Cesar Bandera, Ph.D., Founder

Education

• Cert., Harvard School of Management, Executive Development, 1996.

• Ph.D., University at Buffalo, Electrical and Computer Engineering, 1990.

• M.S., University at Buffalo, Electrical Engineering, 1984.

Research Expertise

Dr. Bandera's technical background is in active perception, which combines real-time computer vision and other sensor modalities with machine learning and behavioral control. He is interested in all aspects of active vision, including algorithms for signal processing and control, sensor VLSI, multiprocessing architectures, and offsetting the limitations of each of these components through the purposive integration into operational systems. Dr. Bandera's experience in active perception comes largely from his work in foveal vision, which exploits in the machine setting the multiacuity properties prevalent in vertebrate vision. Foveal vision is intended for autonomous platforms with diverse behaviors competing for limited perception resources, such as navigation, search, recognition, and manipulation. It supports a more refined allocation of perceptual resources, but also requires a tighter coordination of all the aspects of active vision.

While at AT&T Labs, which coincided with the peak of broadband multimedia investments by the telecommunications industry, Dr. Bandera became involved with rich media. Since then, he has been active in the field of pervasive rich media. This field endeavors to provide spatiotemporally coordinated multimodal streams to an audience with diverse demographics, player platforms and channel access (e.g., broadband-connected PCs, wireless PDAs, set-top boxes). Pervasive rich media builds upon object oriented multimodal architectures such as MPEG-4 (the complex profiles, not just a video codec or vector graphics animation) to automate the on-demand tailoring of content and to cost-effectively support audience diversity. He is also involved in extending ratified standards so as to support the many de-facto standards in use today.

Academe Accomplishments

Dissertations Supported (Committee Member, Technical Direction and Funding)

1.      'Reinforcement Learning Gaze Control,' Kit Shan Choy, University of Buffalo Department of Computer Science and Engineering, 2000.

2.      'Issues in the Design of Pipelined VLSI Circuits for DSP Applications,' Dipankar Talukdar, University of Buffalo Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, 1997.

3.      'Multiresolution Object Recognition usingNeural Networks,' Susan Shiqiong Young, University of Buffalo Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, 1995

4.      'Representing and Learning Routine Activities,' Henry Hexmoor, University of Buffalo Department of Computer Science, 1995.

5.      'A Computational Model of Color Perception and Color Naming,' Johan M. Lammens, University of Buffalo Department of Computer Science, 1994.

Selected Invited Lectures and Courses Taught

·    'Computer Vision,' Univ. of Buffalo; School of Medicine, Faculty of Applied Sciences (1995, 1996, 1997)

·    'Advanced Topics in Active Vision,' Cornell (1998), Brock University Distinguished Lecturer Series, Canada (1996), University of Malaga, Spain (1995, 1996, 1997, 2000 - 2004)

·    'Introduction to Hierarchical Foveal Vision,' Brock University Distinguished Lecturer Series, Canada (1995), University of Malaga, Spain (1994), Dipartimento di Informatica Sistematica e Telematica of the University of Genova, Italy (1994), Scuola Superiore Santa Anna Advanced RoboticsTechnology and Systems (ARTS) Facility, Pisa, Italy (1994)

·    'Electronic Circuits,' Univ. of Buffalo Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering (1982, 1983)

Industry Accomplishments

In 1990, Dr. Bandera formed a research department at Amherst Systems dedicated to the development and application of active vision. This work yielded operational platforms with algorithms for video understanding and automaton behavior control, matching multiprocessor architectures, and smart VLSI imaging sensors (imagers with monolithic signal processing). He had profit/loss responsibility, and was able to secure external funding for all R&D (over twenty customer grants and contracts) while exceeding growth and profit estimates.

The technology is now in use in several government programs including NASA's Extravehicular Activity Helper/Retreiver robot, and target tracking systems at the Naval Air Warfare Center. The department is affiliated with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, SUNY Buffalo, and the University of Malaga.

To date, this active vision research has yielded six Ph.D. and four M.S. degrees, several patents, highest distinction in the Air Force Small Business Innovative Research Accomplishments Report to the U.S. Congress, two Small Business of the Year nominations (one from Rome Lab and another from NJ Biz magazine), and the 1999 NASA Space Act award from Johnson Space Center.

In 2001, Dr. Bandera formed a research department at Manhattan-based Sorceron dedicated to the synthesis and delivery of object-oriented rich media. As CTO, he was responsible for the company’s offerings in its target government markets: e-learning, scientific outreach, and surveillance/security. Through National Science Foundation R&D grants, he was able to bootstrap Creneaux’s e-learning operations without equity investment.

