An integrated content and metadata based retrieval system for art

A new approach to image retrieval is presented in the domain of museum and gallery image collections. Specialist algorithms, developed to address specific retrieval tasks, are combined with more conventional content and metadata retrieval approaches, and implemented within a distributed architecture to provide cross-collection searching and navigation in a seamless way. External systems can access the different collections using interoperability protocols and open standards, which were extended to accommodate content based as well as text based retrieval paradigms. After a brief overview of the complete system, we describe the novel design and evaluation of some of the specialist image analysis algorithms including a method for image retrieval based on sub-image queries, retrievals based on very low quality images and retrieval using canvas crack patterns. We show how effective retrieval results can be achieved by real end-users consisting of major museums and galleries, accessing the distributed but integrated digital collections.     

Error Concealment Based on Semantic Prioritization with Hardware‐Based Face Tracking

With video compression standards such as MPEG‐4, a transmission error happens in a video‐packet basis, rather than in a macroblock basis. In this context, we propose a semantic error prioritization method that determines the size of a video packet based on the importance of its contents. A video packet length is made to be short for an important area such as a facial area in order to reduce the possibility of error accumulation. To facilitate the semantic error prioritization, an efficient hardware algorithm for face tracking is proposed. The increase of hardware complexity is minimal because a motion estimation engine is efficiently re‐used for face tracking. Experimental results demonstrate that the facial area is well protected with the proposed scheme.     

Optical gain of interdiffused InGaAs-As and AlGaAs-GaAs quantumwells

We have analyzed theoretically the effects of interdiffusion on the gain, differential gain, linewidth enhancement factor, and the injection current density of In_0.2Ga_0.8As-GaAs and Al_0.3Ga_0.7As-GaAs quantum-well (QW) lasers. We have calculated the electron and hole subband structures including the effects of valence band mixing and strains. The optical gain is then calculated using the density matrix approach. Our results show that the gain spectrum can be blue-shifted without an enormous increase in the injected current density. Imposing an upper limit (416 A·cm^-2) on the injection current density for a typical laser structure, we find that the InGaAs-GaAs and AlGaAs-GaAs QW lasers can be blue-shifted by 24 and 54 mn, respectively. Our theoretical results compare well with the tuning ranges of 53 and 66 meV found for AlGaAs-GaAs QWs in some experiments. This indicates that the interdiffusion technique is useful for the tuning of laser operation wavelength for multiwavelength applications     

A simulation study of long throw sputtering for diffusion barrierdeposition into high aspect vias and contacts

Modified sputtering techniques, such as long throw sputtering, collimation, and ionized sputtering, have been proposed to improve VLSI topography bottom coverage by narrowing the angular distribution of the sputter flux at the substrate and reducing subsequent flux shadowing at the bottom of topography. This paper first investigates a number of unique aspects involved in the simulation of long throw sputter systems. In particular, time importance of inhomogeneous film density and nonunity sticking coefficients are addressed. The second part of the paper presents a simulation study of long throw sputtering, providing a comparison to collimated and standard sputtering systems. The simulations are performed using the SIMSPUD/SIMBAD ballistic deposition tool. SIMSPUD is used to study film uniformity over a 300-mm wafer and to generate angular distributions at the center and edge of the wafer. The ability of SIMBAD to simulate directed sputtering systems is verified by direct comparison to Ti films deposited into oxide trenches. The importance of modeling the film microstructure is demonstrated by comparison between cross-sectional SEM's micrograph for evaporation and modeling results, such as long throw sputtering with a variety of substrate/target spacings, typical “standard” as well as “collimated” systems. SEM's of overhang structures and simulations are also presented to demonstrate nonunity sticking during the co-sputtering of TiW     

An error control scheme for transmission of vector quantizationdata over noisy channels

This paper presents an error control scheme for transmitting vector-quantized data over noisy channels. First, we review a self-organizing feature map (SOFM) based approach to construct the mapping from the codebook of the quantizer to the channel signal set of the communication system. This approach is robust with respect to channel noise even if we do not use any error control scheme in the communication system. Afterwards, a new trellis type quantizer, namely, the trellis coded Kohonen (1984) map (TCKM), is presented. The design process of the TCKM, which is based on the neighborhood structure of SOFMs, is simpler than that of conventional trellis coded vector quantizers (TCVQs). Simulation results show that the performance of TCKMs is comparable with that of TCVQs. Last, we introduce the error control scheme based on the concepts of the above two applications of SOFMs. Simulation results show that the proposed error control scheme is more robust with respect to channel noise. The advantage of our approaches mentioned above is that the design processes of transmission systems are predefined before the construction of the codebook. Thus, different codebooks with the same neighborhood structure can share the same design     

