15745002
Blind measurement of blocking artifacts in images
The objective measurement of blocking artifacts plays an important role in the design, optimization, and assessment of image and video coding systems. We propose a new approach that can blindly measure blocking artifacts in images without reference to the originals. The key idea is to model the blocky image as a non-blocky image interfered with a pure blocky signal. The task of the blocking effect measurement algorithm is then to detect and evaluate the power of the blocky signal. The proposed approach has the flexibility to integrate human visual system features such as the luminance and the texture masking effects.
5251967
Foveation scalable video coding with automatic fixation selection
Image and video coding is an optimization problem. A successful image and video coding algorithm delivers a good tradeoff between visual quality and other coding performance measures, such as compression, complexity, scalability, robustness, and security. In this paper, we follow two recent trends in image and video coding research. One is to incorporate human visual system (HVS) models to improve the current state-of-the-art of image and video coding algorithms by better exploiting the properties of the intended receiver. The other is to design rate scalable image and video codecs, which allow the extraction of coded visual information at continuously varying bit rates from a single compressed bitstream. Specifically, we propose a foveation scalable video coding (FSVC) algorithm which supplies good quality-compression performance as well as effective rate scalability. The key idea is to organize the encoded bitstream to provide the best decoded video at an arbitrary bit rate in terms of foveated visual quality measurement. A foveation-based HVS model plays an important role in the algorithm. The algorithm is adaptable to different applications, such as knowledge-based video coding and video communications over time-varying, multiuser and interactive networks.
6449041
Adaptive frame prediction for foveation scalable video coding
Embedded rate scalable video coding allows for the extraction of coded visual information at continuously varying bit rates from a single compressed bitstream. This is a very attractive feature for many multimedia communication applications. Motion estimation (ME) /motion compensation (MC) techniques are widely employed in various video coding systems to reduce temporal information redundancy. One of the major challenging problems in ME/MC based rate scalable video coding is how to generate the prediction frame from the previous frame to match the current frame. This problem is more difficult in rate scalable coding than in fixed rate coding because the decoding data rate is unavailable to the encoder. We propose an adaptive frame prediction scheme for foveation scalable video coding (FSVC), which is a new video coding algorithm that combines a foveation-based human visual system (HVS) model with a wavelet-based rate scalable coding algorithm. The new frame prediction algorithm provides an adaptive mechanism to control the prediction errors while reduce error propagation.
17056192
Automatic Alignment of High-Resolution NMR Spectra Using a Bayesian Estimation Approach
Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectral analysis has recently become one of the major means for the detection and recognition of metabolic changes of disease state, physiological alteration, and natural biological variation. For the pattern recognition tasks in which two or more NMR spectra need to be compared, it is critical to properly align the spectra for the subsequent pattern recognition analysis. Previous spectral alignment methods do not consider any baseline intensity variation between the spectra and disregard the effect of noise. Here we formulate the spectra alignment problem in a Bayesian statistical framework, which allows us to simultaneously and efficiently estimate the spectral shift and the baseline intensity variation in the existence of independent additive noise. Experimental results with real high-resolution NMR spectral data from human plasma demonstrate the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed approach
207761262
Image quality assessment: from error visibility to structural similarity
Objective methods for assessing perceptual image quality traditionally attempted to quantify the visibility of errors (differences) between a distorted image and a reference image using a variety of known properties of the human visual system. Under the assumption that human visual perception is highly adapted for extracting structural information from a scene, we introduce an alternative complementary framework for quality assessment based on the degradation of structural information. As a specific example of this concept, we develop a structural similarity index and demonstrate its promise through a set of intuitive examples, as well as comparison to both subjective ratings and state-of-the-art objective methods on a database of images compressed with JPEG and JPEG2000. A MATLAB implementation of the proposed algorithm is available online at http://www.cns.nyu.edu//spl sim/lcv/ssim/.
