Absfrucf- We present a Markov random field model which allows realistic edge modeling while providing stable maximum a posteriori MAP solutions. The proposed model, which we refer to as a generalized Gaussian Markov random field (GGMRF), is named for its similarity to the generalized Gaussian distribution used in robust detection and estimation. The model satisifies several desirable analytical and computational properties for MAP estimation, including continuous dependence of the estimate on the data, invariance of the character of solutions to scaling of data, and a solution which lies at the unique global mini-mum of the U posteriori log-likeihood function. The GGMRF is demonstrated to be useful for image reconstruction in low-dosage transmission tomography. I.

The growth of new imaging technologies has created a need for techniques that can be used for copyright protection of digital images. Copyright protection involves the authentication of image content and/or ownership and can be used to identify illegal copies of a (possibly forged) image. One approach for copyright protection is to introduce an invisible signal known as a digital watermark in the image. In this paper, we describe digital image watermarking techniques, known as perceptually based watermarks, that are designed to exploit aspects of the human visual system. In the most general sense, any watermarking technique that attempts to incorporate an invisible mark into an image is perceptually based. However, in order to provide transparency (invisibility of the watermark) and robustness to attack, more sophisticated use of perceptual information in the watermarking process is required. Several techniques have been introduced that incorporate a simple visual model in the marking procedure. Such techniques usually take advantage of frequency selectivity and weighing to provide some perceptual criteria in the watermarking process. Even more elaborate visual models are used to develop schemes that not only take advantage of frequency

In this paper we propose a technique for segmenting images by texture content with application to indexing images in a large image database. Using a quad-tree decomposition, texture features are extracted from spatial blocks at a hierarchy of scales in each image. The quad-tree is grown by iteratively testing conditions for splitting parent blocks based on texture content of children blocks. While this approach does not achieve smooth identification of texture region borders, homogeneous blocks of texture are extracted which can be used in a database index. Furthermore, this technique performs the segmentation directly using image spatial-frequency data. In the segmentation reported here, texture features are extracted from the wavelet representation of the image. This method however, can use other subband decompositions including Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT), which has been adopted by the JPEG standard for image coding. This makes our segmentation method extremely applicable to databases containing compressed image data. We show application of the texture segmentation towards providing a new method for searching for images in large image databases using “Query-by-texture.” 1.

The JPEG committee has recently released its new image coding standard, JPEG 2000, which will serve as a supplement for the original JPEG standard introduced in 1992. Rather than incrementally improving on the original standard, JPEG 2000 implements an entirely new way of compressing images based on the wavelet transform, in contrast to the discrete cosine transform (DCT) used in the original JPEG standard. The significant change in coding methods between the two standards leads one to ask: What prompted the JPEG committee to adopt such a dramatic change? The answer to this question comes from considering the state of image coding at the time the original JPEG standard was being formed. At that time wavelet analysis and wavelet coding were still

] Ziv Bar-Yossef y Computer Science Division U. C. Berkeley Berkeley, CA 94720 zivi@cs.berkeley.edu Ravi Kumar IBM Almaden 650 Harry Road San Jose, CA 95120 ravi@almaden.ibm.com D. Sivakumar IBM Almaden 650 Harry Road San Jose, CA 95120 siva@almaden.ibm.com ABSTRACT We develop a framework to study probabilistic sampling algorithms that approximate general functions of the form f : A n ! B, where A and B are arbitrary sets. Our goal is to obtain lower bounds on the query complexity of functions, namely the number of input variables x i that any sampling algorithm needs to query to approximate f(x1 ; : : : ; xn ). We define two quantitative properties of functions --- the block sensitivity and the minimum Hellinger distance --- that give us techniques to prove lower bounds on the query complexity. These techniques are quite general, easy to use, yet powerful enough to yield tight results. Our applications include the mean and higher statistical moments, the median and other selection functions, and the frequency moments, where we obtain lower bounds that are close to the corresponding upper bounds. We also point out some connections between sampling and streaming algorithms and lossy compression schemes. 1.