Boards

·   Rutgers Center for Advanced Information Processing (CAIP) Industry Advisory Board

·   InfoValue Technical Advisory Board

·   Face2Face (Bell Labs spin-off) Board of Advisors

Reviewer

·   National Science Foundation

·   Autonomous Robots Journal, Machine Learning Journal (Kluwer Academic Publishers)

·   State University of New York Multidisciplinary Pilot Project Program

Memberships

·   Association for Computing Machinery

·   Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers

·   International Society for Optical Engineering

Honors, Awards, Patents

·   2008, New Jersey Entrepeneur, NJ Biz Magazine

·   2006, Dynamically Reconfigurable Foveal Vision System, Patent # 7106374

·   2002, CMOS foveal image sensor chip, Patent # 6455831

·   1999, Space Act Award, NASA Johnson Space Center, Contribution to Space Exploration

·   1993, Highest Distinction, Small Business Innovative Research Accomplishments Report to the U.S. Congress, US Air Force, Excellence in Research Commercialization

·   1992, Small Business of the Year Nomination, US Air Force, Excellence in Research

Funding Secured

·    American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA): Wireless content development for emergency response, $150,000, 2009.

·    National Institutes of Health: Just in Time Training for Emergency Incidents System, $400,000, 2008.

·    National Institutes of Health: Emergency Training for Skilled Support Personnel, $100,000, 2007.

·    National Institutes of Health: High Adherence Ergonomic Oral Positive Airway Pressure Device, $100,000, 2006.

·    National Science Foundation: Research Commercialization Award, $197,365, 2005.

·    National Institutes of Health: Educating Schools and Families with ToxRAP over MPEG-4, $100,000, 2004.

·    National Science Foundation: Education on demand for technique training Phase II, $442,000, 2003.

·    National Science Foundation: Education on demand for technique training Phase I, $100,000, 2002.

·    National Aeronautics and Space Administration: Rich media engine for hyperspectral collaborative workspaces, $70,000, 2001.

·    Air Force Office of Scientific Research: Second generation smart foveal imager, $500,000, 1999.

·    National Science Foundation, Microminiature 2-D spherical pointing actuator, $300,000, 1997.

·    Office of Naval Research: Ground vehicle foveal cueing system development, $750,000, 1997.

·    National Aeronautics and Space Administration: Foveal cueing sensor development, $500,000, 1997.

·    US Air Force Research Laboratory, Eglin AFB: Development of reconfigurable foveal cueing system, $70,000, 1997.

·    Office of Naval Research: Foveal sensor development, $650,000, 1996.

·    National Science Foundation: SBIR Phase I: Spherical Pointing Actuator, $74,542, 1996.

·    National Aeronautics and Space Administration: Extravehicular helper-retriever robot development, $500,000, 1995.

·    US Air Force Wright Laboratory: Reinforcement learning for visual attention, $75,000, 1995.

·    National Science Foundation: Foveal gaze control algorithms, $75,000, 1994.

·   Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency: Biological techniques for machine vision, $75,000, 1991.

·    US Air Force Wright Laboratory: Integration of the Tactics and Equipment Evaluator with C3I signal simulator, $300,000, 1990.

·    Office of Naval Research: Active pursuit algorithms for foveal vision, $500,000, 1990.

·    US Air Force Rome Laboratory: Non Von Neumann software life cycle hypertext database, $500,000, 1989.

·    US Air Force Wright Laboratory: Real-time Ada SUPPRESSOR study, $300,000, 1988.

·    US Air Force Wright Laboratory: Tactics and Equipment Evaluator development, $650,000, 1986.

Selected Publications

·    C. Bandera, Update on Just-In-Time Training of Deployed Skilled Support Personnel via Cell Phone Multimedia, Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation, and Education Conference, Orlando, Nov 2007.

·    C. Bandera, A resource for emerging companies, NJBiz Magazine, April 2007.

·    C. Bandera, M. Marsico, Wireless Just-in-Time Training of Mobile First Responders. Proceedings of the 2006 SPIE Defense and Security Symposium. 20 April 2006.

·    C. Bandera, M. Marsico, Rich media streaming for just-in-time training of first responders. Proceedings of the 2005 SPIE Defense and Security Symposium. 28 Mar 2005.

·    C. Bandera, B. McMullen, R. Beck, Object-Oriented E-Education for PK-16 Students and Teachers. Proceedings of the 2004 International Educause Conference. 18 Oct 2004.

·    C. Bandera, Learner Diversity and Content Personalization with MPEG-4. 2004 National Science Foundation Design, Service and Manufacturing Grantees and Research Conference. 3 Jan 2004.

