Active Contour Model with Splitting Characteristics for Multiple Area Extractions and its Hardware Realization

Abstract: In this paper, a new Sampled Active Contour Model (ACM) and its hardware realization method are proposed. The proposed Sampled-ACM is a virtual closed curve with some contour points to extract a specified area in images. Forces, such as "pressure", "attraction", "repulsion" and "vibration factor" work on every contour point of the proposed Sampled-ACM. The proposed Sampled-ACM only accesses the memories on which the contour points locate, the number of the memory access is reduced, and the faster processing speed is performed than ordinal contour models such as Snakes. The proposed Sampled-ACM has characteristics which reverses direction of attraction by the basis of specific conditions and also has splitting characteristics for multiple area extractions. The proposed Sampled-ACM is realized on FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) to construct a real-time hardware equipments. The experimental results to confirm the fast processing abilities of the proposed Sampled-ACM are also included

Human Tracking across Heterogeneous Systems Based on Mobile Agent Technologies

In a human tracking system, expanding a monitoring range of one system is complicating the management of devices and increasing its cost. Therefore, we propose a method to realize a wide-range human tracking by connecting small systems. In this paper, we examined an agent deploy method and information contents across the heterogeneous human tracking systems. By implementing the proposed method, we can construct a human tracking system across heterogeneous systems, and the system can track a target continuously between systems

Evaluation of Program Code Caching for Mobile Agent Migrations

Abstract: Mobile agents are able to migrate among machines to achieve their tasks. This feature is attractive to design, implement, and maintain distributed systems because we can implement both client-side and server-side programming in one mobile agent. However, it involves the increase of data traffic for mobile agent migrations. In this paper, we propose program code caching to reduce the data traffic caused by mobile agent migrations. A mobile agent consists of many program codes that define a task executed in each machine they migrate; thus, the mobile agent migration involves the transfer of their program codes. Therefore, our method reduces the number of the transfer of program codes by using program code cache. We have implemented our method on a mobile agent framework called Maglog and conducted experiments on a meeting scheduling system

Prevalence of Antimicrobial Resistance in Haemophilus influenzae and Streptococcus pneumoniae : Comparison of Clinical Isolates of Japan and The Philippines

For clinical isolates of Haemophilus influenzae and Streptococcus pneumoniae in Japan (356 and 179 strains, respectively) and in the Philippines (98 and 59 strains, respectively), minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) of ampicillin, cefazolin, cefotiam, ceftizoxim, ofloxacin, erythromycin, and minocycline were examined. The rates of β-lactamase producing H. influenzae were 17.7% (63/356) in Japan and 2.0% (2/98) in the Philippines, and all of these strains were ampicillin MICs 〓1.56 ugml^. In addition, 5 strains in Japan that lacked β-lactamase activity were also less susceptible to ampicillin. Among the antimicrobials tested, ceftizoxim was the most active against H. influenzae in both countries (MICs 〓0.2 ugml^). Five strains of S. pneumoniae in Japan were relatively resistant to ampicillin (MIC=0.1 ugml^), whereas there were no such strains among isolates in the Philippines. Forty strains (22.3%) and 108 strains (60.3%) among S. pneumoniae in Japan exhibited erythromycin MICs 〓0.2 ugml^ and minocycline MICs 〓1.56 ugml^, respectively. In contrast, all isolates in the Philippines were erythromycin MICs 〓0.05 ugml^ and minocycline MICs 〓0.39 ugml^. Present study indicates that H. influenzae and S. pneumoniae in the Philippines remained still susceptible to the antimicrobials tested except for 2 β-lactamase-positive, ampicillin-resistant H. influenzae, whereas ampicillin-resistant H. influenzae mediated by β-lactamase or non-β-lactamase mechanisms and ampicillin-, erythromycin- or minocycline-resistant S. pneumoniae were included among isolates in Japan

Measurement of Iminodipeptides in the Serum of Patients with Prolidase Deficiency Using Liquid Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry

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