{"id":189,"date":"2019-02-05T09:28:20","date_gmt":"2019-02-05T09:28:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dereklee.peachpuff-wolverine-566518.hostingersite.com\/?p=189"},"modified":"2019-02-05T18:14:21","modified_gmt":"2019-02-05T18:14:21","slug":"wild-nature-institute-penn-state-and-microsoft-azure-work-together-to-find-the-giraffe-in-the-bushes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scienceblog.com\/dereklee\/189\/wild-nature-institute-penn-state-and-microsoft-azure-work-together-to-find-the-giraffe-in-the-bushes\/","title":{"rendered":"Wild Nature Institute, Penn State, and Microsoft Azure Work Together to Find the Giraffe in the Bushes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Giraffe are the tallest animal on earth, so naturally scientists have turned to big data solutions for giraffe conservation.\u00a0 Researchers from Penn State and Wild Nature Institute are conducting one of the biggest large mammal studies ever undertaken by studying births, deaths, and movements of more than 3,000 giraffes across a 4,000 square kilometre landscape in the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Tarangire_Ecosystem\">Tarangire Ecosystem<\/a> of northern Tanzania, East Africa.<\/p>\n<p>Dr. Derek E. Lee, Associate Research Professor at Penn State University\u2019s Department of Biology and Principal Scientist of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wildnatureinstitute.org\/\">Wild Nature Institute<\/a> said, \u201cThese are big animals, and they cover big distances, so naturally we are using big data to learn where they are doing well, where they are not, and why, so we can protect and connect the areas important to giraffe conservation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Giraffe populations have declined precipitously across Africa due to habitat loss and illegal killing for meat. \u201cWe needed new tools to figure out how we can save giraffes, and there was a harmonic conjunction of technology that made our work possible,\u201d said Lee.<\/p>\n<p>Lee\u2019s team uses digital photographs of each animal\u2019s unique and unchanging spot patterns to identify them throughout their lives. However, the analysis process is very manually intensive and time-consuming. Many thousands of photos have to be processed per year, and for every photo the giraffe body in the image has to be manually cropped to provide just a giraffe torso to the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Pattern_recognition\">pattern recognition software<\/a>. To improve this process, Microsoft scientists have provided a new image processing service using machine learning technology deployed on the Microsoft Azure cloud.<\/p>\n<p>Using a computer vision object detection algorithm, the Microsoft team trained a program to recognize giraffe torsos using some existing annotated giraffe photos. The program was iteratively improved using an efficient Active Learning process, where the system identified new images and showed its predicted cropping squares on these images to a human who could quickly verify or correct the results. These new images were then fed back into training algorithm to further update and improve the program.\u00a0 The resulting system identifies the location of giraffe torsos in images with a very high accuracy. <a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1016\/j.ecoinf.2019.02.003\">A description of the work was published this week in the journal Ecological Informatics<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The new system dramatically speeds up the important research being performed by the giraffe scientists. \u201cIt is wonderful how the Azure team automated this tedious aspect of our work,\u201d said Lee. \u201cIt used to take us a week to manually process our new images after a survey, now it is done automatically in minutes!\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_26\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-26\" style=\"width: 1301px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/scienceblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2016\/11\/4220325_orig.png?ssl=1\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-26\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/scienceblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2016\/11\/4220325_orig-300x100.png?resize=1200%2C400&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"Randomly selected giraffe torso detection results. Note that even giraffes which are small in the image or giraffes which are partly occluded by bushes, are found successfully.\" width=\"1200\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/scienceblog.com\/dereklee\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2016\/11\/4220325_orig.png?resize=300%2C100&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/scienceblog.com\/dereklee\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2016\/11\/4220325_orig.png?w=659&amp;ssl=1 659w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-26\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Randomly selected giraffe torso detection results. Note that even giraffes which are small in the image or giraffes which are partly occluded by bushes, are found successfully.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Giraffe are the tallest animal on earth, so naturally scientists have turned to big data solutions for giraffe conservation.\u00a0 Researchers from Penn State and Wild Nature Institute are conducting one of the biggest large mammal studies ever undertaken by studying births, deaths, and movements of more than 3,000 giraffes across a 4,000 square kilometre landscape &#8230; <a title=\"Wild Nature Institute, Penn State, and Microsoft Azure Work Together to Find the Giraffe in the Bushes\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/scienceblog.com\/dereklee\/189\/wild-nature-institute-penn-state-and-microsoft-azure-work-together-to-find-the-giraffe-in-the-bushes\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about Wild Nature Institute, Penn State, and Microsoft Azure Work Together to Find the Giraffe in the Bushes\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":284,"featured_media":19,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[22,2,21,3],"tags":[5,8,6,7,4,23],"class_list":["post-189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-animal","category-ecology","category-giraffe","category-wildlife-conservation","tag-animals","tag-derek-lee","tag-giraffe","tag-wild-nature-institute","tag-wildlife","tag-wildlife-conservation"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.4 (Yoast SEO v27.