This project supports US faculty members and graduate students to attend USA - Sino Summer School in Vision, Learning, Pattern Recognition (VLPR2012). The VLPR summer school has become a mutually beneficial annual event for computer vision researchers and students from both US and China. The impact and reputation of VLPR summer school sequence grows rapidly and VLPR 2012 continues this positive trend by focusing on Computer Vision in Biomedical Image Applications: from Micro to Macro. This topic complements the methodology-centered VLPRs in the past with an application-oriented and human-centered focus on life forms in drastically different scales: from human and animals (macro) to cells (micro). VLPR 2012 aims to illustrate a cross-sectional state of the art computer vision and machine learning methodologies, to broaden the horizon for innovations and creativities, and to address some fundamental issues of high throughput computing on multi-modality, high-dimensional, and high volume image data (Big Data).
The theme of this summer school reflects the growing international trend of interdisciplinary research in biomedical image and smart health, and facilitates collaborative efforts between science and technology, computer science and medicine/biology, and US and China. In addition, this summer school offers a great opportunity for intellectual and cultural exchanges between a group of world-class computer vision researchers and motivated students from the two countries to converse and mingle with each other in an exciting, culturally rich environment during a week-long period.
VLPR 2012 summary The Sino-USA Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (VLPR) summer school 2012 was held July 23-29, 2012 on Fudan University campus, College of Life Science, Shanghai, China. Following the success of three previous VLPRs, Beijing (2009), Xi'an (2010) and Chengdu (2011), some unique highlights of VLPR 2012 include: - VLPR 2012 focused explicitly on "Computer Vision in Biomedical Image Applications (CVBIA): from Micro to Macro" and the organizers orchestrated a first-rate international speaker program comprised of 16 world-class researchers from computer vision and life sciences (biology and medicine) respectively. - VLPR 2012 student participants were drawn from both US and China with distinct educational backgrounds from either computer science or life sciences. They set a record high attendee list of 300 total. - During VLPR 2012, we held a special ‘speed-dating’ event to let students self-select their teammates as well as an interesting research topic for the week, using their background knowledge and what they learned during the week to propose a feasible solution. The final presentations and written feedback from the attendees claimed that this has made a ‘life-long impact’ on their ways to approach research in the future. - Besides US NSF and NSFC, support for VLPR 2012 also came from industry, in particular the pharmaceutical companies and imaging industry (e.g. OLYMPUS) The content of VLPR 2012 can be found on this public website: http://vision.cse.psu.edu/vlpr2012/vlpr2012.html Looking back, we are pleased to say that the theme of VLPR 2012 complemented the methodology-centered VLPRs in the past with an application-oriented and human-centered focus on life forms at different scales: from human and animals (macro) to cells (micro). Through our year-long preparation, we have achieved our goals to: (1) illustrate a cross-section of state of the art computer vision and machine learning methodologies; (2) broaden the horizon for innovation and creativity, and (3) address fundamental issues of high-throughput computing on multi-modal, high-dimensional, and high volume image data (Big Data). Some quotes from attending US students: Impact on Research "VLPR provides a framework to place my work not only within my field, but also within the scope of cross domain research. This provides a roadmap of where I am as a researcher, and allows me to determine where I would like to be and what problems I can potentially work on. Without meetings like VLPR it is hard to see the big picture, which is essential in guiding research efforts." Interactions "After our dinner in which we all decided to have the presentations, it was really excellent to interact with the Chinese students. I had originally thought the students were shy, but I realized afterwards they just lacked the forum to have the discussions with us. During our "speed dating" event, all the students were very excited to share their research, and to hear about our own research. Some even had very thought provoking questions and suggestions for me regarding my own research. I think they enjoyed talking with us as much as we enjoyed talking with them." Culture and food "Experiencing the culture was a great experience. Most of our meals at restaurants were community style, which was a bit different for me, but fine nonetheless. The food was excellent and all our hosts went very much out of their way to accommodate us, which was really appreciated. I really enjoyed the day trip to Suzhuo to see the garden and temple. Our guide was informative, funny, and did a good job explaining the history. During the lunch that day , the "squirrel fish" was by far a favorite among all the students, and it didn’t go unnoticed how the organizers of VLPR treated us very well." Conclusion The popularity VLPR 2012 reflects the growing international trend of interdisciplinary research in biomedical imaging and smart health, and collaborative efforts between science and technology, computer science and medicine/biology, and the US and China. In addition, this summer school offered a great opportunity for intellectual and cultural exchange among a group of world-class computer vision researchers, basic scientists and highly motivated students from the two countries in an exciting, culturally rich environment during a week-long period. Many contacts established during VLPR 2012 have lasted beyond 2012, and hopefully, will lead to fruitful cross-domain research collaborations in the near future.
