Search results for: 3D coronary artery tree extraction
Commenced in January 2007
Frequency: Monthly
Edition: International
Paper Count: 1194

Search results for: 3D coronary artery tree extraction

414 Extracting Human Body based on Background Estimation in Modified HLS Color Space

Authors: Jang-Hee Yoo, Doosung Hwang, Jong-Wook Han, Ki-Young Moon

Abstract:

The ability to recognize humans and their activities by computer vision is a very important task, with many potential application. Study of human motion analysis is related to several research areas of computer vision such as the motion capture, detection, tracking and segmentation of people. In this paper, we describe a segmentation method for extracting human body contour in modified HLS color space. To estimate a background, the modified HLS color space is proposed, and the background features are estimated by using the HLS color components. Here, the large amount of human dataset, which was collected from DV cameras, is pre-processed. The human body and its contour is successfully extracted from the image sequences.

Keywords: Background Subtraction, Human Silhouette Extraction, HLS Color Space, and Object Segmentation

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413 A Proposed Approach for Emotion Lexicon Enrichment

Authors: Amr Mansour Mohsen, Hesham Ahmed Hassan, Amira M. Idrees

Abstract:

Document Analysis is an important research field that aims to gather the information by analyzing the data in documents. As one of the important targets for many fields is to understand what people actually want, sentimental analysis field has been one of the vital fields that are tightly related to the document analysis. This research focuses on analyzing text documents to classify each document according to its opinion. The aim of this research is to detect the emotions from text documents based on enriching the lexicon with adapting their content based on semantic patterns extraction. The proposed approach has been presented, and different experiments are applied by different perspectives to reveal the positive impact of the proposed approach on the classification results.

Keywords: Document analysis, sentimental analysis, emotion detection, WEKA tool, NRC Lexicon.

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412 Meta-Learning for Hierarchical Classification and Applications in Bioinformatics

Authors: Fabio Fabris, Alex A. Freitas

Abstract:

Hierarchical classification is a special type of classification task where the class labels are organised into a hierarchy, with more generic class labels being ancestors of more specific ones. Meta-learning for classification-algorithm recommendation consists of recommending to the user a classification algorithm, from a pool of candidate algorithms, for a dataset, based on the past performance of the candidate algorithms in other datasets. Meta-learning is normally used in conventional, non-hierarchical classification. By contrast, this paper proposes a meta-learning approach for more challenging task of hierarchical classification, and evaluates it in a large number of bioinformatics datasets. Hierarchical classification is especially relevant for bioinformatics problems, as protein and gene functions tend to be organised into a hierarchy of class labels. This work proposes meta-learning approach for recommending the best hierarchical classification algorithm to a hierarchical classification dataset. This work’s contributions are: 1) proposing an algorithm for splitting hierarchical datasets into new datasets to increase the number of meta-instances, 2) proposing meta-features for hierarchical classification, and 3) interpreting decision-tree meta-models for hierarchical classification algorithm recommendation.

Keywords: Algorithm recommendation, meta-learning, bioinformatics, hierarchical classification.

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411 Extraction and Analysis of Hypericum perforatum L. from Turkey

Authors: E. Moroydor Derun, Z. Eslek, S. Piskin

Abstract:

Hypericum perforatum L. is a member of the Hypericaceae (Guttiferae) family and commonly known as St. John’s wort. There is a growing interest in this medicinal plant because of the constituents of this genus. A number of species have been shown to possess various biological activities such as antiviral, wound healing, analgesic, hepatoprotective, antimicrobial and antioxidant activities and also have therapeutic effects on burns, bruises, swelling, anxiety and mild to moderate depression. In this study, the aerial parts of Hypericum perforatum L. are extracted and the main and effective constituents are determined. The analysis of the extracts was performed by GC-MS and LC-MS. As a next step, it is aimed to investigate the usage of the main constituents of the medicinal plant.

