An Improved Fast Video Clip Search Algorithm for Copy Detection using Histogram-based Features

In this paper, we present an improved fast and robust search algorithm for copy detection using histogram-based features for short MPEG video clips from large video database. There are two types of histogram features used to generate more robust features. The first one is based on the adjacent pixel intensity difference quantization (APIDQ) algorithm, which had been reliably applied to human face recognition previously. An APIDQ histogram is utilized as the feature vector of the frame image. Another one is ordinal histogram feature which is robust to color distortion. Furthermore, by Combining with a temporal division method, the spatial and temporal features of the video sequence are integrated to realize fast and robust video search for copy detection. Experimental results show the proposed algorithm can detect the similar video clip more accurately and robust than conventional fast video search algorithm.

A Fast Directionally Constrained Minimization of Power Algorithm for Extracting a Speech Signal Perpendicular to a Microphone Array

In this paper, an extended method of the directionally constrained minimization of power (DCMP) algorithm for broadband signals is proposed. The DCMP algorithm is one of the useful techniques of extracting a target signal from observed signals of a microphone array system. In the DCMP algorithm, output power of the microphone array is minimized under a constraint of constant responses to directions of arrival (DOAs) of specific signals. In our algorithm, by limiting the directional constraint to the perpendicular direction to the sensor array system, the calculating time is reduced.

Automated Feature Points Management for Video Mosaic Construction

A novel algorithm for construct a seamless video mosaic of the entire panorama continuously by automatically analyzing and managing feature points, including management of quantity and quality, from the sequence is presented. Since a video contains significant redundancy, so that not all consecutive video images are required to create a mosaic. Only some key images need to be selected. Meanwhile, feature-based methods for mosaicing rely on correction of feature points? correspondence deeply, and if the key images have large frame interval, the mosaic will often be interrupted by the scarcity of corresponding feature points. A unique character of the method is its ability to handle all the problems above in video mosaicing. Experiments have been performed under various conditions, the results show that our method could achieve fast and accurate video mosaic construction. Keywords?video mosaic, feature points management, homography estimation.

Fast Search Method for Large Video Database Using Histogram Features and Temporal Division

In this paper, we propose an improved fast search algorithm using combined histogram features and temporal division method for short MPEG video clips from large video database. There are two types of histogram features used to generate more robust features. The first one is based on the adjacent pixel intensity difference quantization (APIDQ) algorithm, which had been reliably applied to human face recognition previously. An APIDQ histogram is utilized as the feature vector of the frame image. Another one is ordinal feature which is robust to color distortion. Combined with active search [4], a temporal pruning algorithm, fast and robust video search can be realized. The proposed search algorithm has been evaluated by 6 hours of video to search for given 200 MPEG video clips which each length is 30 seconds. Experimental results show the proposed algorithm can detect the similar video clip in merely 120ms, and Equal Error Rate (ERR) of 1% is achieved, which is more accurately and robust than conventional fast video search algorithm.

The Alterations of Some Pancreas Gland Hormones after an Aerobic Strenuous Exercise in Male Students

The alterations in pancreas gland secretion hormones following an aerobic and exhausting exercise was the purpose of this study. Sixteen healthy men participated in the study. The blood samples of these participants were taken in four stages under fasting condition. The first sample was taken before Bruce exhausting and aerobic test, the second sample was taken after Bruce exercise and the third and forth stages samples were taken 24 and 48 hours after the exercises respectively. The final results indicated that a strenuous aerobic exercise can have a significant effect on glucagon and insulin concentration of blood serum. The increase in blood serum insulin was higher after 24 and 48 hours. It seems that an intensive exercise has little effect on changes in glucagon concentration of blood serum. Also, disorder in secretion in glucagon and insulin concentration of serum disturbs athletes- exercise.

A Web Text Mining Flexible Architecture

Text Mining is an important step of Knowledge Discovery process. It is used to extract hidden information from notstructured o semi-structured data. This aspect is fundamental because much of the Web information is semi-structured due to the nested structure of HTML code, much of the Web information is linked, much of the Web information is redundant. Web Text Mining helps whole knowledge mining process to mining, extraction and integration of useful data, information and knowledge from Web page contents. In this paper, we present a Web Text Mining process able to discover knowledge in a distributed and heterogeneous multiorganization environment. The Web Text Mining process is based on flexible architecture and is implemented by four steps able to examine web content and to extract useful hidden information through mining techniques. Our Web Text Mining prototype starts from the recovery of Web job offers in which, through a Text Mining process, useful information for fast classification of the same are drawn out, these information are, essentially, job offer place and skills.

