November 22nd, 2009
Hi Everyone!
Just thought we would update you all as to what was going on with us.
First of all Derek went to Fort Collins to do his PhD Qualifier. He was gone for a week and got to see some friends and was able to get enough studying done to pass. This means that step one of 3 is complete for him to get his PhD. We were very excited and proud of him for getting this step done.
I did ok while he was gone the puppy was a little hyper but we managed to keep her busy enough.
We were able to start Heidi on solid food with some rice cereal. She seemed to like it and ate most of it. Though some of it did end up on her bib, the booster seat, her hands and tray. We got a video and some pics so we hope you enjoy.
http://www.tetonedge.net/videos/Solid Food.flv
Hope everything is going well for you all! There are also new pictures up in the gallery.
Love,
Derek, Nichole and Heidi
Tags: food, heidi
Posted in Family, Videos | No Comments »
November 19th, 2009
Well I thought I would let everyone know that I passed my Ph.D. Qualifier today. It was a little stressful and glad that step 1 of 3 is done. I have also enjoyed being in Colorado and catching up with everyone and seeing our great friends here. I am truly thankful to the Andrew’s for letting me crash in their basement during the week and for the Miller’s for letting me stay with the in Denver. It has been weird to think that we have been gone from Colorado for 6 Months. I have also posted my slides below from my presentation for anybody that would like to check them out.
PhD Qualifier Slides
Derek
Tags: Ph.D., Presentations, research
Posted in Writing | 1 Comment »
November 7th, 2009
I finally got the pictures up on the blog in the gallery of our last horse ride in October. It was Emma’s first time out since we have arrived in Florida and she did awesome. Both horses did great in a new environment and Nichole and I really enjoyed the time riding together. We were able to go out with our Neighbors Ken and Cristi up to their friends house, Tony and Missy, in Wasau, FL. They had 50 acres for us to ride on and Cristi watched Heidi so Nichole and I could ride. It was really awesome for them to let us ride and for Ken and Cristi for taking us. Enjoy the pictures.
Derek, Nichole, and Heidi
Tags: florida, Horses
Posted in Family, Horses | No Comments »
November 1st, 2009
Hi Everyone!
We hope you had a great halloween. We sure had fun. First a baby update. Heidi had her 4 month appointment and was able to get her next round of shots, no fun. But she is growing, 9 lbs 10 oz and 24 in. Still a petite little thing so mom has to eat more fat to try and fatten up the baby a little bit. But she looks super cute in the dress her Grandma Tucker bought for her.
The weather here has been nice and warm, around 80 and Derek said it definitely did not feel like fall, least of all Halloween. I guess he was just used to the winter parka being worn while trick or treating. We carved a couple of pumpkins and Derek insisted that we let Heidi play in the pumpkin goo, since he said he did not want another Traci on our hands.
We had fun at the Branch Trunk or Treat activity it was nice to see everyone and get together for a potluck. We dressed Heidi up as a pumpkin and Derek and I went as pumpkin farmers. She looked really cute and it was totally worth the time I spent making the costume.
We have the rest of the super cute Halloween pictures in the gallery so check them out. Other than that not much is going on just gearing up for some cooler weather which finally came, thankfully as it is now the 1st of November.
Hope you all are doing well and we will talk to you later.
Love Derek, Nichole and Heidi.
Tags: halloween, heidi
Posted in Family | 1 Comment »
October 28th, 2009
I just presented two paper at the IEEE/MTS Oceans Conference Biloxi, MS. I have attached the slides and paper below for those who might want to read it.
The first paper was entitled “Multi-Platform Target Detection using Multi-Channel Coherence Analysis and Robustness to the Effects of Disparity”
Abstract
The use of multiple disparate platforms in many remote sensing and surveillance applications allows one to exploit the coherent information shared among all sensory systems thereby potentially reducing the risk of making single-sensory biased detection and classification decisions. This paper introduces a target detection method based upon multi-channel coherence analysis (MCA) framework which optimally decomposes the multi-channel data to analyze their linear dependence or coherence. This decomposition then allows one to extract MCA features that can be used to implement a coherence-based detector. This detector is applied to a data set of simulated disparate sonar imagery provided by the Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC) – Panama City. This database contains images of both targets and non-targets with various variabilities with respect to resolution, signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), target and non-target types, etc. Sensitivity analyses are then carried out in order to gauge the performance under such variablities that may be encountered in disparate multi-platform detection problems. Performance of the detection method will be given in terms of probability of detection (Pd), probability of false alarm (Pfa), and the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves.
Oceans09 Multiplatform Paper
Oceans09 Multiplatform Slides
The first paper was entitled “An Underwater Target Detection System for Electro-Optical Imagery Data”
Abstract
The problem of detecting underwater targets from Electro-optical (EO) images is considered in this paper. A block-based log-likelihood ratio test has been developed for detection and segmentation of underwater mine-like objects in the EO images captured with a CCD-based image sensor. The main focus of this research is to develop a robust detection algorithm that can be used to detect low contrast and partial underwater objects from the EO imagery with low false alarm rate. The detection method involves identifying frames of interest (FOI) containing the potential targets. Once the FOI have been identified, regions of interest (ROI) within the FOI are segmented from the background. Performance of the detection method is tested in terms of probability of detection, false alarm rate, and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves for FOI in the selected data runs. The algorithm shows promising results in target detection and generation of good silhouettes for subsequent classification.
Oceans09 EO Paper
Oceans09 EO Slides
Derek
Tags: conference, oceans, Papers, research
Posted in Writing | No Comments »
October 18th, 2009
Hi everyone!
