Search results for: Medical Resonance (MR) images
876 Spatio-Temporal Patterns and Dynamics in Motion of Pathogenic Spirochetes: Implications toward Virulence and Treatment of Leptospirosis
Authors: R. Amornmaneekul, S. Chadsuthi, D. Triampo, W. Triampo
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We apply a particle tracking technique to track the motion of individual pathogenic Leptospira. We observe and capture images of motile Leptospira by means of CCD and darkfield microscope. Image processing, statistical theories and simulations are used for data analysis. Based on trajectory patterns, mean square displacement, and power spectral density characteristics, we found that the motion modes are most likely to be directed motion mode (70%) and the rest are either normal diffusion or unidentified mode. Our findings may support the fact that why leptospires are very well efficient toward targeting internal tissues as a result of increase in virulence factor.
Keywords: Leptospirosis, spirochetes, patterns, motion.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1570875 A Web Service Platform for Support Multiple Programming Language to Access Biomedical Image Databases
Authors: Mohd Kamir Yusof, Suhailan Dato' Safei
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Images are important in disease research, education, and clinical medicine. This paper presents a Web Service Platform (WSP) for support multiple programming languages to access image from biomedical databases. The main function WSP is to allow web users access image from biomedical databases. The WSP will receive web user-s queries. After that, it will send to Querying Server (QS) and the QS will search and retrieve data from biomedical databases. Finally, the information will display to the web users. Simple application is developed and tested for experiment purpose. Result from experiment indicated WSP can be used in biomedical environment.Keywords: Biomedical, Image, Web Service Platform
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1732874 Using Simulation Modeling Approach to Predict USMLE Steps 1 and 2 Performances
Authors: Chau-Kuang Chen, John Hughes, Jr., A. Dexter Samuels
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The prediction models for the United States Medical Licensure Examination (USMLE) Steps 1 and 2 performances were constructed by the Monte Carlo simulation modeling approach via linear regression. The purpose of this study was to build robust simulation models to accurately identify the most important predictors and yield the valid range estimations of the Steps 1 and 2 scores. The application of simulation modeling approach was deemed an effective way in predicting student performances on licensure examinations. Also, sensitivity analysis (a/k/a what-if analysis) in the simulation models was used to predict the magnitudes of Steps 1 and 2 affected by changes in the National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME) Basic Science Subject Board scores. In addition, the study results indicated that the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) Verbal Reasoning score and Step 1 score were significant predictors of the Step 2 performance. Hence, institutions could screen qualified student applicants for interviews and document the effectiveness of basic science education program based on the simulation results.Keywords: Prediction Model, Sensitivity Analysis, Simulation Method, USMLE.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1461873 Moment Invariants in Image Analysis
Authors: Jan Flusser
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This paper aims to present a survey of object recognition/classification methods based on image moments. We review various types of moments (geometric moments, complex moments) and moment-based invariants with respect to various image degradations and distortions (rotation, scaling, affine transform, image blurring, etc.) which can be used as shape descriptors for classification. We explain a general theory how to construct these invariants and show also a few of them in explicit forms. We review efficient numerical algorithms that can be used for moment computation and demonstrate practical examples of using moment invariants in real applications.Keywords: Object recognition, degraded images, moments, moment invariants, geometric invariants, invariants to convolution, moment computation.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 3920872 Synthesis and Characterization of Plasma Polymerized Thin Films Deposited from Benzene and Hexamethyldisiloxane using (PECVD) Method
Authors: Hisham M. Abourayana, Nuri A. Zreiba, Abdulkader M. Elamin
