Dario ALLEGRA

Fixed-term Assistant Professor (RTDB) of Informatics [INF/01]

Dario Allegra received his bachelor’s degree in computer science in 2012 and his master’s degree in 2014 from University of Catania. He received a Ph.D. in Mathematics and Computer Science in 2018 from University of Catania and he has conducted his research at University of Bern as guest Ph.D. student in 2017. He is currently a tenure track assistant professor at the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science at University of Catania. He has authored over 40 research papers in International Journals and Conference Proceedings, has served as guest editor for several special issue in international journal and has been chairs of multiple workshops. His research interests lie in the fields of Image Processing, Machine Learning and Computer vision and mainly focus on food images understanding and cultural heritage preservation and valorization. He is member of the IEEE Signal Processing Society and Eurographics association and has been involved as participant and coordinator in multiple research project funded by national/international institution as well as big companies like ST Microelectronics. His research paper address challenging problem in several fields, which requires the use of imaging algorithms to be properly solved. Among them: image compression using re-indexing and color optimization, visual document fingerprint extraction and recognition, food recognition and classification, nutrients estimation from visual media, video artifacts detection and correction and so on. He has been lecturer for the bachelor’s course and for the master’s course in computer science at University of Catania since 2018. His classes focus on images processing and video processing algorithms by starting from the digital representation of such media.

PROCEEDINGS

[1] Filippo Stanco, Dario Allegra, Filippo L. M. Milotta. “Detection and correction of mistracking in digitalized analog video”. International Workshop on Multimedia for Cultural Heritage (MM4CH) in conjunction with ICIAP 2013, volume 8158 of LNCS, pages 218-227, 2013.

[2] Giovanni M. Farinella, Dario Allegra, Filippo Stanco. “A Benchmark Dataset to Study the Representation of Food Images”. International Workshop on Assistive Computer Vision and Robotics (ACVR) in conjunction with ECCV 2014, Springer Vol. 1, pages 584-599, 2014.

[3] Giovanni Maria Farinella, Dario Allegra, Marco Moltisanti, Filippo Stanco, Sebastiano. Battiato, “Food Understanding from Digital Images". La Simulazione nel settore Food & Beverage, 2015.

[4] Giovanni M. Farinella, Dario Allegra, Filippo Stanco, Sebastiano Battiato. “On the exploitation of one class classification to distinguish food vs non-food images”. In: New Trends in Image Analysis and Processing, MADiMa. Vol. 9281 of LNCS, pages 375 – 383, 2015.

[5] Dario Allegra, Enrico Ciliberto, Paolo Ciliberto, Filippo L. M. Milotta, Giuseppe Petrillo, Filippo Stanco, Claudia Trombatore, “Virtual Unrolling Using X-Ray Computed Tomography”, 23rd European Signal Processing Conference (EUSIPCO), 2015.

[6] Filippo L. M. Milotta, Dario Allegra, Filippo Stanco, Giovanni M. Farinella, “An Electronic Travel Aid to Assist Blind and Visually Impaired People to Avoid Obstacles”, Computer Analysis of Images and Patterns (CAIP), volume 9257 of LNCS, pages 604-615, 2015.

[7] Dario Allegra, Filippo Stanco, Grigori Valenti. “A Semi-automatic Algorithm for Applying the Ken Burns Effect”. Smart Tools and Apps in computer Graphics (STAG), Eurographics Italian Chapter Conference, pages 93 – 101, 2015.

[8] Maria F. Alberghina, Filippo Alberghina, Dario Allegra, Francesco Di Paola, Laura Maniscalco, Filippo L. M. Milotta, Salvatore Schiavone, Filippo Stanco. “Archaeometric characterization and 3D survey: new perspectives for monitoring and valorisation of Morgantina silver Treasure (Sicily)" 1st International Conference on Metrology for Archaeology, volume 1, 2015.

[9] Giovanni Gallo, Dario Allegra, Yaser Gholizade Atani, Filippo L.M. Milotta, Filippo Stanco, Giuseppe Catanuto. “Breast Shape Parametrization through Planar Projections”, accepted at Advanced Concepts for Intelligent Vision Systems (ACIVS), 2016.

[10] Dario Allegra, Giovanni Gallo, Laura Inzerillo, Marcella Lombardo, Filippo L. M. Milotta, Cettina Santagati, Filippo Stanco. “Low Cost Handheld 3D Scanning for Architectural Elements Acquisition”, Smart Tools and Apps in computer Graphics (STAG) 2016.

