An efficient hardware architecture for H.264 intra prediction algorithm

In this paper, we present an efficient hardware architecture for real-time implementation of intra prediction algorithm used in H.264 / MPEG4 Part 10 video coding standard. The hardware design is based on a novel organization of the intra prediction equations. This hardware is designed to be used as part of a complete H.264 video coding system for portable applications. The proposed architecture is implemented in Verilog HDL. The Verilog RTL code is verified to work at 90 MHz in a Xilinx Virtex II FPGA. The FPGA implementation can process 27 VGA frames (640x480) per second

Fusion of Learned Multi-Modal Representations and Dense Trajectories for Emotional Analysis in Videos

When designing a video affective content analysis algorithm, one of the most important steps is the selection of discriminative features for the effective representation of video segments. The majority of existing affective content analysis methods either use low-level audio-visual features or generate handcrafted higher level representations based on these low-level features. We propose in this work to use deep learning methods, in particular convolutional neural networks (CNNs), in order to automatically learn and extract mid-level representations from raw data. To this end, we exploit the audio and visual modality of videos by employing Mel-Frequency Cepstral Coefficients (MFCC) and color values in the HSV color space. We also incorporate dense trajectory based motion features in order to further enhance the performance of the analysis. By means of multi-class support vector machines (SVMs) and fusion mechanisms, music video clips are classified into one of four affective categories representing the four quadrants of the Valence-Arousal (VA) space. Results obtained on a subset of the DEAP dataset show (1) that higher level representations perform better than low-level features, and (2) that incorporating motion information leads to a notable performance gain, independently from the chosen representation

A visualization tool for violent scenes detection

We present a browser-based visualization tool that allows users to explore movies and online videos based on the violence level of these videos. The system offers visualizations of annotations and results of the MediaEval 2012 Affect Task and can interactively download and analyze content from video hosting sites like YouTube

An efficient H.264 intra frame coder hardware design

H.264 / MPEG-4 Part 10, a recently developed international standard for video compression, offers significantly better video compression efficiency than previous international standards. Since it is impossible to implement a real-time H.264 video coder using a state-of-the-art embedded processor alone, in this thesis, we developed an efficient FPGA-based H.264 intra frame coder hardware for real-time portable applications targeting level 2.0 of baseline profile. We first designed a high performance and low cost hardware architecture for realtime implementation of entropy coding algorithms, context adaptive variable length coding and exp-golomb coding, used in H.264 video coding standard. The hardware is implemented in Verilog HDL and verified with RTL simulations using Mentor Graphics Modelsim. We then designed a high performance and low cost hardware architecture for real-time implementation of intra prediction algorithm used in H.264 video coding standard. This hardware is also implemented in Verilog HDL and verified with RTL simulations using Mentor Graphics Modelsim. We then designed and implemented the top-level H.264 intra frame coder hardware. The hardware is implemented by integrating intra prediction, mode decision, transform-quant and entropy coding modules. The H.264 intra frame coder hardware is verified to be compliant with H.264 standard and it can code 35 CIF (352x288) frames per second. The hardware is first verified with RTL simulations using Mentor Graphics Modelsim. It is then verified to work at 71 MHz on a Xilinx Virtex II FPGA on an ARM Versatile Platform development board. The bitstream generated by the H.264 intra frame coder hardware for an input frame is successfully decoded by H.264 Joint Model (JM) reference software decoder and the decoded frame is displayed using a YUV Player tool for visual verification

