Spatiotemporal saliency detection and salient region determination for H.264 videos

In this study, a spatiotemporal saliency detection and salient region determination approach for H.264 videos is proposed. After Gaussian filtering in Lab color space, the phase spectrum of Fourier transform is used to generate the spatial saliency map of each video frame. On the other hand, the motion vector fields from each H.264 compressed video bitstream are backward accumulated. After normalization and global motion compensation, the phase spectrum of Fourier transform for the moving parts is used to generate the temporal saliency map of each video frame. Then, the spatial and temporal saliency maps of each video frame are combined to obtain its spatiotemporal saliency map using adaptive fusion. Finally, a modified salient region determination scheme is used to determine salient regions (SRs) of each video frame. Based on the experimental results obtained in this study, the performance of the proposed approach is better than those of two comparison approaches.     

A Novel Algorithm for Simple Hybrid of Adaptive Array and Equalizer

Adaptive array has been used for canceling the interference in communication. When the array cannot suppress all the interference, an equalizer following the array can add to further enhance the capability of canceling the inter-symbol interference (ISI). The adaptive array and equalizer (AE) will suffer the problems of insufficient degrees of freedom and main-beam multi-path ISI. The hybrid of adaptive array and equalizer (HAE) uses a modified training sequence to adjust the weights of adaptive array that leads the array to cancel only the co-channel interference (CCI). The ISI are removed by the equalizer following the array. Thus, the HAE can combat the above problems successfully. Though the HAE improves the performance of AE, a transversal filter is added to generate the modified training sequence. Besides, the weights of equalizer in the HAE, which adjust after the weights of adaptive array, will make the convergent rate slowly. A simple hybrid of adaptive array and equalizer (SHAE) utilizes the output signal of system to adjust the weights of both the adaptive array and equalizer simultaneously. Therefore, the convergent rate of the HAE can improve by the SHAE. Moreover, the ISI can be suppressed by the equalizer instead of the adaptive array in the SHAE that will improve the performance of AE without using the transversal filter. As the mutual coupling present, the convergent rate of the SHAE will slow down. In this paper, a least mean square error algorithm with mutual coupling present is proposed to improve the convergent rate of SHAE, also.     

The Oxidation of Isoquinoline Alkaloids with m-Chloroperbenzoic Acid

The physical properties of the N-oxides prepared by the oxidation of tertiary isoquinoline alkaloids with m-chloroperbenzoic acid are presented and are compared with those of their parent alkaloids.     

Video super-resolution reconstruction using a mobile search strategy and adaptive patch size

In this study, a new video super-resolution (SR) reconstruction approach using a mobile search strategy and adaptive patch size is proposed. Based on the modified nonlocal-means (NLM) SR algorithm, a mobile search strategy for motion estimation and adaptive patch size are proposed to reduce the computational complexity of the proposed approach and improve the visual quality of the final video SR reconstruction results, respectively. Based on the experimental results obtained in this study, the performance (visual quality and PSNR values) of the proposed approach is better than those of three comparison approaches.     

Stable high-power TE01 gyro-TWT amplifiers

The stability of high power gyro-TWT amplifiers operating in the low-loss TE₀₁ mode of cylindrical waveguide has been studied, Linear theory has been used to determine the threshold start-oscillation beam current for absolute instability in the operating mode and the critical section lengths for the dominant gyro-BWO interactions occurring at various cyclotron harmonics in other waveguide modes. The performance of the amplifier was evaluated with a nonlinear, self-consistent slow-timescale simulation code. Utilizing interaction sections whose lengths are less than the threshold start-oscillation length and are separated by attenuating severs for isolation, two stable three-section devices have been designed which are predicted to yield: (1) a peak output power of 230 kW at 35 GHz with an efficiency of 23%, a saturated gain of 46 dB and a constant-drive bandwidth of 6% for a 100 kV, 10 A electron beam with an α=ν_⊥ /ν_z =1.0 and an axial velocity spread Δν_z/ν_z=5% and (2) 105 kW at 94 GHz with 21% efficiency, 45 dB saturated gain and 5% constant-drive bandwidth for a similar 5 A electron beam. In addition, the design of the 0 dB input/output couplers and the MIG electron gun are given. Due to the low loss of the TE₀₁ mode, both of these amplifiers can be operated continuously     

