Detection of gradual transitions in video sequences using B-spline interpolation

We present a novel technique for detecting the presence of a gradual transition in video sequences and automatically identifying its type. Our scheme focuses on analyzing the characteristics of the underlying special edit effects and estimates actual transitions by polynomial data interpolation. In particular, a B-spline interpolation curve fitting technique is used. We make use of "goodness" of fitting to determine the presence of gradual transitions. Our approach is able to recover the original transition behavior of an edit effect even if it is distorted by various post-processing stages. Our gradual transition detectors have been extensively tested on various genres of real video sequences to evaluate the performance of the proposed algorithms.     

Audio Coding for Representation in MIDI via Pitch Detection Using Harmonic Dictionaries

The search for a flexible and concise alternate representation for digital musical sound leads to the proposal for the use of the MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) protocol. The problem becomes one of automating the conversion process from sound to MIDI. This requires processing musical sound and extracting the information necessary to represent the sound as MIDI data. We have conducted studies which have led to algorithms for segmentation of the sound and pitch detection of the individual notes. We describe a novel method for pitch detection using subset selection with dictionaries containing harmonic spectra from samples of musical sounds. Examples demonstrating applicability to monophonic sounds as well as signals with multiple sound sources are given, including detection of objects in a complex background scene.     

Directly created electrostatic micro-domains on hydroxyapatite: probing with a Kelvin Force probe and a protein

Micro-domains of modified surface potential (SP) were created on hydroxyapatite films by direct patterning by mid-energy focused electron beam, typically available as a microprobe of Scanning Electron Microscopes. The SP distribution of these patterns has been studied on sub-micrometer scale by the Kelvin Probe Force Microscopy method as well as lysozyme adsorption. Since the lysozyme is positively charged at physiological pH, it allows us to track positively and negatively charged areas of the SP patterns. Distribution of the adsorbed proteins over the domains was in good agreement with the observed SP patterns.     

A binary wavelet decomposition of binary images

We construct a theory of binary wavelet decompositions of finite binary images. The new binary wavelet transform uses simple module-2 operations. It shares many of the important characteristics of the real wavelet transform. In particular, it yields an output similar to the thresholded output of a real wavelet transform operating on the underlying binary image. We begin by introducing a new binary field transform to use as an alternative to the discrete Fourier transform over GF(2). The corresponding concept of sequence spectra over GF(2) is defined. Using this transform, a theory of binary wavelets is developed in terms of two-band perfect reconstruction filter banks in GF(2). By generalizing the corresponding real field constraints of bandwidth, vanishing moments, and spectral content in the filters, we construct a perfect reconstruction wavelet decomposition. We also demonstrate the potential use of the binary wavelet decomposition in lossless image coding.     

Maximum likelihood estimation of the parameters of discretefractionally differenced Gaussian noise process

A maximum-likelihood estimation procedure is constructed for estimating the parameters of discrete fractionally differenced Gaussian noise from an observation set of finite size N. The procedure does not involve the computation of any matrix inverse or determinant. It requires N²/2+O(N) operations. The expected value of the loglikelihood function for estimating the parameter d of fractionally differenced Gaussian noise (which corresponds to a parameter of the equivalent continuous-time fractional Brownian motion related to its fractal dimension) is shown to have a unique maximum that occurs at the true value of d. A Cramer-Rao bound on the variance of any unbiased estimate of d obtained from a finite-sized observation set is derived. It is shown experimentally that the maximum-likelihood estimate of d is unbiased and efficient when finite-size data sets are used in the estimation procedure. The proposed procedure is extended to deal with noisy observations of discrete fractionally differenced Gaussian noise     

A resource management strategy in wireless multimedia communications-total power saving in mobile terminals with a guaranteed QoS

The integration of multimedia services into wireless communication networks is a major source of future technological advances. One of the main challenging issues in this endeavor is the resource optimization strategy. This paper addresses this issue from the perspective of minimizing the total power consumption of a mobile terminal while maintaining a guaranteed quality-of-service (QoS). For many years, the management strategy has dealt primarily with bandwidth allocation, network capacity, and QoS. However, due to the integration of multimedia services, the increasing energy consumption of a mobile unit is also becoming a dominant factor in the design of communication systems. In this paper, we describe two technologies that can make a wireless multimedia communication system more energy-efficient while ensuring QoS. These technologies consist of an energy-efficient communication protocol for the uplink channel and a low-complexity multirate transmission scheme. We also provide a video transmission example using the H.263 standard in the proposed system to demonstrate the importance of our total power optimization strategy. The simulation results show that a savings of 10-32% is achieved in the total energy consumption of the mobile unit.     

A method to provide rapid in situ determination of tip radius in dynamic atomic force microscopy

We provide a method to characterize the tip radius of an atomic force microscopy in situ by monitoring the dynamics of the cantilever in ambient conditions. The key concept is that the value of free amplitude for which transitions from the attractive to repulsive force regimes are observed, strongly depends on the curvature of the tip. In practice, the smaller the value of free amplitude required to observe a transition, the sharper the tip. This general behavior is remarkably independent of the properties of the sample and cantilever characteristics and shows the strong dependence of the transitions on the tip radius. The main advantage of this method is rapid in situ characterization. Rapid in situ characterization enables one to continuously monitor the tip size during experiments. Further, we show how to reproducibly shape the tip from a given initial size to any chosen larger size. This approach combined with the in situ tip size monitoring enables quantitative comparison of materials measurements between samples. These methods are set to allow quantitative data acquisition and make direct data comparison readily available in the community.     

Parallel Smith-Waterman Comparison on Multicore and Manycore Computing Platforms with BSP++

Biological Sequence Comparison is an important operation in Bioinformatics that is often used to relate organisms. Smith and Waterman proposed an exact algorithm that compares two sequences in quadratic time and space. Due to high computing power and memory requirements, SW is usually executed on High Performance Computing (HPC) platforms such as multicore clusters and CellBEs. Since HPC architectures exhibit very different hardware characteristics, porting an application to them is an error-prone time-consuming task. BSP++ is an implementation of BSP that aims to facilitate parallel programming, reducing the effort to port code. In this paper, we propose and evaluate a parallel BSP++ strategy to execute SW on multiple multicore and manycore platforms. Given the same base code, we generated MPI, OpenMP, MPI/OpenMP, CellBE and MPI/CellBE versions, which were executed on heterogeneous platforms with up to 6,144 cores. The results obtained with real DNA sequences show that the performance of our versions is comparable to the hand-tuned strategies in the literature, evidencing the appropriateness and flexibility of our approach.     

A rapid direct solvent extraction method for the extraction of cyclobutanones from irradiated chicken and liquid whole egg

2‐Alkylcyclobutanones (cyclobutanones) are accepted as radiolytic markers in lipid‐containing foods (LCF). To date, cyclobutanones have not been detected in non‐irradiated foods. Their identification is the basis of a standardised detection test for irradiated LCF (BS EN 1785, 2003). This paper reports work to develop and refine a new rapid method for the analysis of cyclobutanones in irradiated LCF (e.g. chicken meat and liquid whole egg). Direct solvent extraction (DSE) enables the efficient screening of large numbers of food samples and is not as resource intensive as the BS EN 1785 (2003) method. The new DSE appears to be a promising, rapid, simple and robust method for the analysis of irradiated lipid‐containing foods.