High-throughput sequencing (HTS) data are commonly stored as raw sequencing reads in FASTQ format or as reads mapped to a reference, in SAM format, both with large memory footprints. Worldwide growth of HTS data has prompted the development of compression methods that aim to significantly reduce HTS data size. Here we report on a benchmarking study of available compression methods on a comprehensive set of HTS data using an automated framework.

Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (DASH) is referred to as a multimedia streaming standard to deliver high quality multimedia content over the Internet using conventional HTTP Web servers. As a fundamental feature, it enables automatic switching of quality levels according to network conditions, user requirements, and expectations. Currently, the proposed adaptation schemes for HTTP streaming mostly rely on throughput measurements and/or buffer-related metrics, such as buffer exhaustion and levels. In this paper, we propose to enhance the DASH adaptation logic by feeding it with additional information from our evaluation of the users' perception approximating the userperceived quality of video playback. The proposed model aims at conveniently combining TCP-, buffer-, and media content-related metrics as well as user requirements and expectations to be used as an input for the DASH adaptation logic. Experiments have demonstrated that the chosen model enhances the capability of the adaptation logic to select the optimal video quality level. Finally, we integrated all our findings into a real DASH system with QoE monitoring capabilities.

This paper provides the specification and an initial validation of an evaluation framework for the comparison of lossy compressors of genome sequencing quality values. The goal is to define reference data, test sets, tools and metrics that shall be used to evaluate the impact of lossy compression of quality values on human genome variant calling. The functionality of the framework is validated referring to two state-of-the-art genomic compressors. This work has been spurred by the current activity within the ISO/IEC SC29/WG11 technical committee (a.k.a. MPEG), which is investigating the possibility of starting a standardization activity for genomic information representation.

International audienceWith the emergence of the High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) standard, a dataflow description of the decoder part was developed as part of the MPEG-B standard. This dataflow description presented modest framerate results which led us to propose methodolo-gies to improve the performance. In this paper, we introduce architectural improvements by exposing more parallelism using YUV and frame-based parallel decoding. We also present platform optimizations based on the use of SIMD functions and cache efficient FIFOs. Results show an average acceleration factor of 5.8 in the decoding framerate over the reference architecture

In this paper we propose a design methodology to partition dataflow applications on a multi clock domain architecture. This work shows how starting from a high level dataflow representation of a dynamic program it is possible to reduce the overall power consumption without impacting the performances. Two different approaches are illustrated, both based on the post-processing and analysis of the causation trace of a dataflow program. Methodology and experimental results are demonstrated in an at-size scenario using an MPEG-4 Simple Profile decoder

With the standardization of the new High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) compression algorithm, a dataflow specification of the HEVC decoding process is also available as part of the standard. This paper presents methodologies to improve and optimize the performance of implementations derived by the dataflow specification. Regarding the architectural aspect of dataflow network, the throughput has been increased by developing more potential parallelism. For the platform aspect, critical processes have been optimized by applying SIMD functions and communications have been improved by cache efficient FIFO implementation. Results revealed an average acceleration factor of 7 in the decoding framerate over the reference dataflow implementation.

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The MPEG-4 Audio standard provides a toolset for Audio synthesis and Audio processing, i.e. Structured Audio (SA). SA permits to describe algorithms through its Structured Audio Orchestra Language (SAOL) programming language. Unlike some other languages of the same type, SAOL has a sample-by-sample execution structure, and this makes particularly important the overhead computation in case of an interpreted decoder implementation. This paper describes the design of an efficient virtual architecture able to exploit the data level parallelism contained in many Audio synthesis and processing algorithms and to consistently reduce the implementation overhead through a block-by-block execution.