Acquiring scattering properties of participating media by dilution
The visual world around us displays a rich set of volumetric effects due to participating media. The appearance of these media is governed by several physical properties such as particle densities, shapes and sizes, which must be input (directly or indirectly) to a rendering algorithm to generate realistic images. While there has been significant progress in developing rendering techniques (for instance, volumetric Monte Carlo methods and analytic approximations), there are very few methods that measure or estimate these properties for media that are of relevance to computer graphics. In this paper, we present a simple device and technique for robustly estimating the properties of a broad class of participating media that can be either (a) diluted in water such as juices, beverages, paints and cleaning supplies, or (b) dissolved in water such as powders and sugar/salt crystals, or (c) suspended in water such as impurities. The key idea is to dilute the concentrations of the media so that single scattering effects dominate and multiple scattering becomes negligible, leading to a simple and robust estimation algorithm. Furthermore, unlike previous approaches that require complicated or separate measurement setups for different types or properties of media, our method and setup can be used to measure media with a complete range of absorption and scattering properties from a single HDR photograph. Once the parameters of the diluted medium are estimated, a volumetric Monte Carlo technique may be used to create renderings of any medium concentration and with multiple scattering. We have measured the scattering parameters of forty commonly found materials, that can be immediately used by the computer graphics community. We can also create realistic images of combinations or mixtures of the original measured materials, thus giving the user a wide flexibility in making realistic images of participating media.

title: Face Modeling and Analysis in Stony Brook University
abstract: In this paper, we present our latest work on facial expression analysis, synthesis and face recognition. The advent of new technologies that allow the capture of massive amounts of high resolution, high frame rate face data, leads us to propose data-driven face models that accurately describe the appearance of faces under unknown pose and illumination conditions as well as to track subtle geometry changes that occur during expressions. In this paper, we also demonstrate our results for expression transfer among different subjects. We reduce the dimensionality of our data onto a lower dimensional space manifold and then decompose it into style and content parameters. This allows us to transfer subtle expression information (in the form of a style vector) between individuals to synthesize new expressions, as well as smoothly morph geometry and motion. Finally, we demonstrate the accuracy of our face modeling methods through an integrated example of image-driven re-targeting and relighting of facial expressions, where transfer of expression and illumination information between different individuals is possible.

title: Some Results on NQR Codes
abstract: In  Tiu and Wallace have constructed a new class of linear codes called Norm Quadratic Residue code Cp for p> a prime of the form 4n+1 and determined some of its properties. It was shown that Cp≤ p. He further conjectured that Cp = p. In the present correspondence we show that similar construction works for primes of the form 4n-1. We further show that dimCp = p for any odd prime p and determine few elementary properties of these codes.

title: Queueing Models and Stability of Message Flows in Distributed Simulators of Open Queueing Networks

title: On Senary Simplex Codes
abstract: This paper studies senary simplex codes of type ? and two punctured versions of these codes (type s and ?). Self-orthogonality, torsion codes, weight distribution and weight hierarchy properties are studied. We give a new construction of senary codes via their binary and ternary counterparts, and show that type ? and s simplex codes can be constructed by this method.

title: Information assurance metric development framework for electronic bill presentment and payment systems using transaction and workflow analysis
abstract: One of the fastest growing applications in the banking arena is Electronic Bill Presentation and Payment (EBPP), driven primarily by a desire to reduce costs associated with issuing and settling physical bills. EBPP is a secure system for companies to electronically present bills and other related information to their customers, and host the secure payment of these bills. This paper puts forth information assurance issues that are analyzed from a workflow and transaction analysis perspective. Various aspects and technologies deployed in EBPP systems are discussed with a view to understand security underpinnings. The paper develops a framework for the measurement of security levels of any EBPP system, which will help security personnel to ensure a higher level of understanding of information assurance issues and proactively engage in elevating security measures and fraud protection in their organizations. A step-by-step procedure is developed to help IT security managers and administrators to understand the metrics that can define proactive and reactive security service delivery levels, and implement the measurement framework that is necessary to demonstrate performance against these metrics.