Tham Jo Yew's Paradise

Tham Jo Yew

E-mail addresses:
thamjy@ieee.org (preferred)
thamjy@yahoo.com

Educational Background

Ph.D., Electrical and Computer Engineering (2002), National University of Singapore (NUS), Singapore
Dissertation: Multiwavelets and Scalable Video Compression
B.Eng.(Hons.), Electrical Engineering (1995), National University of Singapore (NUS), Singapore
Thesis: Detail Preserving Image Compression Using Wavelet Transform
G.C.E. A-Levels (1990), Hwa Chong Institution, Singapore.

Professional Appointments

Research Scientist, Institute for Infocomm Research (I²R), A*STAR Singapore (2006 - present)
- Group Leader, Audio-Video Processing Research Group, Signal Processing Department
- P.I., A Scalable Multimedia Platform for Home Surveillance and Entertainment (HOME2015 project on scalable audio-video coding, live capture, layered media delivery, QoS adaptation, content management, and intelligent heterogeneous client players)
- P.I., Situated Scalable Multimedia Content Management and Delivery of Heterogeneous Mobile Systems (collaboration with VTT, Finland)
- P.I., Video Processing and Delivery (next-gen video coding, fast transcoding, scalable video coding and delivery, video error resilience/concealment, etc.)
- P.I., H.264 Flagship (focusing on commercialisation of H.264 technologies with live encoder on TI-DSP, ADI-DSP and x86 PC, multi-decoder client and mobile players)
Adjunct Assistant Professor, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE), NUS (2007 - present)
- Teaching: Lecturing a new undergraduate course (EE4701: Video Processing)
- Research Supervision: Undergraduate (5 students); Master (1 student); Ph.D. Thesis Advisory Committee (1 student)
CEO & Founder, PeerTouch Technologies Pte. Ltd., Singapore (2005 - 2006)
Research Fellow, Centre for Industrial Mathematics, Department of Mathematics, NUS (2003 - 2005)
Managing Director & Founder, Accenity Technologies & Consulting, Singapore (2002 - 2005)
Chief Technology Officer / Chief Streaming Architect, EnScaler Inc., Sunnyvale, CA, USA (2000 - 2002)
Senior R&D Manager, Video4i Inc., San Jose, CA, USA. (1999 - 2000)
Research Associate, Department of Mathematics, NUS (1996 - 1999)

Technology & Research Focus

Commercial Systems & Platforms

Real-time H.264 codec on DSP (TI DM64x and ADI Blackfin 533/561), x86, PocketPC with licensing-ready SDKs (more)
Peer-to-peer platform for decentralized and secured group collaboration, communication, media sharing [HelloPeer] -- startup company, PeerTouch Technologies Pte. Ltd.
Middleware platform for streaming media content management, digital rights management, PPV/PPD delivery and commerce (for content owners, enterprises and CDNs) -- licensed to a MNCs (more)
Web-based middleware platform for rich-media and video messaging (for Web Portals and enterprises)

Applied Research & Prototype Systems

Scalable Multimedia Platform (SMP) for live and on-demand interactive multimedia experience and multi-party communications
Scalable video multicasting to heterogeneous receivers over diverse networks (more)
Multi-resolution, multi-bitrate wavelet image compression (more)
Progressive image retrieval from large image libraries (more)
Selective regional image retrieval/zooming/viewing from remote servers (more)
Automated fingerprint identification and compression (AFIS) (more)

