Distinguished Professor in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Pramod K. Varshney has received the Best Paper Award from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) International Conference on Signal, Information, and Data Processing. The conference took place in Zhuhai, China on November 22-24, 2024.  

The award-winning paper focused on using copulas for change detection in heterogeneous remote sensing images. Copulas are a powerful tool used for modeling the dependence between multiple random variables. Over the past 15 years, Varshney’s research group has used copulas in various decision-making problems, including national security and defense and medical diagnoses, such as the early detection of Alzheimer’s disease.  

Varshney and his colleagues proposed using copulas to improve change detection using heterogeneous remote sensing images. Heterogeneous remote sensing involves analyzing multiple images captured by different sensors or satellites at various times to identify changes in geographic features. This method is commonly used for disaster monitoring and land-use management. Experiments with different types of remote sensing images showed that the copula-guided neural network was effective and helped users better understand changes in geography.  

“I co-authored the paper with two of my former visiting scholars who are professors at the famous Tsinghua University in China and my former doctoral student who is a faculty member at the University of Alabama at Birmingham,” says Varshney. “It is indeed a pleasure to maintain collaboration relationship with former members of my research group. The novel approach that combines copula theory with deep neural networks (DNNs) is quite novel and innovative. I am extremely happy that this work was deemed worthy of a Best Paper Award.”