What the IAPR is all about:    ---- Its historical progress and my personal contributions ---- IAPR   -International Association for Pattern Recognition- The IAPR is an international organization aiming at the exchange of knowledge and ideas among researchers in pattern recognition, image processing and computer vision fields, thus contributing to the worldwide technological progress and social improvement. After a few-year intensive discussion and preparation, the IAPR was established in 1978, and nowadays its membership covers 49 leading nations. What is followed is the outline of this IAPR and my personal contributions to its advancement. Membership Only one National Society is eligible from each country to be an official member of the IAPR. From Japan, the IPSJ (Information Processing Society of Japan) first participated in the IAPR as its organizing member. Then, the IEICE (The Institute of Electonics, Information and Communication Engineers) took a turn and is continueing its active membership. Following is the list of member countries (as of Nov, 2023). Argentina* Australia* Austria* Belarus* Brazil* Bulgaria* Canada* Chile* Colombia* China* Cuba* Czech Republic* Denmark* Finland* France** Germany** Greece* Hong Kong* Hungary* India* Indonesia** Ireland* Israel* Italy** Japan** Korea (South)* Macau* Malaysia* Mexico* Netherlands** New Zealand* Norway* Pakistan* Poland* Portugal* Russia**** Singapore* Slovenia* Spain* Sweden** Switzerland* Taiwan** Tunisia* Turkey* Ukraine* UK** USA**** Uruguay* Vietnam*    Note: Number of asterisks (*) denotes the number of representatives from that country. Increasing the number of member countries was one important concern of the IAPR in early 1990s. As a Vice President of the IAPR in the 1990-92 terms, I started to talk with one of my friends in South Korea and invited to join the IAPR. At the Governing Board meeting in 1992, South Korea was approved unanimously and welcomed as a new member. Some historical letters initiating Korean participation are shown below. Reply from a Korean Friend (PDF) Official Invitation Letter to Korea (PDF) In 1993, I also had a chance to discuss on the IAPR membership with the people in Taiwan, when I was invited as a plenary speaker at their national conference. Next year, Taiwan officially applied to the IAPR, and was approved unanimously and welcomed as a new member. I am now very proud of my contributions to the participation of both South Korea and Taiwan to the IAPR. Organization Representatives of each National member society constitute an IAPR Government Board, and make every important decision on the activities of the IAPR. The number of representatives from each country is one, two, or four, as shown in the above list, depending upon its amount of annual financial contribution. This amount is also related to the number of national members. Thus, 64 representatives in total from 49 countries form the Governing Board presently. To manage and execute all IAPR activities, members of Executive Board are elected biennially at the Governing Board meeting. This Executive Board consists of President, 1st Vice President, 2nd Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer and Past President. IAPR organization includes a fairly large number of standing committees and technical committees. Each standing committee usually handles a specific administrative matter for improving the IAPR and its activities. On the other hand, each technical committee focuses on a specific technical matter. One typical role of the technical committee is to organize, or to assist to organize, IAPR conferences and meetings forcusing on each specific topic in the related technical field. Executive Board Members Members of the Executive Board of the IAPR to date are shown in the following list. History of the IAPR Year IAPR Remarks: (Representatives of Japan) President 1st VP 2nd VP Secretary Treasurer No.of member nations  1973  K. S. Fu H. Freeman C. K. Chow R.S. Ledley L.S. Rotolo ― 　 　 1974 K. S. Fu C. K. Chow H. Freeman R.S. Ledley L.S. Rotolo ― J. Nagumo