Search results for: homogenization techniques.

Authors: A. Tellaeche, X. P. Burgos-Artizzu, G. Pajares, A. Ribeiro

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One important objective in Precision Agriculture is to minimize the volume of herbicides that are applied to the fields through the use of site-specific weed management systems. In order to reach this goal, two major factors need to be considered: 1) the similar spectral signature, shape and texture between weeds and crops; 2) the irregular distribution of the weeds within the crop's field. This paper outlines an automatic computer vision system for the detection and differential spraying of Avena sterilis, a noxious weed growing in cereal crops. The proposed system involves two processes: image segmentation and decision making. Image segmentation combines basic suitable image processing techniques in order to extract cells from the image as the low level units. Each cell is described by two area-based attributes measuring the relations among the crops and the weeds. From these attributes, a hybrid decision making approach determines if a cell must be or not sprayed. The hybrid approach uses the Support Vector Machines and the Fuzzy k-Means methods, combined through the fuzzy aggregation theory. This makes the main finding of this paper. The method performance is compared against other available strategies.

Keywords: Fuzzy k-Means, Precision agriculture, SupportVectors Machines, Weed detection.

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Authors: H. Al-Baghli, F. Al-Asfour

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The current applied asphalt technology for Kuwait roads pavement infrastructure is the hot mix asphalt (HMA) pavement, including both pen grade and polymer modified bitumen (PMBs), that is produced and compacted at high temperature levels ranging from 150 to 180 °C. There are no current specifications for warm and cold mix asphalts in Kuwait’s Ministry of Public Works (MPW) asphalt standard and specifications. The process of the conventional HMA is energy intensive and directly responsible for the emission of greenhouse gases and other environmental hazards into the atmosphere leading to significant environmental impacts and raising health risk to labors at site. Warm mix asphalt (WMA) technology, a sustainable alternative preferred in multiple countries, has many environmental advantages because it requires lower production temperatures than HMA by 20 to 40 °C. The reduction of temperatures achieved by WMA originates from multiple technologies including foaming and chemical or organic additives that aim to reduce bitumen and improve mix workability. This paper presents a literature review of WMA technologies and techniques followed by an experimental study aiming to compare the results of produced WMA samples, using a water containing additive (foaming process), at different compaction temperatures with the HMA control volumetric properties mix designed in accordance to the new MPW’s specifications and guidelines.

Keywords: Warm-mix asphalt, water-bearing additives, foaming-based process, chemical additives, organic additives.

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Authors: Suhadiyana Hanapi, Alhassan Salami Tijani, W. A. N Wan Mohamed

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In this paper, a prototype PEM fuel cell vehicle integrated with a 1 kW air-blowing proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) stack as a main power sources has been developed for a lightweight cruising vehicle. The test vehicle is equipped with a PEM fuel cell system that provides electric power to a brushed DC motor. This vehicle was designed to compete with industrial lightweight vehicle with the target of consuming least amount of energy and high performance. Individual variations in driving style have a significant impact on vehicle energy efficiency and it is well established from the literature. The primary aim of this study was to assesses the power and fuel consumption of a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle operating at three difference driving technique (i.e. 25 km/h constant speed, 22-28 km/h speed range, 20-30 km/h speed range). The goal is to develop the best driving strategy to maximize performance and minimize fuel consumption for the vehicle system. The relationship between power demand and hydrogen consumption has also been discussed. All the techniques can be evaluated and compared on broadly similar terms. Automatic intelligent controller for driving prototype fuel cell vehicle on different obstacle while maintaining all systems at maximum efficiency was used. The result showed that 25 km/h constant speed was identified for optimal driving with less fuel consumption.

Keywords: Prototype fuel cell electric vehicles, energy efficient, control/driving technique, fuel economy.

