Abstract: A multimedia archive description scheme is provided for characterizing a multimedia archive having records and associated record descriptions. The multimedia archive description scheme provides a data structure which relates records by similarity measures. The principle data structure in the multimedia archive description scheme is a cluster. A cluster includes one or more attributes of the records in the archive and can include one or more cluster relationships. Cluster attributes can include feature space attributes, semantic attributes, media attributes and meta attributes of the records in the archive. The cluster relationships can relate records to clusters or clusters to clusters. Cluster relationships can include feature space (syntactic) relationships, semantic relationships, media relationships and meta relationships. The multimedia archive description scheme provides an efficient form for describing a collection of records.

Abstract: An x-ray positioning device that allows a dental practitioner to adjust the x-ray beam horizontally and vertically relative to the center of the radiographic film with a great degree of precision. The device includes a frame, a bite block connected to the frame, an aiming ring connected to the frame, and an image receptor holder that is also connected to the frame. The aiming ring and image receptor holder are adjustable so as to allow the x-ray beam directed through the aiming ring to be adjustable horizontally and vertically relative to the center of an image receptor (e.g. a radiographic film packet) retained by the image receptor holder.

Abstract: An invention for generating standard description records from multimedia information. The invention utilizes fundamental entity-relation models for the Generic AV DS that classify the entities, the entity attributes, and the relationships in relevant types to describe visual data. It also involves classification of entity attributes into syntactic and semantic attributes. Syntactic attributes can be categorized into different levels: type/technique, global distribution, local structure, and global composition. Semantic attributes can be likewise discretely categorized: generic object, generic scene, specific object, specific scene, abstract object, and abstract scene. The invention further classifies entity relationships into syntactic/semantic categories. Syntactic relationship categories include spatial, temporal, and visual categories. Semantic relationship categories include lexical and predicative categories.

Abstract: The present invention discloses systems and methods for automatically parsing digital video content into segments corresponding to fundamental semantic units, events, and camera views, and streaming parsed digital video content to users for display and browsing. The systems and methods effectively use the domain-specific knowledge such as regular structures of fundamental semantic units, unique views corresponding to the units, and the predictable state transition rules. The systems and methods also include scene change detection, video text recognition, and view recognition. The results of parsing may be used in a personal video browsing/navigation interface system. Furthermore, a novel adaptive streaming method in which quality levels of video segments are varied dynamically according to the user preference of different segments is disclosed.