T. Sakai 1976 K. S. Fu M. Aizerman T. Vamos C.D. Verhagen H. Freeman 　 1978 H. Freeman M.S. Watanabe (vacant) C.D. Verhagen P.W. Becker 13 1980 A. Rosenfeld P.W. Becker T. Sakai P.A. Devijver M.D. Levine 　 M. Nagao 1982 J-C. Simon T. Kohonen M. Nagao P.A. Devijver H. Freeman 　 M. Takagi 1984 T.Sakai P.A. Devijver T. Pavlidis M.J.B.Duff H. Freeman 　 1986 P.A. Devijver P-E Danielsson M.D. Levine M.J.B.Duff H. Freeman 　 1988 M.D. Levine M. Takagi S. Levialdi M.J.B.Duff J. Aggarwal 22 1990 M.J.B. Duff S. Levialdi M. Ejiri G. Borgefors J. Aggarwal 25 1992 J. Aggarwal S. Tsuji J. Kittler G. Borgefors S. Tanimoto 26 M. Ejiri 1994 J. Kittler G. Borgefors J. Toriwaki G. Sanniti di Baja J. Bigun 32 1996 R.M. Haralick E. Gelsema M. Kidode G. Sanniti di Baja J. Bigun 33 1998 E. Gelsema H. Bunke R. Kasturi G. Sanniti di Baja W. Kropatsch 　 Y. Shirai 2000 G. Sanniti di Baja R. Kasturi H．Baird K.Tombre W. Kropatsch 37 2002 R. Kasturi W. Kropatsch Y. Shirai K.Tombre M. Petrou 38 J. Tajima Y. Ohta 2004 W. Kropatsch K. Tombre S. Abrameyko D. Laurendeau M. Petrou 41 2006 K. Tombre S. Abrameyko K. Ikeuchi D. Laurendeau K. Boyer 42 2008 B. Lovell A.Antona- copoulos I. Nystrom D. Laurendeau K. Boyer 42 2010 D. Laurendeau K. Boyer Tieniu Tan Ingela Nystrom Aytul Ercil 　 2012 K. Boyer Tieniu Tan A.Antona- copoulos Ingela Nystrom Aytul Ercil 　 H. Murase K. Yamada 2014 Ingela Nystrom Massimo Tistarelli Simone Marinai Alexandra B. Albu A.Antona- copoulos 47 2016 S. Marinai M. Tistarelli E.Handcock Alexandra B. Albu A.Antona- copoulos 　  2018 A.Antona- copoulos A.B. Albu L. Akarun A. Kuijper D.Lopresti 50 S. Sato  2020 D. Lopresti L. Akarun T. Sim  A. Kuijper  R. Fisher 50 2022 A. Kuijper L. Akarun C-L. Liu  J. Llados  R. Fisher 49 Note: Shaded areas represent contributions from Japan As a member of the Executive Board during 1990-92 periods, I proposed several plans to improve the relations between the IAPR and industry. These plans included the initiation of IAPR Fellowship Program, and most of the proposed plans were realized afterwards by the extensive efforts of succeeding board members. These plans were once appeared in an IAPR Newsletter, and are again posted below. Proposals for IAPR improvement (PDF) ICPR One of the largest and most important activities of the IAPR is to hold a biennial ICPR, International Conference on Pattern Recognition. More than 1,000 participants gather from all over the world, and some 800 papers are discussed. Following list includes all the ICPR meetings held in the past as well as planned ones in the future. For the ease of understanding historical situation, ICPR General Chairmen and IAPR Presidents are shown in the list. Representatives from Japan are also indicated. History of the ICPR conferences Year ICPR IAPR Remarks: (Representatives of Japan) No. Location No. of papers Chairman President 1973  1st Washington D.C., USA 81  K. S. Fu ―   ― 1974 2nd Copenhagen, Denmark 141 C.J.D.M. Verhagen ―  J.Nagumo  T. Sakai 1976 3rd Coronado, USA 157  A. Rosenfeld K. S. Fu 1978 4th * Kyoto, Japan 231  M. Nagao H. Freeman 1980 5th * Miami, USA 290  T. Pavlidis A. Rosenfeld  M.Nagao 1982 6th Munich, Germany 306  H. Marko J-C. Simon M. Takagi 1984 7th * Montreal, Canada 388  M.D. Levine T. Sakai 1986 8th * Paris, France 343  J-C. Simon P.A. Devijver 1988 9th * Rome, Italy 336  S. Levialdi M.D. Levine 1990 10th * Atlantic City, USA 316  H. Freeman M.J.B. Duff 1992 11th * Hague, The Netherlands 600  E.S. Gelsems E. Backer J. Aggarwal  M. Ejiri 1994 12th * Jerusalem, Israel 449  S. Peleg S. Ullman J. Kittler 1996 13th * Vienna, Austria 703  W.G. Kropatsch R.M. Haralick 1998 14th * Brisbane, Australia 484  T. Caelli A. Maeder E. Gelsema Y. Shirai 2000 15th * Barcelona, Spain 973  A. Sanfeliu J.J. Villanueva G. Sanniti di Baja 2002 16th * Quebec City, Canada 805  C.Y. Suen R. Kasturi  J. Tajima Y. Ohta 2004 17th Cambridge, UK 951  J. Kittler W.G. Kropatsch 2006 18th * Hong Kong 1168  Y.Y.Tang P.Wang G.Lorette D.S.Yeung K. Tombre 2008 19th * Tampa, USA 1006  M. Ejiri R. Kasturi G. Sanniti di Baja B. Lovell 2010 20th Istanbul, Turkey 