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Polymer-like organic thin films were deposited on both aluminum alloy type 6061 and glass substrates at room temperature by Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition (PECVD) methodusing benzene and hexamethyldisiloxane (HMDSO) as precursor materials. The surface and physical properties of plasma-polymerized organic thin films were investigated at different r.f. powers. The effects of benzene/argon ratio on the properties of plasma polymerized benzene films were also investigated. It is found that using benzene alone results in a non-coherent and non-adherent powdery deposited material. The chemical structure and surface properties of the asgrown plasma polymerized thin films were analyzed on glass substrates with FTIR and contact angle measurements. FTIR spectra of benzene deposited film indicated that the benzene rings are preserved when increasing benzene ratio and/or decreasing r.f. powers. FTIR spectra of HMDSO deposited films indicated an increase of the hydrogen concentration and a decrease of the oxygen concentration with the increase of r.f. power. The contact angle (θ) of the films prepared from benzene was found to increase by about 43% as benzene ratio increases from 10% to 20%. θ was then found to decrease to the original value (51°) when the benzene ratio increases to 100%. The contact angle, θ, for both benzene and HMDSO deposited films were found to increase with r.f. power. This signifies that the plasma polymerized organic films have substantially low surface energy as the r.f power increases. The corrosion resistance of aluminum alloy substrate both bare and covered with plasma polymerized thin films was carried out by potentiodynamic polarization measurements in standard 3.5 wt. % NaCl solution at room temperature. The results indicate that the benzene and HMDSO deposited films are suitable for protection of the aluminum substrate against corrosion. The changes in the processing parameters seem to have a strong influence on the film protective ability. Surface roughness of films deposited on aluminum alloy substrate was investigated using scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The SEM images indicate that the surface roughness of benzene deposited films increase with decreasing the benzene ratio. SEM images of benzene and HMDSO deposited films indicate that the surface roughness decreases with increasing r.f. power. Studying the above parameters indicate that the films produced are suitable for specific practical applications.Keywords: Plasma polymerization, potentiodynamic test, Contact angle.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2865871 Climatic Change, Drought and Dust Crisis in Iran
Authors: Akram Keramat, Behrouz Marivani, Mehdi Samsami
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Drought is a phenomenon caused by environmental and climatic changes. This phenomenon is affected by shortage of rainfall and temperature. Dust is one of important environmental problems caused by climate change and drought. With recent multi-year drought, many environmental crises caused by dust in Iran and Middle East. Dust in the vast areas of the provinces occurs with high frequency. By dust affecting many problems created in terms of health, social and economic. In this study, we tried to study the most important factors causing dust. In this way we have used the satellite images and meteorological data. Finally, strategies to deal with the dust will be mentioned.Keywords: Drought, Environment, Dust.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 3643870 Color Image Segmentation Using Kekre-s Algorithm for Vector Quantization
Authors: H. B. Kekre, Tanuja K. Sarode, Bhakti Raul
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In this paper we propose segmentation approach based on Vector Quantization technique. Here we have used Kekre-s fast codebook generation algorithm for segmenting low-altitude aerial image. This is used as a preprocessing step to form segmented homogeneous regions. Further to merge adjacent regions color similarity and volume difference criteria is used. Experiments performed with real aerial images of varied nature demonstrate that this approach does not result in over segmentation or under segmentation. The vector quantization seems to give far better results as compared to conventional on-the-fly watershed algorithm.Keywords: Image Segmentation, , Codebook, Codevector, data compression, Encoding
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2195869 OCR/ICR Text Recognition Using ABBYY FineReader as an Example Text
Authors: A. R. Bagirzade, A. Sh. Najafova, S. M. Yessirkepova, E. S. Albert
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This article describes a text recognition method based on Optical Character Recognition (OCR). The features of the OCR method were examined using the ABBYY FineReader program. It describes automatic text recognition in images. OCR is necessary because optical input devices can only transmit raster graphics as a result. Text recognition describes the task of recognizing letters shown as such, to identify and assign them an assigned numerical value in accordance with the usual text encoding (ASCII, Unicode). The peculiarity of this study conducted by the authors using the example of the ABBYY FineReader, was confirmed and shown in practice, the improvement of digital text recognition platforms developed by Electronic Publication.
