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On reaching a new milestone––measuring our progress
Information Fusion 5 (2004) 1–3 www.elsevier.com/locate/inffus
Editorial
On reaching a new milestone––measuring our progress
‘‘When you use information from one source, it’s plagiarism; When you use information from many, it’s information fusion’’ With this issue, we are now entering the fifth year of publication, a significant milestone in the life of a young Journal. Accordingly, we take this opportunity to look back to see how far we have come and take stock of how we are doing relative to our own a priori hopes and expectations. First and foremost, the very fact that the Journal has successfully navigated past its early years, without succumbing to the potential infantile mortality that is not uncommon in the publication world, is in itself a note worthy accomplishment. This is especially true in recent years given the extraordinary advances being made in electronic communications and opportunities for individual or small interest group self-publication efforts through on-line access to personal web sites. The international information fusion community can indeed take pride in this accomplishment and our thanks are due to all the contributing authors, the multitude of reviewers who have sacrificed their personal time in support of the Journal peer-review process, and, last but not the least, Elsevier––the publisher––for the essential material support, without which none of this would have been conceivable. The Journal from the outset was intended to be international in character and taking inventory we see that we have been fairly successful in meeting this objective. Fig. 1 shows the geographical distribution across the world of the published articles based on the country listed in the first author’s address. It is indeed gratifying to note that we have contributions from over 20 different countries. Admittedly, the fact that English is the language of publication has a limiting effect on this distribution. This may perhaps account for the absence of most East European countries as well as the entire South American continent. Political and socio-economic factors are obviously additional factors that impact the diversity of this distribution. Of course, the sample set is still not large enough to attach too much significance to any of the statistics beyond noting the initial trends. 1566-2535/$ - see front matter Ó 2003 Published by Elsevier B.V. doi:10.1016/j.inffus.2003.10.003
A question that is often asked of an Editor is ‘‘how long does it take to have my paper published in your Journal?’’. Fig. 2 makes an attempt at answering the question in the form a histogram of time elapsed between initial submission and print publication. This has to be looked at in the context of the as yet relatively short time span of existence of our Journal, i.e. one based on small sample size statistics. On a more positive note, recently proof versions are being made available on-line months earlier than the print publication whose statistics are being portrayed in the figure. In many of the cases, especially at the far end of the histogram, the delays are almost always attributable to authors in responding to major mandatory revisions sought by the reviewers. (Generally the authors are sent three reviews of their initial submission within 4–8 weeks.) A significant portion of the time to publication is now the waiting period after acceptance for assignment to the next available issue. This waiting period can be expected to decrease as the Journal grows enough to afford an increase in the publication frequency, which is currently only quarterly (four issues/year). Thus contrary to natural expectations, as we begin to receive more submissions, we should be able to reduce the waiting time since it would permit increasing the publication frequency. As has been the tradition, scanning the contents of the current issue, we have six new contributions of interest to the information fusion community spanning the traditional areas of decision fusion, target classification and tracking––both separately and jointly, as well as a couple on sensor/source management, and one on a biometrics application. The first article presents and compares a set of four alternative approaches to optimal decision fusion given the traditional fuzzy representations (trapezoidal membership functions) of the priori probabilities and risk functions. The optimality criterion is minimum Bayes risk at the fusion node. Several examples are included to assist in the comparative performance evaluation process and illustrate the details of the proposed methodologies. The second paper addresses the challenge of utilizing kinematic data, traditionally employed mostly for
2
Editorial / Information Fusion 5 (2004) 1–3
Fig. 1. Geographical distribution of published articles.
Fig. 2. Submission to publication time lapse histogram (in months).
tracking, for classification purposes. A single aggregate Interacting Multiple Model (IMM) filter is presented as a solution to the joint tracking and classification problem. The next contribution is on a recursive, real-time approach to track fusion. It offers a linear programming approach for data association, which utilizes kinematic as well as classification related information. Illustrative examples, taken from scenarios with move-stop-move type of ground targets that are being sensed by radar (GMTI and SAR), electro-optical imagery, signal intelligence, and acoustic and seismic unattended ground sensors (UGS), are included. A probabilistic fusion approach to source management, named as EFM-Entropy Fusion Model and based on Shannon’s entropy, is described in the next study. Modeling, combination, and decision represent the three distinct steps of the approach. An application drawn from mobile robotics area is used as an example to demonstrate the efficacy of the new algorithm.
Following is a second report on information source (sensor) management, dealing with the specific problem of monitoring illuminations of multiple emitters by one electronic receiver located on a moving platform. The uniqueness of the approach lies in mapping the problem onto the control theory domain, defining a control architecture with one system-level controller and a collection of emitter-level controllers (one per emitter), and thereby showing the benefits gained by having feedback. The last presentation, on a biometric application of information fusion, offers an algorithm for personal Identity retrieval and verification. The two biometric modalities employed in this study are face identification and speaker verification. The proposed solution takes the form of a two-stage classifier, the first prioritizes the possible label decisions and the second performs sequential verification. Experimental evidence is offered in support of the methodology.
Editorial / Information Fusion 5 (2004) 1–3
The issue, as has been the tradition, concludes with the ‘‘Finding FUN in FUsioN’’ column. As always we are soliciting feedback from the readership on ways to make the Journal more attuned to the needs of the information fusion community.
