Search results for: Mohamed Rashad

Authors: Khairil Iskandar Othman, Zarina Bibi Ibrahim, Mohamed Suleiman

Abstract:

A parallel block method based on Backward Differentiation Formulas (BDF) is developed for the parallel solution of stiff Ordinary Differential Equations (ODEs). Most common methods for solving stiff systems of ODEs are based on implicit formulae and solved using Newton iteration which requires repeated solution of systems of linear equations with coefficient matrix, I - hβJ . Here, J is the Jacobian matrix of the problem. In this paper, the matrix operations is paralleled in order to reduce the cost of the iterations. Numerical results are given to compare the speedup and efficiency of parallel algorithm and that of sequential algorithm.

Keywords: Backward Differentiation Formula, block, ordinarydifferential equations.

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Authors: Mohamed Shawki Elamir, Heinrich Gotzig, Raoul Zoellner, Patrick Maeder

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In this work, a methodology is presented for identifying the optimal digitization parameters for the analog signal of ultrasonic sensors. These digitization parameters are the resolution of the analog to digital conversion and the sampling rate. This is accomplished though the derivation of characteristic curves based on Fano inequality and the calculation of the mutual information content over a given dataset. The mutual information is calculated between the examples in the dataset and the corresponding variation in the feature that needs to be estimated. The optimal parameters are identified in a manner that ensures optimal estimation performance while preventing inefficiency in using unnecessarily powerful analog to digital converters.

Keywords: Analog to digital conversion, digitization, sampling rate, ultrasonic sensors.

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Authors: Mohamed Hafid, Marcel Lacroix

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This study presents a simple inverse heat transfer procedure for predicting the wall erosion and the time-varying thickness of the protective bank that covers the inside surface of the refractory brick wall of a melting furnace. The direct problem is solved by using the Finite-Volume model. The melting/solidification process is modeled using the enthalpy method. The inverse procedure rests on the Levenberg-Marquardt method combined with the Broyden method. The effect of the location of the temperature sensors and of the measurement noise on the inverse predictions is investigated. Recommendations are made concerning the location of the temperature sensor.

Keywords: Melting furnace, inverse heat transfer, enthalpy method, Levenberg–Marquardt Method.

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Authors: Mohamed A. Elsherif, A. Malekmohammadi

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An exploration in the competency of the optical multilevel Mapping Multiplexing Technique (MMT) system in tolerating to the impact of nonlinearities as Self Phase Modulation (SPM) during the presence of dispersion compensation methods. The existence of high energy pulses stimulates deterioration in the chirp compression process attained by SPM which introduces an upper power boundary limit. An evaluation of the post and asymmetric prepost fiber compensation methods have been deployed on the MMT system compared with others of the same bit rate modulation formats. The MMT 40 Gb/s post compensation system has 1.4 dB enhancements to the 40 Gb/s 4-Arysystem and less than 3.9 dB penalty compared to the 40 Gb/s OOK-RZsystem. However, the optimized Pre-Post asymmetric compensation has an enhancement of 4.6 dB compared to the Post compensation MMT configuration for a 30% pre compensation dispersion.

Keywords: Dispersion compensation, mapping multiplexing technique, self-phase modulation.

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Authors: A. U. Haque, W. Asrar, A. A. Omar, E. Sulaeman, J. S Mohamed Ali

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Open jet testing is a valuable testing technique which provides the desired results with reasonable accuracy. It has been used in past for the airships and now has recently been applied for the hybrid ones, having more non-buoyant force coming from the wings, empennage and the fuselage. In the present review work, an effort has been done to review the challenges involved in open jet testing. In order to shed light on the application of this technique, the experimental results of two different configurations are presented. Although, the aerodynamic results of such vehicles are unique to its own design; however, it will provide a starting point for planning any future testing. Few important testing areas which need more attention are also highlighted. Most of the hybrid buoyant aerial vehicles are unconventional in shape and there experimental data is generated, which is unique to its own design.

Keywords: Open jet testing, aerodynamics, hybrid buoyant aerial vehicles, airships.