Keywords: ABBYY FineReader system, algorithm symbol recognition, OCR/ICR techniques, recognition technologies.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 781868 Texture Feature Extraction using Slant-Hadamard Transform
Authors: M. J. Nassiri, A. Vafaei, A. Monadjemi
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Random and natural textures classification is still one of the biggest challenges in the field of image processing and pattern recognition. In this paper, texture feature extraction using Slant Hadamard Transform was studied and compared to other signal processing-based texture classification schemes. A parametric SHT was also introduced and employed for natural textures feature extraction. We showed that a subtly modified parametric SHT can outperform ordinary Walsh-Hadamard transform and discrete cosine transform. Experiments were carried out on a subset of Vistex random natural texture images using a kNN classifier.Keywords: Texture Analysis, Slant Transform, Hadamard, DCT.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2673867 Physical and Mental Treatment of Tōji and Local Touristic Strategy in Beppu
Authors: Miho Tsukamoto
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Beppu hot spring provides medical treatment as well as comfort visitors and mental easiness for many years. This paper studies hot spring in Beppu and Tōji, medical treatment in hot spring, and investigates how people’s visit to Beppu has changed with Tōji, and how Beppu Tourism Office tries to regain visitors in Beppu. In this paper, firstly, hot spring history in Beppu will be explained especially focusing on Beppu Hattou (eight major hot springs) and Jigoku Meguri (eight major hell hot spring tours). Secondly, Tōji, a long-residential hot spring with the purpose of medical treatment along with the information about chemical efficacy of hot springs will be analyzed. Then, finally, the change of the long-stay type to short-stay Onsen programs with the combination of multiplex tourism resources will be focused along with the decrease of Onsen or hot spring visitors. It is concluded that Tōji is not only physically and mentally cure people but also bring people mental easiness and release them from their stressful life. All in all, it can be concluded that because Onsen is involved in people’s life in Beppu and keep local people united in the community. Tōji’s attraction is shown when local people try to create the new type of Onsen program so as to keep their traditional way of Tōji.
Keywords: Hot spring, Tōji, Treatment.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1670866 Brainwave Classification for Brain Balancing Index (BBI) via 3D EEG Model Using k-NN Technique
Authors: N. Fuad, M. N. Taib, R. Jailani, M. E. Marwan
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In this paper, the comparison between k-Nearest Neighbor (kNN) algorithms for classifying the 3D EEG model in brain balancing is presented. The EEG signal recording was conducted on 51 healthy subjects. Development of 3D EEG models involves pre-processing of raw EEG signals and construction of spectrogram images. Then, maximum PSD values were extracted as features from the model. There are three indexes for balanced brain; index 3, index 4 and index 5. There are significant different of the EEG signals due to the brain balancing index (BBI). Alpha-α (8–13 Hz) and beta-β (13–30 Hz) were used as input signals for the classification model. The k-NN classification result is 88.46% accuracy. These results proved that k-NN can be used in order to predict the brain balancing application.
Keywords: Brain balancing, kNN, power spectral density, 3D EEG model.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2628865 Comparison of Valuation Techniques for Bone Age Assessment
Authors: N. Olarte L, A. Rubiano F, A. Mejía F.
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This comparison of valuation techniques for bone age assessment is a work carried out by the Telemedicine Research Group of the Military University - TIGUM, as a preliminary to the Design and development a treatment system of hand and wrist radiological images for children aged 0-6 years to bone age assessment . In this paper the techniques mentioned for decades have been the most widely used and the statistically significant. Althought, initially with the current project, it wants to work with children who have limit age, this comparison and evaluation techniques work will help in the future to expand the study subject in the system to bone age assessment, implementing more techniques, tools and deeper analysis to accomplish this purpose.Keywords: Atlas, Bone Age Assessment, Hand and Wrist Radiograph, Image Processing
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2512864 Behavior of Cu-WC-Ti Metal Composite Afterusing Planetary Ball Milling
Authors: A.T.Z. Mahamat, A.M. A Rani, Patthi Husain
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Copper based composites reinforced with WC and Ti particles were prepared using planetary ball-mill. The experiment was designed by using Taguchi technique and milling was carried out in an air for several hours. The powder was characterized before and after milling using the SEM, TEM and X-ray for microstructure and for possible new phases. Microstructures show that milled particles size and reduction in particle size depend on many parameters. The distance d between planes of atoms estimated from X-ray powder diffraction data and TEM image. X-ray diffraction patterns of the milled powder did not show clearly any new peak or energy shift, but the TEM images show a significant change in crystalline structure of corporate on titanium in the composites.Keywords: ball milling, microstructures, titanium, tungstencarbides, X-ray
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1596863 Assessment of Agricultural Land Use Land Cover, Land Surface Temperature and Population Changes Using Remote Sensing and GIS: Southwest Part of Marmara Sea, Turkey
Authors: Melis Inalpulat, Levent Genc
