Thesis (Ph.D.)--Australian National University, 2003.

Thesis (M.S.)--Brigham Young University. Dept. of Computer Science, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 65-66).

No description available.

Texture can be broadly stated as spatial variation of image intensities. Texture analysis and classification is a well researched area for its importance to many computer vision applications. Consequently, much research has focussed on deriving powerful and efficient texture descriptors. Local binary patterns (LBP) and its variants are simple yet powerful texture descriptors. LBP features describe the texture neighbourhood of a pixel using simple comparison operators, and are often calculated based on varying neighbourhood radii to provide multi-resolution texture descriptions. A comprehensive evaluation of different LBP variants on a common benchmark dataset is missing in the literature. This thesis presents the performance for different LBP variants on texture classification and retrieval tasks. The results show that multi-scale local binary pattern variance (LBPV) gives the best performance over eight benchmarked datasets. Furthermore, improvements to the Dominant LBP (D-LBP) by ranking dominant patterns over complete training set and Compound LBP (CM-LBP) by considering 16 bits binary codes are suggested which are shown to outperform their original counterparts. The main contribution of the thesis is the introduction of multi-dimensional LBP features, which preserve the relationships between different scales by building a multi-dimensional histogram. The results on benchmarked classification and retrieval datasets clearly show that the multi-dimensional LBP (MD-LBP) improves the results compared to conventional multi-scale LBP. The same principle is applied to LBPV (MD-LBPV), again leading to improved performance. The proposed variants result in relatively large feature lengths which is addressed using three different feature length reduction techniques. Principle component analysis (PCA) is shown to give the best performance when the feature length is reduced to match that of conventional multi-scale LBP. The proposed multi-dimensional LBP variants are applied for medical image analysis application. The first application is nailfold capillary (NC) image classification. Performance of MD-LBPV on NC images is highest, whereas for second application, HEp-2 cell classification, performance of MD-LBP is highest. It is observed that the proposed texture descriptors gives improved texture classification accuracy.

A relative, lie-value image normalisation (LVIN) procedure was investigated as a means of estimating surface reflectances from sequences of Landsat TM and ETM+ imagery, and standardising image data for change detection studies when there are uncertainties in sensor calibration and atmospheric parameters over time. The basis of the LVIX procedure is that for an A-date sequence, the digital numbers (DNs) of N-1 overpass images can be mapped to the reflectance values of a reference image for a set of pseudo- invariant targets (PITs) common to all images in the sequence. The robust M-estimator was employed to provide the transformation function that achieved the mapping. The investigation also showed that in some instances the LVIN procedure could incorporate the modelled Path DN-the modelled DN for a target of zero surface reflectance. A lack of surface validation data was a limitation in the investigation. However, a qualitative evaluation of the LVIN procedure was possible by examining the pre- and post-normalisation image histograms. In a comparison with the results of the 6S radiative transfer code, it war observed that when both overpass and reference images were acquired with the same sensor, the LVIK procedure appeared t o correct for atmospheric effects; and when overpass and reference images were with different sensors, the LVIN procedure also corrected for between-sensor differences. Moreover, it was demonstrated for the more "temporally-invariant" PITs that the procedure retrieved surface reflectances that were on average within ±0.02 reflectance units. / The ability of the LVIK procedure to standardise sequences of image data was further demonstrated in the study of vegetation change. The normalised difference vegetation index (NDVI) was calculated from LVIN estimates of surface reflectance for a selection of sites around the township of Mt. Barker, Western Australia. NDVI data had characteristics consistent with data that have been corrected for atmospheric effects. A modification to the LVIN procedure was also proposed based on an investigation of some empirically-derived vegetation reflectance relationships. Research into the robustness of the relationships for a greater range of vegetation types is recommended.

Thesis (M.S.)--Rochester Institute of Technology, 2005. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 75-77).

No description available.

