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The quality of depth is crucial in all depth-based applications. Unfortunately, the error-free ground truth is often unattainable for depth. Therefore, no-reference quality assessment is very much desired. This paper presents a novel depth quality assessment scheme that is completely different from conventional approaches. In particular, this scheme focuses on depth edge misalignment errors in texture-plus-depth (T + D) images and develops a robust method to detect them. Based on the detected misalignments, a no-reference metric is calculated to evaluate the quality of depth maps. In the proposed scheme, misalignments are detected by matching texture and depth edges through three constraints: 1) spatial similarity; 2) edge orientation similarity; and 3) segment length similarity. Furthermore, the matching is performed on edge segments instead of individual pixels, which enables robust edge matching. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed scheme can detect misalignment errors accurately. The proposed no-reference depth quality metric is highly consistent with the full-reference metric, and is also well-correlated with the quality of synthesized virtual views. Moreover, the proposed scheme can also use the detected edge misalignments to facilitate depth enhancement in various practical texture-plus-depth-based applications.

Both commercial and scientific applications often need to transform color images into gray-scale images, e.g., to reduce the publication cost in printing color images or to help color blind people see visual cues of color images. However, conventional color to gray algorithms are not ready for practical applications because they encounter the following problems: 1) Visual cues are not well defined so it is unclear how to preserve important cues in the transformed gray-scale images; 2) some algorithms have extremely high time cost for computation; and 3) some require human-computer interactions to have a reasonable transformation. To solve or at least reduce these problems, we propose a new algorithm based on a probabilistic graphical model with the assumption that the image is defined over a Markov random field. Thus, color to gray procedure can be regarded as a labeling process to preserve the newly well--defined visual cues of a color image in the transformed gray-scale image. Visual cues are measurements that can be extracted from a color image by a perceiver. They indicate the state of some properties of the image that the perceiver is interested in perceiving. Different people may perceive different cues from the same color image and three cues are defined in this paper, namely, color spatial consistency, image structure information, and color channel perception priority. We cast color to gray as a visual cue preservation procedure based on a probabilistic graphical model and optimize the model based on an integral minimization problem. We apply the new algorithm to both natural color images and artificial pictures, and demonstrate that the proposed approach outperforms representative conventional algorithms in terms of effectiveness and efficiency. In addition, it requires no human-computer interactions.

Objective: Ineffective triggering (IT) is the most common manifestation of patient-ventilator asynchrony in mechanically ventilated patients. IT in the expiratory phase (ITE) accounts for the majority of IT and is associated with characteristic features of flow and airway pressure deflection, caused by ineffective effort from the patient. The purpose of this study was to quantify the characteristics of flow and airway pressure deflections of ITE and, using a computerized algorithm, to evaluate their usefulness in the detection of ITEs., Design: Prospective, clinical study., Setting: Medical intensive care unit in a 1,000-bed university hospital., Patients: A total of 14 mechanically ventilated adult patients with patient-ventilator asynchrony., Interventions: None., Measurements and Main Results: We analyzed 5,899 breaths and found that 1,831 were ITEs. The average values for maximum flow deflection (F(def)) and maximum airway pressure deflection (P(def)) in ITEs were 13.94 +/- 8.0 L/min and 1.91 +/- 0.97 cm H2O. With a starting value of 0.1 L/min for F(def) and 0.01 cm H2O for P(def), the area under the receiver operating characteristics curve of F(def) and P(def) for the detection of ITEs was 0.98 and 0.97, respectively. Sensitivity and specificity for the detection of ITEs were 91.5% and 96.2% for F(def), respectively, for a cutoff value of 5.45 L/min, and 93.3% and 92.9% for Pdef, for a cutoff value of 0.45 cm H2O., Conclusion: We conclude that accurately detecting and quantifying ITEs is feasible using a computerized algorithm based on F(def) and P(def). Such a computerized estimation of patient-ventilator interaction might be helpful for adjusting ventilator settings in an intensive care unit.

The cervical length measured by transvaginal ultrasound is a proven clinical tool for predicting premature birth. The standard manual measurement of the cervix is limited by variability in the technique. In this research, we develop the first computer algorithm that is able to identify the anatomic landmarks of the cervix on a transvaginal ultrasound image and determine the standard cervical length. The system is composed of four stages: The first stage is adaptive speckle suppression using variable length sticks algorithm. The second stage is the location of the internal cervical opening or "os" using a region-based segmentation. The third stage is delineation of the cervical canal. The fourth stage uses gray level summation patterns and prior knowledge to first localize the tissue boundary of the external cervix, and then use a template to determine the specific location of the external os. The cervical length is determined and calculated to image scale. To validate the proposed algorithm, 101 cervical ultrasound images were selected from a series of 37 examinations performed on 17 patients over an eight-month period. Repeated measurements of cervical length using the computer-assisted method were compared with those carried out by two experienced sonographers. The median intraobserver variability for the 101 images using the computer-assisted method was significantly smaller than that of the manual method by either sonographer. In a pairwise comparison, the mean cervical length for the computer method matches with the mean manual cervical length.

