Omura, K. Hirata) [abstract] [ PDF]

· "Visual Trigger Templates for Knowledge-Based Indexing " Fifth Pacific Rim Conference on Multimedia (PCM 2004), Tokyo, Japan, December 2004. (A. Jaimes, Q. Wang, N. Kato, H. Ikeda, and J. Miyazaki). [abstract][ PDF]

· "Interactive Visualization of Multi-Stream Meeting Videos Based on Automatic Visual Content Analysis" IEEE International Workshop on Multimedia Signal Processing (MMSP '04), Siena, Italy, Sept. 2004. (A. Jaimes, N. Yoshida, K. Murai, K. Hirata, and J. Miyazaki). [abstract][PDF]

2003

"On the Image Content of the Web in Chile" 1st Latin American Web Conference, LA-Web. Santiago de Chile, November 12-12, 2003. (A. Jaimes, J. Ruiz-del-Solar, R. Verschae, D. Yaksic, Ricardo Baeza-Yates, E. Davis, C. Castillo)[abstract][PDF]

"Detection of Non-Identical Duplicate Consumer Photographs," invited paper, 4th IEEE Pacific Rim Conference on Multimedia, special session on Home Media Albums, Singapore, Dec. 15-18, 2003. (A. Jaimes, S.-F. Chang, and A.C. Loui) [abstract][PDF]

"Modal Keywords, Ontologies, and Reasoning For Video Understanding," International Conference on Image and Video Retrieval (CIVR 2003), Urbana, IL, July 24-25, 2003. (A. Jaimes, B. Tseng, and J.R. Smith). [abstract][PDF]

"Technology for Education in Developing Countries- A Forward," proc. of ITRE International Conference on Research and Education; 1st International Workshop on Technology for Education in Developing Countrries, Newark, NJ, August 12, 2003. (A. Jaimes, Kinshuk, D. Sow) [abstract][Postcript][PDF]

"Semi-Automatic, Data-Driven Construction of Multimedia Ontologies," ICME 2003, Baltimore, USA, 2003. (A. Jaimes and J.R. Smith) [abstract][PDF]

"Conceptual Structures and Computational Methods for Indexing and Organization of Visual Information," Ph.D. Thesis , Department of Electrical Engineering, Columbia University, February 2003. (Alejandro Jaimes) [abstract] [PDF - 6.4 MB!!!]

"Interactive Search Fusion Methods for Video Database Retrieval," ICIP 2003, Barcelona, Spain, 2003. (J.R. Smith, A. Jaimes, C.-Y. Lin, M. Naphade, A. Natsev and B. Tseng) [abstract] [PDF]

"IBM Research TREC-2002 Video Retrieval System," TREC Video Retrieval Track, Washington D.C., 2003. (B. Adams, A. Amir, C. Dorai, S. Ghosal, G. Iyengar, A. Jaimes, C.L. Lang, C.-Y. Lin, A. Natsev, M. Naphade, C. Neti, H.J. Nock, H.H. Permuter, R. Singh, J.R. Smith, S. Srinivasan, B.L. Tseng, T.V. Ashwin, D. Zhang) [abstract] [PDF]

"Context Enhanced Video Understanding," SPIE Storage and Media Databases 2003, Santa Clara, California, January 2003. (Alejandro Jaimes, Milind Naphade, Belle Tseng, and John R. Smith) [abstract][Postcript][PDF]

2002

"Duplicate Detection in Consumer Photography and News Video," ACM Multimedia 2002, Juan Les Pines, France, December 2002. (A. Jaimes, Shih-Fu Chang, and Alex C. Loui) [abstract][Postcript][PDF]

"Learning Personalized Video Highlights from Detailed MPEG-7 Event Metadata," IEEE International Conference on Image Processing (ICIP 2002), Rochester, NY, September 2002. (Alejandro Jaimes, Tomio Echigo, Masayoshi Teraguchi, and Fumiko Satoh) [abstract][Postcript][PDF]

