HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Jean Paul Frédéric Serra (born 1940 in
Algeria Algeria, officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It is bordered to Algeria–Tunisia border, the northeast by Tunisia; to Algeria–Libya border, the east by Libya; to Alger ...
) is a French mathematician and engineer, and known as one of the co-founders (together with Georges Matheron) of
mathematical morphology Mathematical morphology (MM) is a theory and technique for the analysis and processing of Geometry, geometrical structures, based on set theory, lattice theory, topology, and random functions. MM is most commonly applied to digital images, but it ...
.


Biography


Education

Serra received a scientific
baccalauréat The ''baccalauréat'' (; ), often known in France colloquially as the ''bac'', is a French national academic qualification that students can obtain at the completion of their secondary education (at the end of the ''lycée'') by meeting certain ...
in 1957, and an engineering degree from the
École Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Nancy Mines Nancy, officially École Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Nancy (; "Nancy School of Mines"), also referred to as ENSMN, École des Mines de Nancy or Mines Nancy, is one of the leading French engineering Grandes Écoles. It is located in ...
in 1962. He also obtained a
Bachelor's degree A bachelor's degree (from Medieval Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six years ...
in philosophy/
psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Its subject matter includes the behavior of humans and nonhumans, both consciousness, conscious and Unconscious mind, unconscious phenomena, and mental processes such as thoughts, feel ...
, from the
University of Nancy A university () is an institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars". Uni ...
, in 1965. He obtained a PhD in
Mathematical Geology ''Mathematical Geosciences'' (formerly ''Mathematical Geology'') is a scientific journal published semi-quarterly by Springer Science+Business Media on behalf of the International Association for Mathematical Geosciences. It contains original pap ...
from the University of Nancy in 1967, and a ''
doctorat A doctorate (from Latin ''doctor'', meaning "teacher") or doctoral degree is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism ''Licentiate (degree), licentia docendi' ...
d'etat'' in Mathematics, from the
Pierre and Marie Curie University Pierre and Marie Curie University ( , UPMC), also known as Paris VI, was a public research university in Paris, France, from 1971 to 2017. The university was located on the Jussieu Campus in the Latin Quarter of the 5th arrondissement of Paris, ...
, Paris, in 1986. He speaks French, Russian, English, and Spanish.