Active R&D and Technologies

Massively scalable media streaming architectures
Content networks, media distribution networks (MDN), and content delivery networks (CDN)
Distributed/decentralized ad-hoc peer-to-peer networks (routing algorithms, storage/replication/retrieval, asset management/sharing)
Highly scalable (wavelet) image and video coding, and next-generation cognitive-based ultra-HD video codec
Audio-video compression (MPEG-1/2/4, H.263, H.264, SVC, Speex, Vorbis, Theora, etc.)
Real-time image/video processing (error concealment, deblocking, denoising, deinterlacing, super-resolution)
Fast and scalable block motion estimation and motion compensation algorithms
Java & design patterns; C++ OOP; Model-Driven Architecture (MDA); 5-tier architectures
XML Web Services, SOAP, WSDL, UDDI, EAI, E-Commerce systems
Ad-hoc & ubiquitous computing networks (IP M-BONE, STUN/TURN/ICE NAT traversal, HTTP tunnelling, etc.)
Computer/machine vision and low-complexity image/video understanding algorithms (e.g., object counting and tracking)
Information security (cyrptosystems, DRM, PKI, digital certificate/signature, particularly for peer-to-peer eco-systems)
Scalable compression of binarized fingerprint images for very compact storage
Wavelet and multiwavelets digital filter design/construction and applications
Open source Mozilla platform, XUL, XPCOM; Sun's JXTA; Jabber XMPP and Jingle; VOIP, SIP, etc.
Server-side technologies (J2EE application server, Hibernate, Apache Tomcat/HTTP server, etc.)

Patents

Method and Apparatus for Communication of Video Between Multiple Users on a Network (WO 2001/048681)
Wavelet-Enhanced Automated Fingerprint Identification System (US Patent #6,901,155 - Granted May 31, 2005) (more)
Wavelet-Enhanced Automated Fingerprint Identification System (US Divisional Patent #7,110,581 - Granted Sept 19, 2006)
Wavelet-Enhanced Automated Fingerprint Identification System (Singapore Patent Granted 2005)
Apparatus and Method for Compressing and Decompressing Fingerprint Information (Singapore Patent #122737 - Jan. 31, 2007)
A Method of Obtaining Presence Information and a Method of Maintaining an Updated Membership List of Communication Devices in a Decentralised Network (WO 2006/091178)
Group-Based Online Presence Management in Distributed and Decentralized Environment (PCT Patent Filed)
Simplified Motion Refined Scheme for Fine Granularity Scalability (US Provisional Patent Filed)
Method of Determining Rate-Distortion for Advanced Video Coding (US Provisional Patent)
Method of Determining Motion Estimation Direction for Scalable Video Coding (US Provisional Patent)
Method for Parallel Video Encoding (US Provisional Patent)
A Method of Transcoding a Data Stream and a Data Transcoder (US Patent Pending)
Methods and Devices for Estimating Motion in a Plurality of Frames (US Patent Pending)

Research Publications [ = Well Cited -- Click here!]

