Search results for: ultrasound images

Authors: Almalki M., Alajmi M., Qadrouh Y., Alzahrani E., Sulaiman A., Aleid M., Albaiji A., Alfaifi H., Alhadadi A., Almotairy H., Alrasheed R., Alhafedh Y.

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High-resolution marine seismic survey is a well-established technique that commonly used to characterize near-surface sediments and geological structures at shallow water. We conduct single channel seismic survey to provide high quality seismic images for near-surface sediments upto 100m depth at Jubal costal area, Arabian Gulf. Eight hydrophones streamer has been used to collect stacked seismic traces alone 5km seismic line. To reach the required depth, we have used spark system that discharges energies above 5000 J with expected frequency output span the range from 200 to 2000 Hz. A suitable processing flow implemented to enhance the signal-to-noise ratio of the seismic profile. We have found that shallow sedimentary layers at the study site have complex pattern of reflectivity, which decay significantly due to amount of source energy used as well as the multiples associated to seafloor. In fact, the results reveal that single channel marine seismic at shallow water is a cost-effective technique that can be easily repeated to observe any possibly changes in the wave physical properties at the near surface layers

Keywords: shallow marine single-channel data, high resolution, frequency filtering, shallow water

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Authors: M. Sohrabi Narciss

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Urban spaces of Tehran, the capital of Iran, have witnessed many revolts, movements, and protests during the past few decades. After the Iranian Constitutional Revolution, the 1979 Revolution has had a profound impact on Tehran’s urban space. In 1979, the world watched as Iranians demonstrated en masse against the Pahlavi dynastdy which eventually led to its overthrow. Tehran’s public space is replete with images and artwork that depict the overthrow of the Pahlavi regime and the establishment of an Islamic government in Iran. The public artworks related to the 1979 Islamic Revolution reflect the riots, protests, and strikes that the Iranians underwent during the revolution. Many of these artworks try to revitalize the events that occurred in the 1970s by means of collective memory. Almost 4 decades have passed since the revolution and ever since the public artwork has been affected either directly or indirectly by the Iran-Iraq War, the Green Movement, and the rise and fall of various political forces. The present study is an attempt to investigate Tehran’s urban artwork such as urban sculptures and mural paintings organized and supervised by the government and the graffiti drawn by the critics or the opposition groups. To this end, in addition to the available documents, field research and questionnaires were used to qulaitatively analyze the data. This paper tries to address the following questions: 1) what changes have occurred in Tehran’s urban art? 2) Does the public, revolution-related artwork have an effect on people’s vitality? 3) do Iranians find these artworks appealing or not?

Keywords: public space, Tehran, public art, movement, Islamic revolution

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Authors: Rachna Jain, Sushila Madan, Bindu Garg

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Cloud computing is the key powerhouse in numerous organizations due to shifting of their data to the cloud environment. In recent years it has been observed that cloud-based-services are being used on large scale for content storage, distribution and processing. Various issues have been observed in cloud computing environment that need to be addressed. Security and privacy are found topmost concern area. In this paper, a novel security model is proposed to secure data by utilizing CDN services like image to icon conversion. CDN Service is a content delivery service which converts an image to icon, word to pdf & Latex to pdf etc. Presented model is used to convert an image into icon by keeping image secret. Here security of image is imparted so that image should be encrypted and decrypted by data owners only. It is also discussed in the paper that how server performs multiplication and selection on encrypted data without decryption. The data can be image file, word file, audio or video file. Moreover, the proposed model is capable enough to multiply images, encrypt them and send to a server application for conversion. Eventually, the prime objective is to encrypt an image and convert the encrypted image to image Icon by utilizing homomorphic encryption.

Keywords: cloud computing, user data security, homomorphic encryption, image multiplication, CDN service

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Authors: Ki Moo Lim, Iman R. Tayibnapis

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According to WHO estimation, 38 out of 56 million (68%) global deaths in 2012, were due to noncommunicable diseases (NCDs). To avert NCD, one of the solutions is early detection of diseases. In order to do that, we developed 'U-Healthcare Mirror', which is able to measure vital sign such as heart rate (HR) and respiration rate without any physical contact and consciousness. To measure HR in the mirror, we utilized digital camera. The camera records red, green, and blue (RGB) discoloration from user's facial image sequences. We extracted blood volume pulse (BVP) from the RGB discoloration because the discoloration of the facial skin is accordance with BVP. We used blind source separation (BSS) to extract BVP from the RGB discoloration and adaptive filters for removing noises. We utilized singular value decomposition (SVD) method to implement the BSS and the adaptive filters. HR was estimated from the obtained BVP. We did experiment for HR measurement by using our method and previous method that used independent component analysis (ICA) method. We compared both of them with HR measurement from commercial oximeter. The experiment was conducted under various distance between 30~110 cm and light intensity between 5~2000 lux. For each condition, we did measurement 7 times. The estimated HR showed 2.25 bpm of mean error and 0.73 of pearson correlation coefficient. The accuracy has improved compared to previous work. The optimal distance between the mirror and user for HR measurement was 50 cm with medium light intensity, around 550 lux.