"Concepts and Techniques for Indexing Visual Semantics", book chapter in "Image Databases, Search and Retrieval of Digital Imagery", edited by V. Castelli and L. Bergman. Wiley & Sons, New York, 2002. (Alejandro Jaimes and Shih-Fu Chang) [abstract][Wiley][e-mail us for more information][purchase it at Amazon.com]

2001

"Learning Structured Visual Detectors From User Input at Multiple Levels", invited paper, International Journal of Image and Graphics (IJIG), special issue on Image and Video Databases, August 2001 [Abstract] [PDF] (Alejandro Jaimes and Shih-Fu Chang)

"Improving Quality of Digital Images of Art in Museum Collections", IS&T Image Processing, Image Quality, Image Capture Systems Conference (PICS '01), Montreal, Canada, April 2001. [abstract] [PDF] (Alejandro Jaimes and Fred Mintzer)

"A Conceptual Framework and Research for Classifying Visual Descriptors", invited article, Journal of the American Society for Information Science (JASIS), special issue on "Image Access: Bridging Multiple Needs and Multiple Perspectives", summer 2001. (Corinne Jorgensen, Alejandro Jaimes, Ana B. Benitez, and Shi-Fu Chang) [abstract] [PDF]

"Using Human Observers' Eye Movements in Automatic Image Classifiers", IS&T/SPIE Human Vision and Electronic Imaging 2001. San Jose, CA, January 2001. (Alejandro Jaimes, Jeff Pelz, Tim Grabowski, Jason Babcock, and Shih-Fu Chang) [abstract][][PDF File]

2000

"Experiments in Indexing Multimedia Data at Multiple Levels", Idea Mart: Classification for User Support and Learning, ASIS SIG Classification Research Workshop. Chicago, IL, November 2000. (Alejandro Jaimes, Ana B. Benitez, Corinne Jorgensen, and Shih-Fu Chang) [Abstract][][PDF File]

"Discovering Recurrent Visual Semantics in Consumer Photographs", invited paper, IEEE International Conference on Image Processing (ICIP 2000), special session on "Semantic Feature Extraction in Consumer Contents". Vancouver, Canada, September 10-13, 2000. (Alejandro Jaimes, Ana B. Benitez, Shih-Fu Chang, and Alexander C. Loui) [Abstract][][PDF File]

"Automatic Selection of Visual Features and Classifiers", Storage and Retrieval for Media Databases 2000, IS&T/SPIE. San Jose, CA, January 2000. (Alejandro Jaimes and Shih-Fu Chang) [abstract][full postscript file][PDF File]

"A Conceptual Framework for Indexing Visual Information at Multiple Levels", Internet Imaging 2000, IS&T/SPIE. San Jose, CA, January 2000. (Alejandro Jaimes and Shih-Fu Chang) [abstract][full postscript file][PDF File]

"Integrating Multiple Classifiers in Visual Object Detectors Learned from User Input", invited paper, session on Image and Video Databases, 4th Asian Conference on Computer Vision (ACCV 2000), Taipei, Taiwan, January 8-11, 2000. [abstract][full postscript file][PDF File] (Alejandro Jaimes and Shih-Fu Chang)

1999

"Model-Based Classification of Visual Information for Content-Based Retrieval", Storage and Retrieval for Image and Video Databases VII, 1999, IS&T/SPIE. San Jose, CA, January 1999. (Alejandro Jaimes and Shih-Fu Chang) [abstract][full postscript file][PDF File]

"Segmentation and Automatic Descreening of Scanned Documents", Color Imaging: Device-Independent Color, Color Hardcopy, and Graphic Arts IV, 1999, IS&T/SPIE. San Jose, CA, January 1999. (Alejandro Jaimes, Frederick Mintzer, A. Ravishankar Rao and Gerhard Thompson) [abstract]][full postscript file][PDF File]