J. Y. Tham, "Ph.D. Dissertation: Multiwavelets and Scalable Video Compression," (2.2MB), ECE, NUS, 2002.
J. Y. Tham, "Detail Preserving Image Compression Using Wavelet Transform," (100KB) + "figures in Microsoft Words 95" (2.24MB), Best Student Paper (UG Category) of IEEE Region 10 Student Paper Contest 1995, published in IEEE Student Paper Book.
J. Y. Tham, S. Ranganath, A. K. Kassim, "Scalable Very Low Bit Rate Video Compression Using Motion Compensated 3-D Wavelet Decomposition," (163KB) IEEE International Workshop on Intelligent Signal Processing and Communication Systems (ISPACS in Singapore) , vol. 3, pp. 38.7.1 - 38.7.5, Nov. 1996.
J. Y. Tham, S. Ranganath, M. Ranganath, A. K. Kassim, "A Novel Unrestricted Center-Biased Diamond Search for Block Motion Estimation" (532KB), IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology, vol. 8, no. 4, pp. 369-377, August 1998. [Among the Top Cited Works of TCSVT in 1998]
J. Y. Tham, S. Ranganath, A. K. Kassim, "Highly Scalable Wavelet-Based Video Codec for Very Low Bit Rate Environment," (1.28MB) IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications (Special Issue on Very Low Bit-rate Video Coding), vol. 16, no. 1, pp. 12-27, Jan. 1998. You can also download a copy of the seminar slides (724KB).
J. Y. Tham, L. Shen, S. L. Lee, H. H. Tan "Good Multifilter Properties: A New Tool For Understanding Multiwavelets," (2.2MB) International Conference on Imaging Science, Systems, and Technology (CISST'98 in Las Vegas, U.S.), pp. 52-59, July 1998.
J. Y. Tham, S. Ranganath, A. A. Kassim, "Scalable Multiwavelet-Based Image and Video Compression for Multimedia Applications," (in Microsoft Words 97, 594KB) 4th. International Conference on Information Systems, Analysis and Synthesis (SCI'98/ISAS'98 in Orlando, Florida, U.S.), vol. 3, pp. 195-202, July 1998.
J. Y. Tham, S. Ranganath, A. A. Kassim, S. Y. Tan, "Non-Iterative Adaptive Postprocessing for Ringing Artifact Suppression in Compressed Images," 4th. International Conference on Information Systems, Analysis and Synthesis (SCI'98/ISAS'98 in Orlando, Florida, U.S.), vol. 3, pp. 203-210, July 1998.
J. Y. Tham, L. Shen, S. L. Lee, and H. H. Tan, "A New Multifilter Design Property for Multiwavelet Image Compresssion," (40KB) ICASSP '99, Pheonix, Arizona, U.S., March 1999.
L. Shen, J. Y. Tham, S. L. Lee, and H. H. Tan, "A Special Class of Orthonormal Wavelets: Theory, Implementations, and Applications," (403KB) ICASSP '99, Pheonix, Arizona, U.S., March 1999.
J. Y. Tham, L. Shen, S. L. Lee, H. H. Tan, "A General Approach for Analysis and Application of Discrete Multiwavelet Transforms," (1.11MB) IEEE Trans. Signal Processing, vol. 48, no. 2, pp. 457-464 , Feb. 2000.
L. Shen, H. H. Tan, J. Y. Tham, "Symmetric-Antisymmetric Orthonormal Multiwavelets and Related Scalar Wavelets," (108KB) Applied and Computational Harmonic Analysis, vol. 8, no. 3, pp. 258-279 , May 2000.
H. H. Tan, L. Shen, and J. Y. Tham, "New Biorthogonal Multiwavelets for Image Compression," (106KB) Signal Processing, vol. 79, pp. 45-65 , Nov. 1999.
L. Shen, H. H. Tan, and J. Y. Tham, "Some Properties of Symmetric-Antisymmetric Orthonormal Multiwavelets," IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing, vol. 48, no. 7 , July 2000.
S. L. Lee, L. Shen, H. H. Tan, J. Y. Tham, "Multiwavelets: Theory and Applications," invited paper, Second International Workshop on Transforms and Filter Banks, Brandenburg, Germany, March 5-7, 1999.
S. L. Lee, B. Liu, and J. Y. Tham, "Wavelet Research at the National University of Singapore," World Sci-Tech R&D, The Journal of the Chinese Academy of Science and Chinese Academy of Engineering, Sept. 1997.
L. Shen, H. H. Tan, and J. Y. Tham, "Theory and Implementation of A Special Family of Orthonormal Wavelets," Technical Report, NUS, April, 1999.
P. J. Wang, F. C. Shang, P. Ding, J. Y. Tham, and S. L. Lee, "Scalable Multimedia Information Distribution over Heterogeneous Network," International Conference on Communications System (ICCS), July 2000.
