National security remedies among topics at surveillance confab

"This 'open review' experiment would have far-reaching repercussions in the academic publishing mechanism of the future," Pavlidis said. "Under the new system, reviews have the potential to become more thorough and civil, as referees would need to stand behind their names. Additionally, researchers may become more productive, as they would receive better feedback."

Another innovation to be discussed during this session is the concept of publishing an eponymous commentary paper along with an accepted article. This critique paper would document the positive and negative points of the article as seen by the reviewer. Pavlidis and his colleagues believe the transparency and rigor of these processes ultimately would benefit research.

In addition to leading figures, many young researchers are making their mark after clearing a competitive review process. The two UH students invited to the conference successfully did so and will present their papers, which also will be published in the proceedings.

Among them is Yan Zhou, a first-year Ph.D. student from the computer science department, who produced her first scholarly article only a few months after embarking on her studies. Her work makes fundamental improvements in tracking faces in thermal infrared imaging that is expected to find wide applicability in novel biometrics – the measurement of physical characteristics and statistical study of biological phenomena for use in verifying an individual's identity. Her work specifically deals with the ability to identify and psychologically screen people at a distance based on physiological characteristics of the face. It is especially innovative in that her methods account for natural head motion, a challenge in this type of work.

Zhen Zhu, a senior Ph.D. student at UH, also made it through the review process to present his work on deception detection, funded by DACA, the Defense Academy on Credibility Assessment. DACA serves as the government's premiere educational center for polygraph and other credibility assessment technologies and techniques. It assists federal agencies in protecting U.S. citizens, interests, infrastructure and security by providing education and tools for credibility assessment.

More information about the conference can be found at http://www.cpl.uh.edu/html/LocalUser/avss2008/.

About the University of Houston

The University of Houston, Texas' premier metropolitan research and teaching institution, is home to more than 40 research centers and institutes and sponsors more than 300 partnerships with corporate, civic and governmental entities. UH, the most diverse research university in the country, stands at the forefront of education, research and service with more than 35,000 students.

For more information about UH, visit the university's Newsroom at http://www.uh.edu/news-events/.

To receive UH science news via e-mail, visit http://www.uh.edu/news-events/mailing-lists/sciencelistserv.php.