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Authors: Khalid Ali, Manar Jammal

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In order to meet the stringent latency and reliability requirements of the upcoming 5G networks, Open Radio Access Networks (O-RAN) have been proposed. The virtualization of O-RAN has allowed it to be treated as a Network Function Virtualization (NFV) architecture, while its components are considered Virtualized Network Functions (VNFs). Hence, intelligent Machine Learning (ML) based solutions can be utilized to apply different resource management and allocation techniques on O-RAN. However, intelligently allocating resources for O-RAN VNFs can prove challenging due to the dynamicity of traffic in mobile networks. Network providers need to dynamically scale the allocated resources in response to the incoming traffic. Elastically allocating resources can provide a higher level of flexibility in the network in addition to reducing the OPerational EXpenditure (OPEX) and increasing the resources utilization. Most of the existing elastic solutions are reactive in nature, despite the fact that proactive approaches are more agile since they scale instances ahead of time by predicting the incoming traffic. In this work, we propose and evaluate traffic forecasting models based on the ML algorithm. The algorithms aim at predicting future O-RAN traffic by using previous traffic data. Detailed analysis of the traffic data was carried out to validate the quality and applicability of the traffic dataset. Hence, two ML models were proposed and evaluated based on their prediction capabilities.

Keywords: O-RAN, traffic forecasting, NFV, ARIMA, LSTM, elasticity.

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Authors: Maumita Bhattacharya

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Optimization is often a critical issue for most system design problems. Evolutionary Algorithms are population-based, stochastic search techniques, widely used as efficient global optimizers. However, finding optimal solution to complex high dimensional, multimodal problems often require highly computationally expensive function evaluations and hence are practically prohibitive. The Dynamic Approximate Fitness based Hybrid EA (DAFHEA) model presented in our earlier work [14] reduced computation time by controlled use of meta-models to partially replace the actual function evaluation by approximate function evaluation. However, the underlying assumption in DAFHEA is that the training samples for the meta-model are generated from a single uniform model. Situations like model formation involving variable input dimensions and noisy data certainly can not be covered by this assumption. In this paper we present an enhanced version of DAFHEA that incorporates a multiple-model based learning approach for the SVM approximator. DAFHEA-II (the enhanced version of the DAFHEA framework) also overcomes the high computational expense involved with additional clustering requirements of the original DAFHEA framework. The proposed framework has been tested on several benchmark functions and the empirical results illustrate the advantages of the proposed technique.

Keywords: Evolutionary algorithm, Fitness function, Optimization, Meta-model, Stochastic method.

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Authors: Mokhtar Kouki Inès Rekik

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This paper focuses on the assessment of the air pollution and morbidity relationship in Tunisia. Air pollution is measured by ozone air concentration and the morbidity is measured by the number of respiratory-related restricted activity days during the 2-week period prior to the interview. Socioeconomic data are also collected in order to adjust for any confounding covariates. Our sample is composed by 407 Tunisian respondents; 44.7% are women, the average age is 35.2, near 69% are living in a house built after 1980, and 27.8% have reported at least one day of respiratory-related restricted activity. The model consists on the regression of the number of respiratory-related restricted activity days on the air quality measure and the socioeconomic covariates. In order to correct for zero-inflation and heterogeneity, we estimate several models (Poisson, negative binomial, zero inflated Poisson, Poisson hurdle, negative binomial hurdle and finite mixture Poisson models). Bootstrapping and post-stratification techniques are used in order to correct for any sample bias. According to the Akaike information criteria, the hurdle negative binomial model has the greatest goodness of fit. The main result indicates that, after adjusting for socioeconomic data, the ozone concentration increases the probability of positive number of restricted activity days.

Keywords: Bootstrapping, hurdle negbin model, overdispersion, ozone concentration, respiratory-related restricted activity days.

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Authors: Abdulbaset Saad, Adel Younis, Zuomin Dong

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For design optimization with high-dimensional expensive problems, an effective and efficient optimization methodology is desired. This work proposes a series of modification to the Differential Evolution (DE) algorithm for solving computation Intensive Black-Box Problems. The proposed methodology is called Radial Basis Meta-Model Algorithm Assisted Differential Evolutionary (RBF-DE), which is a global optimization algorithm based on the meta-modeling techniques. A meta-modeling assisted DE is proposed to solve computationally expensive optimization problems. The Radial Basis Function (RBF) model is used as a surrogate model to approximate the expensive objective function, while DE employs a mechanism to dynamically select the best performing combination of parameters such as differential rate, cross over probability, and population size. The proposed algorithm is tested on benchmark functions and real life practical applications and problems. The test results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm is promising and performs well compared to other optimization algorithms. The proposed algorithm is capable of converging to acceptable and good solutions in terms of accuracy, number of evaluations, and time needed to converge.

Keywords: Differential evolution, engineering design, expensive computations, meta-modeling, radial basis function, optimization.