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Authors: M-M. Mohamed Ahmed, Nacer K. M’Sirdi, Aziz Naamane

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In this paper, a longitudinal and lateral control approach based on a nonlinear observer is proposed for a convoy of autonomous vehicles to follow a desired trajectory. To authors best knowledge, this topic has not yet been sufficiently addressed in the literature for the control of multi vehicles. The modeling of the convoy of the vehicles is revisited using a robotic method for simulation purposes and control design. With these models, a sliding mode observer is proposed to estimate the states of each vehicle in the convoy from the available sensors, then a sliding mode control based on this observer is used to control the longitudinal and lateral movement. The validation and performance evaluation are done using the well-known driving simulator Scanner-Studio. The results are presented for different maneuvers of 5 vehicles.

Keywords: Autonomous vehicles, convoy, nonlinear control, nonlinear observer, sliding mode.

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Authors: Fahmi Kammoun, Mohamed Salim Bouhlel

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In the framework of the image compression by Wavelet Transforms, we propose a perceptual method by incorporating Human Visual System (HVS) characteristics in the quantization stage. Indeed, human eyes haven-t an equal sensitivity across the frequency bandwidth. Therefore, the clarity of the reconstructed images can be improved by weighting the quantization according to the Contrast Sensitivity Function (CSF). The visual artifact at low bit rate is minimized. To evaluate our method, we use the Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR) and a new evaluating criteria witch takes into account visual criteria. The experimental results illustrate that our technique shows improvement on image quality at the same compression ratio.

Keywords: Contrast Sensitivity Function, Human Visual System, Image compression, Wavelet transforms.

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Authors: Sonia Rebai, Mohamed Naceur Azaiez, Dhafer Saidane

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In this study, we develop a performance evaluation model based on a multi-attribute utility approach aiming at reaching the sustainable banking (SB) status. This model is built accounting for various banks’ stakeholders in a win-win paradigm. In addition, it offers the opportunity for adopting a global measure of performance as an indication of a bank’s sustainability degree. This measure is referred to as banking sustainability performance index (BSPI). This index may constitute a basis for ranking banks. Moreover, it may constitute a bridge between the assessment types of financial and extra-financial rating agencies. A real application is performed on three French banks.

Keywords: Multi-attribute utility theory, Performance, Sustainable banking.

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Authors: Mohamed Tarek Khadir, Damien Fay, Ahmed Boughrira

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Short term electricity demand forecasts are required by power utilities for efficient operation of the power grid. In a competitive market environment, suppliers and large consumers also require short term forecasts in order to estimate their energy requirements in advance. Electricity demand is influenced (among other things) by the day of the week, the time of year and special periods and/or days such as Ramadhan, all of which must be identified prior to modelling. This identification, known as day-type identification, must be included in the modelling stage either by segmenting the data and modelling each day-type separately or by including the day-type as an input. Day-type identification is the main focus of this paper. A Kohonen map is employed to identify the separate day-types in Algerian data.

Keywords: Day type identification, electricity Load, Kohonenmaps, load forecasting.

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Authors: Galal Elkobrosy, Amr M. Abdelrazek, Bassuny M. Elsouhily, Mohamed E. Khidr

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Crank shaft length, connecting rod length, crank angle, engine rpm, cylinder bore, mass of piston and compression ratio are the inputs that can control the performance of the slider crank mechanism and then its efficiency. Several combinations of these seven inputs are used and compared. The throughput engine torque predicted by the simulation is analyzed through two different regression models, with and without interaction terms, developed according to multi-linear regression using LU decomposition to solve system of algebraic equations. These models are validated. A regression model in seven inputs including their interaction terms lowered the polynomial degree from 3^rd degree to 1^st degree and suggested valid predictions and stable explanations.

Keywords: Design of experiments, regression analysis, SI Engine, statistical modeling.