Irradiation damage structures induced in pure Fe and Fe-Cr (up to 14%Cr) alloys by 2 MeV Fe+ ion irradiations in the temperature range 300-460°C were investigated by transmission electron microscopy. Specimens were irradiated in bulk to doses of 1.5 x 1019 Fe+/m2 (about 2.5 displacements per atom: dpa) and 4.5 x 1019 Fe+/m2 (about 7 dpa). In most cases, damage took the form of dislocation loops with diameters from 2-100nm; the loops were distributed uniformly within all the samples. At higher irradiation temperatures (400°C, 460°C), complex microstructures such as finger loops (50nm in width and 1 micron in length) and perpendicular <100> loop clusters, were observed in both pure Fe and Fe-Cr samples. Loop sizes and densities were seen to change as a function of irradiation temperature and dose. Loop sizes were seen to increase as the increase of irradiation temperatures and doses, while loop densities only increased with increasing doses and decreased as increasing temperatures. Loops with both types of Burgers vectors (<100> and ½<111>) were observed in all the samples. The proportion of <100> loops was higher in Fe than that in Fe-Cr alloys at the same irradiation condition, which has can be attributed to the high mobility of ½<111> loops in Fe, so that a large proportion of them will escape to the (001) foil surface. A transition in loop Burgers vectors as a consequence of increasing temperature was observed. In Fe, the proportion of <100> loops increased with increasing irradiation temperature from 40% at 300°C to 60% at 460°C. A similar trend was found in the Fe-Cr alloys, but due to the higher proportion of ½<111> loops in these alloys, the increase of <100> loops was not that obvious, being from 30% at 300°C to 45% at 460°C(Fe-11Cr). The effects of irradiation dose rate on the formation of dislocation loops by 2 MeV Fe+ ions were also investigated. These irradiations were carried out at 300°C with two different implantation dose rates: 6 x 10-4 dpa/s and 3 x 10-5 dpa/s. The implantation dose for both implantations was 0.38 x 1019 Fe+/m2 (0.5 dpa). Both the average loop size and loop densities for the Fe-Cr specimens subjected to the high dose rate irradiation were higher than that in the low dose rate irradiations. Take Fe-14Cr as an example, that the loop densities in high dose rate irradiation increased about 90% compared to that in low dose rate, and the average loop size in high dose rate irradiation was 30% larger than that in low dose rate irradiation. The ‘inside-outside contrast’ method was applied to determine the loop nature in all the samples. It was found that all the large loops (>5nm) are of interstitial type. Any vacancies are believed to exist in the form of small dislocation loops (<5nm) or sub-microscopic voids.

The diploma thesis "The Picture of Brazil in Czech Media" focuses on finding out and defining of how the Czech media reprezented by four national dailies Hospodářské noviny, Lidové noviny, Mladá fronta DNES and Právo inform about Brazil. The researched sample are texts about Brazil that the four dailies have published during the year 2011. All 1635 texts that were published in this year were subjected to content analysis. By using quantitative content analysis, this thesis identifies the frequency of the publishing of texts about Brazil, their topical focus, lenght or placement within the newspaper. Other researched phenomena are sources, division according to genre, news and commentary or hard news and soft news. The character and number of texts focusing on both countries testifies to the possible closeness of Brazil and the Czech Republic. The thesis places special focus on the evaluation of Brazil in individual texts. The qualitative analysis mainly researches the possible elements of stereotyping in the language of Czech media. The results of these analyses are ilustrated further by the results of a questionnaire research. Comparison of the answers of respondents in the questionnaire and the results of the analyses testifies to whether the way the public perceives Brazil is the same or...

Diploma thesis "Leaving of Czechoslovak democracy giants; comparison of media images of Tomas Garrigue Masaryk's and Vaclav Havel's death and funeral in Czech Press" aims to compare the media images of the presidents' death and funeral in broadsheet and tabloid newspapers of that time. In this matter, media analyzed the lives of these great personalities, their work, political views, their acceptance and renown abroad, their merits and their critical reception as well. The study itself is divided into two main parts. The first one being the theoretical part informs about the political and social context of the time in which Tomas Garrigue Masaryk and Vaclav Havel lived and worked and it discusses their personalities in more details. Furthermore, the methodology used in the thesis is included in this section as well, representing and explaining the method of the media research. In the second practical part, the thesis provides the characteristics of the chosen broadsheet and tabloid newspapers - Lidove noviny, Poledni list and Blesk. By using qualitative analysis the thesis seeks to determine how media presented the presidents at that time. On one hand it attempts to illustrate the parallels that linked these two personalities, on the other hand it endeavours to describe how their images differed....