[11] Filippo Stanco, Davide Tanasi, Dario Allegra, Filippo L. M. Milotta. “3D Digital Imaging for Knowledge Dissemination of Greek Archaic Statuary”, Smart Tools and Apps in computer Graphics (STAG), 2016.

[12] Dario Allegra, Marios Anthimopoulos, Joachim Dehais, Ya Lu, Filippo Stanco, Giovanni Maria Farinella and Stavroula Mougiakakou. “A Multimedia Database for Automatic Meal Assessment Systems” International Workshop on Multimedia Assisted Dietary Management, 2017.

[13] Dario Allegra, Filippo Luigi Maria Milotta, Diego Sinitò, Filippo Stanco, Giovanni Gallo, Wafa Taher, Giuseppe Catanuto. “Description of Breast Morphology through Bag of Normals Representation”. International Conference on Image Analysis and Processing, 2017

[14] Emiliano Spera, Giovanni Gallo, Dario Allegra, Filippo Stanco, Andrea Maugeri, Annalisa Quattrocchi, Martina Barchitta, Antonella Agodi. “Randomized G-computation Models in Healthcare Systems”. International Symposium on Computer-Based Medical System, 2018.

[15] Ya Lu, Dario Allegra, Marios Anthimopoulos, Filippo Stanco, Giovanni Maria Farinella, Stavroula Mougiakakou. “A multi-task learning approach for meal assessment”. International Workshop on Multimedia Assisted Dietary Management, 2018.

[16] Dario Allegra, Francesco Alessandro, Corrado Santoro, Filippo Stanco. “Experiences in using the pepper robotic platform for museum”. IEEE International Conference on Image Processing, Athens, Greece, 2018, pp. 1033-1037, DOI: 10.1109/ICIP.2018.8451777.

 [17] Oliver Giudice, Dario Allegra, Filippo Stanco, Giorgio Grasso, Sebastiano Battiato. “A fast palette reordering technique based on GPU-optimized genetic algorithms”. IEEE International Conference on Image Processing, Athens, Greece, 2018, pp. 1138-1142, DOI: 10.1109/ICIP.2018.8451221.

[18] Rami Reddy Devaram, Dario Allegra, Giovanni Gallo, Filippo Stanco. “Hyperspectral Image Classification via Convolutional Neural Network Based on Dilation Layers”. International Conference on Image Analysis and Processing, in Lecture Notes in Computer Science, volume 11751, 2019.

[19] Dario Allegra, Daniela Erba, Giovanni Maria Farinella, Giovanni Grazioso, Paolo Danilo Maci, Filippo Stanco, Valeria Tomaselli. “Learning to Rank Food Images”. International Conference on Image Analysis and Processing, in Lecture Notes in Computer Science, volume 11752, 2019.

[20] Raissa Garozzo, Giovanni Pasqualino, Dario Allegra, Cettina Santagati, Filippo Stanco. “Augmented Reality for the Valorization and Communication of Ruined Architecture”. International Workshop on Pattern Recognition for Cultural Heritage, in Lecture Notes in Computer Science, volume 11808, 2019.

[21] Francesco Guarnera, Dario Allegra, Oliver Giudice, Filippo Stanco and Sebastiano Battiato. “A New Study on Wood Fibers Textures: Documents Authentication Through LBP Fingerprint”. IEEE International Conference on Image Processing, Taipei, Taiwan, 2019, pp. 4594-4598.

[22] Giovanna Pappalardo, Dario Allegra, Filippo Stanco and Sebastiano Battiato. “A New Framework for Studying Tubes Rearrangement Strategies in Surveillance Video Synopsis”. IEEE International Conference on Image Processing, Taipei, Taiwan, 2019, pp. 664-668.

[23] Dario Allegra, Daniela Erba, Giovanni Maria Farinella, Giovanni Grazioso, Paolo Danilo Maci, Filippo Stanco, and Valeria Tomaselli. “Learning to rank food images”. In: International Conference on Image Analysis and Processing (ICIAP). Springer, Cham. 2019, pp. 629–639.

[24] Oliver Giudice, Dario Allegra, Francesco Guarnera, Filippo Stanco, and Sebastiano Battiato. “Animated GIF optimization by adaptive color local table management”. In: 2020 IEEE International Conference on Image Processing (ICIP). IEEE. 2020, pp. 843–847.

