MPGS: an interactive tool for the specification and generation of multimedia presentations

In this paper we argue that the automatic generation of dynamic multimedia presentation requires both low-level collections of objective measurements for media units representing prototypical style elements, and high-level conceptual descriptions supporting contextual and presentational requirements. Only the combination of both facilitates the retrieval of adequate material and its user-centred presentation. We discuss the problems of visual signification for images in dynamic systems and explain how a combined approach can help overcome such problems. We then propose an architecture for such a system and present its applicability for a museum-oriented multimedia system with a working example.

Synchronization is the major processing task during multimedia presentation, which defines the time relation between multimedia objects. There are many synchronization specification methods, and each has different advantages and disadvantages. Those methods work well for the simple and specific synchronization case, but when considering large complex multimedia presentation, there lacks an effective method to deal with the complex time relation. In this paper, a synchronization point based specification method (SPM) is proposed, and based on it, a static and dynamic validation mechanism for the synchronization relation is given. In SPM, the synchronization relation is defined in synchronization points (SP). Multimedia presentation control is based on SP's status during presentation. According to the order of SPs, SPM gives the static and dynamic validation algorithm, which can avoid the conflict relation between SPs. SPM gives a way to define the nondetermined synchronization relation between multimedia objects, and proposes static and dynamic validation mechanisms for complex synchronization control. This synchronization point based mechanism can extend the capability of synchronization definition and control in a multimedia system.

The understanding of biological systems relies on the accurate description of the interaction among biomolecules. This knowledge can be obtained by in vitro assays involving interacting partners with well-defined compositional, spatial, and temporal constraints. The distinguishing features of living systems, namely, low copy number, crowded environment, and spatial compartmentalization, are usually absent in most in vitro experiments reported in the literature. This thesis discusses the implications of low copy number and spatial constraints using theoretical and computational methods in some model systems. Furthermore, two experimental platforms, based on the recent development of microfluidic techniques, are described in detail. In the first implementation, micronsized chambers fabricated using soft lithography provide a high-throughput reactor array whose size and composition can be configured to mimic the in vivo environment. The second design reports the generation and manipulation of femtoliter-volume water-in-oil droplets. A model biochemical reaction catalyzed by beta-galactosidase is observed in both reactors with precisely defined initiation time, opening the way to monitor transient kinetics in addition to steady-state behavior. Additionally, the enzymatic activity exhibits a negative correlation with the size of water-in-oil droplets when the nominal concentrations of reagents are kept the same. This surprising result is analyzed in detail by carefully designed control experiments, and attributed to the shear-induced redistribution of surfactant employed to stabilize the water/oil interface. Specifically, smaller droplets experience bigger shear stress, which change the surface concentration of surfactant and allow for the nonspecific binding of proteins to the interface. Surface-bound enzymes are denatured, leading to reduced catalytic activity. This highly dynamic process is hardly detectable by other methods such as tensiometry or direct fluorescence imaging of the interface.

In this paper, we present the specification and implementation of a multimedia presentation database, which supports the reuse of many kinds of multimedia objects. A formal specification of the presentation database is introduced. The implementation of database and complexities are addressed. The main strength of our system is in a reuse mechanism, which allows the inheritance of multimedia properties and the instantiation of new multimedia objects, as well as large binary data sharing. The proposed system is implemented on the Microsoft Windows 95.

Multimedia applications require the handling of synchronization between media streams. We present tools for creating, editing and presenting synchronized multimedia objects. Specifying synchronization is supported by the graphical Synchronization Editor and execution of multimedia presentations is performed by the Synchronizer.Major topics cover requirements resulting from underlying distributed heterogeneous environments and the consideration of user interactions. The tools we have developed are not restricted to a fixed set of media, but support the inclusion of arbitrary user-defined media.The Synchronization Editor and the Synchronizer are part of the Mode project, that is used for the handling of distributed multimedia objects in NESTOR, an authoring-learning environment in development at the Universities of Karlsruhe and Kaiserslautern in cooperation with the CEC Karlsruhe, Digital Equipment.

The paper presents an algorithm attempting to combine both intra-frame and interframe information to reconstruct lost macroblocks due to imperfect communication channels when decoding a MPEG bitstream. The algorithm is a POCS-based (Projection Onto the Convex Set) iterative restoration algorithm incorporating both the temporal and spatial constraints derived from a set of analysis performed on the picture sequence. Often the use of the temporal information in the restoration process is complicated by the scene changes or large random motion activities. To reliably utilize the temporal information, we formulate a series of test to determine the usefulness of the temporal information. In addition, the tests yield a temporal constraint if the temporal information is deemed good. Along with the spatial constraints as described in [1], the temporal constraint is used in the proposed iterative restoration algorithm.