Physiological and Pathology Demographics of Veteran Rugby Athletes: Golden Oldies Rugby Festival

Recently, the health of retired National Football League players, particularly lineman has been investigated. A number of studies have reported increased cardiometabolic risk, premature ardiovascular disease and incidence of type 2 diabetes. Rugby union players have somatotypes very similar to National Football league players which suggest that rugby players may have similar health risks. The International Golden Oldies World Rugby Festival (GORF) provided a unique opportunity to investigate the demographics of veteran rugby players. METHODOLOGIES: A cross-sectional, observational study was completed using an online web-based questionnaire that consisted of medical history and physiological measures. Data analysis was completed using a one sample t-test (50yrs) and Chi-square test. RESULTS: A total of 216 veteran rugby competitors (response rate = 6.8%) representing 10 countries, aged 35-72 yrs (mean 51.2, S.D. ±8.0), participated in the online survey. As a group, the incidence of current smokers was low at 8.8% (avg 72.4 cigs/wk) whilst the percentage consuming alcohol was high (93.1% (avg 11.2 drinks/wk). Competitors reported the following top six chronic diseases/disorders; hypertension (18.6%), arthritis (OA/RA, 11.5%), asthma (9.3%), hyperlipidemia (8.2%), diabetes (all types, 7.5%) and gout (6%), there were significant differences between groups with regard to cancer (all types) and migraines. When compared to the Australian general population (Australian Bureau of Statistics data, n=18,000), GORF competitors had a Climstein Mike, Walsh Joe (corresponding author) and Burke Stephen School of Exercise Science, Australian Catholic University, 25A Barker Road, Strathfield, Sydney, NSW, 2016, Australia (e-mail: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]). John Best is with Orthosports, 160 Belmore Rd., Randwick, Sydney,NSW 2031, Australia (e-mail: [email protected]). Heazlewood, Ian Timothy is with School of Environmental and Life Sciences, Faculty Education, Health and Science, Charles Darwin University, Precinct Yellow Building 2, Charles Darwin University, NT 0909, Australia (e-mail: [email protected]). Kettunen Jyrki Arcada University of Applied Sciences, Jan-Magnus Janssonin aukio 1, FI-00550, Helsinki, Finland (e-mail: [email protected]). Adams Kent is with California State University Monterey Bay, Kinesiology Department, 100 Campus Center, Seaside, CA., 93955, USA (email: [email protected]). DeBeliso Mark is with Department of Physical Education and Human Performance, Southern Utah University, 351 West University Blvd, Cedar City, Utah, USA (e-mail: [email protected]). significantly lower incidence of anxiety (p

VLSI Design of 2-D Discrete Wavelet Transform for Area-Efficient and High-Speed Image Computing

This paper presents a VLSI design approach of a highspeed and real-time 2-D Discrete Wavelet Transform computing. The proposed architecture, based on new and fast convolution approach, reduces the hardware complexity in addition to reduce the critical path to the multiplier delay. Furthermore, an advanced twodimensional (2-D) discrete wavelet transform (DWT) implementation, with an efficient memory area, is designed to produce one output in every clock cycle. As a result, a very highspeed is attained. The system is verified, using JPEG2000 coefficients filters, on Xilinx Virtex-II Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) device without accessing any external memory. The resulting computing rate is up to 270 M samples/s and the (9,7) 2-D wavelet filter uses only 18 kb of memory (16 kb of first-in-first-out memory) with 256×256 image size. In this way, the developed design requests reduced memory and provide very high-speed processing as well as high PSNR quality.

Modelling of a Stress-Strain State of Screws of Transpedicular Spine Fixation System

For maintenance of a spine stability during the postoperative period a transpedicular fixing of its elements is often used. Usually the transpedicular systems are formed of rods which as a result form a design of the frame type, fastening by screws to vertebras. Such design should be rigid and perceive loadings operating from the spine without essential deformations. From the perfection point of view of known designs their stress whole, and each of elements, in particular is of interest. In this study the modeling of the transpedicular screw is performed and estimation of its deformations taking into account interaction with a vertebra body having variable structure is made.

Implementation of Adder-Subtracter Design with VerilogHDL

According to the density of the chips, designers are trying to put so any facilities of computational and storage on single chips. Along with the complexity of computational and storage circuits, the designing, testing and debugging become more and more complex and expensive. So, hardware design will be built by using very high speed hardware description language, which is more efficient and cost effective. This paper will focus on the implementation of 32-bit ALU design based on Verilog hardware description language. Adder and subtracter operate correctly on both unsigned and positive numbers. In ALU, addition takes most of the time if it uses the ripple-carry adder. The general strategy for designing fast adders is to reduce the time required to form carry signals. Adders that use this principle are called carry look- ahead adder. The carry look-ahead adder is to be designed with combination of 4-bit adders. The syntax of Verilog HDL is similar to the C programming language. This paper proposes a unified approach to ALU design in which both simulation and formal verification can co-exist.

