IDBR: Automated Image Analysis for Discovering Motion Behavior in Video

University Of North Carolina At Charlotte, Charlotte NC

Investigators

Abstract

A grant has been awarded to Dr. Shin at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte to develop a tool for discovering interesting motion behavior of biological activities. This often requires a painstaking observation of many biological entities moving in complex patterns. Such type of analysis is applicable in a wide range of biological systems from the cellular level (natural killer T cells, NKT) to the population level (honeybees). However, the complexity of the behavior and the shear amount of data makes a manual approach impractical. The proposed instrument/tool will comprehensively and automatically search for the occurrences of a biological activity in a large dataset with minimal manual involvement. The method involves three steps: (1) automated video analysis of biological entities' motion, (2) semi-automated searching for a specific motion behavior, and (3) testing the hypothesis using the tool. First, a scientist selects one instance of interesting motion. Then, the tool searches for video clips that contain similar motion. The scientist then examines and validates the search results. If the search needs improvement, the scientist selects the good results and provides them to the tool. Once the user is confident with the search results, the tool will be used for testing a specific hypothesis related to the motion. To demonstrate the applicability of the method on a wide range of problems, hypotheses involving events of two different biological entities of honey bee communication and natural killer T cell sentry behavior will be tested. The ability to develop an approach to identifying, quantifying and then searching for instances of such events that is applicable to two very different scales of biological activity (immune cells and honeybees) would suggest the potential for application to a wide variety of problems involving complex motion behaviors. The proposed project will help support mentoring of undergraduate students. The students will participate in the REU (research experience for undergraduates) through the REU site within the Department of Computer Science. The Biology Department has approximately 1000 undergraduate majors and continues to offer extensive opportunities for undergraduate research including an undergraduate honors program widely considered to be one of the best in the University. In addition, UNC Charlotte holds the distinction of the largest minority enrollment of any of the non-historically black campuses of the UNC system. This is partly due to the urban location of the University, but also to the effectiveness of the University?s programs for increasing the diversity of student body.