"This thesis presents an ultrasound technique for measuring the absolute integrated backscatter (IBS) of arterial wall structures through an intervening inhomogeneous soft tissue layer. The aberrating effect of this tissue layer is minimized by normalizing the measured IBS from the wall region of interest with the IBS from an adjacent range cell in blood. The technique may become a tool to differentiate between stable and vulnerable plaques in the carotid artery."

This thesis documents work which is part of the ongoing effort by the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) Precision Personnel Locator (PPL) project, to track and locate first responders in urban/indoor settings. Specifically, the project intends to produce a system which can accurately determine the floor that a person is on, as well as where on the floor that person is, with sub-meter accuracy. The system must be portable, rugged, fast to set up, and require no pre-installed infrastructure. Several recent advances have enabled us to get closer to meeting these goals: The development of Transactional Array Reconciliation Tomography(TART) algorithm, and corresponding locator hardware, as well as the integration of barometric sensors, and a new antenna deployment scheme. To fully utilize these new capabilities, a Bayesian Fusion algorithm has been designed. The goal of this thesis is to present the necessary methods for incorporating diverse sources of information, in a constructive manner, to improve the performance of the PPL system. While the conceptual methods presented within are meant to be general, the experimental results will focus on the fusion of barometric height estimates and RF data. These information sources will be processed with our existing Singular Value Array Reconciliation Tomography (σART), and the new TART algorithm, using a Bayesian Fusion algorithm to more accurately estimate indoor locations.

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Yuan Meng. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 85-91). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Chapter 1 --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 1.1 --- History of ASR development --- p.2 / Chapter 1.2 --- Fundamentals of automatic speech recognition --- p.3 / Chapter 1.2.1 --- Classification of ASR systems --- p.3 / Chapter 1.2.2 --- Automatic speech recognition process --- p.4 / Chapter 1.3 --- Performance measurements of ASR --- p.7 / Chapter 1.3.1 --- Recognition accuracy --- p.7 / Chapter 1.3.2 --- Complexity --- p.7 / Chapter 1.3.3 --- Robustness --- p.8 / Chapter 1.4 --- Motivation and goal of this work --- p.8 / Chapter 1.5 --- Thesis outline --- p.10 / Chapter 2 --- Signal processing techniques for front-end --- p.12 / Chapter 2.1 --- Basic feature extraction principles --- p.13 / Chapter 2.1.1 --- Pre-emphasis --- p.13 / Chapter 2.1.2 --- Frame blocking and windowing --- p.13 / Chapter 2.1.3 --- Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT) computation --- p.15 / Chapter 2.1.4 --- Spectral magnitudes --- p.15 / Chapter 2.1.5 --- Mel-frequency filterbank --- p.16 / Chapter 2.1.6 --- Logarithm of filter energies --- p.18 / Chapter 2.1.7 --- Discrete Cosine Transformation (DCT) --- p.18 / Chapter 2.1.8 --- Cepstral Weighting --- p.19 / Chapter 2.1.9 --- Dynamic featuring --- p.19 / Chapter 2.2 --- Practical issues --- p.20 / Chapter 2.2.1 --- Review of practical problems and solutions in ASR appli- cations --- p.20 / Chapter 2.2.2 --- Model of environment --- p.23 / Chapter 2.2.3 --- End-point detection (EPD) --- p.23 / Chapter 2.2.4 --- Spectral subtraction (SS) --- p.25 / Chapter 3 --- HMM-based Acoustic Modeling --- p.26 / Chapter 3.1 --- HMMs for ASR --- p.26 / Chapter 3.2 --- Output probabilities --- p.27 / Chapter 3.3 --- Viterbi search engine --- p.29 / Chapter 3.4 --- Isolated word recognition (IWR) & Connected word recognition (CWR) --- p.30 / Chapter 3.4.1 --- Isolated word recognition --- p.30 / Chapter 3.4.2 --- Connected word recognition (CWR) --- p.31 / Chapter 4 --- DSP for embedded applications --- p.32 / Chapter 4.1 --- "Classification of embedded systems (DSP, ASIC, FPGA, etc.)" --- p.32 / Chapter 4.2 --- Description of hardware platform --- p.34 / Chapter 4.3 --- I/O operation for real-time processing --- p.36 / Chapter 4.4 --- Fixed point algorithm on DSP --- p.40 / Chapter 5 --- ASR algorithm optimization --- p.42 / Chapter 5.1 --- Methodology --- p.42 / Chapter 5.2 --- Floating-point to fixed-point conversion --- p.43 / Chapter 5.3 --- Computational complexity consideration --- p.45 / Chapter 5.3.1 --- Feature extraction techniques --- p.45 / Chapter 5.3.2 --- Viterbi search module --- p.50 / Chapter 5.4 --- Memory requirements consideration --- p.51 / Chapter 6 --- Experimental results and performance analysis --- p.53 / Chapter 6.1 --- Cantonese isolated word recognition (IWR) --- p.54 / Chapter 6.1.1 --- Execution time --- p.54 / Chapter 6.1.2 --- Memory requirements --- p.57 / Chapter 6.1.3 --- Recognition performance --- p.57 / Chapter 6.2 --- Connected word recognition (CWR) --- p.61 / Chapter 6.2.1 --- Execution time consideration --- p.62 / Chapter 6.2.2 --- Recognition performance --- p.62 / Chapter 6.3 --- Summary & discussion --- p.66 / Chapter 7 --- Implementation of practical techniques --- p.67 / Chapter 7.1 --- End-point detection (EPD) --- p.67 / Chapter 7.2 --- Spectral subtraction (SS) --- p.71 / Chapter 7.3 --- Experimental results --- p.72 / Chapter 7.3.1 --- Isolated word recognition (IWR) --- p.72 / Chapter 7.3.2 --- Connected word recognition (CWR) --- p.75 / Chapter 7.4 --- Results --- p.77 / Chapter 8 --- Conclusions and future work --- p.78 / Chapter 8.1 --- Summary and Conclusions --- p.78 / Chapter 8.2 --- Suggestions for future research --- p.80 / Appendices --- p.82 / Chapter A --- "Interpolation of data entries without floating point, divides or conditional branches" --- p.82 / Chapter B --- Vocabulary for Cantonese isolated word recognition task --- p.84 / Bibliography --- p.85

Lee Siu Wa. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 116-121). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Abstract --- p.v / Chapter 1 --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 1.1 --- An Overview on Automatic Speech Recognition --- p.2 / Chapter 1.2 --- Thesis Outline --- p.6 / Chapter 2 --- Baseline Speech Recognition System --- p.8 / Chapter 2.1 --- Baseline Speech Recognition Framework --- p.8 / Chapter 2.2 --- Acoustic Feature Extraction --- p.11 / Chapter 2.2.1 --- Speech Production and Source-Filter Model --- p.12 / Chapter 2.2.2 --- Review of Feature Representations --- p.14 / Chapter 2.2.3 --- Mel-frequency Cepstral Coefficients --- p.20 / Chapter 2.2.4 --- Energy and Dynamic Features --- p.24 / Chapter 2.3 --- Back-end Decoder --- p.26 / Chapter 2.4 --- English Digit String Corpus ´ؤ AURORA2 --- p.28 / Chapter 2.5 --- Baseline Recognition Experiment --- p.31 / Chapter 3 --- A Simple Recognition Framework with Model Selection --- p.34 / Chapter 3.1 --- Mismatch between Training and Testing Conditions --- p.34 / Chapter 3.2 --- Matched Training and Testing Conditions --- p.38 / Chapter 3.2.1 --- Noise type-Matching --- p.38 / Chapter 3.2.2 --- SNR-Matching --- p.43 / Chapter 3.2.3 --- Noise Type and SNR-Matching --- p.44 / Chapter 3.3 --- Recognition Framework with Model Selection --- p.48 / Chapter 4 --- Noise Spectral Estimation --- p.53 / Chapter 4.1 --- Introduction to Statistical Estimation