Adaptive binary mask for privacy region protection

Privacy region protection in video surveillance systems is an active topic at present. In previous research, a binary mask mechanism has been developed to indicate the privacy region; however this incurs a significant bitrate overhead. In this paper, an adaptive binary mask is proposed to represent the privacy region. In a practical privacy region protection application, in which the privacy region typically occupies less than half of the overall frame and is rectangular or approximately rectangular, the proposed adaptive binary mask can effectively reduce the bitrate overhead. The proposed method can also be easily applied to the FMO mechanism of H.264/AVC, providing both error resilience and a lower bitrate overhead.

New FMO Type to Flag ROI in H264/AVC

This paper presents a new type of Flexible Macroblock Ordering (FMO) type for the H.264 Advanced Video Coding (AVC) standard, which can more efficiently flag the position and shape of regions of interest (ROIs) in each frame. In H.264/AVC, 7 types of FMO have been defined, all of which are designed for error resilience. Most previous work related to ROI processing has adopted Type-2 (foreground & background), or Type-6 (explicit), to flag the position and shape of the ROI. However, only rectangular shapes are allowed in Type-2 and for non-rectangular shapes, the non-ROI macroblocks may be wrongly flagged as being within the ROI, which could seriously affect subsequent processing of the ROI. In Type-6, each macroblock in a frame uses fixed-length bits to indicate to its slice group. In general, each ROI is assigned to one slice group identity. Although this FMO type can more accurately flag the position and shape of the ROI, it incurs a significant bitrate overhead. The proposed new FMO type uses the smallest rectangle that covers the ROI to indicate its position and a spiral binary mask is employed within the rectangle to indicate the shape of the ROI. This technique can accurately flag the ROI and provide significantly savings in the bitrate overhead. Compared with Type-6, an 80% to 90% reduction in the bitrate overhead can be obtained while achieving the same accuracy.

Privacy Region Protection for H.264/AVC with Enhanced Scrambling Effect and a Low Bitrate Overhead

While video surveillance systems have become ubiquitous in our daily lives, they have introduced concerns over privacy invasion. Recent research to address these privacy issues includes a focus on privacy region protection, whereby existing video scrambling techniques are applied to specific regions of interest (ROI) in a video while the background is left unchanged. Most previous work in this area has only focussed on encrypting the sign bits of nonzero coefficients in the privacy region, which produces a relatively weak scrambling effect. In this paper, to enhance the scrambling effect for privacy protection, it is proposed to encrypt the intra prediction modes (IPM) in addition to the sign bits of nonzero coefficients (SNC) within the privacy region. A major issue with utilising encryption of IPM is that drift error is introduced outside the region of interest. Therefore, a re-encoding method, which is integrated with the encryption of IPM, is also proposed to remove drift error. Compared with a previous technique that uses encryption of IPM, the proposed re-encoding method offers savings in the bitrate overhead while completely removing the drift error. Experimental results and analysis based on H.264/AVC were carried out to verify the effectiveness of the proposed methods. In addition, a spiral binary mask mechanism is proposed that can reduce the bitrate overhead incurred by flagging the position of the privacy region. A definition of the syntax structure for the spiral binary mask is given. As a result of the proposed techniques, the privacy regions in a video sequence can be effectively protected by the enhanced scrambling effect with no drift error and a lower bitrate overhead.

Adsorption isotherm models for basic dye adsorption by peat in single and binary component systems

Coloured effluents from textile industries are a problem in many rivers and waterways. Prediction of adsorption capacities of dyes by adsorbents is important in design considerations. The sorption of three basic dyes, namely Basic Blue 3, Basic Yellow 21 and Basic Red 22, onto peat is reported. Equilibrium sorption isotherms have been measured for the three single component systems. Equilibrium was achieved after twenty-one days. The experimental isotherm data were analysed using Langmuir, Freundlich, Redlich-Peterson, Temkin and Toth isotherm equations. A detailed error analysis has been undertaken to investigate the effect of using different error criteria for the determination of the single component isotherm parameters and hence obtain the best isotherm and isotherm parameters which describe the adsorption process. The linear transform model provided the highest R2 regression coefficient with the Redlich-Peterson model. The Redlich-Peterson model also yielded the best fit to experimental data for all three dyes using the non-linear error functions. An extended Langmuir model has been used to predict the isotherm data for the binary systems using the single component data. The correlation between theoretical and experimental data had only limited success due to competitive and interactive effects between the dyes and the dye-surface interactions.