P. J. Wang, F. C. Shang, P. Ding, J. Y. Tham, and S. L. Lee, "Scalable Multimedia Communication over Heterogeneous Networks," International Symposium on Intelligent Signal Processing and Communications System (ISPACS), vol. 1, pp. 16-21, Nov. 2000.
J. Y. Tham, S. L. Lee, C. E. Tan, L. C. Tee, "A Distributed Peer-to-Peer Platform for Synchronized Group Collaboration and Knowledge Sharing," 2004 International Symposium on Distributed Computing and Applications to Business, Engineering and Science (DCABES), Wuhan, Hubei, China, Sept. 12-16, 2004.
D. J. Wu, T. K. Chiew, K. P. Lim, J. Y. Tham, Z. Zhou, and C. C. Ko, "A Fast and Quality-Preserving Method for H.264 Encoding using Dynamic SAD Maps," Visual Communications and Image Processing (VCIP in San Jose, CA, USA), Feb. 2007.
D. J. Wu, K. P. Lim, T. K. Chiew, J. Y. Tham, and K. H. Goh, "An Adaptive Thresholding Technique for The Detection of All-Zeros Blocks in H.264," International Conference on Image Processing (ICIP in Texas, USA), September 2007.
E. S. Ng, J. Y. Tham, and S. Rahardja, "An Enhanced Spatial Error Concealment Algorithm using Weighted Sum of Macroblocks," SPIE Optics East Conference (Boston, USA), September 2007.
E. S. Ng, J. Y. Tham, and S. Rahardja, "Edge Weighted Spatio-Temporal Search for Error Concealment," International Conference on Image Processing (ICIP in Texas, USA), September 2007.
Y. H. Tan, J. Y. Tham, H. Palit, and X. Li, "Layered Video Delivery from Multiple Servers," SPIE Optics East Conference (Boston, USA), September 2007.
D. J. Wu, K. P. Lim, W. Yao, T. K. Chiew, and J. Y. Tham, "A Novel Approach to Skip Mode Decision in H.264," Visual Communications and Image Processing (VCIP in San Jose, CA, USA), January 27-31, 2008.
K. H. Goh, D. J. Wu, J. Y. Tham, T. K. Chiew, and W. S. Lee, "Real-Time Software MPEG-2 to H.264 Video Transcoding," IEEE International Conference on Multimedia & Expo (ICME in Hannover, Germany), June 23-26, 2008.
X. Li, E. Chuah, J. Y. Tham, and K. H. Goh, "An Optimal Smooth QoS Adaptation Strategy for QoS Differentiated Scalable Media Streaming," IEEE International Conference on Multimedia & Expo (ICME in Hannover, Germany), June 23-26, 2008.
Y. H. Tan, J. Y. Tham, and K. M. Lye, "On The Delivery of Scalable Video Over Heterogeneous P2P Network," The First IEEE International Workshop on IP Multimedia Communications (IPMC at ICCCN 2008 in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, USA), August 3-7, 2008.
E. S. Ng, J. Y. Tham, and S. Rahardja, "A New Integrated Spatio-Temporal Framework for Video Error Concealment," The First IEEE International Workshop on IP Multimedia Communications (IPMC at ICCCN 2008 in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, USA), August 3-7, 2008.
W. S. Lee, Y. H. Tan, J. Y. Tham, K. H. Goh, and D. J. Wu, "Lacing: A Motion Predicting Framework to Improve Motion Estimation in Hierarchical B-Pictures Structure," ACM International Conference on Multimedia (Vancouver, Canada), October 27-31, 2008.
H. Gao, J. Y. Tham, P. Xue, and W. Lin, "Complexity Analysis of Morphological Area Openings and Closings with Set Union," IET Image Processing Journal, vol. 2, no. 4, pp. 231-238, 2008.
K. S. Aw, S. M. Goh, K. H, Goh, T. K. Chiew, and J. Y. Tham, "Live H.264/AVC Encoding and Streaming Server Based on TI-DSP," The 4th IEEE International Conference on Industrial Electronics and Applications (Xi'an, China), May 25-27, 2009.
M. J. Yang, J. Y. Tham, D. J. Wu, and K. H. Goh, "Cost Effective IP Camera for Video Surveillance," The 4th IEEE International Conference on Industrial Electronics and Applications (Xi'an, China), May 25-27, 2009.
M. J. Yang, J. Y. Tham, S. Rahardja, and D. J. Wu, "Real-time H.264 Encoder Implementation on a Low-Power Digital Signal Processing," IEEE International Conference on Multimedia & Expo (ICME in New York, USA), June 28 - July 3, 2009.
Y. H. Tan, W. S. Lee, J. Y. Tham, and S. Rahardja, "Complexity-Rate-Distortion Optimization for Real-time H.264/AVC Encoding," IEEE International Workshop on Multimedia Computing and Communications (MCC at ICCCN 2009 in San Francisco, CA, USA), August 2-6, 2009.
Latest snapshot from Google Scholar -- includes downloadable publications and list of citations by others.