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Land Use Land Cover (LULC) changes due to human activities and natural causes have become a major environmental concern. Assessment of temporal remote sensing data provides information about LULC impacts on environment. Land Surface Temperature (LST) is one of the important components for modeling environmental changes in climatological, hydrological, and agricultural studies. In this study, LULC changes (September 7, 1984 and July 8, 2014) especially in agricultural lands together with population changes (1985-2014) and LST status were investigated using remotely sensed and census data in South Marmara Watershed, Turkey. LULC changes were determined using Landsat TM and Landsat OLI data acquired in 1984 and 2014 summers. Six-band TM and OLI images were classified using supervised classification method to prepare LULC map including five classes including Forest (F), Grazing Land (G), Agricultural Land (A), Water Surface (W), Residential Area-Bare Soil (R-B) classes. The LST image was also derived from thermal bands of the same dates. LULC classification results showed that forest areas, agricultural lands, water surfaces and residential area-bare soils were increased as 65751 ha, 20163 ha, 1924 ha and 20462 ha respectively. In comparison, a dramatic decrement occurred in grazing land (107985 ha) within three decades. The population increased 29% between years 1984-2014 in whole study area. Along with the natural causes, migration also caused this increase since the study area has an important employment potential. LULC was transformed among the classes due to the expansion in residential, commercial and industrial areas as well as political decisions. In the study, results showed that agricultural lands around the settlement areas transformed to residential areas in 30 years. The LST images showed that mean temperatures were ranged between 26-32°C in 1984 and 27-33°C in 2014. Minimum temperature of agricultural lands was increased 3°C and reached to 23°C. In contrast, maximum temperature of A class decreased to 41°C from 44°C. Considering temperatures of the 2014 R-B class and 1984 status of same areas, it was seen that mean, min and max temperatures increased by 2°C. As a result, the dynamism of population, LULC and LST resulted in increasing mean and maximum surface temperatures, living spaces/industrial areas and agricultural lands.Keywords: Census data, landsat, land surface temperature (LST), land use land cover (LULC).
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2120862 System Detecting Border Gateway Protocol Anomalies Using Local and Remote Data
Authors: A. Starczewska, A. Nawrat, K. Daniec, J. Homa, K. Hołda
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Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) is the main routing protocol that enables routing establishment between all autonomous systems, which are the basic administrative units of the internet. Due to the poor protection of BGP, it is important to use additional BGP security systems. Many solutions to this problem have been proposed over the years, but none of them have been implemented on a global scale. This article describes a system capable of building images of real-time BGP network topology in order to detect BGP anomalies. Our proposal performs a detailed analysis of BGP messages that come into local network cards supplemented by information collected by remote collectors in different localizations.
Keywords: Border Gateway Protocol, BGP, BGP hijacking, cybersecurity, detection.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 93861 High Capacity Spread-Spectrum Watermarking for Telemedicine Applications
Authors: Basant Kumar, Animesh Anand, S.P. Singh, Anand Mohan
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This paper presents a new spread-spectrum watermarking algorithm for digital images in discrete wavelet transform (DWT) domain. The algorithm is applied for embedding watermarks like patient identification /source identification or doctors signature in binary image format into host digital radiological image for potential telemedicine applications. Performance of the algorithm is analysed by varying the gain factor, subband decomposition levels, and size of watermark. Simulation results show that the proposed method achieves higher watermarking capacity.Keywords: Watermarking, spread-spectrum, discrete wavelettransform, telemedicine
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2219860 Eclectic Rule-Extraction from Support Vector Machines
Authors: Nahla Barakat, Joachim Diederich
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Support vector machines (SVMs) have shown superior performance compared to other machine learning techniques, especially in classification problems. Yet one limitation of SVMs is the lack of an explanation capability which is crucial in some applications, e.g. in the medical and security domains. In this paper, a novel approach for eclectic rule-extraction from support vector machines is presented. This approach utilizes the knowledge acquired by the SVM and represented in its support vectors as well as the parameters associated with them. The approach includes three stages; training, propositional rule-extraction and rule quality evaluation. Results from four different experiments have demonstrated the value of the approach for extracting comprehensible rules of high accuracy and fidelity.Keywords: Data mining, hybrid rule-extraction algorithms, medical diagnosis, SVMs
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1708859 Improved Skin Detection Using Colour Space and Texture
Authors: Medjram Sofiane, Babahenini Mohamed Chaouki, Mohamed Benali Yamina
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Skin detection is an important task for computer vision systems. A good method of skin detection means a good and successful result of the system. The colour is a good descriptor for image segmentation and classification; it allows detecting skin colour in the images. The lighting changes and the objects that have a colour similar than skin colour make the operation of skin detection difficult. In this paper, we proposed a method using the YCbCr colour space for skin detection and lighting effects elimination, then we use the information of texture to eliminate the false regions detected by the YCbCr skin model.