The massive binary companion star to the progenitor of supernova 1993J

The massive star that underwent a collapse of its core to produce supernova (SN)1993J was subsequently identified as a non-variable red supergiant star in images of the galaxy M81 taken before explosion(1, 2). It showed an excess in ultraviolet and B-band colours, suggesting either the presence of a hot, massive companion star or that it was embedded in an unresolved young stellar association1. The spectra of SN1993J underwent a remarkable transformation from the signature of a hydrogen-rich type II supernova to one of a helium-rich (hydrogen-deficient) type Ib(3, 4). The spectral and photometric peculiarities were best explained by models in which the 13�20 solar mass supergiant had lost almost its entire hydrogen envelope to a close binary companion(5, 6, 7), producing a 'type IIb' supernova, but the hypothetical massive companion stars for this class of supernovae have so far eluded discovery. Here we report photometric and spectroscopic observations of SN1993J ten years after the explosion. At the position of the fading supernova we detect the unambiguous signature of a massive star: the binary companion to the progenitor.

Proof of polar ejection from the close-binary core of the planetary nebula Abell 63

We present the first detailed kinematical analysis of the planetary nebula Abell 63, which is known to contain the eclipsing close-binary nucleus UU Sge. Abell 63 provides an important test case in investigating the role of close-binary central stars on the evolution of planetary nebulae. Longslit observations were obtained using the Manchester echelle spectrometer combined with the 2.1-m San Pedro Martir Telescope. The spectra reveal that the central bright rim of Abell 63 has a tube-like structure. A deep image shows collimated lobes extending from the nebula, which are shown to be high-velocity outflows. The kinematic ages of the nebular rim and the extended lobes are calculated to be 8400 +/- 500 and 12900 +/- 2800 yr, respectively, which suggests that the lobes were formed at an earlier stage than the nebular rim. This is consistent with expectations that disc-generated jets form immediately after the common envelope phase. A morphological-kinematical model of the central nebula is presented and the best-fitting model is found to have the same inclination as the orbital plane of the central binary system; this is the first proof that a close-binary system directly affects the shaping of its nebula. A Hubble-type flow is well-established in the morphological-kinematical modelling of the observed line profiles and imagery. Two possible formation models for the elongated lobes of Abell 63 are considered, (i) a low-density, pressure-driven jet excavates a cavity in the remnant asymptotic giant branch (AGB) envelope; (ii) high-density bullets form the lobes in a single ballistic ejection event.

New binary direction aftereffect does not add up

Neural adaptation and inhibition are pervasive characteristics of the primate brain, and are probably understood better within the context of visual processing than any other sensory modality. These processes are thought to underlie illusions in which one motion affects the perceived direction of another, such as the direction aftereffect (DAE) and direction repulsion. The DAE describes how, following prolonged viewing of motion in one direction, the direction of a subsequently viewed test pattern is misperceived. In the case of direction repulsion, the direction difference between two transparently moving surfaces is over-estimated. Explanations of the DAE appeal to neural adaptation whilst direction repulsion is accounted for through lateral inhibition. Here we report on a new illusion, the Binary DAE, in which superimposed slow and fast dots moving in the same direction are perceived to move in different directions following adaptation to a mixed-speed stimulus. This new phenomenon is essentially a combination of the DAE and direction repulsion. Interestingly the magnitude of the binary DAE is greater than would be expected simply through a linear combination of the DAE and direction repulsion, suggesting that the mechanisms underlying these two phenomena interact in a non-linear fashion.

Raman and ab initio studies of simple and binary 1-Alkyl-3-methylimidazolium ionic liquids

Raman spectra of the ionic liquids, 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium hexafluorophosphate ([C(4)mim][PF(6)]), 1-hexyl-3-methylimidazolium chloride ([C(6)mim]Cl), and 1-hexyl-3-methylimidazolium hexafluorophosphate ([C(6)mim][PF(6)]), and binary mixtures thereof, have been assigned using ab initio MP2 calculations. The previously reported anti and gauche forms of the [C(4)mim](+) cation have been observed, and this study reveals this to be a general feature of the long-chain I-alkyl derivatives. Analysis of mixtures Of [C(6)mim]Cl and [C(6)mim][PF(6)] has provided information on the nature of the hydrogen bonding between the imidazolium headgroup and the anions, and the invariance of the essentially 50:50 mixture of the predominant conformers informs on the nature of glass formation in these systems.

Viscosity of binary mixtures of cycloalkane with cycloalkane, alkane and aromatic hydrocarbon at 303.15 K

The viscosity ? for eighteen binary mixtures cyclopentane + cyclohexane and + cyclooctane; cyclohexane + cycloheptane, + cyclooctane, + methylcyclohexane, + n-hexane, + n-heptane, + n-octane, + i-octane, + benzene, + toluene, + ethylbenzene, + p-xylene, and + propylbenzene; methylcyclohexane + n-hexane, + i-octane, and + benzene; and cyclooctane + benzene have been reported at 303.15 K over the entire range of composition. The viscosity deviations ?? and excess Gibbs energy of activation ?G*E of viscous flow based on Eyring's theory have been calculated. The effects of molecular sizes and shapes of the component molecules and of interaction energy in the mixture have been discussed. The viscosity data have been correlated with the equations of Grunberg and Nissan, Hind, McLaughlin and Ubbelohde, Tamura and Kurata, Katti and Chaudhri, McAllister, Heric and Brewer, and of Auslaender.