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Authors: F. Kashanian, M. M. Masoudi, A. Akbari, A. Shamloo, M. R. Zand, S. S. Salehi

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Nano-sized materials present new opportunities in biology and medicine and they are used as biomedical tools for investigation, separation of molecules and cells. To achieve more effective cancer therapy, it is essential to select cancer cells exactly. This research suggests that using the antibody-functionalized nontoxic Arginine-doped magnetic nanoparticles (A-MNPs), has been prosperous in detection, capture, and magnetic separation of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in tumor tissue. In this study, A-MNPs were synthesized via a simple precipitation reaction and directly immobilized Ep-CAM EBA-1 antibodies over superparamagnetic A-MNPs for Mucin BCA-225 in breast cancer cell. The samples were characterized by vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM), FT-IR spectroscopy, Tunneling Electron Microscopy (TEM) and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). These antibody-functionalized nontoxic A-MNPs were used to capture breast cancer cell. Through employing a strong permanent magnet, the magnetic separation was achieved within a few seconds. Antibody-Conjugated nontoxic Arginine-doped Fe₃O₄ nanoparticles have the potential for the future study to capture CTCs which are released from tumor tissue and for drug delivery, and these results demonstrate that the antibody-conjugated A-MNPs can be used in magnetic hyperthermia techniques for cancer treatment.

Keywords: Tumor tissue, antibody, magnetic nanoparticle, CTCs capturing.

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Authors: Karunakar A K, Manohara Pai M M

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In 3D-wavelet video coding framework temporal filtering is done along the trajectory of motion using Motion Compensated Temporal Filtering (MCTF). Hence computationally efficient motion estimation technique is the need of MCTF. In this paper a predictive technique is proposed in order to reduce the computational complexity of the MCTF framework, by exploiting the high correlation among the frames in a Group Of Picture (GOP). The proposed technique applies coarse and fine searches of any fast block based motion estimation, only to the first pair of frames in a GOP. The generated motion vectors are supplied to the next consecutive frames, even to subsequent temporal levels and only fine search is carried out around those predicted motion vectors. Hence coarse search is skipped for all the motion estimation in a GOP except for the first pair of frames. The technique has been tested for different fast block based motion estimation algorithms over different standard test sequences using MC-EZBC, a state-of-the-art scalable video coder. The simulation result reveals substantial reduction (i.e. 20.75% to 38.24%) in the number of search points during motion estimation, without compromising the quality of the reconstructed video compared to non-predictive techniques. Since the motion vectors of all the pair of frames in a GOP except the first pair will have value ±1 around the motion vectors of the previous pair of frames, the number of bits required for motion vectors is also reduced by 50%.

Keywords: Motion Compensated Temporal Filtering, predictivemotion estimation, lifted wavelet transform, motion vector

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Authors: Ayman A. Aly, Abdallah A. Alshnnaway

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The general idea behind the filter is to average a pixel using other pixel values from its neighborhood, but simultaneously to take care of important image structures such as edges. The main concern of the proposed filter is to distinguish between any variations of the captured digital image due to noise and due to image structure. The edges give the image the appearance depth and sharpness. A loss of edges makes the image appear blurred or unfocused. However, noise smoothing and edge enhancement are traditionally conflicting tasks. Since most noise filtering behaves like a low pass filter, the blurring of edges and loss of detail seems a natural consequence. Techniques to remedy this inherent conflict often encompass generation of new noise due to enhancement. In this work a new fuzzy filter is presented for the noise reduction of images corrupted with additive noise. The filter consists of three stages. (1) Define fuzzy sets in the input space to computes a fuzzy derivative for eight different directions (2) construct a set of IFTHEN rules by to perform fuzzy smoothing according to contributions of neighboring pixel values and (3) define fuzzy sets in the output space to get the filtered and edged image. Experimental results are obtained to show the feasibility of the proposed approach with two dimensional objects.

Keywords: Additive noise, edge preserving filtering, fuzzy image filtering, noise reduction, two dimensional mechanical images.