Keywords: Hypericaceae, Hypericum perforatum L., GC-MS, Guttiferae, LC-MS, Medicinal plant, St. John’s wort.

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410 High Impedance Faults Detection Technique Based on Wavelet Transform

Authors: Ming-Ta Yang, Jin-Lung Guan, Jhy-Cherng Gu

Abstract:

The purpose of this paper is to solve the problem of protecting aerial lines from high impedance faults (HIFs) in distribution systems. This investigation successfully applies 3I0 zero sequence current to solve HIF problems. The feature extraction system based on discrete wavelet transform (DWT) and the feature identification technique found on statistical confidence are then applied to discriminate effectively between the HIFs and the switch operations. Based on continuous wavelet transform (CWT) pattern recognition of HIFs is proposed, also. Staged fault testing results demonstrate that the proposed wavelet based algorithm is feasible performance well.

Keywords: Continuous wavelet transform, discrete wavelet transform, high impedance faults, statistical confidence.

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409 Automatic Detection of Suicidal Behaviors Using an RGB-D Camera: Azure Kinect

Authors: Maha Jazouli

Abstract:

Suicide is one of the leading causes of death among prisoners, both in Canada and internationally. In recent years, rates of attempts of suicide and self-harm suicide have increased, with hangings being the most frequently used method. The objective of this article is to propose a method to automatically detect suicidal behaviors in real time. We present a gesture recognition system that consists of three modules: model-based movement tracking, feature extraction, and gesture recognition using machine learning algorithms (MLA). Tests show that the proposed system gives satisfactory results. This smart video surveillance system can help assist staff responsible for the safety and health of inmates by alerting them when suicidal behavior is detected, which helps reduce mortality rates and save lives.

Keywords: Suicide detection, Kinect Azure, RGB-D camera, SVM, gesture recognition.

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408 Meta-Search in Human Resource Management

Authors: Jürgen Dorn, Tabbasum Naz

Abstract:

In the area of Human Resource Management, the trend is towards online exchange of information about human resources. For example, online applications for employment become standard and job offerings are posted in many job portals. However, there are too many job portals to monitor all of them if someone is interested in a new job. We developed a prototype for integrating information of different job portals into one meta-search engine. First, existing job portals were investigated and XML schema documents were derived automated from these portals. Second, translation rules for transforming each schema to a central HR-XML-conform schema were determined. The HR-XML-schema is used to build a form for searching jobs. The data supplied by a user in this form is now translated into queries for the different job portals. Each result obtained by a job portal is sent to the meta-search engine that ranks the result of all received job offers according to user's preferences.

Keywords: Meta-search, Information extraction and integration, human resource management, job search.

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407 Lifting Wavelet Transform and Singular Values Decomposition for Secure Image Watermarking

Authors: Siraa Ben Ftima, Mourad Talbi, Tahar Ezzedine

Abstract:

In this paper, we present a technique of secure watermarking of grayscale and color images. This technique consists in applying the Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) in LWT (Lifting Wavelet Transform) domain in order to insert the watermark image (grayscale) in the host image (grayscale or color image). It also uses signature in the embedding and extraction steps. The technique is applied on a number of grayscale and color images. The performance of this technique is proved by the PSNR (Pick Signal to Noise Ratio), the MSE (Mean Square Error) and the SSIM (structural similarity) computations.

Keywords: Color image, grayscale image, singular values decomposition, lifting wavelet transform, image watermarking, watermark, secure.

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406 Application of Data Mining Techniques for Tourism Knowledge Discovery

Authors: Teklu Urgessa, Wookjae Maeng, Joong Seek Lee

Abstract:

Application of five implementations of three data mining classification techniques was experimented for extracting important insights from tourism data. The aim was to find out the best performing algorithm among the compared ones for tourism knowledge discovery. Knowledge discovery process from data was used as a process model. 10-fold cross validation method is used for testing purpose. Various data preprocessing activities were performed to get the final dataset for model building. Classification models of the selected algorithms were built with different scenarios on the preprocessed dataset. The outperformed algorithm tourism dataset was Random Forest (76%) before applying information gain based attribute selection and J48 (C4.5) (75%) after selection of top relevant attributes to the class (target) attribute. In terms of time for model building, attribute selection improves the efficiency of all algorithms. Artificial Neural Network (multilayer perceptron) showed the highest improvement (90%). The rules extracted from the decision tree model are presented, which showed intricate, non-trivial knowledge/insight that would otherwise not be discovered by simple statistical analysis with mediocre accuracy of the machine using classification algorithms.