"Digital Stereoscopic Imaging", Stereoscopic Displays and Applications X, 1999, IS&T/SPIE. San Jose, CA, January 1999. (A. Ravishankar Rao and Alejandro Jaimes) [abstract][full postscript file][PDF File]

"Integration of Visual and Text-Based Approaches for the Content Labeling and Classification of Photographs", ACM SIGIR 99, Workshop on Multimedia Indexing and Retrieval, University of California, Berkeley, August 15-19, 1999.(Seungyup Paek, Carl L. Sable, Vasileios Hatzivassiloglou, Alejandro Jaimes, Barry H. Schiffman, Shih-Fu Chang, and Kathleen McKeown) [full postscript file][PDF File]

MPEG-7 Contributions (see Columbia MPEG-7 page for information on MPEG-7)

"Report of CE on Multilevel Indexing Pyramid", ISO/IEC JTC1/SC29/WG11 MPEG00/M6495, La Baule, France, Oct. 2000.
(Document: PDF, ZIP; Presentation: PDF, ZIP) (A. B. Benitez, A. Jaimes, C. Jorgensen, S.-F. Chang)

"Report of CE on Structured Textual Description", ISO/IEC JTC1/SC29/WG11 MPEG00/M6240, Beijing, China, July 2000.
(Document: PDF, ZIP; Presentation: PDF, ZIP)(M. Shibata, A. Tam, C. Leung, K. Hasida, A. Benitez, A. Jaimes)

"Multiple Level Classification of Audio Descriptors", ISO/IEC JTC1/SC29/WG11 MPEG00/M6114, Geneva, Switzerland, May/June 2000.
(Document: PDF, ZIP; Presentation: PDF, ZIP)(A. Jaimes, A. B. Benitez, S.-F. Chang)

"Report of CE on Multi-Level Indexing Pyramid", ISO/IEC JTC1/SC29/WG11 MPEG00/M6113, Geneva, Switzerland, May/June 2000.
(Document: PDF, ZIP; Presentation: PDF, ZIP)(A. Jaimes, C. Jorgensen, A. B. Benitez, S.-F. Chang)

"Experiments for Multiple Level Classification of Visual Descriptors", ISO/IEC JTC1/SC29/WG11 MPEG99/M5593, Maui, Hawaii, USA, Dec. 1999.
(Document: PDF, ZIP; Presentation: PDF, ZIP)(A. Jaimes, C. Jorgensen, A. B. Benitez, S.-F. Chang)

"Multiple Level Classification of Visual Descriptors in the Generic AV DS", ISO/IEC JTC1/SC29/WG11 MPEG99/M5251, Melbourne, Australia, Oct. 1999.
(Document: PDF, ZIP; Presentation: PDF, ZIP)(A. Jaimes, C. Jorgensen, A. B. Benitez, S.-F. Chang)

"Fundamental Entity-Relation Models for the Generic Audio Visual DS", Contribution to ISO/IEC JTC1/SC29/WG11 MPEG99/M4754, Vancouver, Canada, July 1999.
(Document: PDF, ZIP; Presentation: PDF, ZIP)(A. B. Benitez, A. Jaimes, S.-F. Chang, J. R. Smith, C.-S. Li)

"Fundamental Entity-Relation Models for a Multimedia Archive DS", Contribution to ISO/IEC JTC1/SC29/WG11 MPEG99/M4755, Vancouver, Canada, July 1999.
(Document: PDF, ZIP; Presentation: PDF, ZIP)(A. B. Benitez, A. Jaimes, S. Paek, S.-F. Chang)

Invited Talks

University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, November 2004.

IDIAP Research institute, Martigny, Switzerland, October 2004.

University of Florence, Florence, Italy, October 2004.

Institute for Infocomm Research, Singapore, December 2002.

"Using Human Observer's Eye Movements in Automatic Classifiers," Eastman Kodak Company, Rochester, NY, 2002.