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Authors: Swapnoneel Roy, Minhazur Rahman, Ashok Kumar Thakur

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Bioinformatics and computational biology involve the use of techniques including applied mathematics, informatics, statistics, computer science, artificial intelligence, chemistry, and biochemistry to solve biological problems usually on the molecular level. Research in computational biology often overlaps with systems biology. Major research efforts in the field include sequence alignment, gene finding, genome assembly, protein structure alignment, protein structure prediction, prediction of gene expression and proteinprotein interactions, and the modeling of evolution. Various global rearrangements of permutations, such as reversals and transpositions,have recently become of interest because of their applications in computational molecular biology. A reversal is an operation that reverses the order of a substring of a permutation. A transposition is an operation that swaps two adjacent substrings of a permutation. The problem of determining the smallest number of reversals required to transform a given permutation into the identity permutation is called sorting by reversals. Similar problems can be defined for transpositions and other global rearrangements. In this work we perform a study about some genome rearrangement primitives. We show how a genome is modelled by a permutation, introduce some of the existing primitives and the lower and upper bounds on them. We then provide a comparison of the introduced primitives.

Keywords: Sorting Primitives, Genome Rearrangements, Transpositions, Block Interchanges, Strip Exchanges.

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Authors: Pongsatorn Tantrabundit, Lersak Phothong, Ong-art Chanprasitchai

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Due to the emergence of the Internet, it has extended the traditional Word-of-Mouth (WOM) to a new form called “Electronic Word-of-Mouth (eWOM).” Unlike traditional WOM, eWOM is able to present information in various ways by applying different components. Each eWOM component generates different effects on online consumer behavior. This research investigates the effects of Webcare (responding message) from product/ service providers on negative eWOM by applying two types of products (search and experience). The proposed conceptual model was developed based on the combination of the stages in consumer decision-making process, theory of reasoned action (TRA), theory of planned behavior (TPB), the technology acceptance model (TAM), the information integration theory and the elaboration likelihood model. The methodology techniques used in this study included multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) and multiple regression analysis. The results suggest that Webcare does slightly increase Thai online consumer’s perceptions on perceived eWOM trustworthiness, information diagnosticity and quality. For negative eWOM, we also found that perceived eWOM Trustworthiness, perceived eWOM diagnosticity and quality have a positive relationship with eWOM influence whereas perceived valence has a negative relationship with eWOM influence in Thai online consumers.

Keywords:

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Authors: Ehi E. Aimiuwu

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As of 2017, many online learning professionals, institutions, and journals are still wondering how instructors can keep student engaged in the online learning environment to facilitate active learning effectively. The purpose of this qualitative single-case and narrative research is to explore whether online professors understand their role as mentors and facilitators of students’ academic success by keeping students engaged in active learning based on personalized experience in the field. Data collection tools that were used in the study included an NVivo 12 Plus qualitative software, an interview protocol, a digital audiotape, an observation sheet, and a transcription. Seven online professors in the United States from LinkedIn and residencies were interviewed for this study. Eleven online teaching techniques from previous research were used as the study framework. Data analysis process, member checking, and key themes were used to achieve saturation. About 85.7% of professors agreed on rubric as the preferred online grading technique. About 57.1% agreed on professors logging in daily, students logging in about 2-5 times weekly, knowing students to increase accountability, email as preferred communication tool, and computer access for adequate online learning. About 42.9% agreed on syllabus for clear class expectations, participation to show what has been learned, and energizing students for creativity.

Keywords: Class facilitation, class management, online teaching, online education, pedagogy.

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Authors: Justinian Anatory, Nelson Theethayi

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The paper compares different channel models used for modeling Broadband Power-Line Communication (BPLC) system. The models compared are Zimmermann and Dostert, Philipps, Anatory et al and Anatory et al generalized Transmission Line (TL) model. The validity of each model was compared in time domain with ATP-EMTP software which uses transmission line approach. It is found that for a power-line network with minimum number of branches all the models give similar signal/pulse time responses compared with ATP-EMTP software; however, Zimmermann and Dostert model indicates the same amplitude but different time delay. It is observed that when the numbers of branches are increased only generalized TL theory approach results are comparable with ATPEMTP results. Also the Multi-Carrier Spread Spectrum (MC-SS) system was applied to check the implication of such behavior on the modulation schemes. It is observed that using Philipps on the underground cable can predict the performance up to 25dB better than other channel models which can misread the actual performance of the system. Also modified Zimmermann and Dostert under multipath can predict a better performance of about 5dB better than the actual predicted by Generalized TL theory. It is therefore suggested for a realistic BPLC system design and analyses the model based on generalized TL theory be used.

Keywords: Broadband Power line Channel Models, loadimpedance, Branched network.