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Authors: Ruwaida Abdul Rasid, Kevin J. Hughes, Peter J. Heggs, Mohamed Pourkashanian

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Heightened concerns over the amount of carbon emitted from coal-related processes are generating shifts to the application of biomass. In co-gasification, where coal is gasified along with biomass, the biomass may be fed together with coal (cofeeding) or an independent biomass gasifier needs to be integrated with the coal gasifier. The main aim of this work is to evaluate the biomass introduction methods in coal co-gasification. This includes the evaluation of biomass concentration input (B0 to B100) and its gasification performance. A process model is developed and simulated in Aspen HYSYS, where both coal and biomass are modelled according to its ultimate analysis. It was found that the syngas produced increased with increasing biomass content for both co-feeding and independent schemes. However, the heating values and heat duties decreases with biomass concentration as more CO2 are produced from complete combustion.

Keywords: Aspen HYSYS, biomass, coal, co-gasification modelling and simulation.

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Authors: M. Marsadek, A. Mohamed

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Power system security analysis is the most time demanding process due to large number of possible contingencies that need to be analyzed.  In a power system, any contingency resulting in security violation such as line overload or low voltage may occur for a number of reasons at any time.  To efficiently rank a contingency, both probability and the extent of security violation must be considered so as not to underestimate the risk associated with the contingency. This paper proposed a contingency ranking method that take into account the probabilistic nature of power system and the severity of contingency by using a newly developed method based on risk factor.  The proposed technique is implemented on IEEE 24-bus system.

Keywords: Line overload, low voltage, probability, risk factor, severity.

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Authors: Fadila Khaldi, Nedjoud Grara, Houria Berrebbah, Mohamed Réda Djebar

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The use of bioindicators plants (lichens, bryophytes and Sphagnum....) in monitoring pollution by heavy metals has been the subject of several works. However, few studies have addressed the impact of specific type-s pollutants (fertilizers, pesticides.) on these organisms. We propose in this work to make the highlighting effect of NPKs (NPK: nitrogen-phosphate-potassium-sulfate (NP2O5K2O) (15,15,15), at concentrations of 10, 20, 30 , 40 and 50mM/L) on the activity of detoxification enzymes (GSH/GST, CAT, APX and MDA) of plant bioindicators (mosses and lichens) after treatment for 3 and 7 days. This study shows the important role of the defense system in the accumulation and tolerance to chemical pollutants through the activation of enzymatic (GST (glutathione-S-transferase, APX (ascorbat peroxidase), CAT (catalase)) and nonenzymatic biomarkers (GSH (glutathione), MDA (malondialdehyde)) against oxidative stress generated by the NPKs.

Keywords: NPKs, Bioindicators, lower plants, GSH / GST, CAT, APX and MDA.

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Authors: Babajide O. Ogungbesan, Rajneesh Kumar, Mohamed Sassi

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Hydrogen sulfide (H2S) is a very toxic gas that is produced in very large quantities in the oil and gas industry. It cannot be flared to the atmosphere and Claus process based gas plants are used to recover the sulfur and convert the hydrogen to water. In this paper, we present optical characterization of an atmospheric pressure microwave plasma torch for H2S dissociation into hydrogen and sulfur. The torch is operated at 2.45 GHz with power up to 2 kW. Three different gases can simultaneously be injected in the plasma torch. Visual imaging and optical emission spectroscopy are used to characterize the plasma for varying gas flow rates and microwave power. The plasma length, emission spectra and temperature are presented. The obtained experimental results validate our earlier published simulation results of plasma torch.

Keywords: Atmospheric pressure microwave plasma, gas dissociation, optical emission spectroscopy.

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Authors: Fuziyah Ishak, Mohamed B. Suleiman, Zanariah A. Majid, Khairil I. Othman

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This paper considers the development of a two-point predictor-corrector block method for solving delay differential equations. The formulae are represented in divided difference form and the algorithm is implemented in variable stepsize variable order technique. The block method produces two new values at a single integration step. Numerical results are compared with existing methods and it is evident that the block method performs very well. Stability regions of the block method are also investigated.

Keywords: block method, delay differential equations, predictor-corrector, stability region, variable stepsize variable order.

