Personal Page : 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 Junior College, Singapore.

Professional Appointments

Principal Investigator, A*STAR Institute for Infocomm Research (I²R), Singapore -- currently, the P.I. of 4 video-related R&D projects (2006 - present)
Adjunct Assistant Professor, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE), NUS -- co-lecturing a course on "Video Processing" (2007 - present)
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, Centre for Wavelets, Approximation and Information Processing, Department of Mathematics, NUS (1996 - 1999)

Technical Expertise

Commercial Platforms & Systems

Real-time H.264 codec on DSP (TI DM642 and ADI Blackfin), x86, PocketPC with commercial-ready SDKs
Peer-to-peer platform for decentralized and secured group collaboration, communication, media sharing [HelloPeer]
Middleware platform for streaming media content management, rights management, delivery and commerce (for content owners, enterprises and CDNs)
Platform for rich-media and video messaging and communication (for Web Portals and enterprises)

Algorithms & Applications Development

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)

Technology & Research Interests

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

Patents

Wavelet-Enhanced Automated Fingerprint Identification System (US Patent - Granted 2005)
Wavelet-Enhanced Automated Fingerprint Identification System (Singapore Patent - Granted 2005)
Wavelet-Enhanced Automated Fingerprint Identification System (US Divisional Patent - Granted 2006)
Apparatus and Method for Compressing and Decompressing Fingerprint Information (Singapore Patent - Granted 2007)
Group-Based Online Presence Management in Distributed and Decentralized Environment (PCT Patent - Pending)
Simplified Motion Refined Scheme for Fine Granularity Scalability (US Provisional Patent)
Methods for Fast MPEG-2 to H.264 Transcoding (US Provisional Patent)

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, 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, 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.
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 , 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. 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.
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.
D. 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.
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.
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.
Latest snapshot from Google Scholar -- includes downloadable publications and list of citations by other papers.

Awards, Talks & Memberships

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

Senior Member, IEEE
Member, Malaysian MENSA (since 1990)
EXCO Member, Lion Chapter Carnegians Alumni Association of Singapore
Member, Technical Program Committee, International Multimedia Modeling Conference (2007/2008)
Technical Peer Reviewer (several international refereed IEEE and EURASIP JASP journals and conferences)
Invited Speaker, Euro-SouthEastAsia ICT Forum (EUSEA2006) for talk on "Will Overlay Networks Rule in NGN?"

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!
Request for my detailed CV
Send me a greeting email and let's share more :-)
NEW! Interview with Jo Yew during NUS' ECE Alumni Dialogue Session.