[25] Luigi Claudio Viagrande, Dario Allegra, and Filippo Stanco. “Point to Culture: a Point to Click Framework for Serious Games in Cultural Heritage”. In: Smart Tools and Apps for Graphics (STAG). 2020, pp. 19–25.

[26] Luigi Claudio Viagrande, Dario Allegra, and Filippo Stanco. “Curve Design Studio: B´ezier Curve Integrated Tool for Video Game Development.” In: Smart Tools and Apps for Graphics (STAG). 2020, pp. 19–25.

[27] Giovanna Pappalardo, Dario Allegra, Filippo Stanco, and Giovanni Maria Farinella. “On the Exploitation of Temporal Redundancy to Improve Polyp Detection in Colonoscopy”. In: IEEE 4th International Conference on Image Processing, Applications and Systems (IPAS). pp. 58–63.

[28] Dario Allegra, Mattia Litrico, Maria Ausilia Napoli Spatafora, Filippo Stanco, and Giovanni Maria Farinella. “Exploiting Egocentric Vision on Shopping Cart for Out-Of-Stock Detection in Retail Environments”. In: International Workshop on Assistive Computer Vision and Robotics (ACVR). 2021.

[29] Lorenzo Catania, Dario Allegra, Oliver Giudice, Filippo Stanco, and Sebastiano Battiato. “Introducing AV1 Codec-Level Video Steganography”. In: Image Analysis and Processing. 2022, pp. 284–294.

[30] Stefano Borz`ı, Oliver Giudice, Filippo Stanco, and Dario Allegra. “Is synthetic voice detection research going into the right direction?” In: IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition Workshops (CVPRW). 2022, pp. 71–80.

[31] Dario Allegra, Giuseppe Furnari, Simona Gargano, Anna Maria Gueli, Simone Parisi, Stefania Pasquale, Filippo Stanco, and Giuseppe Stella. “A method to improve the color rendering accuracy in cultural heritage: preliminary results”. In: Journal of Physics: Conference Series. 2022.

[32] Maria Ausilia Napoli Spatafora, Dario Allegra, Oliver Giudice, Filippo Stanco, and Sebastiano Battiato. “Natural Gas Leakage Detection: a Deep Learning Framework on IR Video Data”. In: International Conference on Pattern Recognition. 2022, pp. 636–642.

 

JOURNALS

[1] Filippo Stanco, Dario Allegra, Filippo L.M. Milotta. “Tracking error in digitized analog video: automatic detection and correction”. Multimedia Tools and Applications, Volume 75, Issue 7, pp 3733-3746, 2014.

[2] Dario Allegra, Enrico Ciliberto, Paolo Ciliberto, Giuseppe Petrillo, Filippo Stanco, Claudia Trombatore. “X-ray Computed Tomography for virtually unrolling damaged papyri". Applied Physics A, March 2016, volume 122(3), pages 1-7, 2016.

[3] Giovanni M. Farinella, Dario Allegra, Marco Moltisanti, Filippo Stanco, Sebastiano Battiato. “Retrieval and Classification of Food Images" Computers in Biology and Medicine, Volume 77, 1 October 2016, Pages 23-39, 2016.

[4] Maria Francesca Alberghina, Filippo Alberghina, Dario Allegra, Francesco Di Paola, Laura Maniscalco, Giuseppe Milazzo, Filippo Luigi Maria Milotta, Lorella Pellegrino, Salvatore Schiavone, Filippo Stanco. “Integrated 3D models for non-invasive monitoring and valorisation of the Morgantina silver Treasure (Sicily)” SPIE, Journal of Electronic Imaging - Special Section on Image Processing for Cultural Heritage, Volume 26(1), January 2017.

[5] Filippo Stanco, Davide Tanasi, Dario Allegra, Filippo Luigi Maria Milotta, Gioconda Lamagna, Giuseppina Monterosso. “Virtual anastylosis of Greek sculpture as museum policy for public outreach and cognitive accessibility” SPIE, Journal of Electronic Imaging - Special Section on Image Processing for Cultural Heritage, Volume 26(1), January 2017.