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Authors: Abdulali Ben Saleh, Mohamed Abudabbus

Abstract:

The present study based on removal of natural dyes of Roselle petals, then used Roselle petals powder (RPP) as an adsorbent for the removal of methylene blue dye (as a typical cationic or basic dye) from aqueous solutions. The present study shows that used Roselle petals powder exhibit adsorption trend for the dye. The adsorption processes were carried out at various conditions of temperatures ranging from 278 to 338 K ± 2 K , concentrations, processing time and a wide range of pH between 2.5-11. Adsorption isotherm equations such as Freundlich, and Langmuir were applied to calculate the values of respective constants. Adsorption study was found that the currently introduced adsorbent can be used to remove cationic dyes such as methylene blue from aqueous solutions.

Keywords: Adsorption, methylene blue, removal of dyes, Roselle petals powder.

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Authors: Abdelaziz Sahbani, Kamel Ben Saad, Mohamed Benrejeb

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This paper deals with the comparison between two proposed control strategies for a DC-DC boost converter. The first control is a classical Sliding Mode Control (SMC) and the second one is a distance based Fuzzy Sliding Mode Control (FSMC). The SMC is an analytical control approach based on the boost mathematical model. However, the FSMC is a non-conventional control approach which does not need the controlled system mathematical model. It needs only the measures of the output voltage to perform the control signal. The obtained simulation results show that the two proposed control methods are robust for the case of load resistance and the input voltage variations. However, the proposed FSMC gives a better step voltage response than the one obtained by the SMC.

Keywords: Boost DC-DC converter, Sliding Mode Control (SMC), Fuzzy Sliding Mode Control (FSMC), Robustness.

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Authors: Bahi-Eddine Lahouel, Mohamed Guenfoud

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In this study, a vibration analysis was carried out of symmetric angle-ply laminated composite plates with and without square hole when subjected to compressive loads, numerically. A buckling analysis is also performed to determine the buckling load of laminated plates. For each fibre orientation, the compression load is taken equal to 50% of the corresponding buckling load. In the analysis, finite element method (FEM) was applied to perform parametric studies, the effects of degree of orthotropy and stacking sequence upon the fundamental frequencies and buckling loads are discussed. The results show that the presence of a constant compressive load tends to reduce uniformly the natural frequencies for materials which have a low degree of orthotropy. However, this reduction becomes non-uniform for materials with a higher degree of orthotropy.

Keywords: Vibration, Buckling, Cutout, Laminated composite, FEM

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Authors: Mohamed A. Abou-Shouk, Mahamoud M. Hewedi

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This study extends technology acceptance model (TAM) to investigate the antecedents and consequences of social media adoption by tourists and travel agents. It compares their perceptions on social media adoption and its consequences. Online survey was addressed to tourists and travel agents for data collection purposes. Structural equation modelling was employed for analysis purposes. The findings revealed that the majority of tourists and travel agents involved in the study believe in the usefulness of social media adoption for travel planning and marketing purposes. They agree that adopting social media could change the attitude of tourists towards specific destination or attraction and influence their purchasing decisions. This study contributes to knowledge by extending TAM and provides some managerial implication to marketers.

Keywords: TAM, social media, travel, tourism, travel agents.

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Authors: Ashraf M. Elsaid, Magd M. Badr, Mohamed S. Selim

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Water borne polyurethane (PU) based on newly prepared hyperbranched poly (amine-ester) (HBPAE) was applied and evaluated as organic coating material. HBPAE was prepared through one-pot synthesis between trimethylol propane as a core and AB2 branched monomer which was obtained via Michal addition of methyl methacrylate (MMA) and diethanol amine (DEA). PU was prepared from HBPAE using different ratios of toluene diisocyanate (TDI) to form cured coating film. The prepared HBPAE was characterized using; GPC, FT-IR and 1H-NMR. The mechanical properties (impact, hardness, adhesion, and flexibility), thermal properties (DSC and TGA) and chemical resistance of the applied film were estimated. The results indicated 50% of TDI is the selected ratio. This formulation represents a promising candidate to be used as coating material.

Keywords: Curing, Hyperbranched polymer, Polyurethane, Urethane-acrylates, water borne Coatings.