·    C. Bandera, B. McMullen, R. Beck, E-Learning Objects: The Value of SCORM and MPEG-7 Packaging for Digital Media Assets. Proceedings of the 2003 International Educause Conference. 3 Nov 2003.

·    C. Bandera, SCORM-Compliant Interactive Video. Proceedings of the 2002 IITSEC. 2 Dec 2002.

·    B. McMullen, C. Bandera, R. Beck, Object Oriented Multimedia Content; Server Benefits versus Authoring Costs. Proceedings of the 2002 International Educause Conference. 1 Oct 2002.

·    C. Bandera, D. Stack, B. Pain, C. Wrigley, Real-time reconfigurable foveal target acquisition and tracking system. Proceedings of the SPIE AeroSense Symposium on Acquisition, Tracking, and Pointing XIII. April 1999.

·    H. Hexmoor, C. Bandera, Architectural issues for integration of sensing and acting modalities. Proceedings of the IEEE International Symposium on Intelligent Control. 14 Sep 1998.

·    S. Xia, R. Sridhar, P. Scott, C. Bandera, An All CMOS Foveal Image Sensor Chip. Proceedings of the 11th Annual IEEE International ASIC Conference. 13 Sep 1998.

·    D. McKee, C. Bandera, Multistage foveal target detection system. Proceedings of the SPIE AeroSense '98 Symposium on Signal Processing, Sensor Fusion, and Target Recognition VII. 13 Apr 1998.

·    S. Young, P. Scott, C. Bandera, Foveal automatic target recognition using a multiresolution neural network. IEEE Transactions on Image Processing. 7(8):1122-1135. 1998.

·    F. Du, C. Bandera, Parallel programming for real-time image processing using computing agents. Proceedings of the International Conference on Parallel and Distributed Processing Techniques and Applications. 3(Las Vegas, Nevada):1505-1514. 30 Jun 1997.

·    D. McKee, C. Bandera, Performance of a foveal target detection system. Proceedings of the SPIE AeroSense '97 Symposium on Signal Processing, Sensor Fusion, and Target Recognition VI. April 1997.

·    P. Scott, S. Young, C. Bandera, Foveal automatic target recognition using neural networks. Proceedings of the International Conference on Image Processing. 16 Sep 1996.

·    C. Bandera, F. Vico, J. Bravo, M. Harmon, L. Baird, Residual Q-learning applied to visual attention. Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Machine Learning. 3 Jul 1996.

·    F. Du, C. Bandera, Attentive control for model-based object recognition: a preliminary study. Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition. 18 Jun 1996.

·    F. Du, A. Izatt, C. Bandera, An MIMD computing platform for hierarchical foveal machine vision system. Proceedings of the IEEE Conf on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition. 18 Jun 1996.

·    S. Ghosal, D. McKee, C. Bandera, Model-based automatic target recognition using hierarchical foveal machine vision. Proceedings of the SPIE AeroSense '96 Symposium on Signal Processing, Sensor Fusion, and Target Recognition V. April 1996.

·    C. Bandera, F. Vico, Stable color perception for deformable material characterization. Proceedings of the 1996 Workshop on Automation Robotics for Visco-Elastic Materials. 26 Mar 1996.

·    S. Ghosal, A. Izatt, C. Bandera, Retinotopic processing for active foveal vision. Proceedings of the 2nd Asian Conference on Computer Vision. 5 Dec 1995.

·    F. Du, C. Bandera, A. Izatt, A supporting environment for parallel algorithm development of a parallel image processing engine. Proceedings of the International Conference on Parallel and Distributed Processing Techniques and Applications. 3 Nov 1995.

·    C. Bandera, F. Vico, A multiacuity connectionist model for local speed estimation. Proceedings of the International Workshop on Artificial Neural Networks. June 1995.

·    C. Bandera, Attention in Active Foveal Vision. Defense Technical Information Center. Technical Report(ADB-182078L):March 1994.

·    C. Bandera, Foveal FPA with Monolithic Early Vision Processing and Gaze Control. Proceedings of the DOD Smart Staring IRFPA Workshop. July 1993.

·    P. Scott, S. Young, C. Bandera, Hierarchical Top-Down Classification Based on Multiresolution Skeleton. Proceedings of the IS&T/SPIE Conference on Electronic Imaging Science and Technology. 31 Jan 1993.

·    C. Bandera, P. Scott, Machine Vision for Active Pursuit: The Foveal Alternative. Journal of Electronic Defense. 16(10):October 1991.

·    C. Bandera, P. Scott, Hierarchical Multiresolution Data Structures and Algorithms for Foveal Vision Systems. Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics. November 1990.

