Marine benthic habitat mapping using multibeam data, georeferenced video and image classification techniques in Victoria, Australia

This paper contributes to a better understanding of geophysical characteristics and benthic communities in the Hopkins site in Victoria, Australia. An automated decision tree classification system was used to classify substrata and dominant biota communities. Geophysical sampling and underwater video data collected in this study reveals a complex bathymetry and biological structure which complements the limited information of benthic marine ecosystems in coastal waters of Victoria. The technique of combining derivative products from the backscatter and the bathymetry datasets was found to improve separability for broad biota and substrata categories over the use of either of these datasets alone.

Milkfat characteristics and functionality: opportunities for improvement

Manipulation of the composition of milkfat has the potential to improve the nutritional properties and physical functionality of milkfat and its acceptability in the market. The modifications that have been targeted from a nutritional perspective have included:
(a) reducing the ratio of saturated to unsaturated fatty acids;
(b) increasing the level of omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids; and
(c) increasing the content of conjugated linoleic acid.
From a physical functionality viewpoint, the outcome targeted has been an improvement in the spreadability of butter by altering milkfat composition to reduce the hardness of milkfat. Both on-farm strategies and the application of appropriate post-farm processing technologies may be used to alter the milkfat composition to enhance its nutritional image and its physical functionality for a range of product applications. However, changes in milkfat composition that are desirable for a specific nutritional purpose or for one type of milk-based product may not meet all the desirable requirements of another milkfat or dairy product. Furthermore, modification of the milkfat composition can also have an influence on the processing characteristics of milk and the quality of finished dairy products. It is essential to substantiate the benefits of specific target nutritional or physical functionality outcomes before the introduction of breeding goals, altered milk production systems or post-farm processing operations to manipulate milkfat composition. This paper reviews the variation in milkfat characteristics and the strategies that have been used to modify milkfat composition to achieve milkfat with altered nutritional and physical functional properties.

Dynamic characteristics and efficiency of a fluidized bed heat treatment process

The dynamic characteristics of gas bubbles in fluidized beds are important to determine the heat and mass transfer rates at component surfaces and the treated profiles of components. They also have great impact on the components’ structural, mechanical and physical properties. However, it has been very difficult to monitor those characteristics dynamically. In this paper, a specifically designed fluidized bed was introduced to facilitate the capturing of its dynamic characteristics and a new video image processing and analysis algorithm was developed. The algorithm is robust and adaptive in terms of locating both bubbles and components in beds with a single or multiple components. It has many advantages in dynamic characterization of gas bubbles and monitoring component treatment. By using this algorithm, the properties of gas bubbles over any period of time can be accurately obtained. This technology will provide a potential on-line dynamic monitoring and quality control system for the chemical heat treatment processes with fluidized beds.

Towards detecting patterns of human behaviour from image sequences

This paper details research that will explore the analysis of human behaviour via video surveillance. Digital computer images will be obtained from video footage of a real world scene, and positions of people in the scene will be identified and tracked through each frame in the sequence.

The noted positions will build into a pattern of motion that can be examined and classified. It is proposed that specific events, such as panic or fight situations, will have unique, and therefore identifying, characteristics that will enable automatic detection of such events.

It is envisaged that active cameras will be used when a situation of interest occurs, to enable more information to be extracted from the scene (e.g., panning to follow action, or zooming to enhance detail.)

'Just bloody fat!' : a qualitative study of body image, self esteem and coping in obese adults

The rise of the ‘obesity epidemic’ in Western societies has led to an increased public gaze on obese individuals. Yet there is limited research that explores through qualitative methods the increased impact it has had on obese individuals’ perceptions of self, body image and coping strategies, using their own words. This paper presents the findings of interviews with a community sample of 142 obese adults in Australia. We examined how obese individuals felt about themselves and their bodies, what influenced these feelings, and the subsequent coping strategies employed. While participants were able to identify many positive characteristics about their inner self, the vast majority used negative language to describe their physical appearance. Many participants described feelings of ‘guilt’, ‘shame’ and ‘blame’ associated with their weight. Coping strategies included striving for perfection in other areas of their life, social isolation, maximising aspects of their appearance and ‘fat’ acceptance. This study shows that, while different groups of obese adults experience, cope with and compensate for the influence of weight-based stereotyping in many different ways, they still feel an unrelenting otherness and difference associated with their weight.

An empirical analysis of colour image segmentation using fuzzy c-means clustering

In this paper, an empirical analysis to examine the effects of image segmentation with different colour models using the fuzzy c-means (FCM) clustering algorithm is conducted. A qualitative evaluation method based on human perceptual judgement is used. Two sets of complex images, i.e., outdoor scenes and satellite imagery, are used for demonstration. These images are employed to examine the characteristics of image segmentation using FCM with eight different colour models. The results obtained from the experimental study are compared and analysed. It is found that the CIELAB colour model yields the best outcomes in colour image segmentation with FCM.

Adaptive patch size determination for patch-based image completion

Patch-based image completion proceeds by iteratively filling the target (unknown) region by the best matching patches in the source image. In most existing such algorithms, the size of the patches is either fixed and specified by a default number or simply chosen to be inversely proportional to the spatial frequency. However, it is noted that the patch size affects how well the filled patch captures the local characteristics of the source image and thus the final completion accuracy. Thus in this paper we propose a new method to compute appropriate patch sizes for image completion to improve its performance. In particular, we formulate the patch size determination as an optimization problem that minimizes an objective function involving image gradients and distinct and homogenous features. Experimental results show that our method can provide a significant enhancement to patch-based image completion algorithms.

