This thesis targets Artificial Intelligence - a fundamental branch of Computer Engineering striving to provide human-like capabilities and intelligence to the computer systems. More specifically, it deals with computer vision, which has gained a lot of attention by researchers due to its wide applicability in day-to-day tasks involving view generation, synthesizing animations and videos from static images, surveillance, medical imaging, tracking, object recognition and classification etc. This thesis investigates the problem areas of image synthesis, object recognition and object categorization. The problem of generating images at novel, arbitrary and unconstrained viewpoints covering interpolation and extrapolation is investigated by operating on a sparse set of basis images of a real scene. This image generation methodology is further incorporated to develop models for object recognition and categorization. First, an image synthesis strategy has been presented that generates virtual views at arbitrary points using interpolation and extrapolation from a sparse set of images. The traditional work on view synthesis using interpolation has been extended and it has been shown that view extrapolation can be done as easily as interpolation. Moreover, certain scenarios have been identified like planar and/or multi-planar scenes and pure rotational camera motion for image capture that allow direct retrieval of the underlying mapping function between the images and hence leading to even more simplified image extrapolation. The major issues and factors affecting the accuracy of generation have been explored and suggestions are presented to improve the virtual view quality. Next, an approach is presented to generate a model for multi-view object recognition. A view- centered model is generated using either a video sequence or a sparse set of images captured around the object following arbitrary and unconstrained camera trajectory. It does not require any prior knowledge of camera parameters and positioning or motion of object and/or camera. The model thus generated is quite dense with a lot of redundant images. Thus the virtual view generation strategy is applied to identify the redundant images and remove them. This results in a model that is computationally economical in terms of space and time. Next, for testing or recognition, the model is used in conjunction with a video sequence which provides information of multiple views of the object and thus increases the confidence measure of results. The model is robust in that it captures the topological structure of the objects from multiple viewpoints allowing the use of a video iiisequence rather than a single test image for object recognition. No constraint has been placed on camera and/or object motion while capturing the video. Next, an approach for video-based multi-view object classification is presented. For each object instance of a particular category, a neighborhood graph-based model is generated using the set of input images which are arranged in a manner that highlights the underlying topological structure. Again, no constraint is placed on the motion and placement of the object and camera during image capture. Moreover no prior knowledge of positioning or parameters of camera is desired. The view synthesis algorithm is used to identify the redundant images in the model and remove them to give a computationally economical model in terms of space and training time. The independent graphs of the different instances of the object category are then merged by automatically identifying the corresponding viewpoints across them. The strength of this approach is that it allows object categorization from multiple viewpoints while eliminating the need of manual alignment of common viewing angles across object instances. Another strength is that the video sequences have been used for object classification, instead of images, which increases precision of results.
اسد ملتانی گذشتہ ماہ نومبر میں جناب اسد ملتانی بھی کراچی میں وفات پاگئے۔مرحوم صاحب فن استاد سُخن تھے۔قدرت کلام کایہ عالم تھا کہ ہر صنف شاعری میں بے تکلف دادسخن دے سکتے تھے۔مگراُن کااصل میدان قومی شاعری تھا۔اس رنگ میں ڈاکٹر اقبال مرحوم کے متبع تھے ۔سرکاری نوکری کی مصروفیتوں کے باعث ان کو اپنے حوصلہ کے مطابق شاعری کازیادہ موقع نہیں ملا۔پھر بھی جتنا کچھ لکھ گئے ہیں صف اوّل کے شعراء میں اُن کانام زندہ رکھنے کے لیے کافی ہے۔طبعاً بڑے مخلص، منکسرالمزاج،مرنج ومرنجان قسم کے آدمی تھے۔الھم اغفرلہ وارحمہ [دسمبر۱۹۵۹ء]
The position of investor is always questioned once capital is handed over to a working partner (Mudarib). The concerns of investor along with series of liabilities cannot be ignored because Modarabah losses are always transferred or born by him/her. The study highlights the authoritative position of Investor and suggests that investor has full access to impose conditions on Mudarib to safeguard his interest as per shariah rulings. The study debates investor’s position to impose geographical restrictions to restrict the scope of trade, trade policy of working partner (Mudarib) and fixation of time. Besides, the study discourses the concept of limited liability in context of Islamic law where creditors hold right to personal wealth of the debtors.
In this thesis, we study inflationary dynamics, cosmic evolution and structure of hypothetical geometries. Firstly, we investigate the behavior of warm intermediate and logamediate inflationary models for flat isotropic and homogeneous universe in Einstein frame representation of f(R) gravity. In this scenario, we study the dynamics of strong and weak constant as well as generalized dissipative regimes. In both regimes, we discuss inflaton solution, slow-roll parameters, scalar and tensor power spectra, corresponding spectral indices as well as tensor-scalar ratio for Starobinsky inflationary model and determine their compatibility with Planck 2015 constraints. Secondly, we study the existence of Noether symmetry and associated conserved quantity of some isotropic as well as anisotropic universe models in f(R,T) gravity. The cyclic variable is introduced to construct exact solution of Bianchi I model. We also consider a generalized spacetime which corresponds to different anisotropic homogeneous universe models and scalar field model (quintessence and phantom) admitting minimal coupling with f(R,T) models. For these models, we formulate exact solutions without introducing cyclic variable. We investigate the behavior of some cosmological parameters using exact solutions through graphical analysis. Finally, we discuss wormhole solutions of static spherically symmetric spacetime via Noether symmetry approach in f(R) and f(R,T) theories. We formulate symmetry generators, associated conserved quantities and wormhole solutions for constant as well as variable red-shift functions. For perfect fluid, we evaluate an explicit form of generic function f(R) and also evaluate exact solution for f(R) power-law model. In f(R,T) gravity, we consider two f(R,T) models appreciating indirect curvaturematter coupling and formulate solutions for both dust as well as perfect fluids. We study the behavior of null/weak energy conditions with respect to ordinary matter and effective energy-momentum tensor for physically acceptable of wormhole solutions.