"Indexing Visual Information: Conceptual Structures and Learning of Structured Visual Detectors from User Input at Multiple Levels," NHK Research Laboratories, Tokyo, Japan, July 27th, 2001.

"Indexing Visual Information: Conceptual Structures and Learning of Structured Visual Detectors from User Input at Multiple Levels", IBM Tokyo Research Laboratory, Tokyo, Japan, June 2001.

"Learning Visual Semantics from User Input", Eastman Kodak Company, Rochester, NY, April 10th, 2000 [abstract].

"The Visual Apprentice: Model-Based Classification and Detection of Visual Objects", IBM TJ Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, New York, April 20th, 1999 [abstract].

Professional Activities

Chair/Co-Chair

Chair, ACM Multimedia 2008 Human-Centered Multimedia Track

Special sessions chair, CIVR 2007

ACM Multimedia 2007 Interactive Art Program (ACM MM 2007)

ACM Multimedia 2006 Interactive Art Program (ACM MM 2006)

ACM Multimedia 2005 Interactive Art Program (ACM MM 2005)

Poster/Exhibition chair, 7^th Pacific Rim Conference on Multimedia (PCM 2006)

Panel chair, ACM International Workshop on Multimedia Information Retrieval (MIR 2005) in conjunction with ACM Multimedia 2005.

ACM Multimedia 2004 Interactive Art Program (ACM MM 2004)

IEEE International Workshop on Technology for Education In Developing Countries (TEDC 2005, TEDC 2004, TEDC 2003)

Special Session on Novel Techniques for Browsing in Large Multimedia Collections at International Conference on Multimedia and Expo (IEEE ICME 2004)

Special Session on “Immersive Conferencing: Novel Interfaces and Paradigms for Remote Collaboration” at the 5^th Pacific Rim Conference on Multimedia (IEEE/ACM PCM 2004)

Editorial

IEEE Computer Magazine, guest editor, special issue on Human-Centered Computing (May, 2007) [with Nicu Sebe, Daniel Gatica-Perez, and Thomas Huang]

IEEE Multimedia Magazine, Art Beat column (2004-2005) (IEEE Multimedia Magazine)

Tutorials & Short Courses

Tutorial on “Human-Centered Multimedia Systems” at International Conference on Multimedia and Expo (ICME 2007), Beijing, China, July 2-5, 2007.

“Human-Centered Vision Systems” at International Conference on Pattern Recognition (ICPR 2006), Hong Kong, China, August 20, 2006.

“Human-Centered Vision Systems” at Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR 2006), New York City, USA, June 17, 2006

“Human-Centered Multimedia Information Systems and Remote Collaboration” at ACM Multimedia 2005, Singapore, November 6-12, 2005

“Human-Centered Vision Systems” at International Conference on Computer Vision (ICCV 2005), Beijing, China, October 15-21, 2005.

“Human-Centered Multimedia Information Systems” at ICME 2005, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, July 5, 2005.

“Human-Centered Multimedia Information Systems” at the 5^th Pacific Rim Conference on Multimedia (IEEE/ACM PCM 2004). [PDF][HTML]

Industrial Advisory Board

AMI project (2004-May 2006)

Working Groups & Juries

World Summit Award Grand Jury, Bahrain, Sept. 3-10, 2005

ISEA 2006 Pacific Rim New Media Summit, Latin American-Pacific/Asia New Media Initiative

ISEA 2006 Pacific Rim New Media Summit, Residencies, Symposia And Directory Working Group

Member of Technical Program Committee

Int. Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR 2008)

International Conference on Creativity and Cognition (C&C 2007)

International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces (IUI 2007)

3rd Joint Workshop on Multimodal Interaction and Related Machine Learning Algorithms (MLMI 2006)

ACM Multimedia Interactive Art Program/Curatorial Committee (ACM MM 2006, ACM MM 2005, ACM MM 2004)