1162  Aytul Ercil D. Laurendeau 2012 21st * Tsukuba, Japan 942  J-O. Eklundh Y. Ohta S. Tanimoto K. Boyer  H.Murase  K.Yamada 　  2014 22nd Stockholm, Sweden 　n/a  Magnus Borga Ingela Nystrom 2016 23rd Cancun, Mexico 　n/a  E. B. Corrochano G.Medioni G. Sanniti di Baja S. Marinai 2018 24th Beijing, China   n/a  Tieniu Tan Josef Kittler Anil Jain A.Antona- copoulos  S. Sato  2020 25th Milan, Italy   n/a  A. Del Bimbo D. Lopresti 2022 26th Montreal, Canada 　n/a  H.I.Christensen M. Jenkin C-L Liu A. Kuijper 2024 27th Kolkata, India 　n/a  U. Pal J. Kittler A. Jain       2026 28th Lyon, France 　n/a  J-M Ogier Tin Kam Ho C-L Liu       Note: Shaded areas represent contributions from Japan. Note: Those marked with * are the conferences I participated in. Note: n/a means "not available at this moment" and will be filled in the future. The IAPR's 19th International Conference on Pattern Recognition (ICPR-2008) was held, with a great success, at the Tampa Convention Center , Tampa, Florida, USA, on Dec. 8-11, 2008. As one of the general co-chairs of this ICPR-2008, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to those who participated in this enjoyable event. Since then, a few ICPRs were also held in great success. However, the 25th conference was greatly affected by the worldwide coronavirus pandemic, and was forced to postpone until Jan. 2021 by changing its style to a virtual conference. I hope the situation will soon return to normal, however, please be aware of the situation by visiting each ICPR conference website and IAPR website. King Sun Fu Prize At every ICPR, King Sun Fu Prize is given to the most distinguished person in the IAPR-related fields. The late King Sun Fu is a founder and the first President of the IAPR, and the fund donated from his family is appropriated for the prize. The recipient usually gives a commemorative address at the ICPR plenary session just after the openning celemony. Following is the list of the recipients to date. 1988  Azriel Rosenfeld (USA） 　 2006  Josef Kittler　 (UK)　 1990  R.L.Kashyap (USA） 2008  Anil K. Jain　 (USA） 1992  Laveeb N. Kanal (USA）          2010  Horst Bunke (CH)　 1994  Herbert Freeman (USA） 2012  Rama Chellappa (USA） 1996  Teuvo Kohonen (Finland) 2014  Jitendra Malik (USA) 1998  Jean-Claude Simon (France) 2016  Robert Haralick (USA) 2000  Theodosios Pavlidis  (USA） 2018  Matti Pietikainen  (Finland) 2002  Thomas Huang (USA） 2020  Ching Yee Suen  (Canada) 2004  Jake Aggarwal (USA） 2022  Tieniu Tan  (China) BIRPA Award The award called IAPR Best Industry-related Paper Award was established in 1992 based on my proposal. This award is given to the authors of an outstanding practical paper, preferably co-authored by academy and industry researchers. Following is an example of public announcement of recipients, appeared in an IAPR Newsletter. Click the thumbnail image to enlarge. Fellowship Program IAPR Fellowship program was established in 1994, based on my proposal mentioned above. Some historical materials for establishing and publicizing the fellowship program are posted in the following. Click the thumbnail image to enlarge. (PDF) E-mail from the President to the Fellow Committee Chairman Publication of IAPR Fellowship Program Call for Request, for Fellow Nomination Since its establishment, more than 250 persons have been elevated to the IAPR Fellow grade. They are all well-deserved and distinguished contributors to the fields of pattern recognition, image processing and computer vision. The 28-persons among them were from Japan, and they are indicated in the following list. 1994 　  Toshiyuki Sakai  Makoto Nagao  Mikio Takagi  Masatsugu Kidode 1996  Saburo Tsuji  Masakazu Ejiri  Takashi Matsuyama   Kazuhiko Yamamoto  1998  Keiichi Abe  Yoshiaki Shirai  Jun-ichiro Toriwaki 2000  Hitormichi Fujisawa   Seiji Inokuchi  Yasuaki Nakano  Shinji Ozawa  Hirobumi Nishida 2002  Johji Tajima 2004  Yuichi Ohta  Hiroshi Sakou 2006  Katsuhiko Sakaue 2008  Mineichi Kudo  Atsushi Imiya  Masaki Nakagawa 2010  Fumitaka Kimura  Shigeru Sasaki 2012 (None this year) 2014  (None this