Von Mises Tapering: A New Circular Windowing

Discrete and continuous standard windowing are revisited and a a new taper is introduced, which is derived from the normal circular distribution by von Mises. Both the continuous-time and the discrete-time windows are considered, and their spectra obtained. A brief comparison with further classical window families is performed in terms of their properties in the spectral domain. These windows can be used in spectral analysis, and in particular, in the design of FIR (finite impulse response) filters as an alternative to the Kaiser window

Geometrical Representation for Number-theoretic Transforms

This short note introduces a geometric representation for binary (or ternary) sequences. The proposed representation is linked to multivariate data plotting according to the radar chart. As an illustrative example, the binary Hamming transform recently proposed is geometrically interpreted. It is shown that codewords of standard Hamming code $\mathcal{H}(N=7,k=4,d=3)$ are invariant vectors under the Hamming transform. These invariant are eigenvectors of the binary Hamming transform. The images are always inscribed in a regular polygon of unity side, resembling triangular rose petals and/or ``thorns''. A geometric representation of the ternary Golay transform, based on the extended Golay $\mathcal{G}(N=12, k=6, d=6)$ code over $\operatorname{GF}(3)$ is also showed. This approach is offered as an alternative representation of finite-length sequences over finite prime fields.

Application of Enhanced-2D-CWT in Topographic Images for Mapping Landslide Risk Areas

There has been lately a number of catastrophic events of landslides and mudslides in the mountainous region of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Those were caused by intense rain in localities where there was unplanned occupation of slopes of hills and mountains. Thus, it became imperative creating an inventory of landslide risk areas in densely populated cities. This work presents a way of demarcating risk areas by using the bidimensional Continuous Wavelet Transform (2D-CWT) applied to high resolution topographic images of the mountainous region of Rio de Janeiro.

Simulation of Color Blindness and a Proposal for Using Google Glass as Color-correcting Tool

The human visual color response is driven by specialized cells called cones, which exist in three types, viz. R, G, and B. Software is developed to simulate how color images are displayed for different types of color blindness. Specified the default color deficiency associated with a user, it generates a preview of the rainbow (in the visible range, from red to violet) and shows up, side by side with a colorful image provided as input, the display correspondent colorblind. The idea is to provide an image processing after image acquisition to enable a better perception ofcolors by the color blind. Examples of pseudo-correction are shown for the case of Protanopia (red blindness). The system is adapted into a screen of an i-pad or a cellphone in which the colorblind observe the camera, the image processed with color detail previously imperceptible by his naked eye. As prospecting, wearable computer glasses could be manufactured to provide a corrected image playback. The approach can also provide augmented reality for human vision by adding the UV or IR responses as a new feature of Google Glass.

The Adaptive Mean-Linkage Algorithm: A Bottom-Up Hierarchical Cluster Technique

In this paper a variant of the classical hierarchical cluster analysis is reported. This agglomerative (bottom-up) cluster technique is referred to as the Adaptive Mean-Linkage Algorithm. It can be interpreted as a linkage algorithm where the value of the threshold is conveniently up-dated at each interaction. The superiority of the adaptive clustering with respect to the average-linkage algorithm follows because it achieves a good compromise on threshold values: Thresholds based on the cut-off distance are sufficiently small to assure the homogeneity and also large enough to guarantee at least a pair of merging sets. This approach is applied to a set of possible substituents in a chemical series.

A Fingerprint-based Access Control using Principal Component Analysis and Edge Detection

This paper presents a novel approach for deciding on the appropriateness or not of an acquired fingerprint image into a given database. The process begins with the assembly of a training base in an image space constructed by combining Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and edge detection. Then, the parameter H, a new feature that helps in the decision making about the relevance of a fingerprint image in databases, is derived from a relationship between Euclidean and Mahalanobian distances. This procedure ends with the lifting of the curve of the Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC), where the thresholds defined on the parameter H are chosen according to the acceptable rates of false positives and false negatives.

Implementation of an Automatic Syllabic Division Algorithm from Speech Files in Portuguese Language

A new algorithm for voice automatic syllabic splitting in the Portuguese language is proposed, which is based on the envelope of the speech signal of the input audio file. A computational implementation in MatlabTM is presented and made available at the URL http://www2.ee.ufpe.br/codec/divisao_silabica.html. Due to its straightforwardness, the proposed method is very attractive for embedded systems (e.g. i-phones). It can also be used as a screen to assist more sophisticated methods. Voice excerpts containing more than one syllable and identified by the same envelope are named as super-syllables and they are subsequently separated. The results indicate which samples corresponds to the beginning and end of each detected syllable. Preliminary tests were performed to fifty words at an identification rate circa 70% (further improvements may be incorporated to treat particular phonemes). This algorithm is also useful in voice command systems, as a tool in the teaching of Portuguese language or even for patients with speech pathology.