It is known that humans can, and do, lip-read but not much is known about exactly what visual information is needed for effective lip-reading, particularly in non-laboratory environments. This project will collect data for lip-reading and use it to build automatic lip-reading systems: machines that convert videos of lip-motions into text. To be effective such systems must accurately track the head over a variety of poses; extract numbers, or features, that describe the lips and then learn what features correspond to what text. To tackle the problem we will need to use information collected from audio speech. So this project will also investigate how to use the extensive information known about audio speech to recognise visual speech.The project is a collaboration between the University of East Anglia who have previously developed state-of-the-art speech reading systems; the University of Surrey who built accurate and reliable face and lip-trackers and the Home Office Scientific Branch who wish to investigate the feasibility of this approach for crime fighting.

It is known that humans can, and do, lip-read but not much is known about exactly what visual information is needed for effective lip-reading, particularly in non-laboratory environments. This project will collect data for lip-reading and use it to build automatic lip-reading systems: machines that convert videos of lip-motions into text. To be effective such systems must accurately track the head over a variety of poses; extract numbers, or features, that describe the lips and then learn what features correspond to what text. To tackle the problem we will need to use information collected from audio speech. So this project will also investigate how to use the extensive information known about audio speech to recognise visual speech.The project is a collaboration between the University of East Anglia who have previously developed state-of-the-art speech reading systems; the University of Surrey who built accurate and reliable face and lip-trackers and the Home Office Scientific Branch who wish to investigate the feasibility of this approach for crime fighting.

Poor quality X-ray images pose serious problems for the security operators manning X-ray scanners at places such as airports. The operators search for the weapons of terrorism such as guns, knives or explosive devices in images containing the clutter of everyday items. The detection and identification of a threat in a 'typical' suitcase or carry-on bag may be categorised broadly into two areas. Namely, the interpretation of cluttered images to reveal the presence of a threat 'shape' and the identification of potentially harmful or explosive substances through the production of material characteristic signals. The former, is reliant upon spatial information, which is best dealt with by a human operator as the full member set of threats cannot be defined, while the latter requires an appropriate sensor technology to provide the raw data for colour encoding of the resultant images. The logistical problems associated with hold-baggage screening and carry-on baggage cannot be understated. For instance, approximately 68 million people pass through Heathrow International Airport each year. The environment is akin to a high volume production line in which each item to be inspected is different. This is a unique and particularly difficult inspection task.Researchers from the Nottingham Trent University and Cranfield University are developing a new type of 3D X-ray scanner technology. The imaging technique combines powerful 3D imagery with the capability to discriminate between dangerous substances and benign luggage contents. In collaboration with scientists based at the Home Office Scientific Development Branch (HOSDB) at St Albans, they are developing a technology that will provide video type image sequences accurately highlighting the material composition of the objects under inspection. The dynamic imagery provides the observer with hitherto unseen information concerning the actual contents of the objects being inspected through a powerful and compelling sensation of three-dimensional structure. An interesting aspect of the technique is that the resultant images are a synthesis of the various signal contributions from a complex arrangement of integrated sensors. The combination of characteristically scattered signals with high-resolution mass discrimination images has the potential to provide fast and spatially accurate materials discrimination. To realise the integrated detectors required for this novel approach, scientists at Durham Scientific Crystals Ltd a spin off company from the Physics Department at the University of Durham, are developing compound semiconductors such as cadmium telluride in single crystal form. This UK led project brings together a number of timely innovations concerning the production of dynamic 3D X-ray images and the direct detection of X-rays by semiconductor sensors.The key to developing the world's first scatter enhanced 3D X-ray scanner now relies upon establishing the precise requirements for the configuration of the sensors together with their geometric, temporal, spectral and electronic properties. Besides the potential to significantly improve the efficiency of visual inspection, the research will inform a larger body of work concerning the development of computational methods for the automatic detection of explosive substances. More futuristically the implications for the success of this approach are far reaching in that the technique may well have the potential to improve the high energy X-ray screening of freight and/or vehicles as well as medical and industrial applications.

In the 21st century terrorism has become a constant threat to the way-of-life of people all around the world. One of the most common manifestations of the terrorist's threat is an explosive device, often detonated in the midst of a densely-populated civilian area. The University of Exeter is leading a team of government and industrial experts in the development of a new type of 'smart' blast curtain aiming to reduce death and injury caused by bomb blasts. This smart textile uses auxetic materials pioneered at the University. Unlike conventional materials that get thinner when stretched, an auxetic material will get fatter. This interesting and counter-intuitive property is also found in some natural materials such as cat skin and bone from human shins.When a terrorist bomb explodes in an urban area it produces devastating effects, including structural and nonstructural damage to buildings, injuries, and deaths. Numerous injuries in explosions result directly and indirectly from window glass failure. In the Oklahoma City bombing, glass accounted for nearly two thirds of all eye and head injuries. When an explosion occurs, there is an extremely rapid release of energy. This is takes the form of heat, sound and light, but also as a shock wave. It is the initial shock wave that is responsible for the majority of damage to buildings, including shattering of windows. If this was not destructive enough, the vacuum that follows the blast front then creates a high intensity wind which can transport debris across large distances. Current blast curtain design favours the use of translucent aramid nets that are longer and wider than the window: the excess curtain length is placed into a box at the base of the window. When the window shatters, the curtains billow out and capture a significant portion of the glass fragments. The system is often augmented with a film window coating to help ensure that the glass fragments stay together. However in practice, the net fabric is often torn by the force of the blast. This is because the net filaments have to be made thin to keep the curtain from blocking light out. What is needed is a smart textile that allows light through but is also capable of containing the huge forces involved in an explosion and providing a barrier to flying debris.

The detection of explosives carried about the person is an important current security concern. Explosives absorb high frequency waves in a characteristic manner, depending on the frequency of those waves. The frequencies of interest are in the teraHertz (THz) range, about a thousand times as high as the frequency range used by mobile phones. Signals at these frequencies can pass through clothes with little absorption, so that concealed explosives can be detected.Generating signals at such extremely high frequencies is difficult and usually requires a large and expensive laser having power consumption similar to an electric oven. Such a system is not very practical for checking whether people are carrying explosives.We have developed very efficient converters of light to THz signals which can be used with very small semiconductor lasers, requiring a total power of about 1 W, about the same as a small torch. In this project we propose to use these converters with a new and very sensitive detection scheme to create a system for detecting concealed explosives.In addition this type of technology could be used in a compact scanning system to identify concealed weapons and other items of security interest.