Tree-Cut for Probabilistic Image Segmentation

This paper presents a new probabilistic generative model for image segmentation, i.e. the task of partitioning an image into homogeneous regions. Our model is grounded on a mid-level image representation, called a region tree, in which regions are recursively split into subregions until superpixels are reached. Given the region tree, image segmentation is formalized as sampling cuts in the tree from the model. Inference for the cuts is exact, and formulated using dynamic programming. Our tree-cut model can be tuned to sample segmentations at a particular scale of interest out of many possible multiscale image segmentations. This generalizes the common notion that there should be only one correct segmentation per image. Also, it allows moving beyond the standard single-scale evaluation, where the segmentation result for an image is averaged against the corresponding set of coarse and fine human annotations, to conduct a scale-specific evaluation. Our quantitative results are comparable to those of the leading gPb-owt-ucm method, with the notable advantage that we additionally produce a distribution over all possible tree-consistent segmentations of the image.

Universal Scaling of Pinning Effect on Hall Anomaly near the Vortex Glass Transition and Doping Dependence Problems of Superconductors

We find universal scaling relations of the pinning effect on the Hall resistivity $rho_{xy}$ and Hall angle $theta_{H}$. Considering the extended power law form of $rho_{xx}$ and the microscopic analysis of $sigma_{xy}$, we obtain unified $rho_{xy}$ equations for superconductors with and without double sign reversal. These equations reasonably explain the striking universality in doping dependence found by Nagoaka et al., which contradicts the prediction of the time dependent Ginzburg-Landau equation based on s-wave coupling theory [PRL {bf{80}},3594 (1998)]. A full comparison of experiment with prediction from theoretical models is proposed.

Angular momentum exchange between coherent light and matter fields

Full, three dimensional, time-dependent simulations are presented demonstrating the quantized transfer of angular momentum to a Bose-Einstein condensate from a laser carrying orbital angular momentum in a Laguerre-Gaussian mode. The process is described in terms of coherent Bragg scattering of atoms from a chiral optical lattice. The transfer efficiency and the angular momentum content of the output coupled vortex state are analyzed and compared with a recent experiment.