year) 2016  Kenichi Kanatani  Naokazu Yokoya  2018  (None this year) 2020  Katsushi Ikeuchi 2022  Hiroshi Murase Even after I finished my duties as the IAPR Vice President, I used to be involved in the Fellow Committee, as a member or as a chairman. At the 14th ICPR in Brisbane, I received an IAPR Certificate of Appreciation for the service as the chairperson of the IAPR Fellow committee during the 1996-98 periods. This was quite a surprise and really a great honor for me. IAPR Statements of Ethics At the banquet of ICPR-2006 in Hong Kong, I was personally asked, from the newly-elected President, Dr. Tombre, to serve as the chair of the advisory committee for coming two-year term. Soon , I organized the committee consisting of several experienced people selected from all over the world. Since then , the committee discussed on a few important issues that the IAPR was facing. One of the problems was the general tendency of increasing plagiarism and no shows in the journals and conferences of academic societies. To avoid such behavior in the IAPR-related activities, we intensively discussed on the statements of ethics, and proposed the draft to Executive Committee. Having been approved by the IAPR Governing Board after a few improvements, the statements were published and posted at IAPR website. Followings are the original wordings that we proposed. IAPR Statements of Ethics (for IAPR members in general) We, the members of the IAPR and its national member societies, commit ourselves to the highest ethical and professional conduct and declare that: 1   We faithfully perform our work by paying utmost attention to the safety, health, and      welfare of the public throughout the world and never endanger the public or the      environment in which we live; 2   We faithfully and honestly disclose the results of our work by fully acknowledging,      respecting, and crediting the contributions of others; 3   We faithfully accept criticism of our work and correct errors whenever necessary to      avoid misleading others in their future work and to avoid damaging others and their      reputations. IAPR Ethical Requirements for Authors (more specific version for authors) The IAPR requires that all authors wishing to present a paper to declare that the paper is original; that is, the manuscript as a whole, or for the most part, is novel, has not been published in (or even submitted to) any journals and has not been presented at any other conferences. If previous versions of the manuscript were published or presented, appropriate references must be given and substantial justification for presentation of the current version must be presented. The IAPR strictly prohibits any plagiarism; that is, the work of others must not be “borrowed” and presented as the authors’own work, regardless of the size of the borrowed portion. The IAPR frowns upon “no-show behavior” at IAPR-related conferences and workshops, meaning that an author registers to make a presentation but does not show up for it. If such behavior is unavoidable due to urgent personal matters, the author is strongly urged to notify the event organizer of the situation as soon as possible. If prior notification is impossible, the organizer should be advised after the fact of the reason for the author’s absence. The IAPR retains the rights to accumulate the names of individuals violating these Requirements, disclose them to the IAPR community, report them to the national member society to which each individual belongs, and/or distribute the list of names to other academic and industrial communities worldwide. The IAPR assumes no responsibility for any resulting loss of reputation or opportunity of such individuals or for any inconvenience related to the future work of such individuals. IAPR Ethical Requirements for Authors (Shortened version for authors, for posting at CFPs) The IAPR requires that all authors wishing to present a paper declare that: 1   the paper is original and has not been submitted to any other conferences or journals,  2   the paper does not contain any