Keywords: Skin detection, YCbCr, GLCM, Texture, Human skin.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2449858 Human Detection using Projected Edge Feature
Authors: Jaedo Kim, Youngjoon Han, Hernsoo Hahn
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The purpose of this paper is to detect human in images. This paper proposes a method for extracting human body feature descriptors consisting of projected edge component series. The feature descriptor can express appearances and shapes of human with local and global distribution of edges. Our method evaluated with a linear SVM classifier on Daimler-Chrysler pedestrian dataset, and test with various sub-region size. The result shows that the accuracy level of proposed method similar to Histogram of Oriented Gradients(HOG) feature descriptor and feature extraction process is simple and faster than existing methods.Keywords: Human detection, Projected edge descriptor, Linear SVM, Local appearance feature
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1500857 Advanced Image Analysis Tools Development for the Early Stage Bronchial Cancer Detection
Authors: P. Bountris, E. Farantatos, N. Apostolou
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Autofluorescence (AF) bronchoscopy is an established method to detect dysplasia and carcinoma in situ (CIS). For this reason the “Sotiria" Hospital uses the Karl Storz D-light system. However, in early tumor stages the visualization is not that obvious. With the help of a PC, we analyzed the color images we captured by developing certain tools in Matlab®. We used statistical methods based on texture analysis, signal processing methods based on Gabor models and conversion algorithms between devicedependent color spaces. Our belief is that we reduced the error made by the naked eye. The tools we implemented improve the quality of patients' life.Keywords: Bronchoscopy, digital image processing, lung cancer, texture analysis.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1433856 Synthesis, Characterization and Impedance Analysis of Polypyrrole/La0.7Ca0.3MnO3 Nanocomposites
Authors: M. G. Smitha, M. V. Murugendrappa
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Perovskite manganite La0.7Ca0.3MnO3 was synthesized by Sol-gel method. Polymerization of pyrrole was carried by in-situ polymerization method. The composite of pyrrole (Py)/La0.7Ca0.3MnO3 composite in the presence of oxidizing agent ammonium per sulphate to synthesize polypyrrole (PPy)/La0.7Ca0.3MnO3 (LCM) composite was carried out by the same in-situ polymerization method. The PPy/LCM composites were synthesized with varying compositions like 10, 20, 30, 40, and 50 wt.% of LCM in Py. The surface morphologies of these composites were analyzed by using scanning electron microscope (SEM). The images show that LCM particles are embedded in PPy chain. The impedance measurement of PPy/LCM at different temperature ranges from 30 to 180 °C was studied using impedance analyzer. The study shows that impedance is frequency and temperature dependent and it is found to decrease with increase in frequency and temperature.Keywords: Polypyrrole, sol gel, impedance, composites.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1219855 A Novel Dual-Purpose Image Watermarking Technique
Authors: Maha Sharkas, Dahlia R. ElShafie, Nadder Hamdy
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Image watermarking has proven to be quite an efficient tool for the purpose of copyright protection and authentication over the last few years. In this paper, a novel image watermarking technique in the wavelet domain is suggested and tested. To achieve more security and robustness, the proposed techniques relies on using two nested watermarks that are embedded into the image to be watermarked. A primary watermark in form of a PN sequence is first embedded into an image (the secondary watermark) before being embedded into the host image. The technique is implemented using Daubechies mother wavelets where an arbitrary embedding factor α is introduced to improve the invisibility and robustness. The proposed technique has been applied on several gray scale images where a PSNR of about 60 dB was achieved.Keywords: Image watermarking, Multimedia Security, Wavelets, Image Processing.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1699854 The Effects of Increasing Unsaturation in Palm Oil and Incorporation of Carbon Nanotubes on Resinous Properties
Authors: Muhammad R. Islam, Mohammad Dalour H. Beg, Saidatul S. Jamari
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Considering palm oil as non-drying oil owing to its low iodine value, an attempt was taken to increase the unsaturation in the fatty acid chains of palm oil for the preparation of alkyds. To increase the unsaturation in the palm oil, sulphuric acid (SA) and para-toluene sulphonic acid (PTSA) was used prior to alcoholysis for the dehydration process. The iodine number of the oil samples was checked for the unsaturation measurement by Wijs method. Alkyd resin was prepared using the dehydrated palm oil by following alcoholysis and esterification reaction. To improve the film properties 0.5wt.% multi-wall carbon nano tubes (MWCNTs) were used to manufacture polymeric film. The properties of the resins were characterized by various physico-chemical properties such as density, viscosity, iodine value, saponification value, etc. Structural elucidation was confirmed by Fourier transform of infrared spectroscopy and proton nuclear magnetic resonance; surfaces of the films were examined by field-emission scanning electron microscope. In addition, pencil hardness and chemical resistivity was also measured by using standard methods. The effect of enhancement of the unsaturation in the fatty acid chain found significant and motivational. The resin prepared with dehydrated palm oil showed improved properties regarding hardness and chemical resistivity testing. The incorporation of MWCNTs enhanced the thermal stability and hardness of the films as well.
