Informative patches sampling for image classification by utilizing bottom-up and top-down information

In image classification based on bag of visual words framework, image patches used for creating image representations affect the classification performance significantly. However, currently, patches are sampled mainly based on processing low-level image information or just extracted regularly or randomly. These methods are not effective, because patches extracted through these approaches are not necessarily discriminative for image categorization. In this paper, we propose to utilize both bottom-up information through processing low-level image information and top-down information through exploring statistical properties of training image grids to extract image patches. In the proposed work, an input image is divided into regular grids, each of which is evaluated based on its bottom-up information and/or top-down information. Subsequently, every grid is assigned a saliency value based on its evaluation result, so that a saliency map can be created for the image. Finally, patch sampling from the input image is performed on the basis of the obtained saliency map. Furthermore, we propose a method to fuse these two kinds of information. The proposed methods are evaluated on both object categories and scene categories. Experiment results demonstrate their effectiveness.     

Skylight for Interior Lighting Design

It is inevitable for indoor lighting design to render a room lit by natural light, especially for an atelier or an indoor pool where there are many windows. This paper proposes a method for calculating the illuminance due to natural light, i.e. direct sunlight and skylight, passing through transparent planes such as window glass. The proposed method makes it possible to efficiently calculate such illuminance accurately, because it takes into account both non-uniform luminous intensity distribution of skylight and the distribution of transparency of glass according to incident angles of light. Several examples including the lighting design in an indoor pool, are shown to demonstrate the usefulness of the proposed method.     

Implicit Formulation for SPH‐based Viscous Fluids

We propose a stable and efficient particle‐based method for simulating highly viscous fluids that can generate coiling and buckling phenomena and handle variable viscosity. In contrast to previous methods that use explicit integration, our method uses an implicit formulation to improve the robustness of viscosity integration, therefore enabling use of larger time steps and higher viscosities. We use Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics to solve the full form of viscosity, constructing a sparse linear system with a symmetric positive definite matrix, while exploiting the variational principle that automatically enforces the boundary condition on free surfaces. We also propose a new method for extracting coefficients of the matrix contributed by second‐ring neighbor particles to efficiently solve the linear system using a conjugate gradient solver. Several examples demonstrate the robustness and efficiency of our implicit formulation over previous methods and illustrate the versatility of our method.     

AMORE: A World Wide Web image retrieval engine

Search engines are useful because they allow the user to find information of interest from the World Wide Web. However, most of the popular search engines today are textual; they do not allow the user to find images from the Web. This paper describes AMORE, a Web search engine that allows the user to retrieve images from the Web by specifying relevant keywords or a similar image. Text and image search can also be combined. Moreover, we have developed a Query Result Visualization Environment that allows the organization of the results if many images are retrieved. In this paper we present AMORE's user interface and explain the technique for retrieving images visually similar to a user specified image. The method of automatically assigning relevant keywords to the images is then explained. Finally, the architecture of the system as well as some interesting observations of our experiences with AMORE are discussed. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Detection of moving object by mobile stereo omnidirectional system (SOS)

Moving object detection with a mobile image sensor is an important task in robotics and computer vision, when considering the practical use of robotics in human environments. In this paper, we propose a robust method that detects moving objects in the environment using the omnidirectional depth information obtained by a mobile Stereo Omnidirectional System (SOS). In order to detect only the moving objects within the depth image that are obtained by a sensor in motion, we first estimate the ego‐motion of the sensor, and generate a predicted depth image for the current time from the depth obtained at the previous time by only considering the ego‐motion of the sensor. Then the predicted depth image is compared with the actual one obtained at the current time, and the inconsistent regions are detected as moving objects. When the sensor moves, occlusions will occur in the scene and they will cause false detections. However, these false detections can be suppressed by estimating the occlusion regions using the ego‐motion parameters of the sensor and the jump edges in the depth image. The effectiveness of the method is shown with experimental results for a real environment. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 152(3): 29–38, 2005; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience. wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.20155     

Effects of casting solvents on characteristics of organic EL devices containing poly(l-glutamate) as hole-transport material

The characteristics of EL devices containing α-helical poly(l-glutamate) and having a carbazole side chain (PCELG) were found to strongly depend on the casting solvents. Among EL devices fabricated using chlorine-containing casting solvents such as 1,2-dichloroethane (DCE), 1,1,2,2-tetrachloroethane (TCE), chloroform (CHCl₃), and monochlorobenzene (?-Cl), the EL device fabricated using the DCE solvent exhibited the maximum luminance (65.8 cd/m²). The difference between the threshold voltages of the devices ranged up to 6.0 V, despite their fabrication by using solutions with the same composition ratio. The maximal efficiency of the devices fabricated using the DCE solvent was found to be 20 times greater than that of the devices fabricated using TCE solvents. A comparison of the current densities and voltages among devices fabricated using different casting solvents at their maximal efficiencies showed that the maximal efficiencies tended to significantly increase in the order TCE < CHCl₃ < DCE solvents at similar voltages (～15 V), despite a lowering of the current density. The current density was considered to be directly related to the number of carriers injected into the device. The above-mentioned observations suggested that the maximal efficiency in these devices was not the hole and electron injection efficiencies, but the values of some parameters subsequent to carrier injection, such as the recombination rate, amount of excitons generated, and the diffusion length.