Right Whale Photo Id

1. Right Whale Photo Id Project Planning 09/28/2011

2. Identification of North Atlantic Right Whales Part I • Each individualid’d by callositypattern on the top of the head • Callosity are made of Cyamids, a.k.a. whale lice

3. Identification of North Atlantic Right Whales Part II • At two years of age the callosity pattern stabilizes enough for identification • Scaring also used for identification

4. Data Used for Modeling • Life expectancy • Natural life expectancy unknown • practical life age before accidental death 50 years(?) • Closest living relative Bow Head Whales • some data suggests 200 years • Timing reproductive cycles • data has been variable between 2-5 years for reproductively active individuals • Determining home ranges of individuals • The range of North Atlantic Right Whales is from Nova Scotia to north Florida • One juvenile found off the cost of Europe • Social interactions between individuals • other species are show to be un-speciated sub-groups • Do not inter breed • Sometimes called cultures • Orcas (Killer Whales) • Bottlenose dolphins

5. Threats to Right Whalesthe Urban Whale • Ship strikes • Feed and breed in major commercial cargo lanes • Fishing nets and floating lobster lines • Slow moving and skim feeding hooks in mouth, on callosity, and around fins • Toxins • Most females never give birth • Possibly caused by toxins • Food scarcity • Limited copepod supply • Inhibits pregnant females coming to term • Previous concern almost now females gave birth • Last few years record calf count

6. Problem • Thousands of photographs taken every year • A photograph commonly has multiple whales • Each whale matched against online catalog • Each photograph is usually of poor quality • Bad exposure • Poor animal positioning positioning • Variation in an animal’s scares • Automation of matching has not worked

7. Sample Photos Used for IdentificationBest available photos of RW 1012

8. Concept • Provide a mechanism for the crowd to help researchers id North Atlantic Right Whales • Researchers upload pictures to website • Uploaded pictures shown to crowd for id • Website references pictures in online catalog to give side-by-side view • Crowd proposed matches reported to Researcher

9. Proposed Implementation • Service hosted on GoogleAppengine • Written in Java & GWT • Backend written in Guice dependency injection framework • Database using Google Big Table database

10. Development Environment • Eclipse Helios or Indigo IDE • Google Eclipse plug-in • Google Appengine support • GWT support • Subversive Eclipse plug-in • Subversion support • Mylynw/Rally Connector • Rally support • Google Code • Subversion source control • Wiki for development instructions • Rally Community Edition (not yet approved by team) • Agile Project Planning • User Stories • Tasks • Iterations • Defects • Teamcity • Automatic and scheduled unit testing • Automatic and scheduled regression testing

11. Team Roles and Responsibilities • Fazle Khan • Team Lead • SPMP • QA Lead • SQAP • Cale first draft • Cale Sweeney • Frontend Lead • SDD-Frontend • Requirements Lead • SRS • Mina Botros • CM Lead • SCMP • Backend Lead • SDD-backend

12. Managerial Process • Weekly meeting after class • Meeting agenda prepared and distributed before by Fazle • Meeting minutes prepared and distributed after • Rotating reponsibility • Cale • Fazle • Mina • Individual weekly activity report submitted • Reports compiled into a single report by Fazle

13. Configuration Management • Formal documents • stored in subversion under /doc/Configuration_Management/<name> • Each version will have the name N-N, corresponding to the N.N of the document • Only the document owner can make changes • Changes by non-owners sent via email • Meeting Minutes • Stored under /doc/Meeting_Mintues • Check in by the meeting’s mintue taker • Weekly Report • Individuals reports checked under /doc/weekly_report/<name> by the individual • Compile reports checked stored at /doc/weekly_report

14. Questions?