Voir le monde : la theoria pour soutenir la symmetria avec le cosmos

Théorie et symétrie ! Ces mots menés et malmenés depuis que les architectes ont endossé la mission de spéculer sont scrutés par Esra Şahin Burat dans l'article : "Voir le monde : la theoria pour soutenir la symmetria avec le cosmos".L'auteure mène une enquête minutieuse qui éclaire la genèse des effets que les deux mots ont produit dans nos langues. Si la théorie vise un écart pris à l'égard de la situation opaque du monde pour mieux y revenir, la symétrie (au sens de commensurabilité) postule l'existence effective ou souhaitée (aux plans éthique et esthétique) de communes mesures. Au bout du compte, c'est l'ordre même du cosmos qu'il s'agit de confirmer ou de corriger."Grâce à un partage approprié (juste) des éléments et des qualités environnantes, la symmetria établit et met au jour la commensurabilité de l’édifice avec son milieu. En reliant les mesures visibles de l’édifice à celles du contexte, l’usage vitruvien de la symmetria renvoyait encore à la juste proportion des traits par rapport à une réalité préexistante et plus large que l’édifice. En cela, la symmetria de Vitruve s’opposait au sens moderne qui lui a été donné dans le commentaire de Charles Perrault sur les Dix livres.

Minimum inhibitory concentration values and problematic disk break points of tigecycline against vancomycin and/or high-level aminoglycoside-resistant enterococci

Background: Tigecycline is a new, semisynthetic glycylcycline. It is active against important multidrug resistant pathogens.Aim: The purpose of this study was to investigate the sensitivity of multidrug-resistant enterococci to tigecycline, and to test the correlation between the minimal inhibitory concentration (MIC) and disk diffusion methods.Materials and methods: The antimicrobial sensitivity of 108 multidrug-resistant isolates, which included 52 vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE) and 56 high-level aminoglycoside-resistant (HLAR) enterococci, was tested by the E test, broth microdilution test and disk diffusion methods.Results: All of the isolates were sensitive to tigecycline, as determined by the E test and broth microdilution test. The MIC 90 value (0.19 lg/mL) of tigecycline for HLAR enterococci was higher than that for VRE (0.094 lg/mL). When results were evaluated according to species, the MIC values of tigecycline for Enterococcus faecalis were higher than those for the other species. Eleven (10.1%) isolates produced false resistance results (zone diameter 615 mm) by the disk diffusion method. These cases were classified as major errors. Eight (7.4%) isolates had intermediate sensitivity (sensitivity zone of 16 or 17 mm), which were classified as minor errors. The major and minor error percentages of HLAR enterococci (14.2% major, 10.7% minor error) were higher than those of VRE (5.7% major, 3.8% minor error). These results indicate that tigecycline is effective against multidrug-resistant enterococci. The sensitivity of multidrug-resistant enterococci to tigecycline should be investigated by MIC methods. The disk diffusion method causes major errors, especially for HLAR enterococci

Three-Year Evaluation of Nosocomial Infection Rates of the ICU

AbstractBackground and objectivesEvaluating the incidence of nosocomial and invasive device-related infections enables the comparison of the health care associated infection (HAI) between the intensive care units of different hospitals and different units in the same hospital.Material and methodsA retrospective surveillance study was performed to identify nosocomial infections, device-related infections rates, and causal agents from January 2007 through December 2010 in the Anesthesiology Intensive care unit (ICU). HAI were defined according to the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) criteria, and invasive device-related infections were defined according to National Nosocomial Infection Surveillance System (NNIS) criteria.ResultsDuring a two-year period, 939 patients were analyzed throughout a total of 7,892 patientdays. The rates of HAI were 53% in 2007, 29.15% in 2008, 28.85% in 2009 while 16.62% in 2010. Most common HAI was blood stream infection. The rate of soft tissue and skin infection was the second most common. Overall, the most common agents were Gram(−) 56.68%, Gram(+) 31.02% and Candida spp 12.3% among patients with nosocomial infections.ConclusionsThe incidence of HAI in the ICU of our hospital was high, compared to the Turkish overall rates obtained at the Refik Saydam Center in 2007. When the rates of device-related infections between 2007 and 2008 were compared, they were higher in 2007. The rates of devicerelated infections were diminished in 2008 to below-national mean rates by infection control measures. Since the rate of urinary catheter-related infections are still high, we should exert continuous efforts for infection control