Accurate Control of a Pneumatic System using an Innovative Fuzzy Gain-Scheduling Pattern

Due to their high power-to-weight ratio and low cost, pneumatic actuators are attractive for robotics and automation applications; however, achieving fast and accurate control of their position have been known as a complex control problem. A methodology for obtaining high position accuracy with a linear pneumatic actuator is presented. During experimentation with a number of PID classical control approaches over many operations of the pneumatic system, the need for frequent manual re-tuning of the controller could not be eliminated. The reason for this problem is thermal and energy losses inside the cylinder body due to the complex friction forces developed by the piston displacements. Although PD controllers performed very well over short periods, it was necessary in our research project to introduce some form of automatic gain-scheduling to achieve good long-term performance. We chose a fuzzy logic system to do this, which proved to be an easily designed and robust approach. Since the PD approach showed very good behaviour in terms of position accuracy and settling time, it was incorporated into a modified form of the 1st order Tagaki- Sugeno fuzzy method to build an overall controller. This fuzzy gainscheduler uses an input variable which automatically changes the PD gain values of the controller according to the frequency of repeated system operations. Performance of the new controller was significantly improved and the need for manual re-tuning was eliminated without a decrease in performance. The performance of the controller operating with the above method is going to be tested through a high-speed web network (GRID) for research purposes.

Weight-Based Query Optimization System Using Buffer

Fast retrieval of data has been a need of user in any database application. This paper introduces a buffer based query optimization technique in which queries are assigned weights according to their number of execution in a query bank. These queries and their optimized executed plans are loaded into the buffer at the start of the database application. For every query the system searches for a match in the buffer and executes the plan without creating new plans.

Multi-Objective Optimization of Gas Turbine Power Cycle

Because of importance of energy, optimization of power generation systems is necessary. Gas turbine cycles are suitable manner for fast power generation, but their efficiency is partly low. In order to achieving higher efficiencies, some propositions are preferred such as recovery of heat from exhaust gases in a regenerator, utilization of intercooler in a multistage compressor, steam injection to combustion chamber and etc. However thermodynamic optimization of gas turbine cycle, even with above components, is necessary. In this article multi-objective genetic algorithms are employed for Pareto approach optimization of Regenerative-Intercooling-Gas Turbine (RIGT) cycle. In the multiobjective optimization a number of conflicting objective functions are to be optimized simultaneously. The important objective functions that have been considered for optimization are entropy generation of RIGT cycle (Ns) derives using Exergy Analysis and Gouy-Stodola theorem, thermal efficiency and the net output power of RIGT Cycle. These objectives are usually conflicting with each other. The design variables consist of thermodynamic parameters such as compressor pressure ratio (Rp), excess air in combustion (EA), turbine inlet temperature (TIT) and inlet air temperature (T0). At the first stage single objective optimization has been investigated and the method of Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm (NSGA-II) has been used for multi-objective optimization. Optimization procedures are performed for two and three objective functions and the results are compared for RIGT Cycle. In order to investigate the optimal thermodynamic behavior of two objectives, different set, each including two objectives of output parameters, are considered individually. For each set Pareto front are depicted. The sets of selected decision variables based on this Pareto front, will cause the best possible combination of corresponding objective functions. There is no superiority for the points on the Pareto front figure, but they are superior to any other point. In the case of three objective optimization the results are given in tables.

Gender Differences in Spatial Navigation

This study aims to investigate the gender differences in spatial navigation using the tasks of 2-D matrix navigation and recognition of real driving scene. The results can be summarized as followings. First, female subjects responded faster in 2-D matrix navigation task than male subjects when landmark instructions were provided. Second, in recognition task, male subjects recognized the key elements involved in the past driving scene more accurately than female subjects. In particular, female subjects tended to miss peripheral information. These results suggest the possibility of gender differences in spatial navigation.

Holografic Interferometry used for Measurement of Temperature Field in Fluid

The presented paper shows the possibility of using holographic interferometry for measurement of temperature field in moving fluids. There are a few methods for identification of velocity fields in fluids, such us LDA, PIV, hot wire anemometry. It is very difficult to measure the temperature field in moving fluids. One of the often used methods is Constant Current Anemometry (CCA), which is a point temperature measurement method. Data are possibly acquired at frequencies up to 1000Hz. This frequency should be limiting factor for using of CCA in fluid when fast change of temperature occurs. This shortcoming of CCA measurements should be overcome by using of optical methods such as holographic interferometry. It is necessary to employ a special holographic setup with double sensitivity instead of the commonly used Mach-Zehnder type of holographic interferometer in order to attain the parameters sufficient for the studied case. This setup is not light efficient like the Mach-Zehnder type but has double sensitivity. The special technique of acquiring and phase averaging of results from holographic interferometry is also presented. The results from the holographic interferometry experiments will be compared with the temperature field achieved by methods CCA method.