Methods --- p.53 / Chapter 4.1.1 --- Conventional Estimation Methods --- p.54 / Chapter 4.1.2 --- Histogram Technique --- p.55 / Chapter 4.2 --- Quantile-based Noise Estimation (QBNE) --- p.57 / Chapter 4.2.1 --- Overview of Quantile-based Noise Estimation (QBNE) --- p.58 / Chapter 4.2.2 --- Time-Frequency Quantile-based Noise Estimation (T-F QBNE) --- p.62 / Chapter 4.2.3 --- Mainlobe-Resilient Time-Frequency Quantile-based Noise Estimation (M-R T-F QBNE) --- p.65 / Chapter 4.3 --- Estimation Performance Analysis --- p.72 / Chapter 4.4 --- Recognition Experiment with Model Selection --- p.74 / Chapter 5 --- Feature Compensation: Algorithm and Experiment --- p.81 / Chapter 5.1 --- Feature Deviation from Clean Speech --- p.81 / Chapter 5.1.1 --- Deviation in MFCC Features --- p.82 / Chapter 5.1.2 --- Implications for Feature Compensation --- p.84 / Chapter 5.2 --- Overview of Conventional Compensation Methods --- p.86 / Chapter 5.3 --- Feature Compensation by In-phase Feature Induction --- p.94 / Chapter 5.3.1 --- Motivation --- p.94 / Chapter 5.3.2 --- Methodology --- p.97 / Chapter 5.4 --- Compensation Framework for Magnitude Spectrum and Segmen- tal Energy --- p.102 / Chapter 5.5 --- Recognition -Experiments --- p.103 / Chapter 6 --- Conclusions --- p.112 / Chapter 6.1 --- Summary and Discussions --- p.112 / Chapter 6.2 --- Future Directions --- p.114 / Bibliography --- p.116

Chan Wai-Leung. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references. / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / ABSTRACT --- p.I / 摘要 --- p.III / Acknowledgements --- p.V / Table of Contents --- p.VII / Chapter 1 --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 1.1 --- Different All-Optical Signal Processing Functions --- p.3 / Chapter 1.1.1 --- Periodic optical signal generation --- p.3 / Chapter 1.1.2 --- Optical clock recovery and clock synchronization --- p.4 / Chapter 1.1.3 --- Wavelength conversion and signal regeneration --- p.5 / Chapter 1.1.4 --- Optical multicasting --- p.6 / Chapter 1.1.5 --- All-optical time division multiplexing and demultiplexing --- p.6 / Chapter 1.2 --- SOA-MZI as the Prime Candidate --- p.7 / Chapter 1.3 --- Overview of the Thesis --- p.8 / References --- p.10 / Chapter 2 --- basic Properties of Semiconductor Optical Amplifier Based Mach-Zehnder Interferometer --- p.16 / Chapter 2.1 --- Semiconductor Optical Amplifier Based Mach-Zehnder Interferometer --- p.16 / Chapter 2.1.1 --- Characteristics of SOA-MZI --- p.17 / Chapter 2.2 --- Review on Different Reported Applications of SOA-MZI --- p.19 / Chapter 2.2.1 --- Format converter --- p.19 / Chapter 2.2.2 --- Mode-locked fiber ring laser --- p.20 / Chapter 2.2.3 --- OTDM ADD/DROP Multiplexer --- p.21 / Chapter 2.2.4 --- Optical Switch --- p.21 / References --- p.23 / Chapter 3 --- Self-Starting All-Optical Photonic Clock --- p.24 / Chapter 3.1 --- Introduction --- p.24 / Chapter 3.2 --- Principle of Photonic Clock Generation --- p.26 / Chapter 3.3 --- Basic Configuration --- p.27 / Chapter 3.3.1 --- Basic results --- p.28 / Chapter 3.3.2 --- Effects of state of polarization --- p.31 / Chapter 3.3.3 --- Effects of an isolator within the feedback loop --- p.34 / Chapter 3.3.4 --- Phase noise characteristics --- p.35 / Chapter 3.4 --- Multi-Loop Configuration --- p.36 / Chapter 3.4.1 --- Results examined in time domain --- p.38 / Chapter 3.4.2 --- Results examined in frequency domain --- p.38 / Chapter 3.4.3 --- More multi-loop results --- p.40 / Chapter 3.5 --- Other Proposed Scheme --- p.40 / Chapter 3.6 --- Summary --- p.43 / References --- p.44 / Chapter 4 --- All-Optical Clock Recovery --- p.46 / Chapter 4.1 --- Introduction --- p.46 / Chapter 4.2 --- Principle of All-Optical Clock Recovery --- p.47 / Chapter 4.3 --- Experiments Setup --- p.48 / Chapter 4.4 --- Clock Recovery Demonstration --- p.50 / Chapter 4.5 --- External Clock Synchronization Demonstration --- p.53 / Chapter 4.6 --- Summary --- p.55 / References --- p.56 / Chapter 5 --- Wavelength Conversion Optimization Using a Holding Beam --- p.57 / Chapter 5.1 --- Introduction --- p.57 / Chapter 5.2 --- Principle of Wavelength Conversion Under Injection of a Holding Beam --- p.58 / Chapter 5.3 --- Wavelength Conversion Using a Holding Beam --- p.62 / Chapter 5.4 --- Effect of a Holding Beam on Wavelength Conversion --- p.63 / Chapter 5.5 --- Optimizing the Effect of Holding Beam Assisted Wavelength Conversion --- p.67 / Chapter 5.6 --- Summary --- p.68 / References --- p.69 / Chapter 6 --- All-Optical Multicasting of Digital Signal with Format Conversion --- p.70 / Chapter 6.1 --- Introduction --- p.70 / Chapter 6.2 --- Principle of Switching-Wavelength Pulses Generation --- p.72 / Chapter 6.3 --- Principle of Multicasting Using SOA-MZI --- p.75 / Chapter 6.4 --- Experiment on Multicasting --- p.76 / Chapter 6.5 --- Performance of the Multicasting Scheme --- p.79 / Chapter 6.6 --- Summary --- p.84 / References --- p.85 / Chapter 7 --- Optical Demultiplexing for Time Division Multiplexed Data Source With Wavelength Conversion --- p.87 / Chapter 7.1 --- Introduction --- p.87 / Chapter 7.2 --- Principle of Optical Time Division Demultiplexing Using SOA-MZI --- p.90 / Chapter 7.3 --- Demonstration of Optical Time Division Demultiplexing --- p.91 / Chapter 7.4 --- Results and Discussions --- p.93 / Chapter 7.5 --- Summary --- p.96 / Chapter 8 --- Conclusion and Future Works --- p.100 / Chapter 8.1 --- Conclusions --- p.100 / Chapter 8.2 --- Future Works --- p.102 / Appendices --- p.A-1 / Appendix A. List of Publications --- p.A-1 / Appendix B. List of Figures --- p.A-2

視覺信號，包括圖像，視頻等，在采集，壓縮，存儲，傳輸，重新生成的過程中都會被各種各樣的噪聲所影響，因此他們的主觀質量也就會降低。所以，主觀視覺質量在現今的視覺信號處理跟通訊系統中起到了很大的作用。這篇畢業論文主要討論質量評價的算法設計，以及這些衡量標準在視覺信號處理上的應用。這篇論文的工作主要包括以下五個方面。 / 第一部分主要集中在具有完全套考原始圖像的圖像質量評價。首先我們研究人類視覺系統的特征。具體說來，視覺在結構化失真上面的水平特性和顯著特征會被建模然后應用到結構相似度(SSIM)這個衡量標準上。實驗顯示我們的方法明顯的提高了衡量標準典主觀評價的相似度。由這個質量衡量標準的啟發，我們設計了一個主觀圖像壓縮的方法。其中我們提出了一個自適應的塊大小的超分辨率算法指導的下采樣的算法。實驗結果證明提出的圖像壓縮算法無論在主觀還是在客觀層面都構建了高質量的圖像。 / 第二個部分的工作主要討論具有完全參考原始視頻的視頻質量評價。考慮到人類視覺系統的特征，比如時空域的對此敏感函數，眼球的移動，紋理的遮掩特性，空間域的一致性，時間域的協調性，不同塊變換的特性，我們設計了一個自適應塊大小的失真閾值的模型。實驗證明，我們提出的失真閾值模型能夠更精確的描迷人類視覺系統的特性。基于這個自適應塊大小的失真閾值模型，我們設計了一個簡單的主觀質量評價標準。在公共的圓像以及視頻的主觀數據庫上的測試結果證明了這個簡單的評價標準的有效性。因此，我們把這個簡單的質量標準應用于視頻編碼系統中。它可以在同樣的碼率下提供更高主觀質量的視頻。 / 第三部分我們討論具有部分參考信息的圖像質量評價。我們通過描迷重組后的離散余弦變換域的系數的統計分布來衡量圖像的主觀質量。提出的評價標準發掘了相鄰的離散余弦系數的相同統計特性，相鄰的重組離散余弦系數的互信息，以及圖像的能量在不同頻率下的分布。實驗結果證明我們提出的質量標準河以超越其他的具有部分參考信息的質量評價標準，甚至還超過了具有完全參考信息的質量評價標準。而且，提取的特征很容易被編碼以及隱藏到圖像中以便于在圖像通訊中進行質量監控。 / 第四部分我們討論具有部分參考信息的視頻質量評價。我們提取的特征可以很好的描迷空間域的信息失，和時間域的相鄰兩幀間的直方圖的統計特性。在視頻主觀質量的數據庫上的實驗結果，也證明了提出的方法河以超越其他代表性的視頻質量評價標準，甚至是具有完全參考信息的質量評價標準， 譬如PSNR以及SSIM 。我們的方法只需要很少的特征來描迷每一幀視頻圖像。對于每一幀圖像，一個特征用于描迷空間域的特點，另外三個特征用于描述時間域的特點。考慮到計算的復雜度以及壓縮特征所需要的碼率，提出的方法河以很簡單的在視頻的傳輸過程中監控視頻的質量。 / 之前的四部分提到的主觀質量評價標準主要集中在傳統的失真上面， 譬如JPEG 圖像壓縮， H.264視頻壓縮。在最后一部分，我們討論在圖像跟視頻的retargeting過程中的失真。現如今，隨著消費者電子的發展，視覺信號需要在不同分辨率的顯示設備上進行通訊交互。因此， retargeting的算法把同一個原始圖像適應于不同的分辨率的顯示設備。這樣的過程就會引入圖像的失真。我們研究了對于retargeting圖像主觀質量的測試者的分數，從三個方面進行討論測試者對于retargeting圖像失真的反應.圖像retargeting的尺度，圖像retargeting的算法，原始圖像的內容特性。通過大量的主觀實驗測試，我們構建了一個關于圖像retargeting的主觀數據庫。基于這個主觀數據庫，我們評價以及分析了幾個具有代表性的質量評價標準。 / Visual signals, including images, videos, etc., are affected by a wide variety of distortions during acquisition, compression, storage, processing, transmission, and reproduction processes, which result in perceptual quality degradation. As a result, perceptual quality assessment plays a very important role in today's visual signal processing and communication systems. In this thesis, quality assessment algorithms for evaluating the visual signal perceptual quality, as well as the applications on visual signal processing and communications, are investigated. The work consists of five parts as briefly summarized below. / The first part focuses on the full-reference (FR) image quality assessment. The properties of the human visual system (HVS) are firstly investigated. Specifically, the visual horizontal effect (HE) and saliency properties over the structural distortions are modelled and incorporated into the structure similarity index (SSIM). Experimental results show significantly improved performance in matching the subjective ratings. Inspired by the developed FR image metric, a perceptual image compression scheme is developed, where the adaptive block-based super-resolution directed down-sampling is proposed. Experimental results demonstrated that the proposed image compression scheme can produce higher quality images in terms of both objective and subjective qualities, compared with the existing methods. / The second part concerns the FR video quality assessment. The adaptive block-size transform (ABT) based just-noticeable difference (JND) for visual signals is investigated by considering the HVS characteristics, e.g., spatio-temporal contrast sensitivity function (CSF), eye movement, texture masking, spatial coherence, temporal consistency, properties of different block-size transforms, etc. It is verified that the developed ABT based JND can more accurately depict the HVS property, compared with the state-of-the-art JND models. The ABT based JND is thereby utilized to develop a simple perceptual quality metric for visual signals. Validations on the image and video subjective quality databases proved its effectiveness. As a result, the developed perceptual quality metric is employed for perceptual video coding, which can deliver video sequences of higher perceptual quality at the same bit-rates. / The third part discusses the reduced-reference (RR) image quality assessment, which is developed by statistically modelling the coe cient distribution in the reorganized discrete cosine transform (RDCT) domain. The proposed RR metric exploits the identical statistical nature of the adjacent DCT coefficients, the mutual information (MI) relationship between adjacent RDCT coefficients, and the image energy distribution among different frequency components. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed metric outperforms the representative RR image quality metrics, and even the FR quality metric, i.e., peak signal to noise ratio (PSNR). Furthermore, the extracted RR features can be easily encoded and embedded into the distorted images for quality monitoring during image communications. / The fourth part investigates the RR video quality assessment. The RR features are extracted to exploit the spatial information loss and the temporal statistical characteristics of the inter-frame histogram. Evaluations on the video subjective quality databases demonstrate that the proposed method outperforms the representative RR video quality metrics, and even the FR metrics, such as PSNR, SSIM in matching the subjective ratings. Furthermore, only a small number of RR features is required to represent the original video sequence (each frame requires only 1 and 3 parameters to depict the spatial and temporal characteristics, respectively). By considering the computational complexity and the bit-rates for extracting and representing the RR features, the proposed RR quality metric can be utilized for quality monitoring during video transmissions, where the RR features for perceptual quality analysis can be easily embedded into the videos or transmitted