Keywords: Alkyd resin, nano-coatings, dehydration, palm oil.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2446853 The Role of Local Government Authorities in Managing the Pre-Hospital Emergency Medical Service (EMS) Systems in Thailand
Authors: Chanisada Choosuk, Napisporn Memongkol Runchana Sinthavalai, Fareeda Lambensah
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The objective of this research is to explore the role of actors at the local level in managing the Pre-hospital Emergency Medical Service (EMS) system in Thailand. The research method was done through documentary research, individual interviews, and one forum conducted in each province. This paper uses the case of three provinces located in three regions in Thailand including; Ubon Ratchathani (North-eastern region), Lampang (Northern Region), and Songkhla (Southern Region). The result shows that, recently, the role of the local government in being the service provider for their local people is increasingly concerned. In identifying the key success factors towards the EMS system, it includes; (i) the local executives- vision and influence that the decisions made by them, for both PAO (Provincial Administration Organisation (PAO) and TAO (Tambon Administration Organisation), is vital to address the overall challenges in EMS development, (ii) the administrative system through reforming their working style create the flexibility in running the EMS task, (iii) the network-based management among different agencies at the local level leads to the better EMS practices, and (iv) the development in human resource is very vital in delivering the effective services.
Keywords: Local governments, Management, Emergency Medical Services (EMS), Thailand
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1623852 Numerical Calculation of Heat Transfer in Water Heater
Authors: Michal Spilacek, Martin Lisy, Marek Balas, Zdenek Skala
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This article is trying to determine the status of flue gas that is entering the KWH heat exchanger from combustion chamber in order to calculate the heat transfer ratio of the heat exchanger. Combination of measurement, calculation and computer simulation was used to create a useful way to approximate the heat transfer rate. The measurements were taken by a number of sensors that are mounted on the experimental device and by a thermal imaging camera. The results of the numerical calculation are in a good correspondence with the real power output of the experimental device. That result shows that the research has a good direction and can be used to propose changes in the construction of the heat exchanger, but still needs enhancements.
Keywords: Heat exchanger, heat transfer rate, numerical calculation, thermal images.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2839851 Visual Search Based Indoor Localization in Low Light via RGB-D Camera
Authors: Yali Zheng, Peipei Luo, Shinan Chen, Jiasheng Hao, Hong Cheng
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Most of traditional visual indoor navigation algorithms and methods only consider the localization in ordinary daytime, while we focus on the indoor re-localization in low light in the paper. As RGB images are degraded in low light, less discriminative infrared and depth image pairs are taken, as the input, by RGB-D cameras, the most similar candidates, as the output, are searched from databases which is built in the bag-of-word framework. Epipolar constraints can be used to relocalize the query infrared and depth image sequence. We evaluate our method in two datasets captured by Kinect2. The results demonstrate very promising re-localization results for indoor navigation system in low light environments.Keywords: Indoor navigation, low light, RGB-D camera, vision based.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1676850 The Microstructural and Mechanical Characterization of Organo-Clay-Modified Bitumen, Calcareous Aggregate, and Organo-Clay Blends
Authors: A. Gürses, T. B. Barın, Ç. Doğar
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Bitumen has been widely used as the binder of aggregate in road pavement due to its good viscoelastic properties, as a viscous organic mixture with various chemical compositions. Bitumen is a liquid at high temperature and it becomes brittle at low temperatures, and this temperature-sensitivity can cause the rutting and cracking of the pavement and limit its application. Therefore, the properties of existing asphalt materials need to be enhanced. The pavement with polymer modified bitumen exhibits greater resistance to rutting and thermal cracking, decreased fatigue damage, as well as stripping and temperature susceptibility; however, they are expensive and their applications have disadvantages. Bituminous mixtures are composed of very irregular aggregates bound together with hydrocarbon-based asphalt, with a low volume fraction of voids dispersed within the matrix. Montmorillonite (MMT) is a layered silicate with low cost and