·    C. Bandera, P. Scott, Foveal Machine Vision Systems. Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics. November 1989.

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Edmond A DeFrank, Esq.

IP Expertise

Mr. DeFrank has over 12 years experience as both an engineer and attorney in the high technology sector. Mr. DeFrank not only invents, designs and develops computer hardware, software and IT related products, he also practices law and has been a registered Patent Attorney and intellectual property specialist since 1992. Mr. DeFrank has written and prosecuted several hundreds of patents for large high technology companies and educational institutions and was one of the first patent attorneys in US history to successfully write and prosecute software, e-commerce and IT business model patents for the World Wide Web in the early 1990s. Some of Mr. DeFrank’s present and previous clients include Hewlett-Packard Company, IBM, Microsoft, Motorola, AT&T, Applied Materials Semiconductor, NASA, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Caltech, UCLA, and Northrop Grumman Aerospace.

In addition, Mr. DeFrank has extensive experience in strategic patent counseling, including exploiting patent portfolios through audit and analysis, sale, acquisition, licensing, prosecution and litigation. Mr. DeFrank also has considerable experience in structuring and negotiating relationships between high technology companies, which includes forming licensing opportunities to generate revenue from technology and intellectual property. He has negotiated numerous complex licensing, development, manufacturing, marketing, distribution and outsourcing relationships.

Further, Mr. DeFrank has broad experience in information technology (IT) and computer engineering, including networks, software and peripherals. Mr. DeFrank was a Chief Engineer for Pioneer Electronics and managed five engineers and over 100 employees. During his time at Pioneer Electronics, Mr. DeFrank raised productively in his department by approximately 500% over a one year period by implementing a comprehensive engineering management and productivity plan that included updating and revising existing engineering plans and developing a comprehensive educational program that included regular workforce training, evaluations and assessment sessions. Mr. DeFrank was also a Control and Standards Engineer for GE, a New Product Development Engineer for IBM and Bausch & Lomb and the CTO for eRayVision, LLC., a computer software development company.

Prior to joining BanDeMar Networks, Mr. DeFrank founded, managed and successfully ran several high-technology companies. These companies designed, developed and produced software, services and e-commerce applications, including a unique search engine that integrated different, disparate and distributed sources, educational software plug-ins, an advanced abstract data-sharing metadata document retrieval system, and many other programs to assist with day to day business operations and e-commerce transactions. To date, these companies have exceeded five million dollars in sales. The successes of these companies are greatly attributed to his vast engineering and technical expertise, intellectual property knowledge and experience, and his excellent business development skills that include immeasurable affiliations and connections with high level executives in small businesses, Fortune 500 companies and educational institutions worldwide, which he used to economically and technically develop his companies with strong technical partnerships and expert marketing campaigns. Some of Mr. DeFrank’s top technology and marketing partnerships currently include CalTech, UCLA, Cerritos College, University of Nebraska, Film Crest Entertainment, San Diego Chargers, Seattle Seahawks, HP, IBM, Yahoo, Google, Double Click, Ask Jeeves, Orbitz and Microsoft.

Mr. DeFrank’s research, design, development and commercialization interests lie in educational products incorporating multimedia. Mr. DeFrank is also a dedicated non-paid director of a local non-profit organization that he founded several years ago. He spends a considerable amount of his time raising money from local corporate sponsors, celebrities, professional athletes and business people for helping needy children all over the world. Mr. DeFrank has over three hundred technical publications.

Selected Prosecuted Patents

Computer Networks and IT

§     Multicasting System And Method For Providing Personalized Content, U.S. Patent Publication No., 20030163528, 2003

§     Configurable Graphical Element For Monitoring Dynamic Properties Of A Resource Coupled To A Computing Environment, U.S. Patent Publication No. 20030112269, 2003

§     Unified Diagnostics Platform System And Method For Evaluating Computer Products, U.S. Patent Publication No. 20030014618, 2003

§     Method And System For Dynamically Managing Data Structures To Optimize Computer Network Performance, U.S. Patent Publication No. 20030009482, 2003

§     Animation On-Object User Interface, U.S. Patent Publication No. 20020147740, 2002

§     System And Method For Performing Sparse Transformed Template Matching Using 3D Rasterization, U.S. Patent Publication No. 20020131640, 2002

§     System And Process For Broadcast And Communication With Very Low Bit-Rate Bi-Level Or Sketch Video, U.S. Patent Publication No. 20020126755, 2002

§     Progressive Streaming Media Rendering, U.S. Patent Publication No. 20020116473, 2002

