JPEG 2000, a new international standard for still image compression, is discussed at length. A high-level introduction to the JPEG-2000 standard is given, followed by a detailed technical description of the JPEG2000 Part-1 codec. Keywords—JPEG 2000, still image compression/coding, standards.

Images typically contain smooth regions, which are easily compressed by linear transforms, and high activity regions (edges, textures), which are harder to compress. To compress the first kind, we use a “zero” encoder that has infinite context, very low capacity, and which adapts very quickly to the content. For the second, we use an “interpolation” encoder, based on neural networks, which has ...

After the Y2K crisis many futurists feared that it might take another millennium to receive the same attention the year 2000 brought to us. Fortunately, we have seen that part of the interest in the future that the turning of century and millennium provoked seems to carry on. One of the most remarkable features of this continued appeal is regional foresight, or should I say regional planning? T...

Invasion by the African grass Andropogon gayanus is drastically altering the understory structure of oligotrophic savannas in tropical Australia. We compared nitrogen (N) relations and phenology of A. gayanus and native grasses to examine the impact of invasion on N cycling and to determine possible reasons for invasiveness of A. gayanus. Andropogon gayanus produced up to 10 and four times more...

A total of 301 adult hispine beetles of the genera Cephaloleia and Chelobasis were found in rolled leaves of plants of 17 species of Zingiberales (families Costaceae, Heliconiaceae, Maranthaceae, Musaceae, and Zingiberaceae) during a field study at La Gamba, Golfito region, Costa Rica. Of these beetles, Cephaloleia belti was recorded from 12 potential host plant species, C. distincta from 7, C....

Renal ischemia and reperfusion (I/R) injury is the major cause of acute renal failure and may also be involved in the development and progression of some forms of chronic kidney disease. We previously showed that a mineralocorticoid receptor (MR) blockade prevents renal vasoconstriction induced by cyclosporine that leads to acute and chronic renal failure (Feria I, Pichardo I, Juarez P, Ramirez...

I discuss the physics reach of a fixed-target charm experiment which can reconstruct >10 charm decays, three orders of magnitude beyond the largest extant sample. Such an experiment may run at Fermilab shortly after the Year 2000. In addition to “programmatic” charm physics such as spectroscopy, lifetimes, and tests of QCD, this “Charm2000” experiment will have significant sensitivity to new ph...

The Image Reduction and Analysis Facility is a scientific image processing package widely used throughout the astronomical community. IRAF has been developed and distributed by the National Optical Astronomy Observatory in Tucson, Arizona since the early 1980’s. Other observatories and projects have written many dozens of layered external application packages. More than ten thousand journal art...

JPEG2000 is the new standard for the compression of still images. Its objective and subjective image quality performance is superior to existing standards. In this paper the Part I of the JPEG2000 standard is presented in brief, and its implementation complexity on different computer platforms is reported.