6287453
A dynamic assignment problem in a mobile system with limited bandwidth
The assignment problem originally arising from parallel and distributed computing has been investigated intensively since the 70's when Harold Stone proposed a method to solve it with the aid of network flow algorithms. In this paper, we discuss this problem under a mobile environment with limited capacity of wireless links. The assignment problem is to schedule a group of related objects from a resource-constrained mobile device to its powerful proxy machine so that program activity migrates among processors as execution proceeds, and hence the overall performance will improve. First, we reduce this optimization problem to the 0/1 knapsack problem, and therefore show that it is NP-hard. Second, two heuristic algorithms are proposed. One is an adaptive heuristic algorithm with complexity O(NE), here, N and E represent the number of nodes and edges in the object graph abstracted from the mobile application. The other is a non-adaptive heuristic algorithm with complexity O(E), i.e, N times faster than the adaptive counterpart. Finally, we provide a simple distributed algorithm based on Raymond's tree-based distributed mutual exclusion algorithm for solving this problem with message complexity O(N/sup 2/ log N).
5690166
Developing a database for proteomic analysis of extracytosolic plant proteins
Extracytosolic plant proteins are involved in numerous processes including nutrient acquisition, communication with other soil organisms, protection from pathogens, and resistant to disease and toxic metals. We have developed an online database to provide the plant biology community with relevant information about extracytosolic plant proteins. Data for Brassica napus (canola) proteins identified using proteomics tools can be accessed using this database. Several textual and graphical query capabilities allow biologists to populate and query this database. Results are displayed with active links to other databases. The system has an open API allowing other applications to access this database as a Web service. In addition, the database is augmented with a repository of tools that can be used in data analysis and mining tasks.
6932570
3D Surface Matching and Recognition Using Conformal Geometry
3D surface matching is a fundamental issue in computer vision with many applications such as shape registration, 3D object recognition and classification. However, surface matching with noise, occlusion and clutter is a challenging problem. In this paper, we analyze a family of conformal geometric maps including harmonic maps, conformal maps and least squares conformal maps with regards to 3D surface matching. As a result, we propose a novel and computationally efficient surface matching framework that uses least squares conformal maps. According to conformal geometry theory, each 3D surface with disk topology can be mapped to a 2D domain through a global optimization and the resulting map is a diffeomorphism, i.e., one-to-one and onto. This allows us to simplify the 3D surface-matching problem to a 2D image-matching problem, by comparing the resulting 2D conformal geometric maps, which are stable, insensitive to resolution changes and robust to occlusion and noise. Therefore, highly accurate and efficient 3D surface matching algorithms can be achieved by using conformal geometric maps. Finally, the performance of conformal geometric maps is evaluated and analyzed comprehensively in 3D surface matching with occlusion, noise and resolution variation. We also provide a series of experiments on real 3D face data that achieve high recognition rates.
2947494
High Resolution Tracking of Non-Rigid Motion of Densely Sampled 3D Data Using Harmonic Maps
Abstract
We present a novel automatic method for high resolution, non-rigid dense 3D point tracking. High quality dense point clouds of non-rigid geometry moving at video speeds are acquired using a phase-shifting structured light ranging technique. To use such data for the temporal study of subtle motions such as those seen in facial expressions, an efficient non-rigid 3D motion tracking algorithm is needed to establish inter-frame correspondences. The novelty of this paper is the development of an algorithmic framework for 3D tracking that unifies tracking of intensity and geometric features, using harmonic maps with added feature correspondence constraints. While the previous uses of harmonic maps provided only global alignment, the proposed introduction of interior feature constraints allows to track non-rigid deformations accurately as well. The harmonic map between two topological disks is a diffeomorphism with minimal stretching energy and bounded angle distortion. The map is stable, insensitive to resolution changes and is robust to noise. Due to the strong implicit and explicit smoothness constraints imposed by the algorithm and the high-resolution data, the resulting registration/deformation field is smooth, continuous and gives dense one-to-one inter-frame correspondences. Our method is validated through a series of experiments demonstrating its accuracy and efficiency.

9142519
Utilizing field usage patterns for Java heap space optimization
This research studies the characteristics of field usage patterns in the SpecJVM98 benchmarks. It finds that multiple object instances of the same class often exhibit different field-usage patterns. Motivated by this observation, we designed a heap compression mechanism that classifies object instances at runtime based on their field-usage patterns and eliminates unused fields to save space. To achieve the maximum space savings while minimizing the space and time overhead, our design combines three interrelated techniques in a novel manner: runtime object instance classification, field virtualization, and bidirectional object layout. An experimental evaluation reveals that this mechanism can reduce the maximum heap occupancy of SpecJVM98 benchmarks by up to 18% and 14% on average while keeping the application execution overhead low.