Awards, Talks, & Memberships

Winning Team, Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI) Borderless Award (2008)
Winning Team, A*STAR Borderless Award (2008)
Research Scholar, Postgraduate Scholarship, NUS (1995 - 1996)
IEEE Best Paper (1st Prize), IEEE Region 10 Undergraduate Student Paper Contest (1995) (more)
NUS Innovation Award, Undergraduate B.Eng. Final Year Project (1995)
Champion Team, American High-School Mathematics Competition (1990)
Asean Scholar, ASEAN Pre-University Scholarship, Singapore (1989 - 1990)
Commendation Award, Singapore GCE A-Level with 5 A's (1990)
Top Student, Malaysia SPM (GCE O-Level) with 9 A's (1988)

Invited Speaker, "A*STAR Scalable Multimedia Platform" at A*STAR I2R's 16th Infocomm and Media Horizons - Quad Play Services Maximizing Opportunities (7 October 2009).
Invited Speaker, "H.264, Transcoding and Scalable Video Coding Technologies" at A*STAR's Exploit Technologies Industry Forum cum Call for Proposals On Mobile Media Technologies (23 April 2008).
Invited Speaker, "Will Overlay Networks Rule in Next-Generation Networks?" at Euro-SouthEastAsia ICT Forum (EUSEA) (19-23 June 2006).
Invited Speaker, "Multiwavelets, diamond search, and multi-scalable video codec platform" at NUS' IMS Joint Workshop on Information Processing (20-23 October 2003).

Senior Member, IEEE (membership since 1993)
Member, Malaysian MENSA Society (since 1990)
Certified Member, American Academy of Project Management (AAPM)
EXCO Member, Lion Chapter Carnegians Alumni Association of Singapore

Professional Activities

Chairman, IEEE Singapore Computer Chapter (2009)
Committee Member, IEEE Singapore Computer Chapter (2008)
Committee Member, IEEE Singapore Education Chapter (2008)
Publicity Co-Chair, IEEE 2nd International Workshop on Future Multimedia Networking (FMN)(2009)
Session Chair, IEEE International Conference on Multimedia & Expo (ICME) (2008) - oral session �H.264/Scalable Video Coding?
Technical Track Chair, ACM SIGGRAPH International Conference on Virtual Reality Continuum and its Applications in Industry (VRCAI) (2008) - track on "Industry & Applications"
Technical Program Committee, International Multimedia Modeling Conference 2007, 2008, 2009
Technical Program Committee, The First International Workshop on IP Multimedia Communications (IPMC 2008) in conjunction with IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications and Network (ICCCN) 2008.
Technical Program Committee, 5th International CDIO Conference 2009
Technical Program Committee, EuropeComm 2009
Technical Program Committee, Asia-Pacific Signal and Information Processing Association (APSIPA) Annual Summit and Conference 2009
Technical Peer Reviewer (IEEE TCSVT, IEEE T-Multimedia, EURASIP JASP, J. VICR, ISCAS, ICIEA, ICME, MMM, ...)
Science Content Committee Member, Singapore's National Science Challenge (2008)

Hobbies & Recreations

Sports and Games - badminton, bowling, snooker, scuba diving (open-water certified), international chess, yoga, chinese martial art, etc.
Recreational Pastimes- learning guitar and keyboard, portrait drawing, writing Malay poems & short stories, surfing the Net, reading self-improvement and business strategies books, engaging in constructive argumentative discussions (was a debator!), and now spending more quality times with family.

More about Myself

Try to Google Me!
Send me a greeting email and let's share more :-)
WATCH! Interview with Jo Yew during NUS' ECE Alumni Dialogue Session.

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