Keywords: Classification algorithms; data mining; tourism; knowledge discovery.

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405 Concentrations and History of Heavy Metals in Sediment Cores: Geochemistry and Geochronology Using 210Pb

Authors: F. Fernandes, C. Poleto

Abstract:

This paper aims at assessing the concentrations of heavy metals and the isotopic composition of lead 210Pb in different fractions of sediment produced in the watershed that makes up the Mãe d'água dam and thus characterizing the distribution of metals along the sedimentary column and inferencing in the urbanization of the same process. Sample collection was carried out in June 2014; eight sediment cores were sampled in the lake of the dam. For extraction of the sediments core, a core sampler “Piston Core” was used. The trace metal concentrations were determined by conventional atomic absorption spectrophotometric methods. The samples were subjected to radiochemical analysis of 210Po. 210Pb activity was obtained by measuring 210Po activity. The chronology was calculated using the constant rate of supply (CRS). 210Pb is used to estimate the sedimentation rate.

Keywords: 210Pb dating method, heavy metal, lakes urban, pollution history.

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404 A Hybrid Feature Selection by Resampling, Chi squared and Consistency Evaluation Techniques

Authors: Amir-Massoud Bidgoli, Mehdi Naseri Parsa

Abstract:

In this paper a combined feature selection method is proposed which takes advantages of sample domain filtering, resampling and feature subset evaluation methods to reduce dimensions of huge datasets and select reliable features. This method utilizes both feature space and sample domain to improve the process of feature selection and uses a combination of Chi squared with Consistency attribute evaluation methods to seek reliable features. This method consists of two phases. The first phase filters and resamples the sample domain and the second phase adopts a hybrid procedure to find the optimal feature space by applying Chi squared, Consistency subset evaluation methods and genetic search. Experiments on various sized datasets from UCI Repository of Machine Learning databases show that the performance of five classifiers (Naïve Bayes, Logistic, Multilayer Perceptron, Best First Decision Tree and JRIP) improves simultaneously and the classification error for these classifiers decreases considerably. The experiments also show that this method outperforms other feature selection methods.

Keywords: feature selection, resampling, reliable features, Consistency Subset Evaluation.

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403 Relay Node Placement for Connectivity Restoration in Wireless Sensor Networks Using Genetic Algorithms

Authors: Hanieh Tarbiat Khosrowshahi, Mojtaba Shakeri

Abstract:

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) consist of a set of sensor nodes with limited capability. WSNs may suffer from multiple node failures when they are exposed to harsh environments such as military zones or disaster locations and lose connectivity by getting partitioned into disjoint segments. Relay nodes (RNs) are alternatively introduced to restore connectivity. They cost more than sensors as they benefit from mobility, more power and more transmission range, enforcing a minimum number of them to be used. This paper addresses the problem of RN placement in a multiple disjoint network by developing a genetic algorithm (GA). The problem is reintroduced as the Steiner tree problem (which is known to be an NP-hard problem) by the aim of finding the minimum number of Steiner points where RNs are to be placed for restoring connectivity. An upper bound to the number of RNs is first computed to set up the length of initial chromosomes. The GA algorithm then iteratively reduces the number of RNs and determines their location at the same time. Experimental results indicate that the proposed GA is capable of establishing network connectivity using a reasonable number of RNs compared to the best existing work.

Keywords: Connectivity restoration, genetic algorithms, multiple-node failure, relay nodes, wireless sensor networks.