through an ancillary data channel. / The aforementioned perceptual quality metrics focus on the traditional distortions, such as JPEG image compression noise, H.264 video compression noise, and so on. In the last part, we investigate the distortions introduced during the image and video retargeting process. Nowadays, with the development of the consumer electronics, more and more visual signals have to communicate between different display devices of different resolutions. The retargeting algorithm is employed to adapt a source image of one resolution to be displayed in a device of a different resolution, which may introduce distortions during the retargeting process. We investigate the subjective responses on the perceptual qualities of the retargeted images, and discuss the subjective results from three perspectives, i.e., retargeting scales, retargeting methods, and source image content attributes. An image retargeting subjective quality database is built by performing a large-scale subjective study of image retargeting quality on a collection of retargeted images. Based on the built database, several representative quality metrics for retargeted images are evaluated and discussed. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Ma, Lin. / "December 2012." / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2013. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 185-197). / Abstract also in Chinese. / Dedication --- p.ii / Acknowledgments --- p.iii / Abstract --- p.viii / Publications --- p.xi / Nomenclature --- p.xvii / Contents --- p.xxiv / List of Figures --- p.xxviii / List of Tables --- p.xxx / Chapter 1 --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 1.1 --- Motivation and Objectives --- p.1 / Chapter 1.2 --- Subjective Perceptual Quality Assessment --- p.5 / Chapter 1.3 --- Objective Perceptual Quality Assessment --- p.10 / Chapter 1.3.1 --- Visual Modelling Approach --- p.10 / Chapter 1.3.2 --- Engineering Modelling Approach --- p.15 / Chapter 1.3.3 --- Perceptual Subjective Quality Databases --- p.19 / Chapter 1.3.4 --- Performance Evaluation --- p.21 / Chapter 1.4 --- Thesis Contributions --- p.22 / Chapter 1.5 --- Organization of the Thesis --- p.24 / Chapter I --- Full Reference Quality Assessment --- p.26 / Chapter 2 --- Full Reference Image Quality Assessment --- p.27 / Chapter 2.1 --- Visual Horizontal Effect for Image Quality Assessment --- p.27 / Chapter 2.1.1 --- Introduction --- p.27 / Chapter 2.1.2 --- Proposed Image Quality Assessment Framework --- p.28 / Chapter 2.1.3 --- Experimental Results --- p.34 / Chapter 2.1.4 --- Conclusion --- p.36 / Chapter 2.2 --- Image Compression via Adaptive Block-Based Super-Resolution Directed Down-Sampling --- p.37 / Chapter 2.2.1 --- Introduction --- p.37 / Chapter 2.2.2 --- The Proposed Image Compression Framework --- p.38 / Chapter 2.2.3 --- Experimental Results --- p.42 / Chapter 2.2.4 --- Conclusion --- p.45 / Chapter 3 --- Full Reference Video Quality Assessment --- p.46 / Chapter 3.1 --- Adaptive Block-size Transform based Just-Noticeable Dfference Model for Visual Signals --- p.46 / Chapter 3.1.1 --- Introduction --- p.46 / Chapter 3.1.2 --- JND Model based on Transforms of Different Block Sizes --- p.48 / Chapter 3.1.3 --- Selection Strategy Between Transforms of Different Block Sizes --- p.53 / Chapter 3.1.4 --- JND Model Evaluation --- p.56 / Chapter 3.1.5 --- Conclusion --- p.60 / Chapter 3.2 --- Perceptual Quality Assessment --- p.60 / Chapter 3.2.1 --- Experimental Results --- p.62 / Chapter 3.2.2 --- Conclusion --- p.64 / Chapter 3.3 --- Motion Trajectory Based Visual Saliency for Video Quality Assessment --- p.65 / Chapter 3.3.1 --- Motion Trajectory based Visual Saliency for VQA --- p.66 / Chapter 