Prolonged poststrike elevation in tongue-flicking rate with rapid onset in gila monster,Heloderma suspectum: Relation to diet and foraging and implications for evolution of chemosensory searching

Experimental tests showed that poststrike elevation in tongue-flicking rate (PETF) and strike-induced chemosensory searching (SICS) in the gila monster last longer than reported for any other lizard. Based on analysis of numbers of tongue-flicks emitted in 5-min intervals, significant PETF was detected in all intervals up to and including minutes 41–45. Using 10-min intervals, PETF lasted though minutes 46–55. Two of eight individuals continued tongue-flicking throughout the 60 min after biting prey, whereas all individuals ceased tongue-flicking in a control condition after minute 35. The apparent presence of PETF lasting at least an hour in some individuals suggests that there may be important individual differences in duration of PETF. PETF and/or SICS are present in all families of autarchoglossan lizards studied except Cordylidae, the only family lacking linguallly mediated prey chemical discrimination. However, its duration is known to be greater than 2-min only in Helodermatidae and Varanidae, the living representatives of Varanoidea. That prolonged PETF and SICS are typical of snakes provides another character supporting a possible a varanoid ancestry for Serpentes. Analysis of 1-min intervals showed that PETF occurred in the first minute. A review of the literature suggests that a pause in tongue-flicking and delay of searching movements are absent in lizards and the few nonvenomous colubrid snakes tested. The delayed onset of SICS may be a specific adaptation of some viperid snakes to allow potentially dangerous prey to be rendered harmless by venom following voluntary release after envenomation and preceding further physical contact with the prey.     

Learning-based dynamic coupling of discrete and continuous trackers

We present a data-driven dynamic coupling between discrete and continuous methods for tracking objects of high dofs, which overcomes the limitations of previous techniques. In our approach, two trackers work in parallel, and the coupling between them is based on the tracking error. We use a model-based continuous method to achieve accurate results and, in cases of failure, we re-initialize the model using our discrete tracker. This method maintains the accuracy of a more tightly coupled system, while increasing its efficiency. At any given frame, our discrete tracker uses the current and several previous frames to search into a database for the best matching solution. For improved robustness, object configuration sequences, rather than single configurations, are stored in the database. We apply our framework to the problem of 3D hand tracking from image sequences and the discrimination between fingerspelling and continuous signs in American Sign Language.     

基于Level set方法的医学图像分割

本文引入了一种基于偏微分方程的曲线进化方法—Level set方法,通过与Fast marching方法的结合,可以实现运算速度的大大提高。同时引进了更有效的Kim提出的GMM(Group Marching Method)方法,减少了运算量,并给出了改进方法。最后,把该方法用于仿真图与医学图像分割中,获得了较好的效果。     

基于模糊度测度和改进遗传算法的图像分割

为了利用模糊集理论进行图像分割,本文提出了一种模糊度测度函数,它衡量了背景模糊集和某一个二值图像的相似性:模糊度越小,这种相似程度越大;并且对模糊度的计算只需要进行简单的比较运算和加法运算,便于硬件实现。本文利用遗传算法求取最佳阈值,针对遗传算法的某些不足之处.我们利用精英策略和模拟退火的思想,对其做了一些修正。实验结果表明:相对于Shannon熵方法和模糊熵方法,本文方法取得了较好的分割结果,并且具有较强的抗噪声能力。     

基于复合顺序形态变换的车牌边缘检测

边缘检测是图像分割的重要环节,边缘提取的好坏直接影响了整个图像处理的效果。数学形态学用具有一定形态结构的“结构元素”去度量图像的形态,以解决图像处理和分析问题。文章通过对多种边缘检测方法的分析比较,结合高速公路路口汽车图像噪声大的特点,提出了基于复合顺序形态变换的车牌边缘检测。该方法不但能有效地改善有噪图像边缘检测的效果,鲁棒性好,而且并行快速,便于硬件实现。     

Pedestrian detection and tracking in infrared imagery using shape and appearance

In this paper, we present an approach toward pedestrian detection and tracking from infrared imagery using joint shape and appearance cues. A layered representation is first introduced and a generalized expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm is developed to separate infrared images into background (still) and foreground (moving) layers regardless of camera panning. In the two-pass scheme of detecting pedestrians from the foreground layer: shape cue is first used to eliminate non-pedestrian moving objects and then appearance cue helps to locate the exact position of pedestrians. Templates with varying sizes are sequentially applied to detect pedestrians at multiple scales to accommodate different camera distances. To facilitate the task of pedestrian tracking, we formulate the problem of shot segmentation and present a graph matching-based tracking algorithm that jointly exploits the shape, appearance and distance information. Experimental results with both OSU Infrared Image Database and WVU Infrared Video Database are reported to demonstrate the accuracy and robustness of our algorithm.     

An improved watershed algorithm based on efficient computation of shortest paths

The present paper describes a new algorithm to calculate the watershed transform through rain simulation of greyscale digital images by means of pixel arrowing. The efficiency of this method is based on limiting the necessary neighbouring operations to compute the transform to the outmost, and in the total number of scannings performed over the whole image. The experiments demonstrate that the proposed algorithm is able to significantly reduce the running time of the fastest known algorithm without involving any loss of efficiency.     

Image segmentation towards new image representation methods

Very low bit-rate video coding has recently become one of the most important areas of image communication and a large variety of applications have already been identified. Since conventional approaches are reaching a saturation point, in terms of coding efficiency, a new generation of video coding techniques, aiming at a deeper “understanding” of the image, is being studied. In this context, image analysis, particularly the identification of objects or regions in images (segmentation), is a very important step. This paper describes a segmentation algorithm based on split and merge. Images are first simplified using mathematical morphology operators, which eliminate perceptually less relevant details. The simplified image is then split according to a quad tree structure and the resulting regions are finally merged in three steps: merge, elimination of small regions and control of the number of regions.     

一种基于数据竞争的高分辨率图像的聚类分割算法

近些年,机器人技术得到了迅猛的发展,应用越来越广泛.随着机器人技术的推广和普及,对机器人使用的要求也越来越高,其中对智能机器人的要求尤显迫切.机器视觉是智能机器人研究领域的一个重要研究方向.在机器人视觉系统中,核心问题是目标提取,对目标实时、准确、快速提取的关键技术是图像分割.由于机器人感知的环境的复杂性及目标的多样性,往往导致机器人感知获得的图像数据量较大且图像本身存在不可预知的复杂性,这就对准确的目标分割和提取处理提出了挑战性问题.本文针对高分辨率图像数据集的分割处理,提出一种新的聚类算法,即根据数据点能量和的大小识别类代表点和类成员点,通过数据点间的竞争识别出最有能力成为簇成员的数据点,并将其与mean shift聚类算法有效地结合应用于彩色图像分割问题中,能够快速高效地实现高分辨率图像的目标分割,并得到较好的图像分割效果.实验结果表明,本文算法在分割效果和分割效率上明显优于传统聚类算法.     

Convex relaxation for a 3D spatiotemporal segmentation model using the primal-dual method

A method based on 3D videos is proposed for multi-target segmentation and tracking with a moving viewing system. A spatiotemporal energy functional is built up to perform motion segmentation and estimation simultaneously. To overcome the limitation of the local minimum problem with the level set method, a convex relaxation method is applied to the 3D spatiotemporal segmentation model. The relaxed convex model is independent of the initial condition. A primal-dual algorithm is used to improve computational efficiency. Several indoor experiments show the validity of the proposed method.