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402 Secure Image Retrieval Based On Orthogonal Decomposition under Cloud Environment

Authors: Yanyan Xu, Lizhi Xiong, Zhengquan Xu, Li Jiang

Abstract:

In order to protect data privacy, image with sensitive or private information needs to be encrypted before being outsourced to the cloud. However, this causes difficulties in image retrieval and data management. A secure image retrieval method based on orthogonal decomposition is proposed in the paper. The image is divided into two different components, for which encryption and feature extraction are executed separately. As a result, cloud server can extract features from an encrypted image directly and compare them with the features of the queried images, so that the user can thus obtain the image. Different from other methods, the proposed method has no special requirements to encryption algorithms. Experimental results prove that the proposed method can achieve better security and better retrieval precision.

Keywords: Secure image retrieval, secure search, orthogonal decomposition, secure cloud computing.

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401 Comparative Studies on Vertical Stratification,Floristic Composition, and Woody Species Diversity of Subtropical Evergreen Broadleaf Forests Between the Ryukyu Archipelago, Japan, and South China

Authors: M. Wu, S. M. Feroz, A. Hagihara, L. Xue, Z. L. Huang

Abstract:

In order to compare vertical stratification, floristic composition, and woody species diversity of subtropical evergreen broadleaf forests between the Ryukyu Archipelago, Japan, and South China, tree censuses in a 400 m2 plot in Ishigaki Island and a 1225 m2 plot in Dinghushan Nature Reserve were performed. Both of the subtropical forests consisted of five vertical strata. The floristic composition of the Ishigaki forest was quite different from that of the Dinghushan forest in terms of similarity on a species level (Kuno-s similarity index r0 = 0.05). The values of Shannon-s index H' and Pielou-s index J ' tended to increase from the bottom stratum upward in both forests, except H' for the top stratum in the Ishigaki forest and the upper two strata in the Dinghushan forest. The woody species diversity in the Dinghushan forest (H'= 3.01 bit) was much lower than that in the Ishigaki forest (H'= 4.36 bit).

Keywords: Floristic similarity, subtropical evergreen broadleaf forest, vertical stratification, woody species diversity.

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400 A Reliable Secure Multicast Key Distribution Scheme for Mobile Adhoc Networks

Authors: D. SuganyaDevi, G. Padmavathi

Abstract:

Reliable secure multicast communication in mobile adhoc networks is challenging due to its inherent characteristics of infrastructure-less architecture with lack of central authority, high packet loss rates and limited resources such as bandwidth, time and power. Many emerging commercial and military applications require secure multicast communication in adhoc environments. Hence key management is the fundamental challenge in achieving reliable secure communication using multicast key distribution for mobile adhoc networks. Thus in designing a reliable multicast key distribution scheme, reliability and congestion control over throughput are essential components. This paper proposes and evaluates the performance of an enhanced optimized multicast cluster tree algorithm with destination sequenced distance vector routing protocol to provide reliable multicast key distribution. Simulation results in NS2 accurately predict the performance of proposed scheme in terms of key delivery ratio and packet loss rate under varying network conditions. This proposed scheme achieves reliability, while exhibiting low packet loss rate with high key delivery ratio compared with the existing scheme.

Keywords: Key Distribution, Mobile Adhoc Network, Multicast and Reliability.

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399 Bangla Vowel Characterization Based on Analysis by Synthesis

Authors: Syed Akhter Hossain, M. Lutfar Rahman, Farruk Ahmed

Abstract:

Bangla Vowel characterization determines the spectral properties of Bangla vowels for efficient synthesis as well as recognition of Bangla vowels. In this paper, Bangla vowels in isolated word have been analyzed based on speech production model within the framework of Analysis-by-Synthesis. This has led to the extraction of spectral parameters for the production model in order to produce different Bangla vowel sounds. The real and synthetic spectra are compared and a weighted square error has been computed along with the error in the formant bandwidths for efficient representation of Bangla vowels. The extracted features produced good representation of targeted Bangla vowel. Such a representation also plays essential role in low bit rate speech coding and vocoders.