Querying multimedia presentations

Database technology is evolving to accommodate complex multimedia objects — data types that present unique challenges in the storage and movement of large time-dependent objects. The manipulation and analysis of these large and semantically rich objects require techniques far different from those used for alphanumeric databases. This paper presents multimedia server-based architectures based on massively parallel processor systems and an object-relational database management system. The transition from client-centric multimedia applications to a client/server environment is examined, and several applications are discussed that illustrate the use of multimedia database servers based on the object-relational model. Finally, this paper reviews the architecture of two scaleable multimedia servers that can support these applications: MoonBase, a database server with full content analysis capability for multimedia objects, and the audio/video server, a system-based file server that can operate within the MoonBase architecture.

We present an algorithm for estimating a sequence of articulated upper-body human pose in unconstrained videos. Most previous work often fails to locate forearms in those video scenes suffering from illumination varieties, background clutter, camera shake, or occlusion. In order to deal with such intractable cases, we propose a novel algorithm for addressing the problem of certain body parts localization. The proposed approach can be roughly divided into two steps: first, a spatial model is designed to capture the high-order relationship between adjacent parts and meanwhile to generate a set of configurations in each frame under the temporal context constraint; second, a competitive method is presented to select the best body parts among diverse pose configurations. In this paper, the proposed algorithm focuses on the unconstrained video scenes and improves the detection precision of certain body parts with high degree of freedom. Moreover, the proposed algorithm can be well applied to a very challenging dataset named Movies. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm can dramatically improve performance compared with those related algorithms on two benchmark datasets (MPII and SHPED datasets) and on our Movies dataset.

Privacy-preserving top-[formula omitted] spatio-temporal keyword preference query

Describing the MIPS multimedia presentation system with the IMMPS reference model

Relations among temporal intervals can be used to assist the automatic generation of multimedia presentations. The authors analyze the domains of interval temporal relations. A set of algorithms is proposed to derive reasonable relations between intervals. Possible conflicts in the user specification are firstly detected and eliminated. The mechanism then constructs partial order relations among temporal intervals before the presentation time chart is built. The algorithm is extended for objects in an arbitrary n-dimensional space. Thus, presentation layouts in 2D space, or virtual reality object representations in 3D space can be constructed. They use the algorithms to design a reasoning system that generates the schedule and layout of multimedia presentations.

In this paper we study the performance of different vehicular wireless broadcast schemes that rely on repetition as a means for providing reliable communications in Rician environment with capture effect. We investigate different patterns for retransmission and show that the one based on Optical Orthogonal Codes (OOC) performs better than others in terms of probability of success and delay. We propose using different numbers of repetitions for providing different Quality of Service (QoS) priority levels and show this method can effectively provide different QoS classes for different types of data without throughput loss. Probability of success and delay are obtained via simulation for three broadcast schemes in the presence of capture effect in Rician fading environment. Furthermore, analytical solutions are compared to simulation for transmission with no capture as a special case.

Current four-dimensional computed tomography (4-D CT) lung image reconstruction methods rely on respiratory gating, such as surrogate, to sort the large number of axial images captured during multiple breathing cycles into serial three-dimensional CT images of different respiratory phases. Such sorting methods may be subject to external surrogate signal noises due to poor reproducibility of breathing cycles. New image-matching-based reconstruction algorithms refine the 4-D CT reconstruction by matching neighboring image slices, and they generally work better for the cine mode of 4-D CT acquisition than the helical mode due to different table positions of axial images in the helical mode. We propose a Bayesian model (BM) based automated 4-D CT lung image reconstruction for helical mode scans. BM allows for applying new spatial and temporal anatomical constraints in the optimization procedure. Using an iterative optimization procedure, each axial image is assigned to a respiratory phase to make sure the anatomical structures are spatially and temporally smooth based on the BM framework. In experiments, we visually and quantitatively compared the results of the proposed BM-based 4-D CT reconstruction with the respiratory surrogate and the normalized cross-correlation based image matching method using both simulated and actual 4-D patient scans. The results indicated that the proposed algorithm yielded more accurate reconstruction and fewer artifacts in the 4-D CT image series.

A micro-simulation model system of individuals' daily activity behavior is presented. This simulation model incorporates spatial, temporal and coupling constraints that restrict individuals' daily activity behavior. The model system, entitled PCATS (Prism-Constrained Activity-Travel Simulator), is composed of an activity choice model, a mode and destination choice model and activity duration models. The parameters contained in these sub-models are estimated using activity diary data. The estimation results point to the importance of treating daily activity and travel as a whole, and incorporating time-space constraints into analysis. PCATS is applied to estimate the effect of hypothetical transportation policies on an imaginary individual. The results indicate that PCATS can estimate the effect of change in work-hours or commuting time on individuals' activity and travel behavior.