A comparison of lightness contrast effects in CRT and surface colours

The simultaneous contrast effect is investigated in this article. A total of 174 and 154 test/induction combinations were studied for CRT and surface colours respectively. Each combination was assessed by nine observers using a matching technique. The test and induction colours used for CRT colours were similar to surface colours using fabric samples. The results indicated a strong lightness contrast effect for both CRT and surface media; that is, the lightness of a test colour surrounded by a lighter induction colour was reduced for both CRT and surface colours. However, the effect in CRT medium was more pronounced than in the surface medium. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Col Res Appl, 30, 13–20, 2005; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/col.20074     

Motion compensated film restoration

Motion picture films are susceptible to local degradations such as dust spots. Other deteriorations are global such as intensity and spatial jitter. It is obvious that motion needs to be compensated for before the detection/correction of such local and dynamic defects. Therefore, we propose a hierarchical motion estimation method ideally suited for high resolution film sequences. This recursive block-based motion estimator relies on an adaptive search strategy and Radon projections to improve processing speed. The localization of dust particles then becomes straightforward. Thus, it is achieved by simple inter-frame differences between the current image and motion compensated successive and preceding frames. However, the detection of spatial and intensity jitter requires a specific process taking advantage of the high temporal correlation in the image sequence. In this paper, we present our motion compensation-based algorithms for removing dust spots, spatial and intensity jitter in degraded motion pictures. Experimental results are presented showing the usefulness of our motion estimator for film restoration at reasonable computational costs. Received: 9 July 2000 / Accepted: 13 January 2002 Correspondence to:S. Boukir     

Simulation of Facial Muscle Actions Based on Rational Free Form Deformations

This paper describes interactive facilities for simulating abstract muscle actions using Rational Free Form Deformations (RFFD). The particular muscle action is simulated as the displacement of the control points of the control-unit for an RFFD defined on a region of interest. One or several simulated muscle actions constitute a Minimum Perceptible Action (MPA), which is defined as the atomic action unit, similar to Action Unit (AU) of the Facial Action Coding System (FACS), to build an expression.     

Lubricating behavior of iron rhenate and its relation to matching pairs

The iron rhenate was compounded by chemical method, which may be generated during wear process of Fe-Re alloys at elevated temperature. The friction coefficient of iron rhenate has been determined by a pin-on-disc device. The results show that iron rhenate plays role of lubricating at RT-600 °C. The lubricating behavior is related to the matching pairs. The hardness of the materials of matching pairs, compatibility of iron rhenate with materials of matching pairs and surface roughness of disc affect the lubricating behavior of iron rhenate mostly. The principle of matching pairs is proposed. Project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China Synopsis of the first author Xiong Dangsheng. associated professor, born in 1960. Current research fields include high-temperature self-lubricating alloys and tribological properties of material.     

A region-based selective optical flow back-projection for genuine motion vector estimation

Motion vector plays one significant feature in moving object segmentation. However, the motion vector in this application is required to represent the actual motion displacement, rather than regions of visually significant similarity. In this paper, region-based selective optical flow back-projection (RSOFB) which back-projects optical flows in a region to restore the region's motion vector from gradient-based optical flows, is proposed to obtain genuine motion displacement. The back-projection is performed based on minimizing the projection mean square errors of the motion vector on gradient directions. As optical flows of various magnitudes and directions provide various degrees of reliability in the genuine motion restoration, the optical flows to be used in the RSOFB are optimally selected based on their sensitivity to noises and their tendency in causing motion estimation errors. In this paper a deterministic solution is also derived for performing the minimization and obtaining the genuine motion magnitude and motion direction.     

Volumetric three‐dimensional up‐conversion display medium

Abstract— Several rare‐earth‐doped fluoride crystals that are excited to emit visible light by sequential two‐photon absorption have been investigated as display‐medium candidates for static volumetric three‐dimensional displays. Dispersion of powders of these materials in a refractive‐index‐matched polymer is reported because such a medium may result in a scalable display. The scattering problem in such a medium is greatly reduced by index‐matching the polymer to the crystalline particles. An index‐matching condition that optimizes the performance is identified.     

High‐error approximate dictionary search using estimate hash comparisons

A method for finding all matches in a pre‐processed dictionary for a query string q and with at most k differences is presented. A very fast constant‐time estimate using hashes is presented. A tree structure is used to minimize the number of estimates made. Practical tests are performed, showing that the estimate can filter out 99% of the full comparisons for 40% error rates and dictionaries of up to four million words. The tree is found to be efficient up to a 50% error rate. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Distributed multi-join query processing in data grids

Query processing in data grids is a difficult issue due to the heterogeneous, unpredictable and volatile behaviors of the grid resources. Applying join operations on remote relations in data grids is a unique and interesting problem. However, to the best of our knowledge, little is done to date on multi-join query processing in data grids. An approach for processing multi-join queries is proposed in this paper. Firstly, a relation-reduction algorithm for reducing the sizes of operand relations is presented in order to minimize data transmission cost among grid nodes. Then, a method for scheduling computer nodes in data grids is devised to parallel process multi-join queries. Thirdly, an innovative method is developed to efficiently execute join operations in a pipeline fashion. Finally, a complete algorithm for processing multi-join queries is given. Analytical and experimental results show the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed approach.