Keywords: Speech, vowel, formant, synthesis, spectrum, LPC.

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398 Heterogeneous Artifacts Construction for Software Evolution Control

Authors: Mounir Zekkaoui, Abdelhadi Fennan

Abstract:

The software evolution control requires a deep understanding of the changes and their impact on different system heterogeneous artifacts. And an understanding of descriptive knowledge of the developed software artifacts is a prerequisite condition for the success of the evolutionary process. The implementation of an evolutionary process is to make changes more or less important to many heterogeneous software artifacts such as source code, analysis and design models, unit testing, XML deployment descriptors, user guides, and others. These changes can be a source of degradation in functional, qualitative or behavioral terms of modified software. Hence the need for a unified approach for extraction and representation of different heterogeneous artifacts in order to ensure a unified and detailed description of heterogeneous software artifacts, exploitable by several software tools and allowing to responsible for the evolution of carry out the reasoning change concerned.

Keywords: Heterogeneous software artifacts, Software evolution control, Unified approach, Meta Model, Software Architecture.

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397 Enhancing the Performance of Wireless Sensor Networks Using Low Power Design

Authors: N. Mahendran, R. Madhuranthi

Abstract:

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs), are constantly in demand to process information more rapidly with less energy and area cost. Presently, processor based solutions have difficult to achieve high processing speed with low-power consumption. This paper presents a simple and accurate data processing scheme for low power wireless sensor node, based on reduced number of processing element (PE). The presented model provides a simple recursive structure (SRS) to process the sampled data in the wireless sensor environment and to reduce the power consumption in wireless sensor node. Based on this model, to process the incoming samples and produce a smaller amount of data sufficient to reconstruct the original signal. The ModelSim simulator used to simulate SRS structure. Functional simulation is carried out for the validation of the presented architecture. Xilinx Power Estimator (XPE) tool is used to measure the power consumption. The experimental results show the average power consumption of 91 mW; this is 42% improvement compared to the folded tree architecture.

Keywords: Power consumption, energy efficiency, low power WSN node, recursive structure, sleep/wake scheduling.

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396 A Novel Spectral Index for Automatic Shadow Detection in Urban Mapping Based On WorldView-2 Satellite Imagery

Authors: Kaveh Shahi, Helmi Z. M. Shafri, Ebrahim Taherzadeh

Abstract:

In remote sensing, shadow causes problems in many applications such as change detection and classification. It is caused by objects which are elevated, thus can directly affect the accuracy of information. For these reasons, it is very important to detect shadows particularly in urban high spatial resolution imagery which created a significant problem. This paper focuses on automatic shadow detection based on a new spectral index for multispectral imagery known as Shadow Detection Index (SDI). The new spectral index was tested on different areas of WorldView-2 images and the results demonstrated that the new spectral index has a massive potential to extract shadows with accuracy of 94% effectively and automatically. Furthermore, the new shadow detection index improved road extraction from 82% to 93%.

Keywords: Spectral index, shadow detection, remote sensing images, WorldView-2.

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395 Multi-Font Farsi/Arabic Isolated Character Recognition Using Chain Codes

Authors: H. Izakian, S. A. Monadjemi, B. Tork Ladani, K. Zamanifar

Abstract:

Nowadays, OCR systems have got several applications and are increasingly employed in daily life. Much research has been done regarding the identification of Latin, Japanese, and Chinese characters. However, very little investigation has been performed regarding Farsi/Arabic characters recognition. Probably the reason is difficulty and complexity of those characters identification compared to the others and limitation of IT activities in Farsi and Arabic speaking countries. In this paper, a technique has been employed to identify isolated Farsi/Arabic characters. A chain code based algorithm along with other significant peculiarities such as number and location of dots and auxiliary parts, and the number of holes existing in the isolated character has been used in this study to identify Farsi/Arabic characters. Experimental results show the relatively high accuracy of the method developed when it is tested on several standard Farsi fonts.