Keywords: blood volume pulse, heart rate, photoplethysmography, independent component analysis

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Authors: Nadiah Mohamad, Wan Samiati Andriana Wan Mohd Daud, M. Suhaimi Tohid, Mohd Fazli Othman, Mohamad Rizal Salleh

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This is a collaborative project of the mural art between The Department of Fine Art from Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) and Petronas Dagangan Berhad (PDB), the most leading retailer and marketer of downstream oil and gas products in Malaysia. Five different states in the Peninsular of Malaysia that has been identified in showcasing the National Identity of Malaysia at each Petronas gas station, this also includes the Air Keroh in Melaka, Pasir Pekan in Kelantan, Pontian in Johor, Simpang Pulai in Perak, and also Wakaf Bharu in Terengganu. This project is to analyze the element of national identity that has been demonstrated at the Petronas's Mural. The ultimate aim of the mural is to let the community and local people to be aware about what Malaysians are consists and proud of and how everyone is able to connect with the idea through visual art. The method that is being explained in this research is by using visual data through research and also self-experience in collecting the visual data in identifying what images is considered as the national identity and idea development and visual analysis is being transferred based upon the visual data collection. In this stage, elements and principles of design will be the key in highlighting what is necessary for a work of art. In conclusion, visual image of the National Identity of Malaysia is able to connect to the audience from local and also to the people from outside the country to learn and understand the beauty and diversity of Malaysia as a unique country with art through the wall of five Petronas gas station.

Keywords: community, fine art, mural art, national identity

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Authors: Mohammed Dabboor

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Spaceborne Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) systems are active remote sensing systems independent of weather and sun illumination, two factors which usually inhibit the use of optical satellite imagery. A SAR system could acquire single, dual, compact or fully polarized SAR imagery. Each SAR imagery type has its advantages and disadvantages. The sensitivity of SAR images is a function of the: 1) band, polarization, and incidence angle of the transmitted electromagnetic signal, and 2) geometric and dielectric properties of the radar target. The RADARSAT-1 (launched on November 4, 1995), RADARSAT-2 ((launched on December 14, 2007) and RADARSAT Constellation Mission (to be launched in July 2018) are three past, current, and future Canadian SAR space missions. Canada is developing the RADARSAT Constellation Mission (RCM) using small satellites to further maximize the capability to carry out round-the-clock surveillance from space. The Canadian Space Agency, in collaboration with other government-of-Canada departments, is leading the design, development and operation of the RADARSAT Constellation Mission to help addressing key priorities. The purpose of our presentation is to give an overview of the future Canadian RCM SAR mission with its satellites. Also, the RCM SAR imaging modes along with the expected SAR products will be described. An emphasis will be given to the mission unique capabilities and characteristics, such as the new compact polarimetry SAR configuration. In this presentation, we will summarize the RCM advancement from previous RADARSAT satellite missions. Furthermore, the potential of the RCM mission for different Earth observation applications will be outlined.

Keywords: compact polarimetry, RADARSAT, SAR mission, SAR applications

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Authors: Ahmed Al Khamisi

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The Disaster Preparedness Standard (DPS) is one of the elements that is evaluated by the Accreditation Canada International (ACI). ACI emphasizes to train and educate all staff, including service providers and senior leaders, on emergency and disaster preparedness upon the orientation and annually thereafter. Lack of awareness and deficit of knowledge among the healthcare providers about DPS have been noticed in a tertiary hospital where ACI standards were implemented. Therefore, this paper aims to introduce a video-based e-learning (VB-EL) module that explains the hospital’s disaster plan in a simple language which will be easily accessible to all healthcare providers through the hospital’s website. The healthcare disaster preparedness coordinator in the targeted hospital will be responsible to ensure that VB-EL is ready by 25 April 2019. This module will be developed based on the Kirkpatrick evaluation method. In fact, VB-EL combines different data forms such as images, motion, sounds, text in a complementary fashion which will suit diverse learning styles and individual learning pace of healthcare providers. Moreover, the module can be adjusted easily than other tools to control the information that healthcare providers receive. It will enable healthcare providers to stop, rewind, fast-forward, and replay content as many times as needed. Some anticipated limitations in the development of this module include challenges of preparing VB-EL content and resistance from healthcare providers.

Keywords: Accreditation Canada International, Disaster Preparedness Standard, Kirkpatrick evaluation method, video-based e-learning

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Authors: Iqra Yaseen

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One of the well-known areas of computer science and engineering, image processing in the context of computer vision has been essential to automation. In remote sensing, medical science, and many other fields, it has made it easier to uncover previously undiscovered facts. Grading of diverse items is now possible because of neural network algorithms, categorization, and digital image processing. Its use in the classification of agricultural products, particularly in the grading of seeds or grains and their cultivars, is widely recognized. A grading and sorting system enables the preservation of time, consistency, and uniformity. Global population growth has led to an increase in demand for food staples, biofuel, and other agricultural products. To meet this demand, available resources must be used and managed more effectively. Image processing is rapidly growing in the field of agriculture. Many applications have been developed using this approach for crop identification and classification, land and disease detection and for measuring other parameters of crop. Vegetation localization is the base of performing these task. Vegetation helps to identify the area where the crop is present. The productivity of the agriculture industry can be increased via image processing that is based upon Unmanned Aerial Vehicle photography and satellite. In this paper we use the machine learning techniques like Convolutional Neural Network, deep learning, image processing, classification, You Only Live Once to UAV imaging dataset to divide the crop into distinct groups and choose the best way to use it.