Architectures and technologies for high-speed optical data networks

Current optical networks are migrating to wavelength division multiplexing (WDM)-based fiber transport between traditional electronic multiplexers/demultiplexers, routers, and switches. Passive optical add-drop WDM networks have emerged but an optical data network that makes full use of the technologies of dynamic optical routing and switching exists only in experimental test-beds. This paper discusses architecture and technology issues for the design of high performance optical data networks with two classes of technologies, WDM and time division multiplexing (TDM). The WDM network architecture presented stresses WDM aware Internet protocol (IP), taking full advantage of optical reconfiguration, optical protection and restoration, traffic grooming to minimize electronics costs, and optical flow-switching for large transactions. Special attention is paid to the access network where innovative approaches to architecture may have a significant cost benefit. In the more distant future, ultrahigh-speed optical TDM networks, operating at single stream data rates of 100 Gb/s, may offer unique advantages over WDM networks. These advantages may include the ability to provide integrated services to high-end users, multiple quality-of-service (QoS) levels, and truly flexible bandwidth-on-demand. The paper gives an overview of an ultrahigh-speed TDM network architecture and describes recent key technology developments such as high-speed sources, switches, buffers, and rate converters     

Analysis of the infrared transmission data of hydrogenated amorphous silicon film fabricated by high rate PECVD

The optical properties of hydrogenated amorphous silicon thin films prepared by a new thermocatalytic plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) method are here reported for the first time. The transmission spectrum of the film, deposited at a rate of 1.5 nm/s, was measured between 500 and 1100 nm. The envelopes of the transmission spectrum interference maxima and minima were analyzed to reveal the absorption coefficient α(λ@#@), the refractive indexn(λ), the average thickness of the film (791 nm) and the variation of the thickness (11.4 nm), using an analysis which takes into account film inhomogeneity. The modified Newton's method of numerical analysis was used to obtain the optical parameters. The optical band gap ε₀} was determined to be 1.69 eV from the absorption coefficient spectrum, commensurate with values quoted for lower deposition rate PECVD films. The value for ε₀}, the small variation of the film thickness, and a value for the defect density of 3.7 x 10¹⁵}cm^-3} determined for similar material in other work indicate that the thermocatalytic PECVD method can produce acceptable quality films at a high deposition rate.     

Analysis of adaptive routing schemes in multirate loss networks

As technology evolves, it is now feasible to implement sophisticated adaptive routing schemes on networks which support different kinds of services with heterogeneous bandwidth characteristics. Adaptive routing can increase the network throughput by routing calls to less congested paths. It can also be used to bypass transmission facility failures. In this paper, we analyze and compare two adaptive routing schemes. The first is called theMaximum mean time to blocking (MTB) routing which is based on themean time to blocking measure of a link. This measure captures the traffic rates, bandwidth characteristic and link capacity information and reflects more accurately the congestion status of different paths. The second is theM ² routing, which is a modification of the least loaded routing (LLR). Aggregation of link status information can significantly reduce signalling traffic. We show in this paper that with properly designed aggregation, the aggregatedM ² and MTB routings can have performance that approach that of the non-aggregated schemes. The use of complete sharing and restricted access policies together with trunk reservation control in multirate loss networks are also studied.     

An all adder systolic structure for fast computation of moments

Moment invariants play an important role in pattern recognition and computer vision. They have the nice properties of being invariant under translation, rotation and scaling. In this paper, we propose a new systolic array for computing ordinary moments from which moment invariants can be derived. The array exploits parallelism of the computation maximally and has an ideal time complexity ofO(n). Each computation step involves a single addition only and is thus far superior to most existing solutions that require multiplication. The systolic array can be directly implemented in VLSI and we also provide an estimate of the realizability of the array in a 0.8 micron BiCMOS technology. To achieve effective tradeoff between area and time requirement, we also propose a scalable array that allows us to fold the computation into a much smaller area. Our solution is suitable for both binary images and gray level images and is thus superior to an earlier work that has similar characteristics.     

Automated analysis of nerve-cell images using active contour models

The number of nerve fibers (axons) in a nerve, the axon size, and shape can all be important neuroanatomical features in understanding different aspects of nerves in the brain. However, the number of axons in a nerve is typically in the order of tens of thousands and a study of a particular aspect of the nerve often involves many nerves. Potentially meaningful studies are often prohibited by the huge number involved when manual measurements have to be employed. A method that automates the analysis of axons from electron-micrographic images is presented. It begins with a rough identification of all the axon centers by use of an elliptical Hough transform procedure. Boundaries of each axons are then extracted based on active contour model, or snakes, approach where physical properties of the axons and the given image data are used in an optimization scheme to guide the snakes to converge to axon boundaries for accurate sheath measurement. However, false axon detection is still common due to poor image quality and the presence of other irrelevant cell features, thus a conflict resolution scheme is developed to eliminate false axons to further improve the performance of detection. The developed method has been tested on a number of nerve images and its results are presented.