Recently, robust video transmission system that can eliminate the cliff effect in digital video transmission has attracted great interest from both academia and industry. By linearizing the whole system, robust video transmission is intrinsically scalable to channel conditions in mobile networks. However, the heterogeneity of user devices in terms of viewing resolution has not been well studied for robust video broadcast systems. In this paper, we propose a spatial scalability enabled robust video broadcast (SSRVB) system, aiming at accommodating diverse users with both heterogeneous resolutions and heterogeneous channel conditions. In SSRVB, a novel spatial decomposition method based on linear projection is first designed for robust video transmission. Then the transmission distortion minimization problem with joint subcarrier matching and power allocation is formulated. A near-optimal low-complexity subcarrier matching algorithm based on auction theory and an optimal power allocation strategy are also proposed. Furthermore, an iterative algorithm is designed to solve the problem of joint resource allocation. Simulation results demonstrate that SSRVB can achieve an average of 3 dB gain when compared with the reference schemes (i.e., ECast, MCast, discrete wavelet transform (DWT) based scheme, and scalable video coding (SVC) scheme) in terms of average peak signal-to-noise ratio under heterogeneous scenarios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Cache-enabled dense small cell networks (DSCNs), energy consumption and file delivery delay are two critical performance metrics. On the other hand, power control is an essential mechanism to mitigate inter-cell interference in DSCNs. However, the impact of power control at small base stations (SBSs) on the system performance when caches are involved has not been well studied. Observing energy consumption and file delivery delay are coupled with each other in cache-enabled DSCNs, different from existing studies, we attempt to optimize these two performance metrics at the same time, taking into account sophisticated power control at SBSs. Firstly, we formulate the energy-delay optimization problem as a utility maximization problem, where cooperative power control among SBSs, file placement and user association are considered. Then, we solve the optimization problem in two stages (i.e., caching stage and delivery stage), based on the fact that caching is performed during off-peak time. At the caching stage, a local popular file placement policy is proposed by estimating user preference at each SBS. At the delivery stage, with given caching status at SBSs, the optimization problem is further decomposed by Benders’ decomposition method. An efficient algorithm is proposed to approach the optimal association and power solution by iteratively shrinking the gap of the upper and lower bounds. Finally, extensive simulations are performed to validate our analytical and algorithmic work. The results demonstrate that the proposed algorithms can achieve a better tradeoff between energy consumption and file delivery delay than the existing algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Video delivery has been playing an essential role in video services over edge networks. Although HTTP segment-based streaming, e.g., Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (DASH), has become the prevailing technique, it cannot provide guaranteed video playback in terms of bitrate to mobile users. In essence, HTTP streaming downloads the video segments in a best effort fashion, i.e., passively responding to the channel dynamics. This can cause unstable playback with frequent rebuffer and multi-client competition that degrades a network-wide performance. In this paper, we present a network-assisted streaming framework for Guaranteed Playback-Experience Streaming over HTTP (GESH) that leverages the proactive control of network resources and joint coordination among multiple clients for service-aware network resource allocation. Specifically, GESH is empowered by a new weighted proportional fair scheduling without modifying existing cellular infrastructure, a per-segment channel variation model, and a suite of algorithms to seek the optimal weights for the scheduling. Extensive evaluations show that GESH can maximally guarantee the video playback of multiple users, as well as significantly outperforming conventional HTTP streaming and current DASH systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rate control typically involves two steps: bit allocation and bitrate control. The bit allocation step can be implemented in various fashions depending on how many levels of allocation are desired and whether or not an optimal rate–distortion (R-D) performance is pursued. The bitrate control step has a simple aim in achieving the target bitrate as precisely as possible. In our recent research, we have developed a \lambda -domain rate control algorithm that is capable of controlling the bitrate precisely for High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC). The initial research showed that the bitrate control in the \lambda -domain can be more precise than the conventional schemes. However, the simple bit allocation scheme adopted in this initial research is unable to achieve an optimal R-D performance reflecting the inherent R-D characteristics governed by the video content. In order to achieve an optimal R-D performance, the bit allocation algorithms need to be developed taking into account the video content of a given sequence. The key issue in deriving the video-content-guided optimal bit allocation algorithm is to build a suitable R-D model to characterize the R-D behavior of the video content. In this paper, to complement the R- \lambda model developed in our initial work, a D- \lambda model is properly constructed to complete a comprehensive framework of \lambda -domain R-D analysis. Based on this comprehensive \lambda -domain R-D analysis framework, a suite of optimal bit allocation algorithms are developed. In particular, we design both picture-level and basic-unit-level bit allocation algorithms based on the fundamental R-D optimization theory to take full advantage of the content-guided principles. The proposed algorithms are implemented in HEVC reference software, and the experimental results demonstrate that they can achieve an obvious R-D performance improvement with a smaller bitrate control error. The proposed bit allocation algorithms have already been adopted by the Joint Collaborative Team on Video Coding and integrated into the HEVC reference software. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Image retargeting technology has been widely studied to adapt images for the devices with heterogeneous screen resolutions. Meanwhile effective objective retargeting quality assessment algorithms are also very important for optimizing and selecting favorable retargeting methods. Unlike previous assessment algorithms which rely on image local structure features and unidirectional prediction of information loss, we propose a bi-directional natural salient scene distortion model (BNSSD) including image natural scene statistics (NSS) measurement, salient global structure distortion measurement, and bi-directional salient information loss measurement. First, we propose a new NSS model in log-Gabor domain and verify its effectiveness in reflecting nature scene statistical distortions introduced during the retargeting process. Second, the concept of salient global structure distortion is proposed to measure the global structure uniformity in the corresponding salient regions between original and retargeted images. Finally, we propose a bidirectional salient information loss metric to measure the information loss between salient areas in original image and retargeted image. The effectiveness of the BNSSD model is verified on two widely recognized public databases, and the experimental results show that our method outperforms the state-of-the-art algorithms under different statistical assessment criteria. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

We present in this paper a novel proactive interference avoidance scheme for mobile-to-mobile (M2M) communication as an underlay in Long-Term Evolution (LTE) downlink networks. The proposed scheme introduces an intelligent user-selective resource allocation algorithm that aims to proactively avoid interference between M2M pairs and LTE regular users while achieving a satisfactory link budget for both M2M and LTE regular links. The proposed resource allocation algorithm is based on a novel low-complexity interference estimation approach that requires only channel quality indicator (CQI) information (CSI). Since the CQI reporting mechanism has been already implemented in current LTE systems, the proposed algorithm is indeed practical and standard compatible, compared with the existing works that require perfect knowledge of the channel state information (CSI). In this research, achievable data throughput with LTE-compliant adaptive modulation and coding has been adopted as the optimization measurement, rather than the information-theoretic capacity. Therefore, the performance of the proposed scheme is practically realizable in LTE communication systems. Since the performance of the proposed scheme highly relies on the accuracy of CQI feedback, we also carry out performance analysis to evaluate the impact of CQI estimation error and delay. The simulation results show that the total achievable data throughput for LTE networks is dramatically enhanced by M2M communication with this proposed interference avoidance resource allocation scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Reconstructing a full-resolution stereoscopic video from an asymmetric stereoscopic video is a challenging task. The existing approaches require depth information, which imposes an additional challenge in data acquisition. In this paper, we propose a novel scheme that is capable of obtaining super-resolution and depth estimation simultaneously from an asymmetric stereoscopic video. The proposed scheme models the video super-resolution and stereo matching with a unified energy function. Then, we apply an alternating optimization method to minimize this energy function, which can be implemented with a two-step algorithm. In the first step we calculate the initial depth map by using a region-based cooperative optimization technique while considering the temporal consistency in video. In the second step we resolve the super-resolution problem under the guidance of the depth information. It is effective because each step benefits from the additional improvement over the previous step. We iteratively update the two steps until stable depth and super-resolution results are obtained. We have conducted a series of experiments on public stereoscopic video sequences to evaluate the performance of the proposed method. Both objective indexes and subjective visual comparisons verify that the proposed scheme can achieve satisfactory super-resolution results and high-quality depth map simultaneously. In particular, the subjective evaluation experiments on a 3-D monitor show that this scheme outperforms others and achieves the best visual sharpness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In space communication environments, most studies in delay tolerant networks (DTNs) adopt experimental approaches and they have shown that the utilization efficiency of link bandwidth can be affected by changing packet sizes at the bundle layer and the convergence layer. However, the lack of theoretical work makes it difficult to find the optimal packet sizes in general scenarios. In this paper, we focus on this important issue by performing a theoretical analysis to solve the packet size optimization problems in both one-hop and multihop DTNs. As our analysis is based on the widely used DTN architecture with Bundle Protocol (BP) and Licklider Transmission Protocol (LTP), the theoretical results can be applied to any DTN scenario using this architecture. We formulate packet size optimization problems in DTNs as nonconvex optimization problems. Furthermore, a goodput enhancement algorithm (GEA) is also proposed to find the optimal packet sizes in order to maximize goodput in DTNs. We conduct numerical analysis as well as simulations to validate our theoretical analysis and study the factors that determine the optimal packet sizes for BP and LTP. Numerical results show that GEA achieves significant performance improvement compared with schemes where packet size optimization on BP and LTP is not jointly considered. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, we consider power allocation in multiband cognitive radio (CR) networks, where multiple secondary users (SUs) transmit via a common relay and compete for the transmit power of the relay. We employ a hybrid overlay/underlay spectrum sharing scheme, allowing the SU to adapt its way of accessing the licensed spectrum to the status of the primary user (PU). If the PU is detected to be idle at the selected channel, the SU works in an overlay mode; else, it works in spectrum underlay. In addition, an auction-based power-allocation scheme is proposed to solve power competition of multiple SUs. For the SU working in spectrum overlay, the relay allocates the power in proportion to its payment without additional constraints; for the SU in spectrum underlay, its own transmit power and that of the relay are upper bounded for the quality of service (QoS) of the PU. Then, the convergence of the proposed auction algorithm and the outage probability of secondary transmissions is theoretically analyzed. Finally, the performance of the proposed scheme is verified by the simulation results. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

For promising vision-based video coding on low-quality data, this paper proposes a sparse spatio-temporal representation with adaptive regularized dictionary learning and develops a low bit-rate video coding scheme. In a reversed-complexity Wyner–Ziv coding manner, it selects a subset of key frames to code at original resolution, while the rest are down sampled and reconstructed by a sparse spatio-temporal approximation using key frames as a training dataset. Since primitive patches (geometry) are of low dimensionality and can be well learned from the primitive patches across frames in a scale space, a video frame is divided into three layers: a primitive layer, a nonprimitive coarse layer, and a nonprimitive smooth layer. The multiscale differential feature representations are invertible to facilitate reconstruction with dictionary learning, and the target is formulated as an optimization problem by constructing a sparse representation of 2-D patches and 3-D volumes over adaptive regularized dictionaries, a set of 2-D subdictionary pairs trained from primitive patches, and a 3-D dictionary trained from nonprimitive volumes. Specifically, the nonprimitive layer is constructed as volumes in to order keep it consistent along the motion trajectory, which enables sparse representations over a learned 3-D spatio-temporal dictionary. Through hierarchical bidirectional motion estimation and adaptive overlapped block motion compensation, the 3-D low-frequency and high-frequency dictionary pair is designed by the K-SVD algorithm to update the atoms for optimal sparse representation and convergence. In reconstruction, the lost high-frequency information of the down-sampled frames can be synthesized from the sparse spatio-temporal representation over the adaptive regularized dictionaries. Extensive experiments validate the compression efficiency of the proposed scheme versus H.264/AVC in terms of both objective and subjective comparisons. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, we propose a generic error resilient video coding (ERVC) scheme using embedded Wyner–Ziv (WZ) description. At the encoder side, a joint source-channel R-D optimized mode selection (JSC-RDO-MS) algorithm with WZ-coded anchor frames is statistically studied and developed. Given a stationary first-order Markov Gaussian source, the proposed mode optimization is justified by an analysis of the RD impact on the WZ bit-rate. JSC-RDO-MS involves in the estimation of expected rate and distortion of WZ coding with the unavailable side information, and the WZ bit-rate of each coding mode is determined based on the error correction capability of the specific WZ codec. At the decoder side, an online correlation noise model between the source and the side-information is proposed with a mixture of Laplacians whose parameters are attained to reflect the coherence of the motion field of successive frames and the energy of prediction residual. Each mixture component represents the statistical distribution of prediction residuals, and the mixing coefficients represent the amount of errors in motion compensation. The proposed scheme achieves the so-called classification gain by exploiting the spatially non-stationary characteristics of the motion field and texture. Extensive experimental results show that the proposed WZ-ERVC scheme achieves a better overall RD performance than existing ERVC schemes, and the proposed modeling algorithm also significantly outperforms the conventional Laplacian model by up to 2 dB. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Abstract: For leaky prediction based FGS (Fine Granularity Scalability), constant quality constrained rate adaptation, i.e., how to optimally truncate/allocate bits given the current channel bandwidth, is still an open problem. The difficulty lies in obtaining accurate R–D (rate–distortion) curves for leaky prediction based FGS (L-FGS) due to the dependency among video frames. In this paper, we propose an accurate R–D model, which considers not only the distortion introduced in the current frame and the propagated distortion from the reference frame due to rate adaptation, but also the correlation between them. An excellent property of our proposed R–D model is that even when applying the model for a long video sequence without any update of the actual distortion values, the estimation error is still negligible and the error is not accumulated. Based on our proposed R–D model, a sliding window technique is further developed to solve the problem of constant quality constrained bit allocation. Experimental results show that the proposed R–D model is very accurate and the corresponding bit allocation algorithm can achieve much more smooth video quality than the traditional uniform bit allocation under both CBR (constant bit rate) and VBR (variable bit rate) channels. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]