Keywords: image processing, UAV, YOLO, CNN, deep learning, classification

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Authors: Abdulfattah A. Q .Alwah, Wen Li, Mohammed A. Q. Alwah, Duc Thien Tran, Bing Xi Liu

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The historical cities in the third world suffer from many environmental problems; one of them is the spread of visual pollution manifestations. These phenomena increase with low levels of public awareness and low per capita income. The historical city of Ibb is suffering from a variety of visual pollution of the urban environment, so it has been chosen as a case study. This study aims to identify the difficulty and complexity of dealing with visual pollutions manifestations in the historical city of Ibb, and to provide appropriate solutions, which suit with the complex and contradictory circumstances. The study relies on an inductive approach to achieve its aims through two methods; the first is a visual survey of the visual pollution phenomenon based on images and researcher notes. The Second method is the analyses of the opinions and impressions of the city's residents and visitors through interviews, in addition to interviews with the officials in the competent authorities, and some specialists in the field of urban environment. Through the results of the field study and discussion of the interview results, this study presents an analysis of the phenomenon of visual distortion of the historical city of Ibb regarding the appearances and the reasons. Furthermore, this study provides appropriate solutions, which suitable with the complex and contradictory circumstances. These solutions take two paths: the first one is to stop the spread of visual distortions, and the second path is to address the current visual pollutions.

Keywords: visual pollution, visual image, urban environment, difficulty, complexity, historical cities, the historical city of Ibb

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Authors: Shreya Saxena

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Background: Choledocholithiasis is a common complication of gallstone disease. Risk scoring systems exist to guide the need for further imaging or endoscopy in managing choledocholithiasis. We completed an audit to review the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (ASGE) scoring system for prediction and management of choledocholithiasis against the current practice at a tertiary hospital to assess its utility in resource optimisation. We have now conducted a cost focused sub-analysis on patients categorized high-risk for choledocholithiasis according to the guidelines to determine any associated cost benefits. Method: Data collection from our prior audit was used to retrospectively identify thirteen patients considered high-risk for choledocholithiasis. Their ongoing management was mapped against the guidelines. Individual costs for the key investigations were obtained from our hospital financial data. Total cost for the different management pathways identified in clinical practice were calculated and compared against predicted costs associated with recommendations in the guidelines. We excluded the cost of laparoscopic cholecystectomy and considered a set figure for per day hospital admission related expenses. Results: Based on our previous audit data, we identified a77% positive predictive value for the ASGE risk stratification tool to determine patients at high-risk of choledocholithiasis. 47% (6/13) had an magnetic resonance cholangiopancreatography (MRCP) prior to endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP), whilst 53% (7/13) went straight for ERCP. The average length of stay in the hospital was 7 days, with an additional day and cost of £328.00 (£117 for ERCP) for patients awaiting an MRCP prior to ERCP. Per day hospital admission was valued at £838.69. When calculating total cost, we assumed all patients had admission bloods and ultrasound done as the gold standard. In doing an MRCP prior to ERCP, there was a 130% increase in cost incurred (£580.04 vs £252.04) per patient. When also considering hospital admission and the average length of stay, it was an additional £1166.69 per patient. We then calculated the exact costs incurred by the department, over a three-month period, for all patients, for key investigations or procedures done in the management of choledocholithiasis. This was compared to an estimate cost derived from the recommended pathways in the ASGE guidelines. Overall, 81% (£2048.45) saving was associated with following the guidelines compared to clinical practice. Conclusion: MRCP is the most expensive test associated with the diagnosis and management of choledocholithiasis. The ASGE guidelines recommend endoscopy without an MRCP in patients stratified as high-risk for choledocholithiasis. Our audit that focused on assessing the utility of the ASGE risk scoring system showed it to be relatively reliable for identifying high-risk patients. Our cost analysis has shown significant cost savings per patient and when considering the average length of stay associated with direct endoscopy rather than an additional MRCP. Part of this is also because of an increased average length of stay associated with waiting for an MRCP. The above data supports the ASGE guidelines for the management of high-risk for choledocholithiasis patients from a cost perspective. The only caveat is our small data set that may impact the validity of our average length of hospital stay figures and hence total cost calculations.

Keywords: cost-analysis, choledocholithiasis, risk stratification tool, general surgery

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Authors: Atoum Abdullah

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The purpose of this research is to determine the extent to which computer animation and narration affect students’ understanding of complex scientific concepts and improve their exam performance, this is compared to traditional lectures that include PowerPoints with texts and static images. A mixed-method design in data collection was used, including quantitative and qualitative data. Quantitative data was collected using a pre and post-test method and a close-ended questionnaire. Qualitative data was collected through an open-ended questionnaire. A pre and posttest strategy was used to measure the level of students’ understanding with and without the use of animation. The test included multiple-choice questions to test factual knowledge, open-ended questions to test conceptual knowledge, and to label the diagram questions to test application knowledge. The results showed that students on average, performed significantly higher on the posttest as compared to the pretest on all areas of acquired knowledge. However, the increase in the posttest score with respect to the acquisition of conceptual and application knowledge was higher compared to the increase in the posttest score with respect to the acquisition of factual knowledge. This result demonstrates that animation is more beneficial when acquiring deeper, conceptual, and cognitive knowledge than when only factual knowledge is acquired.

Keywords: animation, narration, science, teaching

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Authors: L. P. Gomes, G. F. Araújo, Y. M. L. Cordeiro, C. T. Andrade, E. M. Del Aguila, V. M. F. Paschoalin