10308738
No-reference perceptual quality assessment of JPEG compressed images
Human observers can easily assess the quality of a distorted image without examining the original image as a reference. By contrast, designing objective No-Reference (NR) quality measurement algorithms is a very difficult task. Currently, NR quality assessment is feasible only when prior knowledge about the types of image distortion is available. This research aims to develop NR quality measurement algorithms for JPEG compressed images. First, we established a JPEG image database and subjective experiments were conducted on the database. We show that Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio (PSNR), which requires the reference images, is a poor indicator of subjective quality. Therefore, tuning an NR measurement model towards PSNR is not an appropriate approach in designing NR quality metrics. Furthermore, we propose a computational and memory efficient NR quality assessment model for JPEG images. Subjective test results are used to train the model, which achieves good quality prediction performance.
27067527
A faster method for modeling virtual colony
A virtual colony composed by vivid personal characters with different facial texture and body size, will strongly enhance the reality of the whole virtual environment. This paper describes a fast, economic but realistic method for modeling virtual colony. The system has two major components: photographs based human model reconstruction and anthropometry based automatic human model edit, both of them were advanced to achieve more practical and realistic purpose. To demonstrate the power of this approach, the method was applied to generate some virtual colonies.
204983610
Pyramidic Clustering of Large-Scale Microarray Images
With ongoing research and development of imaging techniques such as those involved in brain MRIs, cDNA microarrays and satellite reconnaissance, the need for tools that can intelligently parse larger images is ever increasing. One group of such techniques often used is that of segmentation, an example of which is that of clustering algorithms. In order to deal with large data sets, current approaches require the data to be sampled or summarized before true analysis can take place. In this paper we propose a novel image analysis technique using pyramidic type grouping, namely copasetic clustering, which focuses on the problem of applying traditional clustering techniques to these large-scale image data sets with limited resources. A further benefit of the technique is the transparency of its intermediate clustering steps; when applied to spatial data sets this allows the capture and incorporation of contextual information to improve result accuracy. The algorithm achieves an ∼1--3 dB w-to-noise ratio when compared with the conventional techniques described.
1885677
Learning nonlinear multiregression networks based on evolutionary computation
This paper describes a novel knowledge discovery and data mining framework dealing with nonlinear interactions among domain attributes. Our network-based model provides an effective and efficient reasoning procedure to perform prediction and decision making. Unlike many existing paradigms based on linear models, the attribute relationship in our framework is represented by nonlinear nonnegative multiregressions based on the Choquet integral. This kind of multiregression is able to model a rich set of nonlinear interactions directly. Our framework involves two layers. The outer layer is a network structure consisting of network elements as its components, while the inner layer is concerned with a particular network element modeled by Choquet integrals. We develop a fast double optimization algorithm (FDOA) for learning the multiregression coefficients of a single network element. Using this local learning component and multiregression-residual-cost evolutionary programming (MRCEP), we propose a global learning algorithm, called MRCEP-FDOA, for discovering the network structures and their elements from databases. We have conducted a series of experiments to assess the effectiveness of our algorithm and investigate the performance under different parameter combinations, as well as sizes of the training data sets. The empirical results demonstrate that our framework can successfully discover the target network structure and the regression coefficients.
18739199
Block spreading for MUI/ISI-resilient generalized multi-carrier CDMA with multirate capabilities
The potential increase in capacity along with the need to provide multimedia services and cope with multiuser interference (MUI) and intersymbol interference (ISI) arising due to wireless multipath propagation, motivate well multirate wideband code-division multiple-access (CDMA) systems. This paper develops an all-digital block-spread filterbank framework capable of encompassing single- or multi-rate transceivers for asynchronous or quasi-synchronous CDMA transmissions through multipath channels. Thanks to symbol blocking and through appropriate design of user codes, the resulting generalized multi-carrier (GMC) CDMA system guarantees symbol recovery irrespective of the (possibly unknown) FIR multipath channels in both downlink and uplink setups with low complexity FIR receivers. Simulations corroborate that the novel GMC-CDMA system outperforms existing multirate alternatives in the presence of asynchronism and multipath.
1450237
An Improved Constructive Neural Network Ensemble Approach to Medical Diagnoses
Neural networks have played an important role in intelligent medical diagnoses. This paper presents an Improved Constructive Neural Network Ensemble (ICNNE) approach to three medical diagnosis problems. New initial structure of the ensemble, new freezing criterion, and a different error function are presented. Experiment results show that our ICNNE approach performed better for most problems.