‘‘kaayena vaachaa manasendriyairva budhyaatmanaavaa prakR^ ite svabhaavaat
3
karomi yadyat sakalaM parasmai shriiman naaraayaNaayeti samarpayaami’’ Be it with my body, or with my mind With words, or organs of any kind, With my intellect, or with my soul, Or by force of Nature pushing me to my goal, Whatever it is, with all these I do, Oh! Supreme Lord! I surrender to you. Belur V. Dasarathy Editor-in-Chief E-mail address: [email protected] http://belur.no-ip.com
Editorial
On reaching a new milestone––measuring our progress
‘‘When you use information from one source, it’s plagiarism; When you use information from many, it’s information fusion’’ With this issue, we are now entering the fifth year of publication, a significant milestone in the life of a young Journal. Accordingly, we take this opportunity to look back to see how far we have come and take stock of how we are doing relative to our own a priori hopes and expectations. First and foremost, the very fact that the Journal has successfully navigated past its early years, without succumbing to the potential infantile mortality that is not uncommon in the publication world, is in itself a note worthy accomplishment. This is especially true in recent years given the extraordinary advances being made in electronic communications and opportunities for individual or small interest group self-publication efforts through on-line access to personal web sites. The international information fusion community can indeed take pride in this accomplishment and our thanks are due to all the contributing authors, the multitude of reviewers who have sacrificed their personal time in support of the Journal peer-review process, and, last but not the least, Elsevier––the publisher––for the essential material support, without which none of this would have been conceivable. The Journal from the outset was intended to be international in character and taking inventory we see that we have been fairly successful in meeting this objective. Fig. 1 shows the geographical distribution across the world of the published articles based on the country listed in the first author’s address. It is indeed gratifying to note that we have contributions from over 20 different countries. Admittedly, the fact that English is the language of publication has a limiting effect on this distribution. This may perhaps account for the absence of most East European countries as well as the entire South American continent. Political and socio-economic factors are obviously additional factors that impact the diversity of this distribution. Of course, the sample set is still not large enough to attach too much significance to any of the statistics beyond noting the initial trends. 1566-2535/$ - see front matter Ó 2003 Published by Elsevier B.V. doi:10.1016/j.inffus.2003.10.003
A question that is often asked of an Editor is ‘‘how long does it take to have my paper published in your Journal?’’. Fig. 2 makes an attempt at answering the question in the form a histogram of time elapsed between initial submission and print publication. This has to be looked at in the context of the as yet relatively short time span of existence of our Journal, i.e. one based on small sample size statistics. On a more positive note, recently proof versions are being made available on-line months earlier than the print publication whose statistics are being portrayed in the figure. In many of the cases, especially at the far end of the histogram, the delays are almost always attributable to authors in responding to major mandatory revisions sought by the reviewers. (Generally the authors are sent three reviews of their initial submission within 4–8 weeks.) A significant portion of the time to publication is now the waiting period after acceptance for assignment to the next available issue. This waiting period can be expected to decrease as the Journal grows enough to afford an increase in the publication frequency, which is currently only quarterly (four issues/year). Thus contrary to natural expectations, as we begin to receive more submissions, we should be able to reduce the waiting time since it would permit increasing the publication frequency. As has been the tradition, scanning the contents of the current issue, we have six new contributions of interest to the information fusion community spanning the traditional areas of decision fusion, target classification and tracking––both separately and jointly, as well as a couple on sensor/source management, and one on a biometrics application. The first article presents and compares a set of four alternative approaches to optimal decision fusion given the traditional fuzzy representations (trapezoidal membership functions) of the priori probabilities and risk functions. The optimality criterion is minimum Bayes risk at the fusion node. Several examples are included to assist in the comparative performance evaluation process and illustrate the details of the proposed methodologies. The second paper addresses the challenge of utilizing kinematic data, traditionally employed mostly for
2
Editorial / Information Fusion 5 (2004) 1–3
Fig. 1. Geographical distribution of published articles.
Fig. 2. Submission to publication time lapse histogram (in months).
tracking, for classification purposes. A single aggregate Interacting Multiple Model (IMM) filter is presented as a solution to the joint tracking and classification problem. The next contribution is on a recursive, real-time approach to track fusion. It offers a linear programming approach for data association, which utilizes kinematic as well as classification related information. Illustrative examples, taken from scenarios with move-stop-move type of ground targets that are being sensed by radar (GMTI and SAR), electro-optical imagery, signal intelligence, and acoustic and seismic unattended ground sensors (UGS), are included. A probabilistic fusion approach to source management, named as EFM-Entropy Fusion Model and based on Shannon’s entropy, is described in the next study. Modeling, combination, and decision represent the three distinct steps of the approach. An application drawn from mobile robotics area is used as an example to demonstrate the efficacy of the new algorithm.
Following is a second report on information source (sensor) management, dealing with the specific problem of monitoring illuminations of multiple emitters by one electronic receiver located on a moving platform. The uniqueness of the approach lies in mapping the problem onto the control theory domain, defining a control architecture with one system-level controller and a collection of emitter-level controllers (one per emitter), and thereby showing the benefits gained by having feedback. The last presentation, on a biometric application of information fusion, offers an algorithm for personal Identity retrieval and verification. The two biometric modalities employed in this study are face identification and speaker verification. The proposed solution takes the form of a two-stage classifier, the first prioritizes the possible label decisions and the second performs sequential verification. Experimental evidence is offered in support of the methodology.
Editorial / Information Fusion 5 (2004) 1–3
The issue, as has been the tradition, concludes with the ‘‘Finding FUN in FUsioN’’ column. As always we are soliciting feedback from the readership on ways to make the Journal more attuned to the needs of the information fusion community.
‘‘kaayena vaachaa manasendriyairva budhyaatmanaavaa prakR^ ite svabhaavaat
3
karomi yadyat sakalaM parasmai shriiman naaraayaNaayeti samarpayaami’’ Be it with my body, or with my mind With words, or organs of any kind, With my intellect, or with my soul, Or by force of Nature pushing me to my goal, Whatever it is, with all these I do, Oh! Supreme Lord! I surrender to you. Belur V. Dasarathy Editor-in-Chief E-mail address: [email protected] http://belur.no-ip.com