ACM Multimedia Workshop on Information Retrieval (ACM MIR 2005, ACM MIR 2004)

ACM Multimedia Video Program (ACM MM 2005, ACM MM 2004)

International Conference on Image and Video Retrieval (CIVR 2005, CIVR 2004)

International Conference on Multimedia and Expo (ICME 2005, ICME 2004)

International Conference on Image Processing (ICIP 2005, ICIP 2004)

ECCV 2004 Workshop on Human-Computer Interaction (HCI 2004)

ICCV 2005 Workshop on Human-Computer Interaction (HCI 2005)

SPIE Multimedia Content Analysis, Management, and Retrieval (2006)

IADIS International Conference on Web based Communities (WBC 2004, WBC 2005)

Encuentro Internacional de Ciencias de la Computacion (ENC 2004)

Reviewer (journals)

Journal of Information Science and Engineering (2006)

ACM TOMCAT (2005)

International Journal of Image and Vision Computing

ACM Springer Verlag Multimedia Journal

Journal on Multimedia Tools and Applications

International Journal on Computer Vision and Image Understanding (2002)

ACM Trans. on Information Systems (2006, others)

Multimedia Signal Processing

IEEE Transactions in Image Processing (2004, 2003, other years)

Multimedia Tools and Applications

Journal of Personal and Ubiquitous Computing (2005)

IEEE Transactions on Multimedia (2005, 2004, others)

International Journal on Web based Communities (IJWBC)

Reviewer (conferences & workshops)

ACM CHI (2004, 2002)

ACM Multimedia (Brave New Topics 2004, also 2002, 2000, 1999, other years)

IEEE ICME (2003, 2002, 2001, 2000)

IEEE ICIP (2002, 2001, 2000)

IEEE ICASSP (2004)

CVPR CBIR Workshop

Past Research Experience

I was Scientific Manager and Senior Researcher at IDIAP Research Institute (Dalle Molle Institute for Perceptual Artificial Intelligence) in Switzerland. Part of my duties at IDIAP included the scientific management of the AMI project (Augmented Multiparty Interaction), leading the Human Machine Interaction unit of IM2 (Interactive Multimodal Information Management), and working on research in computer vision and multimedia processing. AMI is an Integrated Project funded by the European Union with 15 partners across Europe, IM2 is a Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) headed by IDIAP, and IDIAP is a private non-for-profit research institute affiliated with EPFL and University of Geneva. From October of 2003 until October of 2006 I worked at FXPAL Japan, Fuji Xerox (Nakai Research Center) near Tokyo, Japan (FXPAL is the FX lab in California). At FXPAL Japan I held a research position and lead initiatives in Multimedia Analysis and Interaction. In June and July of 2003 I worked at the Center for Web Research at Universidad de Chile in Santiago de Chile on a research project with Javier Ruiz-del-Solar and Ricardo Baeza-Yates. From June 2002 to March 2003 I worked at the IBM TJ Watson Research Center (Hawthorne, NY), in the Pervasive Media Management group. In the summer of 2001 I worked at IBM's Tokyo Research Laboratory in a project on summarizing videos for hand-held devices. During the summers of 1998 and 2000 I worked on different projects at the IBM TJ Watson Research Center (Yorktown Heights), in the Image Library Applications group, which was part of the Visual Technologies department. In the summer of 1997 I worked at Siemens Corporate Research (Princeton, NJ) in the Multimedia and Video Technology Department and during the summer of 1996 I worked at AT&T Bell Laboratories (now AT&T Research) in Holmdel, NJ in the Network Management Interfaces Group.