Collaborative Tracking Control of UAV-UGV

This paper suggests a fast and stable Target Tracking system in collaborative control of UAV and UGV. Wi-Fi communication range is limited in collaborative control of UAV and UGV. Thus, to secure a stable communications, UAV and UGV have to be kept within a certain distance from each other. But existing method which uses UAV Vertical Camera to follow the motion of UGV is likely to lose a target with a sudden movement change. Eventually, UGV has disadvantages that it could only move at a low speed and not make any sudden change of direction in order to keep track of the target. Therefore, we suggest utilizing AR Drone UAV front camera to track fast-moving and Omnidirectional Mecanum Wheel UGV.

Rhetorical Communication in the CogSci Discourse Community: The Cognitive Neurosciences (2004) in the Context of Scientific Dissemination

In recent years linguistic research has turned increasing attention to covert/overt strategies to modulate authorial stance and positioning in scientific texts, and to the recipients' response. This study discussed some theoretical implications of the use of rhetoric in scientific communication and analysed qualitative data from the authoritative The Cognitive Neurosciences III (2004) volume. Its genre-identity, status and readability were considered, in the social interactive context of contemporary disciplinary discourses – in their polyphony of traditional and new, emerging genres. Evidence was given of the ways its famous authors negotiate and shape knowledge and research results – explicitly appraising team work and promoting faith in the fast-paced progress of Cognitive Neuroscience, also through experiential metaphors – by presenting a set of examples, ordered according to their dominant rhetorical quality.

A Novel Forgetting Factor Recursive Least Square Algorithm Applied to the Human Motion Analysis

This paper is concerned with studying the forgetting factor of the recursive least square (RLS). A new dynamic forgetting factor (DFF) for RLS algorithm is presented. The proposed DFF-RLS is compared to other methods. Better performance at convergence and tracking of noisy chirp sinusoid is achieved. The control of the forgetting factor at DFF-RLS is based on the gradient of inverse correlation matrix. Compared with the gradient of mean square error algorithm, the proposed approach provides faster tracking and smaller mean square error. In low signal-to-noise ratios, the performance of the proposed method is superior to other approaches.

A Semi-Fragile Watermarking Scheme for Color Image Authentication

In this paper, a semi-fragile watermarking scheme is proposed for color image authentication. In this particular scheme, the color image is first transformed from RGB to YST color space, suitable for watermarking the color media. Each channel is divided into 4×4 non-overlapping blocks and its each 2×2 sub-block is selected. The embedding space is created by setting the two LSBs of selected sub-block to zero, which will hold the authentication and recovery information. For verification of work authentication and parity bits denoted by 'a' & 'p' are computed for each 2×2 subblock. For recovery, intensity mean of each 2×2 sub-block is computed and encoded upto six to eight bits depending upon the channel selection. The size of sub-block is important for correct localization and fast computation. For watermark distribution 2DTorus Automorphism is implemented using a private key to have a secure mapping of blocks. The perceptibility of watermarked image is quite reasonable both subjectively and objectively. Our scheme is oblivious, correctly localizes the tampering and able to recovery the original work with probability of near one.

Interactive Chinese Character Learning System though Pictograph Evolution

This paper proposes an Interactive Chinese Character Learning System (ICCLS) based on pictorial evolution as an edutainment concept in computer-based learning of language. The advantage of the language origination itself is taken as a learning platform due to the complexity in Chinese language as compared to other types of languages. Users especially children enjoy more by utilize this learning system because they are able to memories the Chinese Character easily and understand more of the origin of the Chinese character under pleasurable learning environment, compares to traditional approach which children need to rote learning Chinese Character under un-pleasurable environment. Skeletonization is used as the representation of Chinese character and object with an animated pictograph evolution to facilitate the learning of the language. Shortest skeleton path matching technique is employed for fast and accurate matching in our implementation. User is required to either write a word or draw a simple 2D object in the input panel and the matched word and object will be displayed as well as the pictograph evolution to instill learning. The target of computer-based learning system is for pre-school children between 4 to 6 years old to learn Chinese characters in a flexible and entertaining manner besides utilizing visual and mind mapping strategy as learning methodology.