§     Image-Based Walkthrough System And Process Employing Spatial Video Streaming, U.S. Patent Publication No. 20020113805, 2002

§     Image-Based Virtual Reality Player With Integrated 3D Graphics Objects, U.S. Patent Publication No. 20020113791, 2002

§     System And Method For Providing A Universal And Automatic Communication Access Point, U.S. Patent Publication No. 20020111813, 2002

§     System And Method For Using Dynamic Web Components To Remotely Control The Security State Of Web Pages, U.S. Patent Publication No. 20020104023, 2002

§     System And Method For Optimizing Graphics Intensive Software Program For The User's Graphics Hardware, U.S. Patent Publication No. 20020093505, 2002

§     Apparatus And Method For Controlling A Picture Within A Picture Display Device, U.S. Patent Publication No. 20020089488, 2002

§     Computer Network Testing System And Method Using Client Playback Of Edited Network Information, U.S. Patent Publication No. 20020087282, 2002

§     Graphically Represented Dynamic Time Strip For Displaying User-Accessible Time-Dependent Data Objects, U.S. Patent Publication No. 20020085034, 2002

§     Method And System For Creating And Managing Common And Custom Storage Devices In A Computer Network, U.S. Patent Publication No. 20020065840, 2002

§     Interactive Construction Of 3D Models From Panoramic Images Employing Hard And Soft Constraint Characterization And Decomposing Techniques, U.S. Patent No. 6,271,855

§     Interactive Construction And Refinement Of 3D Models From Multiple Panoramic Images, U.S. Patent No. 6,246,412

§     Building Block Approach For Fatigue Spectra Generation, U.S. Patent No. 6,125,333, 2000

Computer Hardware and Software

§     Method and apparatus for enhanced power consumption handling of bus-controlled components, U.S. Patent Publication No. 20040210777, 2004

§     System and method for automatically de-installing previously installed software based on user defined preferences, U.S. Patent Publication No. 20040015956, 2004

§     System and method for issuing user configurable identification numbers with collision free mapping, U.S. Patent Publication No. 20030188185, 2004

§     System and method for providing connection orientation based access authentication, U.S. Patent Publication No. 20030101338, 2003

§     System and method for indicating whether a document is cached, U.S. Patent Publication No. 20030101234, 2003

§     Network addressing method and system for localizing access to network resources in a computer network, U.S. Patent Publication No. 20030012225, 2003

§     Method and system for managing parallel data transfer through multiple sockets to provide scalability to a computer network, U.S. Patent Publication No. 20020199000, 2002

§     Pre-boot multicast address management protocol for a computer network, U.S. Patent Publication No. 20020198972, 2002

§     Adaptive encoding and decoding of bi-level images, U.S. Patent Publication No. 20020172427, 2002

§     System and method for configuring managed computers using an electronic mobile handheld device, U.S. Patent Publication No. 20020147027, 2002

§     System and method for creating markers on scroll bars of a graphical user interface, U.S. Patent Publication No. 20020145631, 2002

§     System and method for viewing and controlling a presentation, U.S. Patent Publication No. 20020140724, 2002

§     System and method for providing positional authentication for client-server systems, 20020138632, 2002

§     System and method for automatically and dynamically modifying functions of mobile devices based on positional data, U.S. Patent Publication No. 20020138598, 2002

§     System and method for providing access to mobile devices based on positional data, U.S. Patent Publication No. 20020137524, 2002

§     Method and system for managing lock contention in a computer system, U.S. Patent Publication No. 20020107854, 2002

§     System and method for face recognition using synthesized training images, U.S. Patent Publication No. 20020106114, 2002

§     System and method for using dynamic web components to automatically customize web pages, U.S. Patent Publication No. 20020103856, 2002

§     System and method for high-density interactive voting using a computer network, U.S. Patent Publication No. 20020103696, 2002

§     Method for testing a computer bus using a bridge chip having a freeze-on-error option, U.S. Patent Publication No. 20020095624, 2002

§     System and method for applying quality of service policies to internet protocol security to avoid bandwidth limitations on a computer network, U.S. Patent Publication No. 20020078341, 2002

§     System and method for prefetching portions of a web page based on learned preferences, U.S. Patent Publication No. 20020078165, 2002

§     System and method for identifying lost electronic devices, U.S. Patent Publication No. 20020073314, 2002

§     Service alert agent for a computer system, U.S. Patent Publication No. 20020069112, 2002

§     Tapered air apertures for thermally robust vertical cavity laser structures, U.S. Patent Publication No. 20020067748, 2002

§     System and method for enlarging a liquid crystal display screen of a personal data assistant, U.S. Patent Publication No. 20020067471, 2002

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