The past few years have witnessed great success in applying deep learning to enhance the quality of compressed image/video. The existing approaches mainly focus on enhancing the quality of a single frame, ignoring the similarity between consecutive frames. In this paper, we investigate that heavy quality fluctuation exists across compressed video frames, and thus low quality frames can be enhanced using the neighboring high quality frames, seen as Multi-Frame Quality Enhancement (MFQE). Accordingly, this paper proposes an MFQE approach for compressed video, as a first attempt in this direction. In our approach, we firstly develop a Support Vector Machine (SVM) based detector to locate Peak Quality Frames (PQFs) in compressed video. Then, a novel Multi-Frame Convolutional Neural Network (MF-CNN) is designed to enhance the quality of compressed video, in which the non-PQF and its nearest two PQFs are as the input. The MF-CNN compensates motion between the non-PQF and PQFs through the Motion Compensation subnet (MC-subnet). Subsequently, the Quality Enhancement subnet (QE-subnet) reduces compression artifacts of the non-PQF with the help of its nearest PQFs. Finally, the experiments validate the effectiveness and generality of our MFQE approach in advancing the state-of-the-art quality enhancement of compressed video. The code of our MFQE approach is available at

The past few years have witnessed great success in applying deep learning to enhance the quality of compressed image/video. The existing approaches mainly focus on enhancing the quality of a single frame, not considering the similarity between consecutive frames. Since heavy fluctuation exists across compressed video frames as investigated in this paper, frame similarity can be utilized for quality enhancement of low-quality frames given their neighboring high-quality frames. This task is Multi-Frame Quality Enhancement (MFQE). Accordingly, this paper proposes an MFQE approach for compressed video, as the first attempt in this direction. In our approach, we firstly develop a Bidirectional Long Short-Term Memory (BiLSTM) based detector to locate Peak Quality Frames (PQFs) in compressed video. Then, a novel Multi-Frame Convolutional Neural Network (MF-CNN) is designed to enhance the quality of compressed video, in which the non-PQF and its nearest two PQFs are the input. In MF-CNN, motion between the non-PQF and PQFs is compensated by a motion compensation subnet. Subsequently, a quality enhancement subnet fuses the non-PQF and compensated PQFs, and then reduces the compression artifacts of the non-PQF. Also, PQF quality is enhanced in the same way. Finally, experiments validate the effectiveness and generalization ability of our MFQE approach in advancing the state-of-the-art quality enhancement of compressed video.

IMPORTANCE A deep learning system (DLS) that could automatically detect glaucomatous optic neuropathy (GON) with high sensitivity and specificity could expedite screening for GON.OBJECTIVE To establish a DLS for detection of GON using retinal fundus images and glaucoma diagnosis with convoluted neural networks (GD-CNN) that has the ability to be generalized across populations. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTSIn this cross-sectional study, a DLS for the classification of GON was developed for automated classification of GON using retinal fundus images obtained from the Chinese Glaucoma Study Alliance, the Handan Eye Study, and online databases. The researchers selected 241 032 images were selected as the training data set. The images were entered into the databases on June 9, 2009, obtained on July 11, 2018, and analyses were performed on December 15, 2018. The generalization of the DLS was tested in several validation data sets, which allowed assessment of the DLS in a clinical setting without exclusions, testing against variable image quality based on fundus photographs obtained from websites, evaluation in a population-based study that reflects a natural distribution of patients with glaucoma within the cohort and an additive data set that has a diverse ethnic distribution. An online learning system was established to transfer the trained and validated DLS to generalize the results with fundus images from new sources. To better understand the DLS decision-making process, a prediction visualization test was performed that identified regions of the fundus images utilized by the DLS for diagnosis. EXPOSURES Use of a deep learning system. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES Area under the receiver operating characteristics curve (AUC), sensitivity and specificity for DLS with reference to professional graders. RESULTS From a total of 274 413 fundus images initially obtained from CGSA, 269 601 images passed initial image quality review and were graded for GON. A total of 241 032 images (definite GON 29 865 [12.4%], probable GON 11 046 [4.6%], unlikely GON 200 121 [83%]) from 68 013 patients were selected using random sampling to train the GD-CNN model. Validation and evaluation of the GD-CNN model was assessed using the remaining 28 569 images from CGSA. The AUC of the GD-CNN model in primary local validation data sets was 0.996 (95% CI, 0.995-0.998), with sensitivity of 96.2% and specificity of 97.7%. The most common reason for both false-negative and false-positive grading by GD-CNN (51 of 119 [46.3%] and 191 of 588 [32.3%]) and manual grading (50 of 113 [44.2%] and 183 of 538 [34.0%]) was pathologic or high myopia.CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE Application of GD-CNN to fundus images from different settings and varying image quality demonstrated a high sensitivity, specificity, and generalizability for detecting GON. These findings suggest that automated DLS could enhance current screening programs in a cost-effective and time-efficient manner.

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High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) significantly reduces bit-rates over the preceding H.264 standard but at the expense of extremely high encoding complexity. In HEVC, the quad-tree partition of coding unit (CU) consumes a large proportion of the HEVC encoding complexity, due to the brute-force search for rate-distortion optimization (RDO). Therefore, this paper proposes a deep learning approach to predict the CU partition for reducing the HEVC complexity at both intra-and inter-modes, which is based on convolutional neural network (CNN) and long-and short-term memory (LSTM) network. First, we establish a large-scale database including substantial CU partition data for HEVC intra-and inter-modes. This enables deep learning on the CU partition. Second, we represent the CU partition of an entire coding tree unit (CTU) in the form of a hierarchical CU partition map (HCPM). Then, we propose an early-terminated hierarchical CNN (ETH-CNN) for learning to predict the HCPM. Consequently, the encoding complexity of intra-mode HEVC can be drastically reduced by replacing the brute-force search with ETH-CNN to decide the CU partition. Third, an early-terminated hierarchical LSTM (ETH-LSTM) is proposed to learn the temporal correlation of the CU partition. Then, we combine ETH-LSTM and ETH-CNN to predict the CU partition for reducing the HEVC complexity at inter-mode. Finally, experimental results show that our approach outperforms other state-of-the-art approaches in reducing the HEVC complexity at both intra-and inter-modes.

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The latest High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) standard has been increasingly applied to generate video streams over the Internet. However, HEVC compressed videos may incur severe quality degradation, particularly at low bit-rates. Thus, it is necessary to enhance the visual quality of HEVC videos at the decoder side. To this end, this paper proposes a Quality Enhancement Convolutional Neural Network (QE-CNN) method that does not require any modification of the encoder to achieve quality enhancement for HEVC. In particular, our QE-CNN method learns QE-CNN-I and QE-CNN-P models to reduce the distortion of HEVC I and P/B frames, respectively. The proposed method differs from the existing CNN-based quality enhancement approaches, which only handle intra-coding distortion and are thus not suitable for P/B frames. Our experimental results validate that our QE-CNN method is effective in enhancing quality for both I and P/B frames of HEVC videos. To apply our QE-CNN method in time-constrained scenarios, we further propose a Time-constrained Quality Enhancement Optimization (TQEO) scheme. Our TQEO scheme controls the computational time of QE-CNN to meet a target, meanwhile maximizing the quality enhancement. Next, the experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of our TQEO scheme from the aspects of time control accuracy and quality enhancement under different time constraints. Finally, we design a prototype to implement our TQEO scheme in a real-time scenario.

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