Keywords: Farsi characters, OCR, feature extraction, chain code.

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394 Evaluation of Fuzzy ARTMAP with DBSCAN in VLSI Application

Authors: K. A. Sumithradevi, Vijayalakshmi. M. N., Annamma Abraham., Dr. Vasanta

Abstract:

The various applications of VLSI circuits in highperformance computing, telecommunications, and consumer electronics has been expanding progressively, and at a very hasty pace. This paper describes a new model for partitioning a circuit using DBSCAN and fuzzy ARTMAP neural network. The first step is concerned with feature extraction, where we had make use DBSCAN algorithm. The second step is the classification and is composed of a fuzzy ARTMAP neural network. The performance of both approaches is compared using benchmark data provided by MCNC standard cell placement benchmark netlists. Analysis of the investigational results proved that the fuzzy ARTMAP with DBSCAN model achieves greater performance then only fuzzy ARTMAP in recognizing sub-circuits with lowest amount of interconnections between them The recognition rate using fuzzy ARTMAP with DBSCAN is 97.7% compared to only fuzzy ARTMAP.

Keywords: VLSI, Circuit partitioning, DBSCAN, fuzzyARTMAP.

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393 Identification of Cardiac Arrhythmias using Natural Resonance Complex Frequencies

Authors: Moustafa A. Bani-Hasan, Yasser M. Kadah, Fatma M. El-Hefnawi

Abstract:

An electrocardiogram (ECG) feature extraction system based on the calculation of the complex resonance frequency employing Prony-s method is developed. Prony-s method is applied on five different classes of ECG signals- arrhythmia as a finite sum of exponentials depending on the signal-s poles and the resonant complex frequencies. Those poles and resonance frequencies of the ECG signals- arrhythmia are evaluated for a large number of each arrhythmia. The ECG signals of lead II (ML II) were taken from MIT-BIH database for five different types. These are the ventricular couplet (VC), ventricular tachycardia (VT), ventricular bigeminy (VB), and ventricular fibrillation (VF) and the normal (NR). This novel method can be extended to any number of arrhythmias. Different classification techniques were tried using neural networks (NN), K nearest neighbor (KNN), linear discriminant analysis (LDA) and multi-class support vector machine (MC-SVM).

Keywords: Arrhythmias analysis, electrocardiogram, featureextraction, statistical classifiers.

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392 A Comparative Study of Metal Extraction from Spent Catalyst Using Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans

Authors: Haragobinda Srichandan, Sradhanjali Singh, Dong Jin Kim, Seoung-Won Lee

Abstract:

The recovery of metal values and safe disposal of spent catalyst is gaining interest due to both its hazardous nature and increased regulation associated with disposal methods. Prior to the recovery of the valuable metals, removal of entrained deposits limit the diffusion of lixiviate resulting in low recovery of metals must be taken into consideration. Therefore, petroleum refinery spent catalyst was subjected to acetone washing and roasting at 500oC. The treated samples were investigated for metals bioleaching using Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans in batch reactors and the leaching efficiencies were compared. It was found out that acetone washed spent catalysts results in better metal recovery compare to roasted spent. About 83% Ni, 20% Al, 50% Mo and 73% V were leached using the acetone washed spent catalyst. In both the cases, Ni, V and Mo was high compared to Al.

Keywords: Acetone wash, At. ferrooxidans, Bioleaching, Calcined, Metal recovery.