3.3.2 --- New Quaternion Representation (QR) for Each frame --- p.66 / Chapter 3.3.3 --- Saliency Map Construction by QR --- p.67 / Chapter 3.3.4 --- Incorporating Visual Saliency with VQAs --- p.68 / Chapter 3.3.5 --- Experimental Results --- p.69 / Chapter 3.3.6 --- Conclusion --- p.72 / Chapter 3.4 --- Perceptual Video Coding --- p.72 / Chapter 3.4.1 --- Experimental Results --- p.75 / Chapter 3.4.2 --- Conclusion --- p.76 / Chapter II --- Reduced Reference Quality Assessment --- p.77 / Chapter 4 --- Reduced Reference Image Quality Assessment --- p.78 / Chapter 4.1 --- Introduction --- p.78 / Chapter 4.2 --- Reorganization Strategy of DCT Coefficients --- p.81 / Chapter 4.3 --- Relationship Analysis of Intra and Inter RDCT subbands --- p.83 / Chapter 4.4 --- Reduced Reference Feature Extraction in Sender Side --- p.88 / Chapter 4.4.1 --- Intra RDCT Subband Modeling --- p.89 / Chapter 4.4.2 --- Inter RDCT Subband Modeling --- p.91 / Chapter 4.4.3 --- Image Frequency Feature --- p.92 / Chapter 4.5 --- Perceptual Quality Analysis in the Receiver Side --- p.95 / Chapter 4.5.1 --- Intra RDCT Feature Difference Analysis --- p.95 / Chapter 4.5.2 --- Inter RDCT Feature Difference Analysis --- p.96 / Chapter 4.5.3 --- Image Frequency Feature Difference Analysis --- p.96 / Chapter 4.6 --- Experimental Results --- p.98 / Chapter 4.6.1 --- Efficiency of the DCT Reorganization Strategy --- p.98 / Chapter 4.6.2 --- Performance of the Proposed RR IQA --- p.99 / Chapter 4.6.3 --- Performance of the Proposed RR IQA over Each Individual Distortion Type --- p.105 / Chapter 4.6.4 --- Statistical Significance --- p.107 / Chapter 4.6.5 --- Performance Analysis of Each Component --- p.109 / Chapter 4.7 --- Conclusion --- p.111 / Chapter 5 --- Reduced Reference Video Quality Assessment --- p.113 / Chapter 5.1 --- Introduction --- p.113 / Chapter 5.2 --- Proposed Reduced Reference Video Quality Metric --- p.114 / Chapter 5.2.1 --- Reduced Reference Feature Extraction from Spatial Perspective --- p.116 / Chapter 5.2.2 --- Reduced Reference Feature Extraction from Temporal Perspective --- p.118 / Chapter 5.2.3 --- Visual Quality Analysis in Receiver Side --- p.121 / Chapter 5.3 --- Experimental Results --- p.123 / Chapter 5.3.1 --- Consistency Test of the Proposed RR VQA over Compressed Video Sequences --- p.124 / Chapter 5.3.2 --- Consistency Test of the Proposed RR VQA over Video Sequences with Simulated Distortions --- p.126 / Chapter 5.3.3 --- Performance Evaluation of the Proposed RR VQA on Compressed Video Sequences --- p.129 / Chapter 5.3.4 --- Performance Evaluation of the Proposed RR VQA on Video Sequences Containing Transmission Distortions --- p.133 / Chapter 5.3.5 --- Performance Analysis of Each Component --- p.135 / Chapter 5.4 --- Conclusion --- p.137 / Chapter III --- Retargeted Visual Signal Quality Assessment --- p.138 / Chapter 6 --- Image Retargeting Perceptual Quality Assessment --- p.139 / Chapter 6.1 --- Introduction --- p.139 / Chapter 6.2 --- Preparation of Database Building --- p.142 / Chapter 6.2.1 --- Source Image --- p.142 / Chapter 6.2.2 --- Retargeting Methods --- p.143 / Chapter 6.2.3 --- Subjective Testing --- p.146 / Chapter 6.3 --- Data Processing and Analysis for the Database --- p.150 / Chapter 6.3.1 --- Processing of Subjective Ratings --- p.150 / Chapter 6.3.2 --- Analysis and Discussion of the Subjective Ratings --- p.153 / Chapter 6.4 --- Objective Quality Metric for Retargeted Images --- p.162 / Chapter 6.4.1 --- Quality Metric Performances on the Constructed Image Retargeting Database --- p.162 / Chapter 6.4.2 --- Subjective Analysis of the Shape Distortion and Content Information Loss --- p.165 / Chapter 6.4.3 --- Discussion --- p.167 / Chapter 6.5 --- Conclusion --- p.169 / Chapter 7 --- Conclusions --- p.170 / Chapter 7.1 --- Conclusion --- p.170 / Chapter 7.2 --- Future Work --- p.173 / Chapter A --- Attributes of the Source Image --- p.176 / Chapter B --- Retargeted Image Name and the Corresponding Number --- p.179 / Chapter C --- Source Image Name and the Corresponding Number --- p.183 / Bibliography --- p.185