abundance, which consists of layers of tetrahedral silicate and octahedral hydroxide sheets. Recently, the layered silicates have been widely used for the modification of polymers, as well as in many different fields. However, there are not too much studies related with the preparation of the modified asphalt with MMT, currently. In this study, organo-clay-modified bitumen, and calcareous aggregate and organo-clay blends were prepared by hot blending method with OMMT, which has been synthesized using a cationic surfactant (Cetyltrymethylammonium bromide, CTAB) and long chain hydrocarbon, and MMT. When the exchangeable cations in the interlayer region of pristine MMT were exchanged with hydrocarbon attached surfactant ions, the MMT becomes organophilic and more compatible with bitumen. The effects of the super hydrophobic OMMT onto the micro structural and mechanic properties (Marshall Stability and volumetric parameters) of the prepared blends were investigated. Stability and volumetric parameters of the blends prepared were measured using Marshall Test. Also, in order to investigate the morphological and micro structural properties of the organo-clay-modified bitumen and calcareous aggregate and organo-clay blends, their SEM and HRTEM images were taken. It was observed that the stability and volumetric parameters of the prepared mixtures improved significantly compared to the conventional hot mixes and even the stone matrix mixture. A micro structural analysis based on SEM images indicates that the organo-clay platelets dispersed in the bitumen have a dominant role in the increase of effectiveness of bitumen - aggregate interactions.
Keywords: Hot mix asphalt, stone matrix asphalt, organo clay, Marshall Test, calcareous aggregate, modified bitumen.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1377849 Improvement of Blood Detection Accuracy using Image Processing Techniques suitable for Capsule Endoscopy
Authors: Yong-Gyu Lee, Gilwon Yoon
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Bleeding in the digestive duct is an important diagnostic parameter for patients. Blood in the endoscopic image can be determined by investigating the color tone of blood due to the degree of oxygenation, under- or over- illumination, food debris and secretions, etc. However, we found that how to pre-process raw images obtained from the capsule detectors was very important. We applied various image process methods suitable for the capsule endoscopic image in order to remove noises and unbalanced sensitivities for the image pixels. The results showed that much improvement was achieved by additional pre-processing techniques on the algorithm of determining bleeding areas.
Keywords: blood detection, capsule endoscopy, image processing.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1892848 Biomechanical Properties of Hen's Eggshell: Experimental Study and Numerical Modeling
Authors: A. Darvizeh, H. Rajabi, S. Fatahtooei Nejad, A. Khaheshi, P. Haghdoust
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In this article, biomechanical aspects of hen-s eggshell as a natural ceramic structure are studied. The images, taken by a scanning electron microscope (SEM), are used to investigate the microscopic aspects of the egg. It is observed that eggshell has a three-layered microstructure with different morphological and structural characteristics. Studies on the eggshell membrane (ESM) as a prosperous tissue suggest that it is placed to prevent the penetration of microorganisms into the egg. Finally, numerical models of the egg are presented to study the stress distribution and its deformation under different loading conditions. The effects of two different types of loading (hydrostatic and point loadings) on two different shell models (with constant and variable thicknesses) are investigated in detail.
Keywords: Eggshell, biomechanical properties, Scanning electron microscope, Numerical Modeling.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2468847 Morphological Description of Cervical Cell Images for the Pathological Recognition
Authors: N. Lassouaoui, L. Hamami, N. Nouali
Abstract:
The tracking allows to detect the tumor affections of cervical cancer, it is particularly complex and consuming time, because it consists in seeking some abnormal cells among a cluster of normal cells. In this paper, we present our proposed computer system for helping the doctors in tracking the cervical cancer. Knowing that the diagnosis of the malignancy is based in the set of atypical morphological details of all cells, herein, we present an unsupervised genetic algorithm for the separation of cell components since the diagnosis is doing by analysis of the core and the cytoplasm. We give also the various algorithms used for computing the morphological characteristics of cells (Ratio core/cytoplasm, cellular deformity, ...) necessary for the recognition of illness.
Keywords: Cervical cell, morphological analysis, recognition, segmentation.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1940