COGNITIVE SYSTEMS
Multimedia data : interpretation and man-machine
interaction
Inria has in 2006 approximately 140 research project teams which may be presented along
five large themes :
• Biological systems (BIO),
• Cognitive systems (COG),
• Communication systems (COM),
• Numerical systems (NUM),
• Symbolic systems (SYM).
The « Cognitive Systems » theme group 28 project-teams, along 4 sub-themes :
A- Statistical modeling and machine learning (5 teams )
B- Perception, indexing and communication for images and video (8 teams)
C- Multimedia data: interpretation and man-machine interaction (8 teams)
D- Image synthesis and virtual reality (7 teams)
This classification of Inria’s research activities has been set up in 2003, and presents major
changes with the preceding one, but it turns out that the five project-teams which already
existed in 2001 where already grouped together, in a sub-theme named « Databases,
knowleedge bases, cognitive systems » of a theme named « Human-computer interaction,
images processing, data management, knowledge systems ».
There are presently 9 research groups in Cog C :
• 8 project-teams
o Prima (created in 2003)
o Cordial, In-Situ (created in 2002)
o Merlin, Metiss, Parole (created in 2001)
o Ecoo (created in 1999)
o Orion (created in 1995)
•
1 other team : Eiffel-2, which has been stopped as a project team, and thus will not be
evaluated this time.
The domains covered by the different projects are well reflected by the title of this sub-theme.
Most of the projects deal, one way or another, with interaction :
• In-Situ, Merlin and Prima study new concepts of interactions, taking into account
human factors,
• Cordial study multi-modal dialogue,
• Ecoo works on transactional processes, collaborative work and group awareness.
Dialogue, be it oral or written, is a matter of research for Cordial as well as Parole.
Speech synthesis or understanding is studied by Metiss and Parole, but also Cordial.
Interpretation, or pattern recognition, is also very active among these projects :
• Parole, Metiss and Cordial are concerned with speech understanding,
•
Orion and Prima are concerned with image and video sequences interpretation.
As interaction and multi-modality imply dealing with data of miscellaneous types, under
various situations, research is also devoted to integration aspects (Cordial, Ecoo, Orion,
Prima).
Figures
Manpower in the theme
Misc.
DR/Profs
CR/Ass. Profs
Perm. Eng.
Phd students
Post-docs
Total
Temp.Eng.
Extern. collab.
Visit. (> 1 m.)
INRIA CNRS
4
7
7
20,5
20,5
2
2
3
18
2
31
13
1
Univ.
15
23
3,5
1
11,5
2
1
2
(nb :DR stands for Directeur de recherche, and CR for Chargé de recherche)
Geography:
5
9
FTE +
PhDs
+
Postdocs
15
14,5
6,5
2
5
4
16
24
10
6
7
37,5
21,5
12
11
11
Permanent Full-time
scientists equivalent
Futurs
6
25
Lorraine
10
Rennes
4
Rhône-Alpes
Rocquencourt 7
4
Sophia
PhDs
(nb: Faculty members are weighed hamf-time for full-time ewuivalent)
23
4
65
1
1
Total
19
37
0
65
7
128
6
5
5
Relative weights in Inria and its Research Units
Based on the number of full-time equivalent members (ie researchers, and faculty members
wieighed at 50%), the weight of this sub-theme in eht research units is the following:
• 4% of Futurs
• 12% of Lorraine
• 5% of Rennes
• 4% or Rhône-Alpes
• 2% of Rocquencourt
• 3% of Sophia
Averaged of the whole Inria, it accounts for 5%.
Contracts
These figures put in perpective the amount of contracts of the projects. As an example, eh
external resources available in 2005 (coming for living contracts) is given below (in k€). The
sub-theme is in the average of Inria.
A
B
C
D
Bio
Cog
Com
Num
Sym
1719
1162
2319
1050
1102
2885
1771
1390
261
1311
853
208
608
924
1047
D
Total 20579
1102
261
608
Participation to Inria’s strategic challenges
The full-time equivalent manpower is here weighted by a rate of implication in the scientific
challenges of Inria. It appears that:
• 42% of the research effort of this project is dedicated to “Developing multimedia and
information processing”
• 17% is dedicated to “Combining simulation, visualization and interaction”.