19020033
Estimation of multiple directional light sources for synthesis of augmented reality images
We present a new method for the detection and estimation of multiple directional illuminants, using a single image of any object with known geometry and Lambertian reflectance. We use the resulting highly accurate estimates to modify virtually the illumination and geometry of a real scene and produce correctly illuminated mixed reality images. Our method obviates the need to modify the imaged scene by inserting calibration objects of any particular geometry, relying instead on partial knowledge of the geometry of the scene. Thus, the recovered multiple illuminants can be used both for image-based rendering and for shape reconstruction. Our method combines information both from the shading of the object and from shadows cast on the scene by the object. Initially we use a method based on shadows and a method based on shading independently. The shadow based method utilizes brightness variation inside the shadows cast by the object, whereas the shading based method utilizes brightness variation on the directly illuminated portions of the object. We demonstrate how the two sources of information complement each other in a number of occasions. We then describe an approach that integrates the two methods, with results superior to those obtained if the two methods are used separately. The resulting illumination information can be used (i) to render synthetic objects in a real photograph with correct illumination effects, and (ii) to virtually re-light the scene.
12250963
Boosting for Learning Multiple Classes with Imbalanced Class Distribution
Classification of data with imbalanced class distribution has posed a significant drawback of the performance attainable by most standard classifier learning algorithms, which assume a relatively balanced class distribution and equal misclassification costs. This learning difficulty attracts a lot of research interests. Most efforts concentrate on bi-class problems. However, bi-class is not the only scenario where the class imbalance problem prevails. Reported solutions for bi-class applications are not applicable to multi-class problems. In this paper, we develop a cost-sensitive boosting algorithm to improve the classification performance of imbalanced data involving multiple classes. One barrier of applying the cost-sensitive boosting algorithm to the imbalanced data is that the cost matrix is often unavailable for a problem domain. To solve this problem, we apply Genetic Algorithm to search the optimum cost setup of each class. Empirical tests show that the proposed cost-sensitive boosting algorithm improves the classification performances of imbalanced data sets significantly.
31748919
DB2 Query Parallelism: Staging and Implementation
18971548
Coverage-preserving Data Gathering in Wireless Sensor Networks
The power is the most significant resource in wireless sensor nodes, so energy conservation is the most important factor in designing the protocol for sensor networks. In this paper, we study the problem of energy-efficient collection of the physical information from the target area. The coverage-preserving data gathering (CPDG) problem is to build up a tree, which minimizes the total energy consumption, and preserves the original coverage to ensure the result correctness. This problem can be formalized as 0-1 integer linear programming, and solved by an efficient heuristic algorithm. Furthermore, an improved algorithm is also proposed to balance the energy consumption among all the sensor nodes. The experimental results show that CPDG algorithm can conserve the energy about 30% of PEDAP protocol, which is regarded as one of the most efficient data gathering protocols as we know.
8367818
Segment Hough Transform -- a Novel Hough-based Algorithm for Curve Detection
A new Hough-based algorithm termed segment Hough transform (SHT) is proposed to detect the curve in the binary image. The segment-transform, which is the main idea of the novel approach, makes the curve detection very efficient. Thanks to the chain code termed angle chain code (ACC) as well as the modified direction measurement, the segmentation operation is also considerably fast and precise. Compared with the conventional Hough transform (CHT), our algorithm is dramatically faster (by over 20 times) And when the background is complex, the SHT is about four times faster than the random Hough transform (RHT), Furthermore, the proposed algorithm inherits the high robustness from CHT. In some situations, it is even more accurate. We implement the novel algorithm in an embedded system to estimate passengers flow on the bus. The detection rate is over 95% which indicates it is quite suitable for real-time application.
35134245
Single Table Access Using Multiple Indexes: Optimization, Execution, and Concurrency Control Techniques
Many data base management systems' query optimizers choose at most one index for accessing the records of a table in a given query, even though many indexes may exist on the table. In spite of the fact that there are some systems which use multiple indexes, very little has been published about the concurrency control or query optimization implications (e.g., deciding how many indexes to use) of using multiple indexes. This paper addresses these issues and presents solutions to the associated problems. Techniques are presented for the efficient handling of record ID lists, elimination of some locking, and determination of how many and which indexes to use. The techniques are adaptive in the sense that the execution strategies may be modified at run-time (e.g., not use some indexes which were to have been used), if the assumptions made at optimization-time (e.g., about selectivities) turn out to be wrong. Opportunities for exploiting parallelism are also identified. A subset of our ideas have been implemented in IBM's DB2 V2R2 relational data base management system.