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Authors: Amal Ezzidani, Abdelghani Ben Tahar, Mohamed Hanini

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A sequence of finite tandem queue is considered for this study. Each one has a single server, which operates under the egalitarian processor sharing discipline. External customers arrive at each queue according to a renewal input process and having a general service times distribution. Upon completing service, customers leave the current queue and enter to the next. Under mild assumptions, including critical data, we prove the existence and the uniqueness of the fluid solution. For asymptotic behavior, we provide necessary and sufficient conditions for the invariant state and the convergence to this invariant state. In the end, we establish the convergence of a correctly normalized state process to a fluid limit characterized by a system of algebraic and integral equations.

Keywords: Fluid Limit, fluid model, measure valued process, processor sharing, tandem queue.

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Authors: Othmane Fahim, Naoual Belouaggadia. Charifa David, Mohamed Ezzine

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To make better use of cooling resources, systems have been derived on the basis of the use of night radiator systems for heat pumping. Using the TRNSYS tool we determined the influence of the climatic characteristics of the two zones in Morocco on the temperature of the outer surface of a Photovoltaic Thermal Panel “PVT” made of aluminum. The proposal to improve the performance of the panel allowed us to have little heat absorption during the day and give the same performance of a panel made of aluminum at night. The variation in the granite-based panel temperature recorded a deviation from the other materials of 0.5 °C, 2.5 °C on the first day respectively in Marrakech and Casablanca, and 0.2 °C and 3.2 °C on the second night. Power varied between 110.16 and 32.01 W/m² marked in Marrakech, to be the most suitable area to practice night cooling by night radiation.

Keywords: Morocco, TRANSYS, radiative cooling.

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Authors: Safa Ougoujil, Sidi Mohamed Rigar

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Economics is not an exact science. It cannot be from the moment it is a social science that concerns society organization, a human science that depends on the behavior of the men and women who make a part of this society. Therefore, it cannot ignore morality, the instinctive sense of good and evil, the natural order which place us between certain values, and which religion often sheds light on. In terms of finance, the reference to ethics is becoming more popular than ever. This is naturally due to the growing financial crises. Finance is less and less ethical, but some financial practices have continued to do so. This is the case of ethical finance and Islamic finance. After attempting to define the concepts of ethical finance and Islamic finance, in a period when financial innovation seeks to encourage differentiation in order to create more profit margins, this article attempts to expose the particularities, the convergences and the potentialities of development of these two sensibilities.

Keywords: Convergences, ethical finance, Islamic finance, potential development.

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Authors: Mohamed Abdelwahed

Abstract:

The aeration process via injectors is used to combat the lack of oxygen in lakes due to eutrophication. A 3D numerical simulation of the resulting flow using a simplified model is presented. In order to generate the best dynamic in the fluid with respect to the aeration purpose, the optimization of the injectors location is considered. We propose to adapt to this problem the topological sensitivity analysis method which gives the variation of a criterion with respect to the creation of a small hole in the domain. The main idea is to derive the topological sensitivity analysis of the physical model with respect to the insertion of an injector in the fluid flow domain. We propose in this work a topological optimization algorithm based on the studied asymptotic expansion. Finally we present some numerical results, showing the efficiency of our approach

Keywords: Quasi Stokes equations, Numerical simulation, topological optimization, sensitivity analysis.

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Authors: O.M. Mohamed vall, M. Radhi

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This work presents a recursive identification algorithm. This algorithm relates to the identification of closed loop system with Variable Structure Controller. The approach suggested includes two stages. In the first stage a genetic algorithm is used to obtain the parameters of switching function which gives a control signal rich in commutations (i.e. a control signal whose spectral characteristics are closest possible to those of a white noise signal). The second stage consists in the identification of the system parameters by the instrumental variable method and using the optimal switching function parameters obtained with the genetic algorithm. In order to test the validity of this algorithm a simulation example is presented.

Keywords: Closed loop identification, variable structure controller, pseud-random binary sequence, genetic algorithms.