In 1997 I received a M.S. in Computer Science from Columbia University.In 1994 I received a degree in Computing Systems Engineering (English link) at Universidad de los Andes in Bogota - Colombia (South America). I was member of the DFAC (Computer Aided Manufacturing and Design) Research Group at Universidad de los Andes , where I Worked for a year as Research Assistant developing a software library for Image Processing and Computer Vision.
At Columbia, I worked during the Fall 1995 and Spring 1996 on the following:

In the Robotics Group, the Virtual Vision Lab project. I developed the Visual Tacking Module (C++/Motif/X-Vision) and incorporated it into the tutorial. The tracking module allows the user to select objects in a video sequence and tracks them as they move during the sequence.

In the Graphics Group, I did some work on an Stk interface for n-Vision (3D utility for viewing multi-variate data). I also worked on a project involving Augmented Reality (camera calibration and Pan Tilt Unit-PTU programming in Modula-3) where a pair of 3D Virtual IO glasses are mounted on a camera. Soon, users will be allowed users to move the camera by issuing commands over the WWW (see graphics homepage). 3D Computer Graphics

Plans

The future is wide open.

Special Interests

I enjoy all types of adventure sports but I particularly do a lot of hiking. I have hiked in many parts of Colombia. I’ve also hiked in the New York Area (Sierra Club, Columbia University Hiking Club, Appalachian Mountain Club), different areas of the US and Canada, and several countries in South America, Europe, and Asia.

I love art, (specially photography, film, and painting), literature, traveling and exploring different cultures. I have traveled in over 40 countries and there are many places I'd like to visit. Here is a photograph of the sculpture I made one night. It can be viewed in 3D (see my publication on stereoscopic imaging above or my page on 3D imaging). Visit my [art] page.

I am a Green Tortoise alumni!

A few years ago, a friend in Colombia took me paragliding off a mountain 1,500 feet high. He went first and of course, hit a tree. From what he's told me, he usually does when he tries to impress his friends. I had a nice flight though and can't wait to do it again.

Recently, I have taken up Racquetball and hope to continue. Check out the AARA Official Rules and the International Racquetball Tour homepage. (I actually only played a couple of times but now I play tennis in Tokyo!- 2007 update: I only played tennis once. Now I live in Lausanne and will take up skiing)

Sin resistencia

Voy,

vengo.

Y luego pienso.

Que lo mismo

aqui que alla,

no hay

un lugar

conseguido.

Que aqui,

como alla.

Soy lo que

las gentes llaman

un "extranjero".

Y como un extranjero

ire

y vendre.

Hasta que aqui

como alla

Ni yo

ni nadie

lo sea.

- Clementina Suarez (Honduras)

[English]

What is the first thing you do when you meet someone from Colombia? (a) make a joke about drugs; (b) ask if it is really dangerous; (c) comment on Colombian coffee, Juan Valdez, women, or Colombian soccer; (d) say "but you don't look Colombian"; (e) think about all of these and say nothing; (f) ask about any or all of them; (g) run.

Short answers:

(a) Think twice before you make jokes about drugs when you meet someone from Colombia. Thousands of Colombians die every year fighting the war on drugs; drug money pays for terrorism, kidnappings, and a war that seems to be have no end in sight. It's a supply-demand problem; the majority of Colombians do not use or like drugs. (b) Colombia can be really dangerous if you go to the wrong places; New York can be really dangerous if you go to the wrong places. So can Paris. There are many places in Colombia that are safer than the average American city. But there is a war in Colombia so you must be informed. Thousands of people travel there happily every year. (c) Colombian coffee is famous for its taste. The largest producer of coffee, however, is Brazil; many agree Colombian women are beautiful and Colombia has had good soccer teams. (d) what does a Colombian look like? (read below) (e) ASK! you will find that most Colombians are open minded and love to explain issues related to Colombia's drug and violence problems. Not to mention the lighter issues. (f) thank you for your interest in Colombia. You'll be enchanted with the country if you visit it (as most who do are).

Colombia (with an o, not a u) is a magical, mystical place where you will find the most violent, peaceful and enchanting aspects of humanity. It is a land where anything and everything is possible, where boundaries are crossed or non-existent, where life is as meaningful and meaningless as can be. Life flourishes and disappears in the blink of an eye...