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The application of nanoscale materials and nanostructures is an emerging area, these since materials may provide solutions to technological and environmental challenges in order to preserve the environment and natural resources. To reach this goal, the increasing demand must be accompanied by 'green' synthesis methods. Chitosan is a natural, nontoxic, biopolymer derived by the deacetylation of chitin and has great potential for a wide range of applications in the biological and biomedical areas, due to its biodegradability, biocompatibility, non-toxicity and versatile chemical and physical properties. Chitosan also presents high antimicrobial activities against a wide variety of pathogenic and spoilage microorganisms. Ultrasonication is a common tool for the preparation and processing of polymer nanoparticles. It is particularly effective in breaking up aggregates and in reducing the size and polydispersity of nanoparticles. High-intensity ultrasonication has the potential to modify chitosan molecular weight and, thus, alter or improve chitosan functional properties. The aim of this study was to evaluate the influence of sonication intensity and time on the changes of commercial chitosan characteristics, such as molecular weight and its potential antibacterial activity against Gram-negative bacteria. The nanoparticles (NPs) were produced from two commercial chitosans, of medium molecular weight (CS-MMW) and low molecular weight (CS-LMW) from Sigma-Aldrich®. These samples (2%) were solubilized in 100 mM sodium acetate pH 4.0, placed on ice and irradiated with an ultrasound SONIC ultrasonic probe (model 750 W), equipped with a 1/2" microtip during 30 min at 4°C. It was used on constant duty cycle and 40% amplitude with 1/1s intervals. The ultrasonic degradation of CS-MMW and CS-LMW were followed up by means of ζ-potential (Brookhaven Instruments, model 90Plus) and dynamic light scattering (DLS) measurements. After sonication, the concentrated samples were diluted 100 times and placed in fluorescence quartz cuvettes (Hellma 111-QS, 10 mm light path). The distributions of the colloidal particles were calculated from the DLS and ζ-potential are measurements taken for the CS-MMW and CS-LMW solutions before and after (CS-MMW30 and CS-LMW30) sonication for 30 min. Regarding the results for the chitosan sample, the major bands can be distinguished centered at Radius hydrodynamic (Rh), showed different distributions for CS-MMW (Rh=690.0 nm, ζ=26.52±2.4), CS-LMW (Rh=607.4 and 2805.4 nm, ζ=24.51±1.29), CS-MMW30 (Rh=201.5 and 1064.1 nm, ζ=24.78±2.4) and CS-LMW30 (Rh=492.5, ζ=26.12±0.85). The minimal inhibitory concentration (MIC) was determined using different chitosan samples concentrations. MIC values were determined against to E. coli (106 cells) harvested from an LB medium (Luria-Bertani BD™) after 18h growth at 37 ºC. Subsequently, the cell suspension was serially diluted in saline solution (0.8% NaCl) and plated on solid LB at 37°C for 18 h. Colony-forming units were counted. The samples showed different MICs against E. coli for CS-LMW (1.5mg), CS-MMW30 (1.5 mg/mL) and CS-LMW30 (1.0 mg/mL). The results demonstrate that the production of nanoparticles by modification of their molecular weight by ultrasonication is simple to be performed and dispense acid solvent addition. Molecular weight modifications are enough to provoke changes in the antimicrobial potential of the nanoparticles produced in this way.

Keywords: antimicrobial agent, chitosan, green production, nanoparticles

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Authors: Yi-Xuan Huang, Kung-Ming Chung, Ping-Han Chung

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Pressure sensitive paint (PSP), which relies on the oxygen quenching of a luminescent molecule, is an optical technique used in wind-tunnel models. A full-field pressure pattern with low aerodynamic interference can be obtained, and it is becoming an alternative to pressure measurements using pressure taps. In this study, a polymer-ceramic PSP was used, using toluene as a solvent. The porous particle and polymer were silica gel (SiO₂) and RTV-118 (3g:7g), respectively. The compound was sprayed onto the model surface using a spray gun. The absorption and emission spectra for Ru(dpp) as a luminophore were respectively 441-467 nm and 597 nm. A Revox SLG-55 light source with a short-pass filter (550 nm) and a 14-bit CCD camera with a long-pass (600 nm) filter were used to illuminate PSP and to capture images. This study determines surface pressure patterns for a forebody of an AGARD B model in a compressible flow. Since there is no experimental data for surface pressure distributions available, numerical simulation is conducted using ANSYS Fluent. The lift and drag coefficients are calculated and in comparison with the data in the open literature. The experiments were conducted using a transonic wind tunnel at the Aerospace Science and Research Center, National Cheng Kung University. The freestream Mach numbers were 0.83, and the angle of attack ranged from -4 to 8 degree. Deviation between PSP and numerical simulation is within 5%. However, the effect of the setup of the light source should be taken into account to address the relative error.

Keywords: pressure sensitive paint, forebody, surface pressure, compressible flow

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Authors: T. Hari Prasath, P. Ithaya Rani

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In the world of visual technology, recognizing emotions from the face images is a challenging task. Several related methods have not utilized the dynamic facial features effectively for high performance. This paper proposes a method for emotions recognition using dynamic facial features with high performance. Initially, local features are captured by Gabor filter with different scale and orientations in each frame for finding the position and scale of face part from different backgrounds. The Gabor features are sent to the ensemble classifier for detecting Gabor facial features. The region of dynamic features is captured from the Gabor facial features in the consecutive frames which represent the dynamic variations of facial appearances. In each region of dynamic features is normalized using Z-score normalization method which is further encoded into binary pattern features with the help of threshold values. The binary features are passed to Multi-class AdaBoost classifier algorithm with the well-trained database contain happiness, sadness, surprise, fear, anger, disgust, and neutral expressions to classify the discriminative dynamic features for emotions recognition. The developed method is deployed on the Ryerson Multimedia Research Lab and Cohn-Kanade databases and they show significant performance improvement owing to their dynamic features when compared with the existing methods.

