Fusion of Hash-Based Hard and Soft Biometrics for Enhancing Face Image Database Search and Retrieval

The utilization of digital picture search and retrieval has grown substantially in numerous fields for different purposes during the last decade,owing to the continuing advances in image processing and computer vision approaches.In multiple real-life applications,for example,social media,content-based face picture retrieval is a well-invested technique for large-scale databases,where there is a significant necessity for reliable retrieval capabilities enabling quick search in a vast number of pictures.Humans widely employ faces for recognizing and identifying people.Thus,face recognition through formal or personal pictures is increasingly used in various real-life applications,such as helping crime investigators retrieve matching images from face image databases to identify victims and criminals.However,such face image retrieval becomes more challenging in large-scale databases,where traditional vision-based face analysis requires ample additional storage space than the raw face images already occupied to store extracted lengthy feature vectors and takes much longer to process and match thousands of face images.This work mainly contributes to enhancing face image retrieval performance in large-scale databases using hash codes inferred by locality-sensitive hashing(LSH)for facial hard and soft biometrics as(Hard BioHash)and(Soft BioHash),respectively,to be used as a search input for retrieving the top-k matching faces.Moreover,we propose the multi-biometric score-level fusion of both face hard and soft BioHashes(Hard-Soft BioHash Fusion)for further augmented face image retrieval.The experimental outcomes applied on the Labeled Faces in the Wild(LFW)dataset and the related attributes dataset(LFW-attributes),demonstrate that the retrieval performance of the suggested fusion approach(Hard-Soft BioHash Fusion)significantly improved the retrieval performance compared to solely using Hard BioHash or Soft BioHash in isolation,where the suggested method provides an augmented accuracy of 87%when executed on 1000 specimens and 77%on 5743 samples.These results remarkably outperform the results of the Hard BioHash method by(50%on the 1000 samples and 30%on the 5743 samples),and the Soft BioHash method by(78%on the 1000 samples and 63%on the 5743 samples).

CMA:an efficient index algorithmof clustering supporting fast retrieval oflarge image databases

To realize content-hased retrieval of large image databases, it is required to develop an efficient index and retrieval scheme. This paper proposes an index algorithm of clustering called CMA, which supports fast retrieval of large image databases. CMA takes advantages of k-means and self-adaptive algorithms. It is simple and works without any user interactions. There are two main stages in this algorithm. In the first stage, it classifies images in a database into several clusters, and automatically gets the necessary parameters for the next stage-k-means iteration. The CMA algorithm is tested on a large database of more than ten thousand images and compare it with k-means algorithm. Experimental results show that this algorithm is effective in both precision and retrieval time.

Outcomes of cardiac surgery in senior aged patients with ventricular dysfunction:analysis of a large national database

OBJECTIVE In patients undergoing cardiac surgery,reduced preoperative ejection fraction(EF)and senior age are associated with a worse outcome.As most outcome data available for these patients are mainly from Western surgical populations involving specific surgery types,our aim is to evaluate the real-world characteristics and perioperative outcomes of surgery in senior-aged heart failure patients with reduced EF across a broad range cardiac surgeries.METHODS Data were obtained from the China Heart Failure Surgery Registry(China-HFSR)database,a nationwide multicenter registry study in China's Mainland.Multiple variable regression analysis was performed in patients over 75 years old to identify risk factors associated with mortality.RESULTS From 2012 to 2017,578 senior-aged(>75 years)patients were enrolled in China HFSR,21.1%of whom were female.Isolated coronary bypass grafting(CABG)were performed in 71.6%of patients,10.1%of patients underwent isolated valve surgery and 8.7%received CABG combined with valve surgery.In-hospital mortality was 10.6%,and the major complication rate was 17.3%.Multivariate analysis identified diabetes mellitus(odds ratio(OR)=1.985),increased creatinine(OR=1.007),New York Heart Association(NYHA)Class III(OR=1.408),NYHA class IV(OR=1.955),cardiogenic shock(OR,6.271),and preoperative intra-aortic balloon pump insertion(OR=3.426)as independent predictors of in-hospital mortality.CONCLUSIONS In senior-aged patients,preoperative evaluation should be carefully performed,and strict management of reversible factors needs more attention.Senior-aged patients commonly have a more severe disease status combined with more frequent comorbidities,which may lead to a high risk in mortality.

Practical applications and limitations of basalt discrimination diagrams

Determining the tectonic setting of unknown volcanic rocks continues to be one of the key challenges in geoscience.While discrimination diagrams have been successfully employed due to their ease of use,recently,validation with big data has raised questions about their performance.In this study,the discrimination boundaries of Th/Yb versus(vs.)Nb/Yb and TiO2/Yb vs.Nb/Yb diagrams,which are the most used types of discrimination diagrams,were redefined based on a large amount of compiled data and support vector machine,a machine learning method.The effectiveness of discrimination diagrams was verified,and the limitations and conditions when using them were clarified.The results show that when using the Th/Yb vs.Nb/Yb diagram,only basalts with Th/Yb ratios higher than the discrimination boundary can be identified as volcanic arcs in origin.In contrast,a significant overlap occurs across boundaries in other cases when using these diagrams,particularly for enriched samples with Nb/Yb ratios higher than five.Therefore,when using these diagrams to determine the tectonic setting of unknown samples,their limitations must be considered when interpreting their results.