Performance Bottlenecks in Digital Movie Systems

Digital movie systems offer great perspectives for multimedia applications. But the large amounts of data involved and the demand for isochronous transmission and playback are also great challenges for the designers of a new generation of file systems, database systems, operating systems, window systems, video encoder/decoder and networks. Today's research prototypes of digital movie systems suffer from severe performance bottlenecks, resulting in small movie windows, low frame rates or bad image quality (or all of these!). We consider the performance problem to be the most important problem with digital movie systems, preventing their widespread use today. In this paper we address performance issues of digital movie systems from a practical perspective. We report on performance experience gained with the XMovie system and new algorithms and protocols to overcome some of these bottlenecks

Toward high-content/high-throughput imaging and analysis of embryonic morphogenesis

In vivo study of embryonic morphogenesis tremendously benefits from recent advances in live microscopy and computational analyses. Quantitative and automated investigation of morphogenetic processes opens the field to high-content and high-throughput strategies. Following experimental workflow currently developed in cell biology, we identify the key challenges for applying such strategies in developmental biology. We review the recent progress in embryo preparation and manipulation, live imaging, data registration, image segmentation, feature computation, and data mining dedicated to the study of embryonic morphogenesis. We discuss a selection of pioneering studies that tackled the current methodological bottlenecks and illustrated the investigation of morphogenetic processes in vivo using quantitative and automated imaging and analysis of hundreds or thousands of cells simultaneously, paving the way for high-content/high-throughput strategies and systems analysis of embryonic morphogenesis

Implementing Movie Control, Access and Management - from a Formal Description to a Working Multimedia System

In this paper we describe the tool-supported specification and implementation of a multimedia communication protocol on parallel hardware. MCAM is an application layer protocol for movie control, access and management. We specify the full MCAM protocol together with ISO presentation and session layers in Estelle. Using a code generator, we derive parallel C++ code from the specification. The code is compiled and executed on a multiprocessor system under OSF/1 and on UNIX workstations. Measurements show the performance speedup gained by several different configurations of parallel units. We also report on experiences with our methodology

The ethics of machine translation

In this paper I first describe the two main branches in machine translation research. I then go to discuss why the second of these, statistical machine translation, can cause some malaise among translation scholars. As some of the issues that arise are ethical in nature, I stop to ponder what an ethics of machine translation might involve, before considering the ethical stance adopted by some of the main protagonists in the development and popularisation of statistical machine translation, and in the teaching of translation

Crossing the river by feeling for stones: a new approach to exporting creative content to China?

We have all heard the statistics about China\u27s stellar growth and the large market for UK creative industries. But the trade numbers paint a different picture, suggesting that the UK is punching below its weight. This is not altogether surprising. Doing business in emerging markets like China is fraught with risk and uncertainty which can overwhelm even the most canny operations.  This paper examines what more can be done and highlights the novel role that digital social networks could play in overcoming these obstacles and helping UK creative businesses unlock export opportunities to China. ------------------- We have all heard the statistics. About how China is forecast to overtake the US to be the largest economy in the world by 2027.1 How China already has 277 million mobile web users, of which 45 per cent use their handsets to access music and 21 per cent video games.2 How more than 300 million Chinese are studying English.3 How Chinese e–commerce is predicted to triple by 2015, when sales could hit $420 billion – 20 per cent higher than the projection for the US market.4 And how, at 67,300, China sends more students to UK universities than any other country in the world.5 These dizzying numbers should mean there is a particularly large market for the UK’s creative industries, right? The trade statistics suggest not. According to UNCTAD, in 2010 the UK’s share of creative goods exports to China was just 1.4 per cent, compared with a 4.8 per cent share in world creative goods exports.6 UK exports of creative goods to China totalled$140 million, lower than not only Japan ($900 million), the US ($800 million) and Singapore ($520 million), but also France ($224 million), Germany ($325 million) and Italy ($474 million).7 With the exception of Japan and Germany, the value of UK exports of creative goods grew at a slower rate than in all these countries between 2002 and 2010. These trade statistics are not without their problems – they exclude all creative services, for example – nonetheless they indicate that the UK’s creative industries are punchingbelow their weight in Chinese markets.   &nbsp

Framework for the implementation of urban big screens in the public space

In the last decade, big urban screens have appeared in town squares and on building facades across the UK. The use of these screens brings new potentials and challenges for city regulators, artists, architects, urban designers, producers, broadcasters and advertisers. Dynamic moving images form new architectural material, affecting our perception and the experience of the space around us. A new form of urban space is emerging that is fundamentally different from what we have known, and it seems that we are ill-equipped to deal with and analyse it. We are just beginning to understand the opportunities for public information, art and community engagement. Most of screens at present serve mainly commercial purposes, they do not broadcast information aimed at sharing community content nor do they support public social interactions. We need to see more negotiation between commercial, public and cultural interests. The SCREAM project addresses these new challenges by looking at the physical urban spaces and the potential spaces created by the new technologies