Keywords: detecting face, Gabor filter, multi-class AdaBoost classifier, Z-score normalization

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Authors: Wanhyun Cho, Seongchae Seo, Soonja Kang

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In this work, we propose a variational technique for image contrast enhancement which utilizes global and local information around each pixel. The energy functional is defined by a weighted linear combination of three terms which are called on a local, a global contrast term and dispersion term. The first one is a local contrast term that can lead to improve the contrast of an input image by increasing the grey-level differences between each pixel and its neighboring to utilize contextual information around each pixel. The second one is global contrast term, which can lead to enhance a contrast of image by minimizing the difference between its empirical distribution function and a cumulative distribution function to make the probability distribution of pixel values becoming a symmetric distribution about median. The third one is a dispersion term that controls the departure between new pixel value and pixel value of original image while preserving original image characteristics as well as possible. Second, we derive the Euler-Lagrange equation for true image that can achieve the minimum of a proposed functional by using the fundamental lemma for the calculus of variations. And, we considered the procedure that this equation can be solved by using a gradient decent method, which is one of the dynamic approximation techniques. Finally, by conducting various experiments, we can demonstrate that the proposed method can enhance the contrast of colour images better than existing techniques.

Keywords: color image, contrast enhancement technique, variational approach, Euler-Lagrang equation, dynamic approximation method, EME measure

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Authors: Wai-Ming Ng

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Nowadays Umeya Shokichi has been commonly regarded as the symbol of Sino-Japanese friendship and a close friend of Sun Yatsen. The images of Umeya have been largely built on contemporary political needs rather than historical sources. Based on Japanese and Chinese primary sources, this paper will challenge existing views of Umeya Shokichi in regard to his role in the 1911 Revolution and his relationship with Sun Yatsen. The study of Umeya Shokichi is handicapped by the accessibility and creditability of primary sources. Records of Umeya are largely kept in his family collection. Scholars are relatively difficult to get access to these materials. In addition, Umeya’s records can hardly be cross-checked as he is seldom mentioned in the writings of Sun Yatsen, Miyazaki Toten, James Cantlie and others. Heretofore, studies about Umeya are few and most are not critical enough to provide a balanced historical account of Umeya. This article will reexamine the role of Umeya Shokichi in the 1911 Revolution by highlighting his relationship with Sun Yatsen in Hong Kong from 1886 to 1911. It demonstrates that the role of Umeya in the 1911 Revolution and his relationship with Sun Yatsen are exaggerated by Chinese and Japanese officials as well as Umeya’s family members. The fact is that Sun did not play a direct role in the 1911 Revolution, not to mention his sponsors. To Sun, Umeya was perhaps merely one of his many sponsors rather than an intimate friend. This study will be a thought-provoking and iconoclast piece of scholarship based on critical reading of primary sources.

Keywords: Umeya Shokichi, Sun Yatsen, 1911 Revolution, Sino-Japanese friendship

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Authors: Mangaka C. Matoetoe, Fredrick O. Okumu

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Metal nanoparticles have attracted a great interest in scientific research and industrial applications, owing to their unique large surface area-to-volume ratios and quantum-size effects. Supported metal nanoparticles play a pivotal role in areas such as nanoelectronics, energy storage and as catalysts for the sustainable production of fuels and chemicals. Monometallics (Ag, Pt) and Silver-platinum (Ag-Pt) bimetallic (BM) nanoparticles (NPs) with a mole fraction (1:1) were prepared by reduction / co-reduction of hexachloroplatinate and silver nitrate with sodium citrate. The kinetics of the nanoparticles formation was monitored using UV-visible spectrophotometry. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and Energy-dispersive X-ray (EDX) spectroscopy were used for size, film morphology as well as elemental composition study. Fast reduction processes was noted in Ag NPs (0.079 s-1) and Ag-Pt NPs 1:1 (0.082 s-1) with exception of Pt NPs (0.006 s-1) formation. The UV-visible spectra showed characteristic peaks in Ag NPs while the Pt NPs and Ag-Pt NPs 1:1 had no observable absorption peaks. UV visible spectra confirmed chemical reduction resulting to formation of NPs while TEM images depicted core-shell arrangement in the Ag-Pt NPs 1:1 with particle size of 20 nm. Monometallic Ag and Pt NPs reported particle sizes of 60 nm and 2.5 nm respectively. The particle size distribution in the BM NPs was found to directly depend on the concentration of Pt NPs around the Ag core. EDX elemental composition analysis of the nanoparticle suspensions confirmed presence of the Ag and Pt in the Ag-Pt NPs 1:1. All the spectroscopic analysis confirmed the successful formation of the nanoparticles.

Keywords: kinetics, morphology, nanoparticles, platinum, silver

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Authors: Tayyaba Ghani, Mazhar Mehmood, Mohammad Mujahid

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TiO₂ nanotubes are receiving immense attraction in the field of dye-sensitized solar cells due to their well-defined nanostructures, efficient electron transport and large surface area as compared to other one dimensional structures. In the present work, we have investigated the influence of temperature on the morphology of anodically produced self-organized Titanium oxide nanotubes (TiNTs). TiNTs are synthesized by two-step anodization method in an ethylene glycol based electrolytes containing ammonium fluoride. Experiments are performed at constant anodization voltage for two hours. An investigation by the SEM images reveals that if the temperature is kept constant during the anodizing experiment, variation in the average tube diameter is significantly reduced. However, if the temperature is not controlled then due to the exothermic nature of reactions for the formation of TiNTs, the temperature of electrolyte keep on increasing. This variation in electrolyte bath temperature introduced strong variations in tube diameter (20 nm to 160 nm) along the length of tubes. Current profiles, recorded during the anodization experiment, predict the effect of constant and varying experimental temperatures as well. In both cases, XRD results show the complete anatase crystal structure of nanotube upon annealing at 450 °C. Present work highlights the importance of constant temperature during the anodization experiments in order to develop an ordered array of nanotubes with a uniform tube diameter.