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Authors: Chiharu Okuma, Jun Murakami, Naoki Yamamoto

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In digital signal processing it is important to approximate multi-dimensional data by the method called rank reduction, in which we reduce the rank of multi-dimensional data from higher to lower. For 2-dimennsional data, singular value decomposition (SVD) is one of the most known rank reduction techniques. Additional, outer product expansion expanded from SVD was proposed and implemented for multi-dimensional data, which has been widely applied to image processing and pattern recognition. However, the multi-dimensional outer product expansion has behavior of great computation complex and has not orthogonally between the expansion terms. Therefore we have proposed an alterative method, Third-order Orthogonal Tensor Product Expansion short for 3-OTPE. 3-OTPE uses the power method instead of nonlinear optimization method for decreasing at computing time. At the same time the group of B. D. Lathauwer proposed Higher-Order SVD (HOSVD) that is also developed with SVD extensions for multi-dimensional data. 3-OTPE and HOSVD are similarly on the rank reduction of multi-dimensional data. Using these two methods we can obtain computation results respectively, some ones are the same while some ones are slight different. In this paper, we compare 3-OTPE to HOSVD in accuracy of calculation and computing time of resolution, and clarify the difference between these two methods.

Keywords: Singular value decomposition (SVD), higher-order SVD (HOSVD), higher-order tensor, outer product expansion, power method.

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Authors: Mabrouka Algherinai, Fatma Karkouri

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Today, Short Message Service (SMS) is an important means of communication. SMS is not only used in informal environment for communication and transaction, but it is also used in formal environments such as institutions, organizations, companies, and business world as a tool for communication and transactions. Therefore, there is a need to secure the information that is being transmitted through this medium to ensure security of information both in transit and at rest. But, encryption has been identified as a means to provide security to SMS messages in transit and at rest. Several past researches have proposed and developed several encryption algorithms for SMS and Information Security. This research aims at comparing the performance of common Asymmetric encryption algorithms on SMS security. The research employs the use of three algorithms, namely RSA, McEliece, and RABIN. Several experiments were performed on SMS of various sizes on android mobile device. The experimental results show that each of the three techniques has different key generation, encryption, and decryption times. The efficiency of an algorithm is determined by the time that it takes for encryption, decryption, and key generation. The best algorithm can be chosen based on the least time required for encryption. The obtained results show the least time when McEliece size 4096 is used. RABIN size 4096 gives most time for encryption and so it is the least effective algorithm when considering encryption. Also, the research shows that McEliece size 2048 has the least time for key generation, and hence, it is the best algorithm as relating to key generation. The result of the algorithms also shows that RSA size 1024 is the most preferable algorithm in terms of decryption as it gives the least time for decryption.

Keywords: SMS, RSA, McEliece, RABIN.

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Authors: Raja Das, M. K. Pradhan

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This paper presents a comparative study between two neural network models namely General Regression Neural Network (GRNN) and Back Propagation Neural Network (BPNN) are used to estimate radial overcut produced during Electrical Discharge Machining (EDM). Four input parameters have been employed: discharge current (Ip), pulse on time (Ton), Duty fraction (Tau) and discharge voltage (V). Recently, artificial intelligence techniques, as it is emerged as an effective tool that could be used to replace time consuming procedures in various scientific or engineering applications, explicitly in prediction and estimation of the complex and nonlinear process. The both networks are trained, and the prediction results are tested with the unseen validation set of the experiment and analysed. It is found that the performance of both the networks are found to be in good agreement with average percentage error less than 11% and the correlation coefficient obtained for the validation data set for GRNN and BPNN is more than 91%. However, it is much faster to train GRNN network than a BPNN and GRNN is often more accurate than BPNN. GRNN requires more memory space to store the model, GRNN features fast learning that does not require an iterative procedure, and highly parallel structure. GRNN networks are slower than multilayer perceptron networks at classifying new cases.

Keywords: Electrical-discharge machining, General Regression Neural Network, Back-propagation Neural Network, Radial Overcut.