Electronically steerable arrays of microphones have avariety of uses in speech data ac-quisition systems. Applications include teleconferencing, speech recognition and speaker identification, sound capture in adverse environments, and biomedical devices for the hear-ing impaired. An array of microphones has a number of advantages over a single-microphone system. It may be electronically aimed to provide a high-quality signal from a desired source location while simultaneously attenuating interfering talkers and ambient noise, does not necessitate local placement of transducers or encumber the talker with a hand-held or head-mounted microphone, and does not require physical movement to alter its direction of reception. Additionally, it has capabilities that a single microphone does not; namely automatic detection, localization, and tracking of active talkers in its receptive area. A fundamental requirement of sensor array systems is the ability to locate and track a speech source. An accurate fix on the primary talker, as well as knowledge of any interfering talkers or coherent noise sources, is necessary to effectively steer the array. Source location data may also be used for purposes other than beamforming; e.g. aiming a camera in a video-conferencing system. In addition to high accuracy, the location estimator must be

Abstract—Motivated by the emergence of programmable radios, we seek to understand a new class of communication system where pairs of transmitters and receivers can adapt their modulation/demodulation method in the presence of interference to achieve better performance. Using signal to interference ratio as a metric and a general signal space approach, we present a class of iterative distributed algorithms for synchronous systems which results in an ensemble of optimal waveforms for multiple users connected to a common receiver (or colocated independent receivers). That is, the waveform ensemble meets the Welch Bound with equality and, therefore, achieves minimum average interference over the ensemble of signature waveforms. We derive fixed points for a number of scenarios, provide examples, look briefly at ensemble stability under user addition and deletion as well as provide a simplistic comparison to synchronous code-division multiple-access. We close with suggestions for future work. Index Terms—Adaptive modulation, code-division multiple-access systems, codeword optimization, interference avoidance, multiuser

Face detection is a canonical example of a rare event detection problem, in which target patterns occur with much lower frequency than non-targets. Out of millions of face-sized windows in an input image, for example, only a few will typically contain a face. Viola and Jones recently proposed a cascade architecture for face detection which successfully addresses the rare event nature of the task. A central part of their method is a feature selection algorithm based on AdaBoost. We present a novel cascade learning algorithm based on forward feature selection which is two orders of magnitude faster than the Viola-Jones approach and yields classifiers of similar quality. This faster method could be used for more demanding classification tasks, such as on-line learning or searching the space of classifier structures. Our experimental results highlight the dominant role of the feature set in the success of the cascade approach. 1

Digital watermarking research has generally focused upon two classes of watermarks, fragile and robust. Robust watermarks are designed to be detected even after attempts are made to remove them. Fragile watermarks are used for authentication purposes and are capable of detecting even minute changes of the watermarked content. Unfortunately, neither type of watermark is ideal when considering "information preserving " transformations (such as compression) which preserve the meaning or expression of the content and "information altering" transformations (such as feature replacement) which change the expression of the content. In this paper we describe a semi-fragile watermark for still images that can detect information altering transformations even after the watermarked content is subjected to information preserving alterations.

Abstract—Per-flow congestion control helps endpoints fairly and efficiently share network resources. Better utilization of network resources can be achieved, however, if congestion management algorithms can determine when two different flows share a congested link. Such knowledge can be used to implement cooperative congestion control or improve the overlay topology of a P2P system. Previous techniques to detect shared congestion either assume a common source or destination node, drop-tail queueing, or a single point of congestion. We propose in this paper a novel technique, applicable to any pair of paths on the Internet, without such limitations. Our technique employs a signal processing method, wavelet denoising, to separate queueing delay caused by network congestion from various other delay variations. Our wavelet-based technique is evaluated through both simulations and Internet experiments. We show that, when detecting shared congestion of paths with a common endpoint, our technique provides faster convergence and higher accuracy while using fewer packets than previous techniques, and that it also accurately determines when there is no shared congestion. Furthermore, we show that our technique is robust and accurate for paths without a common endpoint or synchronized clocks; more specifically, it can tolerate a synchronization offset of up to one second between two packet flows. I.