8219620
SPIRE: a digital library for scientific information
Abstract.In this paper we describe the architecture and implementation of a digital library framework for scientific data, particularly imagery, with a focus on support for content-based search. Content is specified by the user at one or more of the following abstraction levels: pixel, feature, and semantic. An object-definition mechanism has been developed that supports example-based and constraint-based specification of both simple and complex query targets.This framework incorporates a methodology yielding a computationally efficient implementation of image processing algorithms, thus allowing the interactive, real-time extraction and manipulation of user-specified features and content during the execution of queries. The framework is well-suited for searching scientific databases, including satellite imagery, and medical and seismic data repositories, where the richness of the information does not allow the a priori generation of exhaustive indexes.
15943562
Content-based transcoding of images in the Internet
We present a system for transcoding images in the Internet in order to improve their delivery to client devices with a wide range of communication, processing, storage and display capabilities. The content-based image transcoder analyzes the images in order to classify them into image type and image purpose classes. The system then utilizes transcoding policies based on the content classes to manipulate and transcode the images. We describe the image transcoding process for a variety of client devices, including PDAs, hand-held computers (HHCs), TV browsers and color PCs, and demonstrate improvements in delivery speed and accessibility of the images in the Internet.
20964781
Special Issue on Image Understanding for Digital Photographs
2339969
Interactive search fusion methods for video database retrieval
In this paper, we investigate a new method for video database retrieval using interactive search fusion. Recent video analysis techniques have enabled the extraction of a variety of descriptors of features, concepts, clusters, classification results, speech and textual terms, MPEG-7 metadata, and so on. However, given an information need users are faced with a daunting task of trying to formulate queries over these multiple disparate data sources in order to retrieve the desired video content. In this paper, we explore a novel approach based on search fusion in which the user interactively builds a query by sequentially choosing among the descriptors and data sources and by selecting from various combining and score aggregation functions to fuse results of individual searches. For example, the system allows building of queries such as "retrieve video clips that have color of beach scenes, the detection of sky, and detection of water". In this paper we present the search fusion method and evaluate the performance on a large video database.
1805433
MPEG-7 MDS Content Description Tools and Applications
In this paper, we present the tools specified by the MDS part of the MPEG-7 standard for describing multimedia data such as images and video. In particular, we focus on the description tools that represent the structure and semantics of multimedia data to whose development we have actively contributed. We also describe some of our research prototype systems dealing with the extraction and application of MPEG-7 structural and semantic descriptions. These systems are AMOS, a video object segmentation and retrieval system, and IMKA, an intelligent multimedia knowledge application using the MediaNet knowledge representation framework.
30741426
Multimedia database management systems
Introduction. Multimedia Data Types and Formats. Multimedia Database Design Issues. Text Document Indexing and Retrieval. Indexing and Retrieval of Audio. Image Indexing and Retrieval. Video Indexing and Retrieval. Integrated Multimedia Indexing and Retrieval. Techniques and Data Structures for Efficient Multimedia Similarity Search. System Support for Distributed Multimedia Databases. Measurement of Multimedia Information Retrieval Effectiveness. Products, Applications, and New Developments.
31236386
Speeding Up Navigational Requests in a Parallel Object Database System
In data intensive applications, both programming and declarative query languages have attractions, the former in comprehensiveness and the latter for ease of use. Databases sometimes support the calling of side-effect free user defined functions from within declarative queries. As well as enabling more efficient coding of computationally intensive functions, this provision not only moves computation to data in a client-server setting, but also enables speedup through data parallel execution if the server is parallel. There has been little work on the combined use of query and program based database access in the context of parallel servers. We believe Polar is the first parallel object-oriented database which supports this arbitrary navigation both in a client application and in functions (operations) which may be called from within declarative queries. This work introduces Polar's support for navigation and for calling operations from within parallel queries and presents performance results for example navigational requests for the large OO7 benchmark.
7058627
Fast and Controllable Simulation of the Shattering of Brittle Objects
We present a method for the rapid and controllable simulation of the shattering of brittle objects under impact. An object to be broken is represented as a set of point masses connected by distance-preserving linear constraints. This use of constraints, rather than stiff springs, gains us a significant advantage in speed while still retaining fine control over the fracturing behavior. The forces exerted by these constraints during impact are computed using Lagrange multipliers. These constraint forces are then used to determine when and where the object will break, and to calculate the velocities of the newly created fragments. We present the details of our technique together with examples illustrating its use.
3062981
Recombination strategy adaptation via evolution of gene linkage
Analyses recombination strategies resulting from evolving gene linkage on a variety of fitness landscapes with known properties. The evolution of "blocks" of linked genes within a gene-pool makes it possible for the recombination strategy to vary in both the amount of genetic material exchanged during the formation of a new individual and in the number of parents contributing genetic material. The strategies evolved are examined in the light of the known properties of the landscapes. The results obtained explain the previously recorded good performance of the algorithm as a self-adaptive mechanism for function optimisation, as the amount and type of recombination is able to adapt to suit the landscape being searched, unlike conventional "fixed" operators.
9694445
The architecture and implementation of a distributed hypermedia storage system
Our project is studying the process by which groups of individuals work together to build large, complex structures of ideas and is developing a distributed hypermedia collaboration environment (called ABC) to support that process. This paper focuses on the architecture and implementation of the Distributed Graph Storage (DGS) component of ABC. The DGS supports a graph-based data model, conservatively extended to meet hypermedia requirements. Some important issues addressed in the system include scale, performance, concurrency semantics, access protection, location independence, and replication (for fault tolerance).
17502763
Alignment Of Protein Structures With A Memetic Evolutionary Algorithm
CATEGORY: Real-World Applications 
 
Structural comparison of proteins is a core problem in modern biomedical research. Identifying structural similarities is essential for the assessment of the relationship between structure and function in proteins, and structural comparison techniques play a key role in applications like rational drug design. In this paper we consider a technique for protein structure comparison known as the maximum contact map overlap problem. In this problem, the similarity between two protein structures is computed by aligning the proteins to maximize the number of shared contacts in their corresponding contact maps. 
 
We present a new approach to this problem that uses a Multimeme evolutionary algorithm. The best solution found by our algorithm provides a lower bound on the value of the optimal structural alignment between the proteins. We have evaluated the Multimeme algorithm on a range of benchmark problems and compared with previous heuristics. We apply a linear programming method, which provides an upper bound, to assess the accuracy of our solutions. Our experiments show that the Multimeme evolutionary algorithm represents a significant improvement on the current state of the art in metaheuristics for this problem.