plagiarism, and 3   the paper is presented directly by the author under his/her secure presence. The IAPR retains the right to eliminate any papers in violation of these requirements and to exclude the authors of such papers from future IAPR community activities. MVA Series Conferences A special interest group on Machine Vision Applications was established in 1988 by the researchers living in Tokyo area. I was also one of them. This group has been very active in developing vision-related practical technologies, and it was natural for this group to start holding IAPR Workshops on Machine Vision Applications. Since then, this group has been called "MVA Organizing Committee" before one clearly realizes this name. By the initiative of this group, IAPR MVA Workshops have been held biennially. Following list shows the history of the MVA series workshop to date. History of the MVA meetings Year Conference Name Sites City Main sponsor No. of papers Chairmen General Organizing Program 1988 CV 88 * Shigaku Kaikan Tokyo ― 114 S. Tsuji, M. Kidode ― M. Takagi 1990 MVA 90 * Hitachi Central Research Laboratory Tokyo Hitachi, Ltd. 113 M. Ejiri, P.Jonker, R.Kasturi M.Takagi  K. Sakaue 1992 MVA 92 * NEC Super Tower Tokyo NEC 146 M. Takagi, J. Tajima M. Ejiri Y. Suenaga 1994 MVA 94 * Kawasaki-shi Sangyo Shinko Kaikan Kawasaki Mitsubishi Electric Co. 139 M. Takagi, A. Maeda M. Ejiri S. Ozawa 1996 MVA 96 * Keio University Tokyo Keio University 134 M. Takagi, S. Ozawa ― K. Sakaue 1998 MVA 98 * Fujitsu Makuhari Laboratory Chiba Fujitsu Ltd. 136 M. Takagi, S. Sasaki ― K. Ikeuchi 2000 MVA 2000 * University of Tokyo Tokyo University of Tokyo 148 M. Takagi, K. Ikeuchi ― J. Tajima 2002 MVA 2002 * Nara-ken New Public Hall Nara Nara Institute of Science & Technology 156 M. Kidode, M. Takagi ― H. Koshimizu 2005 MVA 2005 * EPOCAL Tsukuba Tsukuba AIST 145 K. Sakaue, M. Takagi ― Y. Kuno, In So Kweon 2007 MVA 2007 * University of Tokyo Tokyo University of Tokyo 137 J. Tajima K.Ikeuchi H. Sakou 2009 MVA 2009 * Keio University Yokohama Keio University 122 H. Saito ― K. Maeda 2011 MVA 2011 * Nara Centennial Hall Nara NAIST 144 K. Yamada ― Y. Kita 2013 MVA 2013 * Ritsumeikan Univ. Kyoto Ritsumeikan Univ. 112 Y. Sato ― M. Suwa 2015 MVA 2015 * MIRAIKAN Tokyo AIST 140 Y. Kita, H. Ishikawa ― T. Masuda B. Stenger 2017 MVA 2017 * Nagoya University Nagoya MVA Organization and Nagoya Univ. 130 H. Ishikawa, R. Okada ― N. Ukita G. Mori 2019 MVA 2019 * National Olympics Memorial Youth Center Tokyo MVA Organization 　　　 R. Okada, N. Ukita ― A. Maki, P. Favaro 2021 MVA 2021  Nagoya  Congress  Center (Online) Nagoya MVA Organization 65  N. Ukita,  K. Sudo  ― R. Kawakami, Minsu Cho 2023 MVA 2023  Hamamatsu  Congress  Center Hamamatsu MVA Organization  K. Sudo  S. Kudo  ―  I. Ide. Wei-ta Chu Note: Those marked with * are the conferences I participated in. As can be seen from this list, the MVA 90 was the first workshop that the words "Machine Vision Applications" appeared in its title. The conference report on this historical MVA 90 once appeared in an IAPR Newsletter, and is again shown below. Click the thumbnail image to enlarge. (PDF) Conference report on MVA 1990 Nowadays, the group "MVA Organizing Committee", renamed recently to "MVA Organization", has grown up as a leading and skilled organizing body, and cooperates with the IAPR TCs in holding and hosting the MVA meetings. From the MVA 2005 meeting, the word "workshop" was replaced with "conference", and the official title of the series meetings is now "IAPR Conference on Machine Vision Applications". We finished the conferences MVA 2015 in Tokyo, MVA 2017 in Nagoya, MVA 2019 at National Olympics Memorial Youth Center in Tokyo, MVA 2021 in Nagoya (as a virtual conference this time because of the coronavirus pandemic), and MVA 2023 in Hamamatsu. Please be aware of the information and the results by visiting each conference website and the website of MVA Organization. Next MVA conference will be held in 2025 and conference site is likely to be somewhere in Tokyo, Japan. We will probably be able to annouce the details soon.