Special issue : Computational intelligence models for image processing and information reasoning

Computational Intelligence (CI) models comprise robust computing methodologies with a high level of machine learning quotient. CI models, in general, are useful for designing computerized intelligent systems/machines that possess useful characteristics mimicking human behaviors and capabilities in solving complex tasks, e.g., learning, adaptation, and evolution. Examples of some popular CI models include fuzzy systems, artificial neural networks, evolutionary algorithms, multi-agent systems, decision trees, rough set theory, knowledge-based systems, and hybrid of these models. This special issue highlights how different computational intelligence models, coupled with other complementary techniques, can be used to handle problems encountered in image processing and information reasoning.

Does the burden of the experience sampling method undermine data quality in state based body image research?

Despite growing popularity of experience sampling methodology (ESM) for evaluations of state-based components of body image, there have been concerns that the frequent repeated measurement might encourage problematic responding resulting in low data quantity and/or quality. Using a sample of 105 women (mean age = 24.84), this study used multilevel modelling to investigate whether (a) there were changes in compliance or response variability across a 7-day period, and (b) whether such changes are explained by participant characteristics. Present findings suggest that demands of ESM protocol undermine quantity more so than quality of obtained data. Decline in procedural compliance across the testing period correlated with BMI and body shame, whereas reduced variability in state-based assessments did not adversely impact the strength of association between state body satisfaction ratings and other variables in the dataset. The authors make several recommendations for ensuring the quality of ESM-based data in future studies.

Nonnegative Matrix Factorization Applied to Nonlinear Speech and Image Cryptosystems

Nonnegative matrix factorization (NMF) is widely used in signal separation and image compression. Motivated by its successful applications, we propose a new cryptosystem based on NMF, where the nonlinear mixing (NLM) model with a strong noise is introduced for encryption and NMF is used for decryption. The security of the cryptosystem relies on following two facts: 1) the constructed multivariable nonlinear function is not invertible; 2) the process of NMF is unilateral, if the inverse matrix of the constructed linear mixing matrix is not nonnegative. Comparing with Lin's method (2006) that is a theoretical scheme using one-time padding in the cryptosystem, our cipher can be used repeatedly for the practical request, i.e., multitme padding is used in our cryptosystem. Also, there is no restriction on statistical characteristics of the ciphers and the plaintexts. Thus, more signals can be processed (successfully encrypted and decrypted), no matter they are correlative, sparse, or Gaussian. Furthermore, instead of the number of zero-crossing-based method that is often unstable in encryption and decryption, an improved method based on the kurtosis of the signals is introduced to solve permutation ambiguities in waveform reconstruction. Simulations are given to illustrate security and availability of our cryptosystem.

The unstable print: Material challenges in printmaking and the moving image

The past few years have seen an emergence of printmakers motivated by moving-image technology to use print as performative creative practice; in film and animation, as installation and in various processes of thinking and production. Notions of movement and change that could be said to identify much of our contemporary world reflect the interests of a number of printmakers who utilize printmaking characteristics of multiplicity and reproduction by integrating the digital and the handmade within the moving-image. There seems to be a restlessness by some artists who wish to explore an unbounded, experimental approach to printmaking; perhaps it is a natural progression for printmakers to relate their processes of thinking and production to concepts of frame-by-frame production – to additive and subtractive methods, multiple imagery and the reproduced or copy. But what happens when printmaking that has entered the realm of multimedia technology returns to the physical, material print? This paper presents and discusses printmaking as moving image, and in particular the practice of printmaking that utilizes the copy and multiplicity while exploiting qualities of change through, for example, organic non-archival materials. Drawing from my own print projects and practice as well as the work of other Australian printmakers, the paper asks: can the physical print convincingly perform, not only represent, movement and change as analog experience through its materiality, and how is it to be valued within printmaking conventions concerned with longevity and permanence?

Qualitative assessment of bubble behaviour for central and asymmetric injection in 2D gas-solid fluidized bed using image analysis technique and CFD modelling

Bubble characteristics such as shape, size, and trajectory control the hydrodynamics and therefore heat transfer in fluidized bed reactors. Thus understanding these characteristics is very important for the design and scaleup of fluidized beds. An earlier developed Eulerian-Eulerian two-fluid model for simulating dense gas–solid two-phase flow has been used to compare the experimental data in a pseudo-two-dimensional (2-D) bed. Bubbles are injected asymmetrically by locating the nozzle at proximity to the wall, thus presenting the effect wall has on asymmetrical injection as compared to symmetrical injection. In this work, a digital image analysis technique was developed to study the bubble behaviour in a two-dimensional bubbling bed. The high-speed photography reveals an asymmetric wake formation during detachment indicating an early onset of mixing process. The wall forces acts tangentially on thebubble and has a significant impact on the bubble shape, neck formation during detachment and its trajectory through the bed. Larger bubbles drifting away from the centre with longer paths are observed. This qualitative behaviour is well predicted by CFD modelling. Asymmetric injection can significantly influence the heat and mass transfer characteristics.