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Authors: T. Hirner, J. Polec

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This paper presents an approach for an unequal error protection of facial features of personal ID images coding. We consider unequal error protection (UEP) strategies for the efficient progressive transmission of embedded image codes over noisy channels. This new method is based on the progressive image compression embedded zerotree wavelet (EZW) algorithm and UEP technique with defined region of interest (ROI). In this case is ROI equal facial features within personal ID image. ROI technique is important in applications with different parts of importance. In ROI coding, a chosen ROI is encoded with higher quality than the background (BG). Unequal error protection of image is provided by different coding techniques and encoding LL band separately. In our proposed method, image is divided into two parts (ROI, BG) that consist of more important bytes (MIB) and less important bytes (LIB). The proposed unequal error protection of image transmission has shown to be more appropriate to low bit rate applications, producing better quality output for ROI of the compresses image. The experimental results verify effectiveness of the design. The results of our method demonstrate the comparison of the UEP of image transmission with defined ROI with facial features and the equal error protection (EEP) over additive white gaussian noise (AWGN) channel.

Keywords: Embedded zerotree wavelet (EZW), equal error protection (EEP), facial features, personal ID images, region of interest (ROI), unequal error protection (UEP)

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Authors: S. Chaisit, H.Y. Kung, N.T. Phuong

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Radio frequency identification (RFID) applications have grown rapidly in many industries, especially in indoor location identification. The advantage of using received signal strength indicator (RSSI) values as an indoor location measurement method is a cost-effective approach without installing extra hardware. Because the accuracy of many positioning schemes using RSSI values is limited by interference factors and the environment, thus it is challenging to use RFID location techniques based on integrating positioning algorithm design. This study proposes the location estimation approach and analyzes a scheme relying on RSSI values to minimize location errors. In addition, this paper examines different factors that affect location accuracy by integrating the backpropagation neural network (BPN) with the LANDMARC algorithm in a training phase and an online phase. First, the training phase computes coordinates obtained from the LANDMARC algorithm, which uses RSSI values and the real coordinates of reference tags as training data for constructing an appropriate BPN architecture and training length. Second, in the online phase, the LANDMARC algorithm calculates the coordinates of tracking tags, which are then used as BPN inputs to obtain location estimates. The results show that the proposed scheme can estimate locations more accurately compared to LANDMARC without extra devices.

Keywords: BPNs, indoor location, location estimation, intelligent location identification.

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Authors: Zahzouh Zoubir, Bouzaouit Azzeddine, Gahgah Mounir

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The use of more and more electronic power switches with a nonlinear behavior generates non-sinusoidal currents in distribution networks, which causes damage to domestic and industrial equipment. The multi-level shunt power active filter is subsequently shown to be an adequate solution to the problem raised. Nevertheless, the difficulty of adjusting the active filter DC supply voltage requires another technology to ensure it. In this article, a photovoltaic generator is associated with the DC bus power terminals of the active filter. The proposed system consists of a field of solar panels, three multi-level voltage inverters connected to the power grid and a non-linear load consisting of a six-diode rectifier bridge supplying a resistive-inductive load. Current control techniques of active and reactive power are used to compensate for both harmonic currents and reactive power as well as to inject active solar power into the distribution network. An algorithm of the search method of the maximum power point of type Perturb and observe is applied. Simulation results of the system proposed under the MATLAB/Simulink environment shows that the performance of control commands that reassure the solar power injection in the network, harmonic current compensation and power factor correction.

Keywords: MPPT, active power filter, PV array, perturb and observe algorithm, PWM-control.

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Authors: Shimal Das, Dibyendu Ghoshal

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Fractal based digital image compression is a specific technique in the field of color image. The method is best suited for irregular shape of image like snow bobs, clouds, flame of fire; tree leaves images, depending on the fact that parts of an image often resemble with other parts of the same image. This technique has drawn much attention in recent years because of very high compression ratio that can be achieved. Hybrid scheme incorporating fractal compression and speedup techniques have achieved high compression ratio compared to pure fractal compression. Fractal image compression is a lossy compression method in which selfsimilarity nature of an image is used. This technique provides high compression ratio, less encoding time and fart decoding process. In this paper, fractal compression with quad tree and DCT is proposed to compress the color image. The proposed hybrid schemes require four phases to compress the color image. First: the image is segmented and Discrete Cosine Transform is applied to each block of the segmented image. Second: the block values are scanned in a zigzag manner to prevent zero co-efficient. Third: the resulting image is partitioned as fractals by quadtree approach. Fourth: the image is compressed using Run length encoding technique.

Keywords: Fractal coding, Discrete Cosine Transform, Iterated Function System (IFS), Affine Transformation, Run length encoding.