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391 Life Cycle Datasets for the Ornamental Stone Sector

Authors: Isabella Bianco, Gian Andrea Blengini

Abstract:

The environmental impact related to ornamental stones (such as marbles and granites) is largely debated. Starting from the industrial revolution, continuous improvements of machineries led to a higher exploitation of this natural resource and to a more international interaction between markets. As a consequence, the environmental impact of the extraction and processing of stones has increased. Nevertheless, if compared with other building materials, ornamental stones are generally more durable, natural, and recyclable. From the scientific point of view, studies on stone life cycle sustainability have been carried out, but these are often partial or not very significant because of the high percentage of approximations and assumptions in calculations. This is due to the lack, in life cycle databases (e.g. Ecoinvent, Thinkstep, and ELCD), of datasets about the specific technologies employed in the stone production chain. For example, databases do not contain information about diamond wires, chains or explosives, materials commonly used in quarries and transformation plants. The project presented in this paper aims to populate the life cycle databases with specific data of specific stone processes. To this goal, the methodology follows the standardized approach of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), according to the requirements of UNI 14040-14044 and to the International Reference Life Cycle Data System (ILCD) Handbook guidelines of the European Commission. The study analyses the processes of the entire production chain (from-cradle-to-gate system boundaries), including the extraction of benches, the cutting of blocks into slabs/tiles and the surface finishing. Primary data have been collected in Italian quarries and transformation plants which use technologies representative of the current state-of-the-art. Since the technologies vary according to the hardness of the stone, the case studies comprehend both soft stones (marbles) and hard stones (gneiss). In particular, data about energy, materials and emissions were collected in marble basins of Carrara and in Beola and Serizzo basins located in the province of Verbano Cusio Ossola. Data were then elaborated through an appropriate software to build a life cycle model. The model was realized setting free parameters that allow an easy adaptation to specific productions. Through this model, the study aims to boost the direct participation of stone companies and encourage the use of LCA tool to assess and improve the stone sector environmental sustainability. At the same time, the realization of accurate Life Cycle Inventory data aims at making available, to researchers and stone experts, ILCD compliant datasets of the most significant processes and technologies related to the ornamental stone sector.

Keywords: LCA datasets, life cycle assessment, ornamental stone, stone environmental impact.

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390 Automatic Authentication of Handwritten Documents via Low Density Pixel Measurements

Authors: Abhijit Mitra, Pranab Kumar Banerjee, C. Ardil

Abstract:

We introduce an effective approach for automatic offline au- thentication of handwritten samples where the forgeries are skillfully done, i.e., the true and forgery sample appearances are almost alike. Subtle details of temporal information used in online verification are not available offline and are also hard to recover robustly. Thus the spatial dynamic information like the pen-tip pressure characteristics are considered, emphasizing on the extraction of low density pixels. The points result from the ballistic rhythm of a genuine signature which a forgery, however skillful that may be, always lacks. Ten effective features, including these low density points and den- sity ratio, are proposed to make the distinction between a true and a forgery sample. An adaptive decision criteria is also derived for better verification judgements.

Keywords: Handwritten document verification, Skilled forgeries, Low density pixels, Adaptive decision boundary.

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389 A new Adaptive Approach for Histogram based Mouth Segmentation

Authors: Axel Panning, Robert Niese, Ayoub Al-Hamadi, Bernd Michaelis

Abstract:

The segmentation of mouth and lips is a fundamental problem in facial image analyisis. In this paper we propose a method for lip segmentation based on rg-color histogram. Statistical analysis shows, using the rg-color-space is optimal for this purpose of a pure color based segmentation. Initially a rough adaptive threshold selects a histogram region, that assures that all pixels in that region are skin pixels. Based on that pixels we build a gaussian model which represents the skin pixels distribution and is utilized to obtain a refined, optimal threshold. We are not incorporating shape or edge information. In experiments we show the performance of our lip pixel segmentation method compared to the ground truth of our dataset and a conventional watershed algorithm.