Keywords: anodization, ordering, temperature, TiO₂ nanotubes

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Authors: Marcela de Oliveira, Guilherme Giacomini, Allan Felipe Fattori Alves, Ana Luiza Menegatti Pavan, Maria Eugenia Dela Rosa, Fernando Antonio Bacchim Neto, Diana Rodrigues de Pina

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It is estimated that each year one death every 10 seconds (about 2 million deaths) in the world is attributed to tuberculosis (TB). Even after effective treatment, TB leaves sequelae such as, for example, pulmonary fibrosis, compromising the quality of life of patients. Evaluations of the aforementioned sequel are usually performed subjectively by radiology specialists. Subjective evaluation may indicate variations inter and intra observers. The examination of x-rays is the diagnostic imaging method most accomplished in the monitoring of patients diagnosed with TB and of least cost to the institution. The application of computational algorithms is of utmost importance to make a more objective quantification of pulmonary impairment in individuals with tuberculosis. The purpose of this research is the use of computer algorithms to quantify the pulmonary impairment pre and post-treatment of patients with pulmonary TB. The x-ray images of 10 patients with TB diagnosis confirmed by examination of sputum smears were studied. Initially the segmentation of the total lung area was performed (posteroanterior and lateral views) then targeted to the compromised region by pulmonary sequel. Through morphological operators and the application of signal noise tool, it was possible to determine the compromised lung volume. The largest difference found pre- and post-treatment was 85.85% and the smallest was 54.08%.

Keywords: algorithm, radiology, tuberculosis, x-rays exam

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Authors: Ayush Shrivastava, Arpit Chaudhary, Devang Kulshreshtha, Vibhav Prakash Singh, Rajeev Srivastava

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Early diagnosis of breast cancer can improve the survival rate by detecting cancer at an early stage. Breast region segmentation is an essential step in the analysis of digital mammograms. Accurate image segmentation leads to better detection of cancer. It aims at separating out Region of Interest (ROI) from rest of the image. The procedure begins with removal of labels, annotations and tags from the mammographic image using morphological opening method. Pectoral Muscle Sliding Window Algorithm (PMSWA) is used for removal of pectoral muscle from mammograms which is necessary as the intensity values of pectoral muscles are similar to that of ROI which makes it difficult to separate out. After removing the pectoral muscle, Dispersed Region Growing Algorithm (DRGA) is used for segmentation of mammogram which disperses seeds in different regions instead of a single bright region. To demonstrate the validity of our segmentation method, 322 mammographic images from Mammographic Image Analysis Society (MIAS) database are used. The dataset contains medio-lateral oblique (MLO) view of mammograms. Experimental results on MIAS dataset show the effectiveness of our proposed method.

Keywords: CAD, dispersed region growing algorithm (DRGA), image segmentation, mammography, pectoral muscle sliding window algorithm (PMSWA)

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Authors: Nihan Akdemir

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This research aims to investigate the role of fashion in the context of the deconstruction of gender stereotypes. Expectation of society and culture related to the biological structure of the individual corresponds to the gender. At this point there are some unseen rules which are given to person even from his/her childhoods according to the sex and gender, are called stereotypes. With basic example, girls should wear pink, and the boys should wear blue. Or boys do not wear skirt and the woman must behave like a woman. There are also many many stereotypes like them. But the clothing style the individual uses to express his or her gender identity may not match the expectations of the community and society. In the context of big role of the clothing, these stereotypes could be deconstructed because clothes are the visible expression of gender identity of the person. And fashion is a big part of this structure because fashion is a pioneer of what people wear in other words fashion tells to people what should they wear this season. Nowadays fashion has also meant about expressing identity independent of whether you were born male or female. Many fashion brands prepare their collections in the concept of ‘gender fluid’ by deconstructions. It means that fashion is opening the roads for being more free about the gender identity. The representations of gender fluidity through fashion help bring a sense of normality to people who are trying to find the self-confidence to express who they want to be. Maybe the voice of the streets carries this point to the catwalks firstly, and then it becomes a trend. All these items have been explained with visual images and supported by the literature investigations. And the results are showed that the numbers of collections about it are increasing and fashion sector takes this issue into consideration. And this new approach reached to the streets.

Keywords: fashion, gender identity, gender stereotypes, trend

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Authors: Raymond Xu, Cindy Jingru Wang

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Social media has become a globally connected and influencing platform. Social media data, such as tweets, can help predict the spread of pandemics and provide individuals and healthcare providers early warnings. Public psychological reactions and opinions can be efficiently monitored by AI models on the progression of dominant topics on Twitter. However, statistics show that as the coronavirus spreads, so does an infodemic of misinformation due to pandemic-related factors such as unemployment and lockdowns. Social media algorithms are often biased toward outrage by promoting content that people have an emotional reaction to and are likely to engage with. This can influence users’ attitudes and cause confusion. Therefore, social media is a double-edged sword. Combating fake news and biased content has become one of the essential tasks. This research analyzes the variety of methods used for fake news detection covering random forest, logistic regression, support vector machines, decision tree, naive Bayes, BoW, TF-IDF, LDA, CNN, RNN, LSTM, DeepFake, and hierarchical attention network. The performance of each method is analyzed. Based on these models’ achievements and limitations, a multi-dimensional AI framework is proposed to achieve higher accuracy in infodemic detection, especially pandemic-related news. The model is trained on contextual content, images, and news metadata.