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Authors: A. Muthuramalingam, S. Himavathi

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Harmonic pollution and low power factor in power systems caused by power converters have been of great concern. To overcome these problems several converter topologies using advanced semiconductor devices and control schemes have been proposed. This investigation is to identify a low cost, small size, efficient and reliable ac to dc converter to meet the input performance index of UPS. The performance of single phase and three phase ac to dc converter along with various control techniques are studied and compared. The half bridge converter topology with linear current control is identified as most suitable. It is simple, energy efficient because of single switch power loss and transformer-less operation of UPS. The results are validated practically using a prototype built using IGBT and analog controller. The performance for both single and three-phase system is verified. Digital implementation of closed loop control achieves higher reliability. Its cost largely depends on chosen bit precision. The minimal bit precision for optimum converter performance is identified as 16-bit with fixed-point operation. From the investigation and practical implementation it is concluded that half bridge ac – dc converter along with digital linear controller meets the performance index of UPS for single and three phase systems.

Keywords: PFC, energy efficient, half bridge, ac-dc converter, boost topology, linear current control, digital bit precision.

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Authors: Javad Rahimipour Anaraki, Saeed Samet, Mahdi Eftekhari, Chang Wook Ahn

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Feature selection and attribute reduction are crucial problems, and widely used techniques in the field of machine learning, data mining and pattern recognition to overcome the well-known phenomenon of the Curse of Dimensionality. This paper presents a feature selection method that efficiently carries out attribute reduction, thereby selecting the most informative features of a dataset. It consists of two components: 1) a measure for feature subset evaluation, and 2) a search strategy. For the evaluation measure, we have employed the fuzzy-rough dependency degree (FRFDD) of the lower approximation-based fuzzy-rough feature selection (L-FRFS) due to its effectiveness in feature selection. As for the search strategy, a modified version of a binary shuffled frog leaping algorithm is proposed (B-SFLA). The proposed feature selection method is obtained by hybridizing the B-SFLA with the FRDD. Nine classifiers have been employed to compare the proposed approach with several existing methods over twenty two datasets, including nine high dimensional and large ones, from the UCI repository. The experimental results demonstrate that the B-SFLA approach significantly outperforms other metaheuristic methods in terms of the number of selected features and the classification accuracy.

Keywords: Binary shuffled frog leaping algorithm, feature selection, fuzzy-rough set, minimal reduct.

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Authors: Zukisa Nante, Wang Zenghui

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Face recognition is the problem of identifying or recognizing individuals in an image. This paper investigates a possible method to bring a solution to this problem. The method proposes an amalgamation of Principal Component Analysis (PCA), K-Means clustering, and Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) for a face recognition system. It is trained and evaluated using the ORL dataset. This dataset consists of 400 different faces with 40 classes of 10 face images per class. Firstly, PCA enabled the usage of a smaller network. This reduces the training time of the CNN. Thus, we get rid of the redundancy and preserve the variance with a smaller number of coefficients. Secondly, the K-Means clustering model is trained using the compressed PCA obtained data which select the K-Means clustering centers with better characteristics. Lastly, the K-Means characteristics or features are an initial value of the CNN and act as input data. The accuracy and the performance of the proposed method were tested in comparison to other Face Recognition (FR) techniques namely PCA, Support Vector Machine (SVM), as well as K-Nearest Neighbour (kNN). During experimentation, the accuracy and the performance of our suggested method after 90 epochs achieved the highest performance: 99% accuracy F1-Score, 99% precision, and 99% recall in 463.934 seconds. It outperformed the PCA that obtained 97% and KNN with 84% during the conducted experiments. Therefore, this method proved to be efficient in identifying faces in the images.

Keywords: Face recognition, Principal Component Analysis, PCA, Convolutional Neural Network, CNN, Rectified Linear Unit, ReLU, feature extraction.