Colombia is the second richest country in species in the world after Brazil, which has more species, but in an area seven times larger. In average, one of every 10 species of the world's flora and fauna inhabits Colombia. In relation to terrestrial vertebrates Colombia occupies the third place with 2.890 species of which 1.721 are birds, which constitute 20% of the total world bird species, and 358 mammal species, which represent 7% of the world's total. In relation to reptiles, Colombia possesses 6% of the total number of species and amphibians around 10% of the total. Periodically, new species are reported. If you are interested in these issues, check out the Humbolt Institute.

If only one word were allowed to describe such small and immense land, it would have to be diversity. Diversity in every sense; in ideals, race, culture, life.

It is really fascinating to examine this country more closely. Not only for its rich history but for the complexity of its current social, political and economic problems.

Terrorism is not new in Colombia. Between 1989 and 1993 alone, 544 out of the 801 terrorist bombs placed throughout Colombia exploded. In only two of the explosions in 1989, 167 people died. One bomb was placed in downtown Bogota and another in a commercial airplane. The statistics during the late eighties also include the assassination of more than 1,000 public officials, 12 supreme court judges, one attorney general, an editor of a major newspaper, three presidential candidates and hundreds of civilians. These are acts mostly related to the war on drugs. Terrorism is still common and is funded by the drug trade.

Other very interesting links related to violence in Colombia (English) include: [HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH] (all of the following links have disappeared [Violence in Colombia-Carrigan] [DIRECT DEMOCRACY IN COLOMBIA -Martin Krause] [Women in Colombia: Breaking the silence] [COLOMBIA-CRIME: THE AVENGING ANGELS OF THE STREETS ][Oil Companies Buying Up Colombian Army to Fight Pipeline Violence] [Colombia Support Network][Colombia, The Challenge to Governability])

Now that the topic of violence has been touched (it is a reality and should not be ignored) we can move on.

The weather in Colombia is varied but due to its proximity to the Ecuator, varies only according to altitude (lowest: sea level, highest: about 18,000 ft). Ethnic divisions also show great diversity (mestizo 58%, white 20%, mulatto 14%, black 4%, mixed black-Indian 3%, Indian 1%). As far as geography, Colombia has shores on the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, part of the Amazon, deserts, tropical rain forest, snow capped volcanoes and three mountain ranges.

The largest city is Bogota (Population: estimated at about 8 million; altitude: almost 6,000 feet; year-round temperature: ranges from 40 Fahrenheit (nights: 4 Celsius) to about 70 Fahrenheit (days: 22 Celsius))

I have traveled extensively in Colombia. It's an amazing place (in many ways one of the best countries I have traveled in and that includes other countries in South America). Do not be discouraged by the statistics and the image created by the media. Colombia, even with all its problems is really much more than what you see on the news (or films shot in Mexico). Take a minute to read the down-to-earth description at Lonely Planet. I've used this guide, but unfortunately it's outdated (even the new version, which was cut short to about 1/3 of the original one!). Unfortunately, the people at Lonely Planet have spent more time coming up with new guides and make very few efforts to keep their old ones current. Don't use their Cuba guide! As for Colombia, there are now other great travel guides from other publishers (the Colombia Handbook by P. Pollard and B. Box; and Colombia by M. Lessard). Travel to Colombia is very safe as long as you inform yourself and know which areas to avoid. Cartagena is a paradise and one of the safest cities in the Caribbean (safer than most US cities).

Colombia

El Tiempo: Colombia's main newspaper is on line (Spanish).

Colorado State University: general information, also contains some food recipes; try Arequipe and Ajaico- mail me if you succeed!

CIA Fact book: this is the place to go if you want the hard-facts. It's also a short introduction (no photographs, of course). You will see, however, a map of Colombia with the major cities.