Mathematical morphology

From 1962 to 1966, while a research engineer at the '' Institut de recherche de la sidérurgie'', France, Serra was a PhD student under the supervision of Georges Matheron. The subject of his thesis was "
stochastic Stochastic (; ) is the property of being well-described by a random probability distribution. ''Stochasticity'' and ''randomness'' are technically distinct concepts: the former refers to a modeling approach, while the latter describes phenomena; i ...
modeling of the iron deposit of
Lorraine Lorraine, also , ; ; Lorrain: ''Louréne''; Lorraine Franconian: ''Lottringe''; ; ; is a cultural and historical region in Eastern France, now located in the administrative region of Grand Est. Its name stems from the medieval kingdom of ...
, at various scales," one of the goals of which was to quantify
petrographic Petrography is a branch of petrology that focuses on detailed descriptions of rocks. Someone who studies petrography is called a petrographer. The mineral content and the textural relationships within the rock are described in detail. The classi ...
characteristics of its iron
ore Ore is natural rock or sediment that contains one or more valuable minerals, typically including metals, concentrated above background levels, and that is economically viable to mine and process. The grade of ore refers to the concentration ...
body. During that period, Serra came up with the idea of using
structuring element In mathematical morphology, a structuring element is a shape, used to probe or interact with a given image, with the purpose of drawing conclusions on how this shape fits or misses the shapes in the image. It is typically used in morphological oper ...
s for transforming images of
cross section Cross section may refer to: * Cross section (geometry) ** Cross-sectional views in architecture and engineering 3D *Cross section (geology) * Cross section (electronics) * Radar cross section, measure of detectability * Cross section (physics) **A ...
s of the ore, in order to gain information about it. The result was a device called "Texture Analyser", which was patented in 1965. This work also lead to the concept of hit-or-miss transform, which evolved into the concepts of
erosion Erosion is the action of surface processes (such as Surface runoff, water flow or wind) that removes soil, Rock (geology), rock, or dissolved material from one location on the Earth's crust#Crust, Earth's crust and then sediment transport, tran ...
,
dilation wiktionary:dilation, Dilation (or dilatation) may refer to: Physiology or medicine * Cervical dilation, the widening of the cervix in childbirth, miscarriage etc. * Coronary dilation, or coronary reflex * Dilation and curettage, the opening of ...
,
opening Opening may refer to: Types of openings * Hole * A title sequence or opening credits * Grand opening of a business or other institution * Inauguration * Keynote * Opening sentence * Opening sequence * Opening statement, a beginning statemen ...
and closing due to Matheron. Granulometry and other concepts followed. In the Winter of 1966, in a pub of Nancy, Matheron, Philippe Formery, and Serra decided to give a name to this body of works: "Mathematical morphology". The new theory and method has since evolved to be applied in a variety of
image processing An image or picture is a visual representation. An image can be two-dimensional, such as a drawing, painting, or photograph, or three-dimensional, such as a carving or sculpture. Images may be displayed through other media, including a pr ...
problems and tasks, and is researched worldwide (''main article:
Mathematical morphology Mathematical morphology (MM) is a theory and technique for the analysis and processing of Geometry, geometrical structures, based on set theory, lattice theory, topology, and random functions. MM is most commonly applied to digital images, but it ...
''). In 1968, the Centre of Mathematical Morphology (CMM) of the
École des Mines de Paris École or Ecole may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * Éco ...
was created (after 1979, it was called ''Centre of Geostatistics and Mathematical Morphology''). Matheron was named director, and Serra was hired as master of research ("Maître de Recherches") and
assistant director The role of an assistant director (AD) on a film includes tracking daily progress against the filming production schedule, arranging logistics, preparing daily call sheets, checking cast and crew, and maintaining order on the set. They also have ...
. In 1986, upon the split of the ''Centre of Geostatistics and Mathematical Morphology'' into two separate centers, Serra became director of research ("Directeur de Recherches") and the director of the new CMM. Serra has continued to contribute to mathematical morphology over the years; In fact, some of the most important theoretical developments are due to him: * Generalization of mathematical morphology to
complete lattice In mathematics, a complete lattice is a partially ordered set in which all subsets have both a supremum ( join) and an infimum ( meet). A conditionally complete lattice satisfies at least one of these properties for bounded subsets. For compariso ...
s * Theory for morphological filtering, with Matheron * Connections


Additional highlights

* 1979–1983: Vice-president of the International Society for Stereology. * 1983–: Member of the
editorial board The editorial board is a group of editors, writers, and other people who are charged with implementing a publication's approach to editorials and other opinion pieces. The editorials published normally represent the views or goals of the publicat ...
of
Acta Stereologica ''Image Analysis & Stereology'' (IAS) formerly ''Acta Stereologica'', is a triannual peer-reviewed scientific journal published by an independent not-for-profit publisher DSKAS. It is the official journal of the International Society for Stereology ...
. * 1988–1991: Member of the scientific board of the French T.V. cultural program. * 1989–: Member of the
editorial board The editorial board is a group of editors, writers, and other people who are charged with implementing a publication's approach to editorials and other opinion pieces. The editorials published normally represent the views or goals of the publicat ...
of the Journal of Visual Communication and Image Representation. * 1990–: Member of the editorial board of the Journal of Mathematical Imaging and Vision. * 1991–1993 : Chairman of the "Image Algebra and Morphological Processing Conference" in
SPIE SPIE (formerly the Society of Photographic Instrumentation Engineers, later the Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers) is an international not-for-profit professional society for optics and photonics technology, founded in 1955. It ...
annual meeting, San Diego, California, USA. * 1993: Chairman of the first Int. Conf. in Mathematical Morphology,
Barcelona Barcelona ( ; ; ) is a city on the northeastern coast of Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second-most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within c ...
, Spain. * 1994: Chairman of the second Int. Conf. in Mathematical Morphology,
Fontainebleau Fontainebleau ( , , ) is a Communes of France, commune in the Functional area (France), metropolitan area of Paris, France. It is located south-southeast of the Kilometre zero#France, centre of Paris. Fontainebleau is a Subprefectures in Franc ...
, France.