Keywords: artificial intelligence, fake news detection, infodemic detection, image recognition, sentiment analysis

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Authors: Karen C. Olufokunbi, Odetunji A. Odejobi

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The discourse of this paper is the examination of the generation, accumulation and growth of e-waste in a developing country. Images and other data about computer e-waste were collected using a digital camera, 290 copies of questionnaire and three structured interviews using Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife, Nigeria environment as a case study. The numerical data were analysed using R data analysis and process tool. Automata-based techniques and Petri net modeling tool were used to design and simulate a computational model for the recovery of saleable materials from e-waste. The R analysis showed that at a 95 percent confidence level, the computer equipment that will be disposed by 2020 will be 417 units. Compared to the 800 units in circulation in 2014, 50 percent of personal computer components will become e-waste. This indicates that personal computer components were in high demand due to their low costs and will be disposed more rapidly when replaced by new computer equipment Also, 57 percent of the respondents discarded their computer e-waste by throwing it into the garbage bin or by dumping it. The simulated model using Coloured Petri net modelling tool for the process showed that the e-waste dynamics is a forward sequential process in the form of a pipeline meaning that an e-waste recovery of saleable materials process occurs in identifiable discrete stages indicating that e-waste will continue to accumulate and grow in volume with time.

Keywords: Coloured Petri net, computational modelling, electronic waste, electronic waste process dynamics

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Authors: Kassaye Bewketu Zellelew

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The Main Ethiopian Rift Valley lakes suffer from water level fluctuations due to several natural and anthropocentric factors. Lakes located at terminal positions are highly affected by the fluctuations. These fluctuations are disturbing the stability of ecosystems, putting very serious impacts on the lives of many animals and plants around the lakes. Hence, studying the hydrodynamics of the lakes was found to be very essential. The main purpose of this study is to find the most significant factors that contribute to the water level fluctuations and also to quantify the fluctuations so as to identify lakes that need special attention. The research method included correlations, least squares regressions, multi-temporal satellite image analysis and land use change assessment. The results of the study revealed that much of the fluctuations, specially, in Central Ethiopian Rift are caused by human activities. Lakes Abiyata, Chamo, Ziway and Langano are declining while Abaya and Hawassa are rising. Among the studied lakes, Abiyata is drastically reduced in size (about 28% of its area in 1986) due to both human activities (most dominant ones) and natural factors. The other seriously affected lake is Chamo with about 11% reduction in its area between 1986 and 2010. Lake Abaya was found to be relatively stable during this period (showed only a 0.8% increase in its area). Concerned bodies should pay special attention to and take appropriate measures on lakes Abiyata, Chamo and Hawassa.

Keywords: correlations, hydrodynamics, lake level fluctuation, landsat satellite images

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Authors: Iftikhar Hussain Gul, Syeda Aatika

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Nickel ferrite was prepared via wet chemical co-precipitation route. Carbon Nano Fibers (CNFs) were used to prepare NiFe₂O₄/CNFs nanohybrids. Polar solvent (ortho-xylene) was used for the dispersion of CNFs in ferrite matrix. X-ray diffraction patterns confirmed the formation of NiFe₂O₄/CNFs nanohybrids without any impurity peak. FTIR patterns showed two consistent characteristic absorption bands for tetrahedral and octahedral sites, confirming the formation of spinel structure of NiFe₂O₄. Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) images confirmed the coating of nickel ferrite nanoparticles on CNFs, which confirms the efficiency of deployed method. The dielectric properties were measured as a function of frequency at room temperature. Pure NiFe₂O₄ showed dielectric constant of 1.79 ×10³ at 100 Hz, which increased massively to 2.92 ×10⁶ at 100 Hz with the addition of 20% by weight of CNFs, proving it to be potential candidate for applications in supercapacitors. The impedance analysis showed a considerable decrease of resistance, reactance and cole-cole plot which confirms the decline of impedance on addition of CNFs. The pure NiFe₂O₄ has highest impedance values of 5.89 ×10⁷ Ohm at 100 Hz while the NiFe₂O₄/CNFs nanohybrid with CNFs (20% by weight) has the lowest impedance values of 4.25×10³ Ohm at 100 Hz, which proves this nanohybrid is useful for high-frequency applications.

Keywords: AC impedance, co-precipitation, nanohybrid, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, x-ray diffraction

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Authors: Dahi Ghareab Abdelsalam Ibrahim, R. H. Bakr

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Ionizing radiation, such as gamma radiation and X-rays, has many applications in medical diagnoses and cancer treatment. In this paper, we used the windowed Fourier transform to extract the complex image of the deformed red blood cells. The real values of the complex image are used to extract the best fitting of the deformed cell boundary. Male albino rats are irradiated by γ-rays from ⁶⁰Co. The male albino rats are anesthetized with ether, and then blood samples are collected from the eye vein by heparinized capillary tubes for studying the radiation-damaging effect in-vivo by the proposed windowed Fourier transform. The peripheral blood films are prepared according to the Brown method. The peripheral blood film is photographed by using an Automatic Image Contour Analysis system (SAMICA) from ELBEK-Bildanalyse GmbH, Siegen, Germany. The SAMICA system is provided with an electronic camera connected to a computer through a built-in interface card, and the image can be magnified up to 1200 times and displayed by the computer. The images of the peripheral blood films are then analyzed by the windowed Fourier transform method to extract the precise deformation from the best fitting. Based on accurate deformation evaluation of the red blood cells, diseases can be diagnosed in their primary stages.