Keywords: Feature extraction, Segmentation, Image processing, Application

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388 Solar Tracking System Using a Refrigerant as Working Medium for Solar Energy Conversion

Authors: S. Sendhil Kumar, S. N. Vijayan

Abstract:

Utilization of solar energy can be found in various domestic and industrial applications. The performance of any solar collector is largely affected by various parameters such as glazing, absorber plate, top covers, and heating pipes. Technology improvements have brought us another method for conversion of solar energy to direct electricity using solar photovoltaic system. Utilization and extraction of solar energy is the biggest problem in these conversion methods. This paper aims to overcome these problems and take the advantages of available energy from solar by maximizing the utilization through solar tracking system using a refrigerant as a working medium. The use of this tracking system can help increase the efficiency of conversion devices by maximum utilization of solar energy. The dual axis tracking system gives maximum energy output compared to single axis tracking system.

Keywords: Refrigerant, solar collector, solar energy, solar panel, solar tracking.

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387 Cloud Forest Characteristics of Khao Nan, Thailand

Authors: P. Sangarun, W. Srisang, K. Jaroensutasinee, M. Jaroensutasinee

Abstract:

A better understanding of cloud forest characteristic in a tropical montane cloud forest at Khao Nan, Nakhon Si Thammarat on climatic, vegetation, soil and hydrology were studied during 18-21 April 2007. The results showed that as air temperature at Sanyen cloud forest increased, the percent relative humidity decreased. The amount of solar radiation at Sanyen cloud forest had a positive association with the amount of solar radiation at Parah forest. The amount of solar radiation at Sanyen cloud forest was very low with a range of 0-19 W/m2. On the other hand, the amount of solar radiation at Parah forest was high with a range of 0-1000 W/m2. There was no difference between leaf width, leaf length, leaf thickness and leaf area with increasing in elevations. As the elevations increased, bush height and tree height decreased. There was no association between bush width and bush ratio with elevation. As the elevations increased, the percent epiphyte cover and the percent soil moisture increased but water temperature, conductivity, and dissolved oxygen decreased. The percent soil moistures and organic contents were higher at elevations above 900 m than elevations below.

Keywords: Cloud forest, climate, vegetation, soil, hydrology.

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386 CMOS Solid-State Nanopore DNA System-Level Sequencing Techniques Enhancement

Authors: Syed Islam, Yiyun Huang, Sebastian Magierowski, Ebrahim Ghafar-Zadeh

Abstract:

This paper presents system level CMOS solid-state nanopore techniques enhancement for speedup next generation molecular recording and high throughput channels. This discussion also considers optimum number of base-pair (bp) measurements through channel as an important role to enhance potential read accuracy. Effective power consumption estimation offered suitable range of multi-channel configuration. Nanopore bp extraction model in statistical method could contribute higher read accuracy with longer read-length (200 < read-length). Nanopore ionic current switching with Time Multiplexing (TM) based multichannel readout system contributed hardware savings.

Keywords: DNA, Nanopore, Amplifier, ADC, Multichannel.

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385 Identification of Nonlinear Predictor and Simulator Models of a Cement Rotary Kiln by Locally Linear Neuro-Fuzzy Technique

Authors: Masoud Sadeghian, Alireza Fatehi

Abstract:

One of the most important parts of a cement factory is the cement rotary kiln which plays a key role in quality and quantity of produced cement. In this part, the physical exertion and bilateral movement of air and materials, together with chemical reactions take place. Thus, this system has immensely complex and nonlinear dynamic equations. These equations have not worked out yet. Only in exceptional case; however, a large number of the involved parameter were crossed out and an approximation model was presented instead. This issue caused many problems for designing a cement rotary kiln controller. In this paper, we presented nonlinear predictor and simulator models for a real cement rotary kiln by using nonlinear identification technique on the Locally Linear Neuro- Fuzzy (LLNF) model. For the first time, a simulator model as well as a predictor one with a precise fifteen minute prediction horizon for a cement rotary kiln is presented. These models are trained by LOLIMOT algorithm which is an incremental tree-structure algorithm. At the end, the characteristics of these models are expressed. Furthermore, we presented the pros and cons of these models. The data collected from White Saveh Cement Company is used for modeling.

Keywords: Cement rotary kiln, nonlinear identification, Locally Linear Neuro-Fuzzy model.

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