I figured it is my turn to update the blog and tell you what is going on down here in Florida. First of all things went well while Derek was in San Antonio the baby behaved pretty well, she was just a little off her schedual but overall she did well. The dogs have been pretty good just lots of energy. The conference went well and Derek had a good time.
Our big news down here is that it finally started to cool off. It actually felt cold when the low at night was down to 42 degrees. The highs this weekend were in the 60′s which really makes us feel like it is fall, but was a total shock to everyone’s system since it has been so warm here. Heidi had to wear a coat for the first time and she looked so cute!
She is doing so well. She is starting to giggle and we are trying to get it on camera, but so far she has been a little camera shy. I was able to get some really cute pictures of her in her cute outfits and bows so check them out in the gallery under More Heidi.
I am doing well just keeping busy with the baby and the horses and the dogs. I was also able to work with the local animal charity to get the feral cats spayed and neutered this week and they are doing really well. We just did not want another litter.
Other than that things are going well. Heidi gets her 4 month check up next week so I will update with all the numbers then. We hope you all are doing well!
Love
Derek, Nichole and Heidi.
Tags: heidi
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October 13th, 2009
I just presented a paper at the IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics (SMC 2009) in San Antonio, TX. I have attached the slides and paper below for those who might want to read it. The title of the work is “Underwater Target Detection from Multi-Platform Sonar Imagery Using Multi-Channel Coherence Analysis”
Abstract
This paper introduces a new target detection method for multiple disparate sonar platforms. The detection method is based upon multi-channel coherence analysis (MCA) framework which allows one to optimally decompose the multi-channel data to analyze their linear dependence or coherence. This decomposition then allows one to extract MCA features which can be used to discriminate between two hypotheses, one corresponding to the presence of a target and one without, through the use of the log-likelihood ratio. Test results of the proposed detection system were applied to a data set of underwater side-scan sonar imagery provided by the Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC), Panama City. This database contains data from 4 disparate sonar systems, namely one high frequency (HF) sonar and three broadband (BB) sonars coregistered over the same area on the sea floor. Test results illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed multi-platform detection system in terms of probability of detection, false alarm rate, and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves.
SMC09 Paper
SMC09 Slides
Tags: conference, research, smc
Posted in Writing | No Comments »
October 3rd, 2009
Well it is Conference weekend I thought I would give a quick update on what is happening in the Tucker household. The puppy is doing well and her and Summit are starting to get a long and play. Nichole was able to capture them playing a few days ago on the video camera.
http://www.tetonedge.net/videos/Nevada.flv
Heidi is doing great and is growing and learning new things every day. She has been smiling and “baby talking” everyday. She is also starting to hold her head up more and looking around. She has been a real joy in our lives everyday.
http://www.tetonedge.net/videos/Happy Heidi.flv
Things in Florida have cooled down a lot and we have had mornings in the 50′s and days in the low 80′s so we have been able to get a lot of chores done around the house. Derek was able to this morning construct a sweet arena drag out of a few parts from Lowe’s and random stuff around the barn and it worked great. Derek will also be headed out on travel this month off and on for work presenting papers of his research and they will be posted after the papers have been presented.
Well that is about it, hope everyone is doing well and enjoying the Fall.
Love,
Derek, Nichole, and Heidi
Tags: heidi, nevada
Posted in Family, Videos | 1 Comment »
September 22nd, 2009
Well I figured it was my turn to make a post and let everybody know about our new addition. Nichole and I adopted a puppy this week from a kill shelter. So everyone meet Nevada, she is a 4 month old blue heeler puppy. We have been looking for another dog for Summit to play with as she is getting a little neglected as our attention has been with Heidi. So I was looking and found Nevada and we went up to Chipley, FL to see her and Nichole was hooked. Summit has adjusted to her after defining the boundaries and they have been playing. We have added pictures of her to the gallery.
Heidi has been getting bigger everyday and is giving us big smiles all the time now. Everyday is something new and she is a great joy to our life. My sister made a few new bows for her and this a picture is for my sister and is our little girl pretty? I guess I am a little biased being the dad.
And here is a new video for the grandparents. Hope everyone is well
http://www.tetonedge.net/videos/Heidi Playing.flv
Love,
Derek, Nichole, and Heidi
Tags: heidi, nevada
Posted in Family, Videos | 2 Comments »
September 7th, 2009
Hi everyone!
It has been a little while since we updated as we have had many things going on with the family. First Heidi is now 9 weeks old and had her 2 month Dr. appointment. She is 22 in long and 8lb 3 oz. So it puts her in the 10th percentile. Which is ok according to the Dr. as she is still growing well from where she was. The shots went well just a few tears and a lot of sleepy time. Here is her 2 month picture with the outfit from her Great Uncle Frank. She looks really cute.
The second happening was Heidi’s baby blessing. We had Jim and Patty and Matt and Traci as well as my parents Nick and Pam come. It was really neat to have the whole family here and most of them got to see her for the first time. She did really well and was awake for most of it. It was a very special time and she got to use the blanket that her Great Grandma Caresia made for her she was so darling.
After the blessing we hung out on the beach and got some family pictures taken. They are in the gallery so you will have to look but we will put up the video of Heidi’s first excursion into the Ocean. She was not too sure about it but it was still fun.
http://www.tetonedge.net/videos/Heidi Beach.flv
We were really glad that everyone got to come for a visit and hope they will be back soon. We miss having our family close but we are really happy down here in Florida.
Hope all is going well and we will talk to you soon.
P.S. We were both really excited that CSU kicked CU’s butt the other night. Go Rams!
Posted in Family | 2 Comments »