Bearing estimations with mutual coupling present

Estimating angles of arrival of radiation sources using an antenna array with mutual coupling between elements is investigated. The presence of mutual coupling distorts phase vectors of radiation sources and the eigenstructure of the covariance matrix. Two approaches are proposed to counteract that distortion so that eigenstructure methods can perform well. The method described first eliminates the distortion of the signal component of the the covariance matrix and then applies spatial smoothing to decorrelate the coherence between sources. Computers simulation results show that this method successfully counteracts mutual coupling     

An energy-efficient MAC protocol based on IEEE 802.11 in wireless ad hoc networks

Energy efficiency is a measure of the performance of IEEE 802.11 wireless multihop ad hoc networks. The IEEE 802.11 standard, currently used in wireless multihop ad hoc networks, wastes bandwidth capacity and energy resources because of many collisions. Therefore, controlling the contention window size at a given node will increase not only the operating life of the battery but also the overall system capacity. It is essential to develop effective backoff schemes for saving power in IEEE 802.11 wireless multihop ad hoc networks. In this paper, we propose an energy-efficient backoff scheme and evaluate its performance in an ad hoc network. Our contention window mechanism devised by us grants a node access to a channel on the basis of the node’s percentage of residual energy. We use both an analytical model and simulation experiments to evaluate the effective performance of our scheme in an ad hoc network. Our extensive ns-2-based simulation results have shown that the proposed scheme provides excellent performance in terms of energy goodput, end-to-end goodput, and packet delivery ratio, as well as the end-to-end delay.     

Saliency-directed color image segmentation using modified particle swarm optimization

Color image segmentation, an ill-posed problem, can be treated as a process of dividing a color image into some constituent regions and each region is homogeneous. In this study, a saliency-directed color image segmentation approach using “simple” modified particle swarm optimization (PSO) is proposed, in which both low-level features and high-level image semantics extracted from each color image are employed. To extract high-level image semantics from each color image, the visual attention saliency map for each color image is generated by three (color, intensity, and orientation) feature maps, which is used to guide region merging using “simple” modified PSO and a hybrid fitness function for color image segmentation. The proposed approach contains four stages, namely, color quantization, feature extraction, small region elimination, and region merging using “simple” modified PSO. Based on the experimental results obtained in this study, as compared with four comparison approaches, the proposed approach usually provides the better color image segmentation results.     

Adaptive backoff scheme for ad hoc networks based on IEEE 802.11

The performance of backoff scheme plays an important role in designing efficient Medium Access Protocols for ad hoc networks. In this paper, we propose an adaptive backoff scheme and evaluate the performance of the proposed scheme for ad hoc networks. The backoff mechanism devised by us grants a node access to the channel based on its probability of collision for a transmitted frame in comparison to the nodes in the two‐hop contention area. We use both an analytical model and simulation experiments to evaluate the performance of our adaptive backoff mechanism in an ad hoc network. The results show that our protocol exhibits a significant improvement in power saving, end‐to‐end goodput, packet delivery ratio, and hop‐put, compared with the existing IEEE 802.11 DCF. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Large-signal characteristics of a wide-band dielectric-loadedgyro-TWT amplifier

The bandwidth of a gyrotron traveling wave amplifier (gyro-TWT) has been significantly increased by partially filling the interaction waveguide with dielectric to reduce the circuit's dispersion. The proof-of-principle experiment was designed for X-band, and employs the fundamental mode of rectangular waveguide loaded with dielectric slabs along the narrow sidewalls. The amplifier yields a peak output power of 55 kW with 11% efficiency, 27 dB saturated gain, and an unprecedented untapered gyro-TWT constant-drive bandwidth of 11% and saturated bandwidth exceeding 14%. The single-stage amplifier is completely zero-drive stable. The 95-kV 5-A electron beam was produced by a single-anode magnetron injection gun with p_⊥/υ_z=0.6, as determined by the EGUN code, and Δυ_z/υ_z=4%, determined as the best fit to the gyro-TWT large-signal simulation data. Simulation studies predict that by lowering the velocity spread to Δυ _z/υ_z=2%, the amplifier performance will be further enhanced to a constant-drive bandwidth of 20% with 15% efficiency