Keywords: windowed Fourier transform, red blood cells, phase wrapping, Image processing

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Authors: Babak Azari, Afshin Pourahmad, Babak Sadeghi, Masuod Mokhtari

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In this work, Equisetnm arvense plant extract was used for preparing amorphous SiO₂. For preparing of SiO₂/zeolitic imidazolate framework-8 (ZIF-8) nanocomposite by solvothermal method, the synthesized SiO₂ was added to the synthesis mixture ZIF-8. The nanocomposite was characterized using a range of techniques. The photocatalytic activity of SiO₂/ZIF-8 was investigated systematically by degrading crystal violet as a cationic dye under Ultraviolet light irradiation. Among synthesized samples (SiO₂, ZIF-8 and SiO₂/ZIF-8), the SiO₂/ZIF-8 exhibited the highest photocatalytic activity and improved stability compared to pure SiO₂ and ZIF-8. As evidenced by Scanning Electron Microscopy and Transmission electron microscopy images, ZIF-8 particles without aggregation are located over SiO₂. The SiO₂ not only provides structured support for ZIF-8 but also prevents the aggregation of ZIF-8 Metal-organic framework in comparison to the isolated ZIF-8. The superior activity of this photocatalyst was attributed to the synergistic effects from SiO₂ owing to (I) an electron acceptor (from ZIF-8) and an electron donor (to O₂ molecules), (II) preventing recombination of electron-hole in ZIF-8, and (III) maximum interfacial contact ZIF-8 with the SiO₂ surface without aggregation or prevent the accumulation of ZIF-8. The results demonstrate that holes (h+) and •O₂- are primary reactive species involved in the photocatalytic oxidation process. Moreover, the SiO₂/ZIF-8 photocatalyst did not show any obvious loss of photocatalytic activity during five-cycle tests, which indicates that the heterostructured photocatalyst was highly stable and could be used repeatedly.

Keywords: nano, zeolit, potocatalist, nanocomposite

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Authors: Kuo-Cheng Liu

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In the latest research efforts, the structures of the image in the spatial domain have been successfully analyzed and proved to deduce the visual masking for accurately estimating the visibility thresholds of the image. If the structural properties of the video sequence in the temporal domain are taken into account to estimate the temporal masking, the improvement and enhancement of the as-sessing spatio-temporal visibility thresholds are reasonably expected. In this paper, the temporal characteristics of human perception to the change in block structures on the time axis are analyzed. The temporal characteristics of human perception are represented in terms of the significant variation in block structures for the analysis of human visual system (HVS). Herein, the block structure in each frame is computed by combined the pattern masking and the contrast masking simultaneously. The contrast masking always overestimates the visibility thresholds of edge regions and underestimates that of texture regions, while the pattern masking is weak on a uniform background and is strong on the complex background with spatial patterns. Under considering the significant variation of block structures between successive frames, we extend the block structures of images in the spatial domain to that of video sequences in the temporal domain to analyze the relation between the inter-frame variation of structures and the temporal masking. Meanwhile, the subjective viewing test and the fair rating process are designed to evaluate the consistency of the temporal characteristics with the HVS under a specified viewing condition.

Keywords: temporal characteristic, block structure, pattern masking, contrast masking

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Authors: Mina Dabirinezhad, Mohsen Bayat Pour, Amin Dabirinejad

Abstract:

This paper is intended to introduce the technology to solve some of the deficiencies of the direct digital radiology. Nowadays, digital radiology is the latest progression in dental imaging, which has become an essential part of dentistry. There are two main parts of the direct digital radiology comprised of an intraoral X-ray machine and a sensor (digital image receptor). The dentists and the dental nurses experience afflictions during the taking image process by the direct digital X-ray machine. For instance, sometimes they need to readjust the sensor in the mouth of the patient to take the X-ray image again due to the low quality of that. Another problem is, the position of the sensor may move in the mouth of the patient and it triggers off an inappropriate image for the dentists. It means that it is a time-consuming process for dentists or dental nurses. On the other hand, taking several the X-ray images brings some problems for the patient such as being harmful to their health and feeling pain in their mouth due to the pressure of the sensor to the jaw. The author provides a technology to solve the above-mentioned issues that is called “Self-Recognition Direct Digital Radiology” (SDDR). This technology is based on the principle that the intraoral X-ray machine is capable to diagnose the location of the sensor in the mouth of the patient automatically. In addition, to solve the aforementioned problems, SDDR technology brings out fewer environmental impacts in comparison to the previous version.

Keywords: Dental direct digital imaging, digital image receptor, digital x-ray machine, and environmental impacts

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Authors: Akhila Sara Varughese

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In the postmodern society, visual narratives became an emerging genre in the field of literature. Graphic literature focuses on the literal and symbolic layer of interpretation. The most salient feature of graphic literature is its exploration of the public history of events and life narratives. The Indian graphic literature re-interprets the canon, style and the form of texts in Indian Writing in English and it demands a new literacy and the structure of the English literature. With the help of visual-verbal language, the graphic narratives discuss various facets of contemporary India. Graphic novels have firmly identified itself with the art of storytelling because of its capability of expressing human experiences to the most. In the textual novels, the author usually deserts the imagination of the readers, but in the case of graphic narratives, due to the presence of visual elements, the interpretation becomes simpler. India is the second most populous country in the world with a long tradition of history and culture. Indian literature always tries to reconstruct Indian history in various modes of representation. The present paper focuses on the fictional articulation of Indian history through the graphic narratives and analyses how some historical events in India portrays. The paper also traces the differences in rendering the history in graphic novels with that of textual novels. The paper discusses how much the blending of words and images helps in represent the Indian history by analyzing the graphic novels like Kashmir Pending by Naseer Ahmed, Delhi Calm by Vishwajyoti Ghosh and Munnu by Malik Sajad.

Keywords: graphic novels, Indian history, representation, visual-verbal literacy

Procedia PDF Downloads 317