by Bill, Kan Shek Chow. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1997. / Includes bibliograhical references (leaves 39-40). / Chapter Chapter 1. --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter Chapter 2. --- The spectrogram --- p.4 / Chapter 2.1 --- Speech signal background --- p.4 / Chapter 2.2 --- Windowed Fourier transform --- p.4 / Chapter 2.3 --- Kernel function --- p.6 / Chapter 2.4 --- Spectrum analysis --- p.7 / Chapter 2.5 --- Spectrogram --- p.9 / Chapter 2.6 --- Reducing dimension of the spectrogram 一 Filter banks --- p.12 / Chapter 2.7 --- Recent experiment on filter banks --- p.12 / Chapter Chapter 3. --- Spectrogram compression --- p.15 / Chapter 3.1 --- Capturing the movement of the spectrum along time --- p.16 / Chapter 3.2 --- Informative statistics ´ؤ peak distance --- p.18 / Chapter 3.3 --- Estimated spectrogram --- p.21 / Chapter 3.4 --- Relationship between spectrogram and the speech signal --- p.22 / Chapter Chapter 4. --- The phase problem --- p.27 / Chapter 4.1 --- The role of the Fourier phase --- p.27 / Chapter 4.2 --- Iteration scheme --- p.27 / Chapter 4.3 --- Smoothing on the noise ´ؤ interpolation --- p.34 / Chapter Chapter 5. --- Conclusion and further discussion --- p.37 / Chapter 5.1 --- Conclusion --- p.37 / Chapter 5.2 --- Further discussion --- p.38 / References --- p.39

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Research in the field of music information retrieval (MIR) is concerned with methods to effectively retrieve a piece of music based on a user's query. An important goal in MIR research is the ability to successfully retrieve music stored as recorded audio using note-based queries. In this work, we consider the searching of musical audio using symbolic queries. We first examined the effectiveness of using a relative pitch approach to represent queries and pieces. Our experimental results revealed that this technique, while effective, is optimal when the whole tune is used as a query. We then suggested an algorithm involving the use of pitch classes in conjunction with the longest common subsequence algorithm between a query and target, also using the whole tune as a query. We also proposed an algorithm that works effectively when only a small part of a tune is used as a query. The algorithm makes use of a sliding window in addition to pitch classes and the longest common subsequence algorithm between a query and target. We examined the algorithm using queries based on the beginning, middle, and ending parts of pieces. We performed experiments on an audio collection and manually-constructed symbolic queries. Our experimental evaluation revealed that our techniques are highly effective, with most queries used in our experiments being able to retrieve a correct answer in the first rank position. In addition, we examined the effectiveness of duration-based features for improving retrieval effectiveness over the use of pitch only. We investigated note durations and inter-onset intervals. For this purpose, we used solely symbolic music so that we could focus on the core of the problem. A relative pitch approach alongside a relative duration representation were used in our experiments. Our experimental results showed that durations fail to significantly improve retrieval effectiveness, whereas inter-onset intervals significantly improve retrieval effectiveness.