Honors and awards

* 1982 : ESCLANGON prize, awarded by the French Society of Physics. * 1988 : First award of the great prize of the AFCET Society. * 1989 : Chevalier of the National Order of Merit. * 1993 :
Doctor Honoris Causa An honorary degree is an academic degree for which a university (or other degree-awarding institution) has waived all of the usual requirements. It is also known by the Latin phrases ''honoris causa'' ("for the sake of the honour") or ''ad hono ...
of the
Autonomous University of Barcelona The Autonomous University of Barcelona (; Spanish: ; ; UAB) is a public university mostly located in Cerdanyola del Vallès, near the city of Barcelona in Catalonia, Spain. , the university consists of 57 departments in the experimental, lif ...
, Spain. * 1993 : Founder of the International Society for Mathematical Morphology, and first president of this society. * 2006 : First recipient of
Georges Matheron Lectureship The Georges Matheron Lecture Series is sponsored by the International Association for Mathematical Geosciences (IAMG) to honor the legacy of the French engineer Georges François Paul Marie Matheron, known as the founder of geostatistics and a co-f ...
Award of
International Association for Mathematical Geosciences The International Association for Mathematical Geosciences (IAMG) is a nonprofit organization of geoscientists. It aims to promote international cooperation in the application and use of mathematics in geological research and technology. IAMG's act ...


Main publications

* ''Image Analysis and Mathematical Morphology'', (1982) * ''Image Analysis and Mathematical Morphology, Volume 2: Theoretical Advances'', (1988)


Notes


References


Serra's curriculum vitae


* ttp://cmm.ensmp.fr/~serra/pdf/birth_of_mm.pdf History of Mathematical Morphology, by Georges Matheron and Jean Serra * ''Mathematical Morphology and its Application to Signal Processing'', J. Serra and Ph. Salembier (Eds.), proceedings of the 1st international symposium on mathematical morphology (ISMM'93), (1993) * ''Mathematical Morphology and Its Applications to Image Processing'', J. Serra and P. Soille (Eds.), proceedings of the 2nd international symposium on mathematical morphology (ISMM'94), (1994) * ''Mathematical Morphology: 40 Years On'', Christian Ronse, Laurent Najman, and Etienne Decencière (Eds.), (2005) * ''Mathematical Morphology and its Applications to Signal and Image Processing'', Gerald J.F. Banon, Junior Barrera, Ulisses M. Braga-Neto (Eds.), proceedings of the 8th international symposium on mathematical morphology (ISMM'07), (2007) * ''Special Issue on 'Spatial Information Retrieval, Analysis, Reasoning and Modelling'', B. S. Daya Sagar and Jean Serra (Eds.)
International Journal of Remote Sensing, v. 31, no. 22, pp. 5747–6032 (2010)
* ''Special Issue on 'Filtering and Segmentation in Mathematical Morphology'', Laurent Najman, Junior Barrera, B. S. Daya Sagar, Petros Maragos and Dan Schonfeld (Eds.)
IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Signal Processing, v. 6, no. 7, pp. 737–886 (2012)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Serra, Jean 1940 births Living people French mathematicians Mathematical morphology University of Lorraine alumni Pierre and Marie Curie University alumni Knights of the Ordre national du Mérite Nancy-Université alumni Academic staff of Mines Paris - PSL