Deep Learning and Deep Learning Synergy of Transformers and Symmetry in Small Object Detection and Tracking

A special issue of Symmetry (ISSN 2073-8994).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 November 2025 | Viewed by 550

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
School of Automation and Software Engineering, Shanxi University, Taiyuan 030006, China
Interests: image processing; artificial intelligence;deep learning; target detection;pattern recognition; target recognition
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E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Communication Engineering, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing 100083, China
Interests: wireless resource allocation and management; wireless communications and networking; dynamic game and mean field game theory; big data analysis; security
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Guest Editor Assistant
School of Integrated Circuits and Electronics, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing 100811, China
Interests: medical image processing; deep learning
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Small-object detection and tracking is one of the most challenging and fundamental topics in computer vision. These objects are typically characterized by their small size, low contrast, and blurred edges, which collectively complicate the tasks of detection and tracking. In recent years, advancements in this field have facilitated the application of small-object detection and tracking in remote sensing imagery across diverse domains, including mineral exploration, precision agriculture, urban planning, forestry management, military target identification, and disaster assessment. Despite these advancements, several critical challenges persist in real-world applications. Key issues include the difficulty of extracting detailed information from small objects, the trade-off between detection accuracy and computational efficiency, the ability to identify unknown or untrained categories within image data, and the effective tracking of small objects over time. Addressing these challenges is essential for advancing the practical utility of small-object detection and tracking systems.

Therefore, we invite submissions of papers on theoretical research and practical applications related to the deep learning and deep learning synergy of transformers and symmetry architecture for small-object detection related to image processing.

Prof. Dr. Fengping An
Prof. Dr. Haitao Xu
Guest Editors

Dr. Chuyang Ye
Guest Editor Assistant

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Keywords

  • deep learning
  • image processing
  • object recognition
  • artificial intelligence

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

18 pages, 5013 KiB  
Article
Enhancing Document Forgery Detection with Edge-Focused Deep Learning
by Yong-Yeol Bae, Dae-Jea Cho and Ki-Hyun Jung
Symmetry 2025, 17(8), 1208; https://doi.org/10.3390/sym17081208 - 30 Jul 2025
Viewed by 354
Abstract
Detecting manipulated document images is essential for verifying the authenticity of official records and preventing document forgery. However, forgery artifacts are often subtle and localized in fine-grained regions, such as text boundaries or character outlines, where visual symmetry and structural regularity are typically [...] Read more.
Detecting manipulated document images is essential for verifying the authenticity of official records and preventing document forgery. However, forgery artifacts are often subtle and localized in fine-grained regions, such as text boundaries or character outlines, where visual symmetry and structural regularity are typically expected. These manipulations can disrupt the inherent symmetry of document layouts, making the detection of such inconsistencies crucial for forgery identification. Conventional CNN-based models face limitations in capturing such edge-level asymmetric features, as edge-related information tends to weaken through repeated convolution and pooling operations. To address this issue, this study proposes an edge-focused method composed of two components: the Edge Attention (EA) layer and the Edge Concatenation (EC) layer. The EA layer dynamically identifies channels that are highly responsive to edge features in the input feature map and applies learnable weights to emphasize them, enhancing the representation of boundary-related information, thereby emphasizing structurally significant boundaries. Subsequently, the EC layer extracts edge maps from the input image using the Sobel filter and concatenates them with the original feature maps along the channel dimension, allowing the model to explicitly incorporate edge information. To evaluate the effectiveness and compatibility of the proposed method, it was initially applied to a simple CNN architecture to isolate its impact. Subsequently, it was integrated into various widely used models, including DenseNet121, ResNet50, Vision Transformer (ViT), and a CAE-SVM-based document forgery detection model. Experiments were conducted on the DocTamper, Receipt, and MIDV-2020 datasets to assess classification accuracy and F1-score using both original and forged text images. Across all model architectures and datasets, the proposed EA–EC method consistently improved model performance, particularly by increasing sensitivity to asymmetric manipulations around text boundaries. These results demonstrate that the proposed edge-focused approach is not only effective but also highly adaptable, serving as a lightweight and modular extension that can be easily incorporated into existing deep learning-based document forgery detection frameworks. By reinforcing attention to structural inconsistencies often missed by standard convolutional networks, the proposed method provides a practical solution for enhancing the robustness and generalizability of forgery detection systems. Full article
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