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Wild Nature Institute, Penn State, and Microsoft Azure Work Together to Find the Giraffe in the Bushes - Derek Lee<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/scienceblog.com\/dereklee\/189\/wild-nature-institute-penn-state-and-microsoft-azure-work-together-to-find-the-giraffe-in-the-bushes\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Wild Nature Institute, Penn State, and Microsoft Azure Work Together to Find the Giraffe in the Bushes\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Giraffe are the tallest animal on earth, so naturally scientists have turned to big data solutions for giraffe conservation.\u00a0 Researchers from Penn State and Wild Nature Institute are conducting one of the biggest large mammal studies ever undertaken by studying births, deaths, and movements of more than 3,000 giraffes across a 4,000 square kilometre landscape ... Read more\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/scienceblog.com\/dereklee\/189\/wild-nature-institute-penn-state-and-microsoft-azure-work-together-to-find-the-giraffe-in-the-bushes\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Derek Lee\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-02-05T09:28:20+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2019-02-05T18:14:21+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/scienceblog.com\/dereklee\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2016\/11\/4917765_orig-e1479998973165.png?fit=450%2C385&ssl=1\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"450\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"385\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Derek Lee\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Derek Lee\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/scienceblog.com\\\/dereklee\\\/189\\\/wild-nature-institute-penn-state-and-microsoft-azure-work-together-to-find-the-giraffe-in-the-bushes\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/scienceblog.com\\\/dereklee\\\/189\\\/wild-nature-institute-penn-state-and-microsoft-azure-work-together-to-find-the-giraffe-in-the-bushes\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Derek Lee\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/scienceblog.com\\\/dereklee\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/41b42fba55c50c75d88b1a44c47d067c\"},\"headline\":\"Wild Nature Institute, Penn State, and Microsoft Azure Work Together to Find the Giraffe in the Bushes\",\"datePublished\":\"2019-02-05T09:28:20+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-02-05T18:14:21+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/scienceblog.com\\\/dereklee\\\/189\\\/wild-nature-institute-penn-state-and-microsoft-azure-work-together-to-find-the-giraffe-in-the-bushes\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":472,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/scienceblog.com\\\/dereklee\\\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/scienceblog.com\\\/dereklee\\\/189\\\/wild-nature-institute-penn-state-and-microsoft-azure-work-together-to-find-the-giraffe-in-the-bushes\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/i0.wp.com\\\/scienceblog.com\\\/dereklee\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/sites\\\/6\\\/2016\\\/11\\\/4917765_orig-e1479998973165.png?fit=450%2C385&ssl=1\",\"keywords\":[\"animals\",\"derek lee\",\"giraffe\",\"wild nature institute\",\"wildlife\",\"wildlife conservation\"],\"articleSection\":[\"animal\",\"ecology\",\"giraffe\",\"wildlife conservation\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/scienceblog.com\\\/dereklee\\\/189\\\/wild-nature-institute-penn-state-and-microsoft-azure-work-together-to-find-the-giraffe-in-the-bushes\\\/#respond\"]}],\"copyrightYear\":\"2019\",\"copyrightHolder\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/scienceblog.com\\\/#organization\"}},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/scienceblog.com\\\/dereklee\\\/189\\\/wild-nature-institute-penn-state-and-microsoft-azure-work-together-to-find-the-giraffe-in-the-bushes\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/scienceblog.com\\\/dereklee\\\/189\\\/wild-nature-institute-penn-state-and-microsoft-azure-work-together-to-find-the-giraffe-in-the-bushes\\\/\",\"name\":\"Wild Nature Institute, Penn State, and Microsoft Azure Work Together to Find the Giraffe in the Bushes - 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Current research investigates Masai Giraffe and other large mammal populations within a fragmented landscape in Tanzania. This work examines how births, deaths, and movements of ungulates are impacted by increasingly fragmented wildlife habitat, and what conservation actions are most effective. He spent 10 years researching the impacts of climate and ocean conditions on survival, reproduction, and population growth rates of marine predators such as northern elephant seals, Common Murres, and Cassin's Auklets at the South Farallon Islands, California. His work was included in a conservation and management plan for seabirds in the California Current. 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Current research investigates Masai Giraffe and other large mammal populations within a fragmented landscape in Tanzania. This work examines how births, deaths, and movements of ungulates are impacted by increasingly fragmented wildlife habitat, and what conservation actions are most effective. He spent 10 years researching the impacts of climate and ocean conditions on survival, reproduction, and population growth rates of marine predators such as northern elephant seals, Common Murres, and Cassin's Auklets at the South Farallon Islands, California. His work was included in a conservation and management plan for seabirds in the California Current. 