[6] Giuseppe Catanuto, Wafa Taher, Nicola Rocco, Francesca Catalano, Dario Allegra, Filippo Milotta, Filippo Stanco, Giovanni Gallo, Maurizio Bruno Nava. "Breast Shape Analysis with Curvature Estimates and Principal Component Analysis for Cosmetic and Reconstructive Breast Surgery" Aesthetic Surgery Journal - ISSN: 1090-820X, 2018, DOI: 10.1093/asj/sjy070

[7] Filippo Luigi Maria Milotta, Giuseppe Furnari, Camillo Quattrocchi, Stefania Pasquale, Dario Allegra, Anna Maria Gueli, Filippo Stanco, Davide Tanasi. "Challenges in automatic Munsell color profiling for cultural heritage" Pattern Recognition Letters - ISSN: 0167-8655, Volume 131, 2020, Pages 135-141 DOI: 10.1016/j.patrec.2019.12.008

[8] Diego Sinitò, Maura Fugazzotto, Antonio Stroscio, Alessia Coccato, Dario Allegra, Germana Barone, Paolo Mazzoleni, Filippo Stanco. " I-PETER (Interactive platform to experience tours and education on the rocks): A virtual system for the understanding and dissemination of mineralogical-petrographic science" Pattern Recognition Letters - ISSN: 0167-8655, Volume 131, 2020, Pages 85-90 DOI: 10.1016/j.patrec.2019.12.002

[9] Filippo Luigi Maria Milotta, Giuseppe Furnari, Camillo Quattrocchi, Stefania Pasquale, Dario Allegra, Anna Maria Gueli, Filippo Stanco, and Davide Tanasi. “Challenges in automatic Munsell color profiling for cultural heritage”. In: Pattern Recognition Letters 131 (2020), pp. 135–141.

[10] Gaetano Sequenzia, Dario Allegra, Gabriele Fatuzzo, Filippo Luigi Maria Milotta, Filippo Stanco, and Salvatore Massimo Oliveri. “A method for similarity assessment between death masks and portraits through linear projection: The case of Vincenzo Bellini”. In: Digital Applications in Archaeology and Cultural Heritage 17 (2020).

[11] Dario Allegra, Sebastiano Battiato, Alessandro Ortis, Salvatore Urso, and Riccardo Polosa. “A review on food recognition technology for health applications”. In: Health Psychology Research 8.3 (2020).

[12] Francesco Guarnera, Oliver Giudice, Dario Allegra, Filippo Stanco, Sebastiano Battiato, Salvatore Livatino, Vito Matranga, and Angelo Salici. “A Robust Document Identification Framework through f-BP Fingerprint”. In: Journal of Imaging 7.8 (2021), p. 126.

[13] Giuseppe Furnari, Francesco Vattiato, Dario Allegra, Filippo Luigi Maria Milotta, Alessandro Orofino, Rosetta Rizzo, Rosaria Angela De Palo, and Filippo Stanco. “An Ensembled Anomaly Detector for Wafer Fault Detection”. In: Sensors 21.16 (2021), p. 5465.

 

BOOK CHAPTERS

 [1] Dario Allegra, Francesco Di Paola, Filippo L. M. Milotta, Filippo Stanco. “Un approccio multidisciplinare per lo studio del tesoro degli argenti di Morgantina”, L. Maniscalco (editor), Morgantina duemilaequindici. La ricerca archeologica a sessant’anni dall’avvio degli scavi (pp. 159-166). Catania: Tera Print srl, 2015.

[2] Dario Allegra, Giovanni Gallo, Laura Inzerillo, Marcella Lombardo, Filippo Milotta, Cettina Santagati, Filippo Stanco. “Hand Held 3D Scanning for Cultural Heritage: experimenting low cost Structure Sensor scan", A. Ippolito, M. Cigola (editors), Handbook of Research on Emerging Technologies for Cultural Heritage, 475-499, 2017.

VIEW THE COURSES FROM THE A.Y. 2022/2023 TO THE PRESENT

Academic Year 2021/2022


Academic Year 2020/2021


Academic Year 2019/2020


Academic Year 2018/2019

His research interests lie in the fields of Image Processing, Machine Learning and Computer vision and mainly focus on food images understanding and cultural heritage preservation and valorization. His research paper address challenging problem in several fields, which requires the use of imaging algorithms to be properly solved. Among them: image compression using re-indexing and color optimization, visual document fingerprint extraction and recognition, food recognition and classification, nutrients estimation from visual media, video artifacts detection and correction and so on.