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Authors: T. K. Tee, M. N. A. Azman, S. Mohamed, Muhammad, M., M. M. Mohamad, J. Md Yunos, M. H. Yee, W. Othman

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Buzan mind mapping is an efficient system of note-taking that makes revision a fun thing to do for students. Tony Buzan has been teaching children all over the world for the past thirty years and has proved that mind maps are the magic formula in the classroom for everyone. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the importance of Buzan mind mapping as a note-taking technique for the secondary school students. This paper also examines the mind mapping technique, advantages and disadvantages of hand-drawn mind maps. Samples of students’ mind maps were presented and discussed.

Keywords: Buzan Mind Mapping, note-taking technique, hand-drawn mind maps.

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Authors: Samia Boucherkha, Mohamed Benmohamed

Abstract:

In this paper we investigate the watermarking authentication when applied to medical imagery field. We first give an overview of watermarking technology by paying attention to fragile watermarking since it is the usual scheme for authentication.We then analyze the requirements for image authentication and integrity in medical imagery, and we show finally that invertible schemes are the best suited for this particular field. A well known authentication method is studied. This technique is then adapted here for interleaving patient information and message authentication code with medical images in a reversible manner, that is using lossless compression. The resulting scheme enables on a side the exact recovery of the original image that can be unambiguously authenticated, and on the other side, the patient information to be saved or transmitted in a confidential way. To ensure greater security the patient information is encrypted before being embedded into images.

Keywords: Medical Imaging, Invertible Watermarking, Authentication, Integrity.

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Authors: G. Rezai, P.K.Teng, Z. Mohamed, M.N Shamsudin

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Changing in consumers lifestyles and food consumption patterns provide a great opportunity in developing the functional food sector in Malaysia. There is only a little knowledge about whether Malaysian consumers are aware of functional food and if so what image consumers have of this product. The objective of this research is to determine the extent to which selected socioeconomic characteristics and attitudes influence consumers- awareness of functional food. A survey was conducted in the Klang Valley, Malaysia where 439 respondents were interviewed using a structured questionnaire. The result shows that most respondents have a positive attitude towards functional food. For the binary logistic estimation, the results indicate that age, income and other factors such as concern about food safety, subscribing to cooking or health magazines, being a vegetarian and consumers who have been involved in a food production company significantly influence Malaysian consumers- awareness towards functional food.

Keywords: Binary logistic model, functional foods, knowledge and awareness, perception

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Authors: Mohamed El Aroussi, Mohammed El Hassouni, Sanaa Ghouzali, Mohammed Rziza, Driss Aboutajdine

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In this paper the problem of face recognition under variable illumination conditions is considered. Most of the works in the literature exhibit good performance under strictly controlled acquisition conditions, but the performance drastically drop when changes in pose and illumination occur, so that recently number of approaches have been proposed to deal with such variability. The aim of this work is to introduce an efficient local appearance feature extraction method based steerable pyramid (SP) for face recognition. Local information is extracted from SP sub-bands using LBP(Local binary Pattern). The underlying statistics allow us to reduce the required amount of data to be stored. The experiments carried out on different face databases confirm the effectiveness of the proposed approach.

Keywords: Face recognition (FR), Steerable pyramid (SP), localBinary Pattern (LBP).

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Authors: Hasliza A. Rahim, Fareq Malek, Nur A. M. Affendi, Azuwa Ali, Norshafinash Saudin, Latifah Mohamed

Abstract:

This paper presents the experimental investigation of on-body channel fading at 2.45 GHz considering two effects of the user body movement; stationary and mobile. A pair of body-worn antennas was utilized in this measurement campaign. A statistical analysis was performed by comparing the measured on-body path loss to five well-known distributions; lognormal, normal, Nakagami, Weibull and Rayleigh. The results showed that the average path loss of moving arm varied higher than the path loss in sitting position for upper-arm-to-left-chest link, up to 3.5 dB. The analysis also concluded that the Nakagami distribution provided the best fit for most of on-body static link path loss in standing still and sitting position, while the arm movement can be best described by log-normal distribution.

Keywords: On-Body channel communications, fading characteristics, statistical model.

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