1,720,958 research outputs found
Inter-block Filtering and Downsampling in DCT Domain
No full textThe extensive use of discrete cosine transform (DCT) techniques in image coding suggests the investigation on filtering and downsampling methods directly acting on the DCT domain. As DCT image transforms usually operate on blocks, it is useful that the DCT filtering techniques preserve the block dimension. In this context the present paper first revises the intra-block filtering techniques to enlighten the limitations implied by small block dimensions. To overcome the artefacts introduced by this method and to satisfy the filtering design constraints which are usually defined in the Fourier domain, inter-block techniques are developed starting from the implementation of FIR filtering. Inter-block schemes do not exhibit any limitation but their computational cost has to be taken into account. In addition, hybrid techniques, using variable length FIR filters after the discard of low order DCT coefficients, are introduced to increase the computational efficiency; in this case, the introduced aliasing has to be kept at tolerable values. The amount of the tolerable aliasing strictly depends on the subsequent operations applied to the filtered and downsampled image. The numerical examples reported could form a basis for error estimation and evaluation of trade-off between performance and computational complexity. © 1994
Three-dimensional-DCT pipe coding
No full textThe paper reports on a video sequence coding method taking advantage of the generic video- communication layout: some moving objects on a still background. The algorithm operates on groups of frames in which the whole digital video sequence is divided, that implies the synchronization requirements' satisfaction and an acceptable level of compatibility with standard video coding (H.261, MPEG, etc.). An analysis of the spatial-temporal continuum, represented by each group of frames, is performed, in order to detect a tridimensional segmentation that identifies the moving objects by means of spatial regions. These regions can spread, as a sort of `pipes,' through the whole group of frames in the temporal direction. Various pipes' construction and coding strategies, including techniques based on object recognition and coding, are allowed. In this work a pipes' identification method based on fixed size moving blocks and their coding by means of a 3D-DCT transform is reported. The above method allows adjacent starting pipes to part themselves, leaving uncoded stripes at their boundaries. The proposed method does not imply the stripes coding, while it minimizes their number and the amount of the artifacts generated by their presentation. As a final topic, the paper reports some considerations on the coding efficiency related to the quality of the reconstructed sequences and on the compatibility characteristics
The compression of numerical radiological images
No full textA digital radiological image is made by a number of pixels, each of them characterized by a definite numerical value obtained by quantization which represents the luminance in that specific image unit. Spatial resolution and dynamic range are the main factors in determining the quality of a digital radiological image. The product of the two above factors defines the global dimensions of the image and is expressed in bits. In conventional radiographic images the global dimension of the image is expressed in MBytes, because of its high spatial and contrast resolution. To reduce the visualization and storage requirements as well as the transmission time of large image data sets, compression algorithms have been recently introduced. These algorithms are based on the fact that often in a digital image parts of the binary data are "redundant", that is they are not necessary for correct image representation. Therefore, compression methods are aimed at reducing both statistical and perceptive redundancy. Statistical redundancy is reduced by means of lossless coding which does not allow to compress images with a ratio higher than 4-5:1 and that--by definition--allows to recover the original image quality. On the other hand "lossy" compression algorithms, which eliminate the perceptive redundancy, are based on the reduction of spatial resolution and dynamic range and on transform-based methods. In particular, the latter have usually been more successful in terms of efficient compression, even when applied to conventional radiographic images. The basic transform procedure can be modified at various levels. JPEG is one of these methods, originally developed for photographic images, which can be usefully applied to radiological images as well. Lossy procedures allow to reach higher compression ratios than lossless methods, but the decrease in information content must be prevented from reducing diagnostic accuracy. In order to assess the diagnostic efficiency of the images compressed with lossy methods, semi-objective analyses are usually performed and ROC curves are produced and evaluated. A model ROC analysis is presented
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Automatic Moving Object and Background Separation
No full textIn this paper, we propose a segmentation method of reduced computational complexity aimed at separating the moving objects from the background in a generic video sequence. This task may be accomplished at the coder site to support the functionalities foreseen by new multimedia scenarios, and in particular the content-based functionalities focused by the MPEG-4 activity, allowing the user to access and decode single objects of a video sequence. The proposed algorithm discriminates between background and foreground by means of a higher-order statistics (HOS) significance test performed on a group of inter-frame differences, followed by a motion detection phase, producing a binary segmentation map. The HOS threshold is adaptively changed, based on the estimated background activity and on the potential presence of slowly moving objects. The map is refined by a final regularization stage implemented by means of a cascade of morphological filters. The algorithm performance were tested through the wide experimental activity carried out during the ISO MPEG-4 N2 Core Experiment on Automatic Segmentation Techniques, in which the authors are currently involved. Typical results obtained on MPEG4 sequences are here shown, in order to illustrate the segmentation algorithm performanc
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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