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Note that even giraffes which are small in the image or giraffes which are partly occluded by bushes, are found successfully.","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/scienceblog.com\/dereklee\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2016\/11\/4220325_orig.png?fit=659%2C220&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/scienceblog.com\/dereklee\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2016\/11\/4220325_orig.png?fit=659%2C220&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/scienceblog.com\/dereklee\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2016\/11\/4220325_orig.png?fit=659%2C220&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":163,"url":"https:\/\/scienceblog.com\/dereklee\/163\/seeing-spots-new-study-reveals-the-giraffe-babies-inherit-spot-patterns-from-their-mothers-and-certain-spot-traits-improve-newborn-survival\/","url_meta":{"origin":189,"position":3},"title":"Seeing Spots: New Study Reveals the Giraffe Babies Inherit Spot Patterns from Their Mothers and Certain Spot Traits Improve Newborn Survival","author":"Derek Lee","date":"October 2, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"50-year-old Hypothesis Confirmed with Modern Techniques The beautiful coat patterns of giraffes are individually unique and don\u2019t change with age, but their origins and purpose were a mystery. A new study found wild giraffe spot pattern traits were heritable, passed down from mother to offspring, and certain spot traits improved\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;animal&quot;","block_context":{"text":"animal","link":"https:\/\/scienceblog.com\/dereklee\/category\/animal\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/scienceblog.com\/dereklee\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2018\/09\/INFORGRAPHICspots.jpg?fit=776%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/scienceblog.com\/dereklee\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2018\/09\/INFORGRAPHICspots.jpg?fit=776%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/scienceblog.com\/dereklee\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2018\/09\/INFORGRAPHICspots.jpg?fit=776%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/scienceblog.com\/dereklee\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2018\/09\/INFORGRAPHICspots.jpg?fit=776%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":124,"url":"https:\/\/scienceblog.com\/dereklee\/124\/giraffe-skin-disease-linked-to-soil-fertility\/","url_meta":{"origin":189,"position":4},"title":"Giraffe Skin Disease Linked to Soil Fertility","author":"Derek Lee","date":"April 3, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Giraffe Skin Disease is a disorder of the skin that is characterized by crusty lesions on the back side of the front legs of adult Masai giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis tippelskirchi) the only subspecies in Tanzania.\u00a0Lesions such as the ones shown in this picture on the forelimbs indicate Giraffe Skin Disease.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;animal&quot;","block_context":{"text":"animal","link":"https:\/\/scienceblog.com\/dereklee\/category\/animal\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Giraffe in Tarangire National Park","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/scienceblog.com\/dereklee\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2018\/04\/GirHeadFunk.jpg?fit=800%2C533&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/scienceblog.com\/dereklee\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2018\/04\/GirHeadFunk.jpg?fit=800%2C533&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/scienceblog.com\/dereklee\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2018\/04\/GirHeadFunk.jpg?fit=800%2C533&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/scienceblog.com\/dereklee\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2018\/04\/GirHeadFunk.jpg?fit=800%2C533&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":48,"url":"https:\/\/scienceblog.com\/dereklee\/48\/five-wildlife-protection-groups-petitioned-the-u-s-fish-and-wildlife-service-to-protect-giraffes-under-the-u-s-endangered-species-act\/","url_meta":{"origin":189,"position":5},"title":"Five Wildlife Protection Groups Petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to Protect Giraffes under the U.S. Endangered Species Act","author":"Derek Lee","date":"April 19, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"In response to recent scientific consensus on giraffes' vulnerability to extinction, five wildlife protection groups today petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to protect Earth's tallest land animal under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. The legal petition, filed by the Center for Biological Diversity, Humane Society International, The Humane\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;animal&quot;","block_context":{"text":"animal","link":"https:\/\/scienceblog.com\/dereklee\/category\/animal\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Picture of Giraffes in Tanzania, WIld Nature Institute","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/scienceblog.com\/dereklee\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2016\/12\/giraffe01_funky_web.png?fit=878%2C490&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/scienceblog.com\/dereklee\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2016\/12\/giraffe01_funky_web.png?fit=878%2C490&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/scienceblog.com\/dereklee\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2016\/12\/giraffe01_funky_web.png?fit=878%2C490&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/scienceblog.com\/dereklee\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2016\/12\/giraffe01_funky_web.png?fit=878%2C490&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scienceblog.com\/dereklee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scienceblog.com\/dereklee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scienceblog.com\/dereklee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scienceblog.com\/dereklee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/284"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scienceblog.com\/dereklee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=189"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/scienceblog.com\/dereklee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scienceblog.com\/dereklee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scienceblog.com\/dereklee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scienceblog.com\/dereklee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scienceblog.com\/dereklee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}