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Authors: H. M. Mohammad, A. Martin, N. Brown, N. Hodson, P. Hill, E. Roberts

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Graphite intercalation compound (GIC) has been demonstrated to be a useful, low capacity and rapid adsorbent for the removal of organic micropollutants from water. The high electrical conductivity and low capacity of the material lends itself to electrochemical regeneration. Following electrochemical regeneration, equilibrium loading under similar conditions is reported to exceed that achieved by the fresh adsorbent. This behavior is reported in terms of the regeneration efficiency being greater than 100%. In this work, surface analysis techniques are employed to investigate the material in three states: ‘Fresh’, ‘Loaded’ and ‘Regenerated’. ‘Fresh’ GIC is shown to exhibit a hydrogen and oxygen rich surface layer approximately 150 nm thick. ‘Loaded’ GIC shows a similar but slightly thicker surface layer (approximately 370 nm thick) and significant enhancement in the hydrogen and oxygen abundance extending beyond 600 nm from the surface. 'Regenerated’ GIC shows an oxygen rich layer, slightly thicker than the fresh case at approximately 220 nm while showing a very much lower hydrogen enrichment at the surface. Results demonstrate that while the electrochemical regeneration effectively removes the phenol model pollutant, it also oxidizes the exposed carbon surface. These results may have a significant impact on the estimation of adsorbent life.

Keywords: Graphite, adsorbent, electrochemical, regeneration, phenol.

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Authors: Kayijuka Idrissa

Abstract:

This work investigates a mathematical study for traffic flow and traffic density in Kigali city roads and the data collected from the national police of Rwanda in 2012. While working on this topic, some mathematical models were used in order to analyze and compare traffic variables. This work has been carried out on Kigali roads specifically at roundabouts from Kigali Business Center (KBC) to Prince House as our study sites. In this project, we used some mathematical tools to analyze the data collected and to understand the relationship between traffic variables. We applied the Poisson distribution method to analyze and to know the number of accidents occurred in this section of the road which is from KBC to Prince House. The results show that the accidents that occurred in 2012 were at very high rates due to the fact that this section has a very narrow single lane on each side which leads to high congestion of vehicles, and consequently, accidents occur very frequently. Using the data of speeds and densities collected from this section of road, we found that the increment of the density results in a decrement of the speed of the vehicle. At the point where the density is equal to the jam density the speed becomes zero. The approach is promising in capturing sudden changes on flow patterns and is open to be utilized in a series of intelligent management strategies and especially in noncurrent congestion effect detection and control.

Keywords: Statistical methods, Poisson distribution, car moving techniques, traffic flow.

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Authors: Rana Th. A. Al-Rubaye, Arthur A. Garforth

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This work details the generation of thin films of structured zeolite catalysts (ZSM–5 and Y) onto the surface of a metal substrate (FeCrAlloy) using in-situ hydrothermal synthesis. In addition, the zeolite Y is post-synthetically modified by acidified ammonium ion exchange to generate US-Y. Finally the catalytic activity of the structured ZSM-5 catalyst films (Si/Al = 11, thickness 146 0m) and structured US–Y catalyst film (Si/Al = 8, thickness 230m) were compared with the pelleted powder form of ZSM–5 and USY catalysts of similar Si/Al ratios. The structured catalyst films have been characterised using a range of techniques, including X-ray diffraction (XRD), Electron microscopy (SEM), Energy Dispersive X–ray analysis (EDX) and Thermogravimetric Analysis (TGA). The transition from oxide-onalloy wires to hydrothermally synthesised uniformly zeolite coated surfaces was followed using SEM and XRD. In addition, the robustness of the prepared coating was confirmed by subjecting these to thermal cycling (ambient to 550oC). The cracking of n–heptane over the pellets and structured catalysts for both ZSM–5 and Y zeolite showed very similar product selectivities for similar amounts of catalyst with an apparent activation energy of around 60 kJ mol-1. This paper demonstrates that structured catalysts can be manufactured with excellent zeolite adherence and when suitably activated/modified give comparable cracking results to the pelleted powder forms. These structured catalysts will improve temperature distribution in highly exothermic and endothermic catalysed processes.

Keywords: FeCrAlloy, Structured catalyst, and Zeolite Y, Zeolite ZSM-5.

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Authors: Md. Emaj Uddin

Abstract:

This study compares family communication patterns in association with family socio-cultural status, especially marriage and family pattern, and couples- socio-economic status between Muslim and Santal communities in rural Bangladesh. A total of 288 couples, 145 couples from the Muslim and 143 couples from the Santal were randomly selected through cluster sampling procedure from Kalna village situated in Tanore Upazila of Rajshahi district of Bangladesh, where both the communities dwell as neighbors. In order to collect data from the selected samples, interview method with semistructural questionnaire schedule was applied. The responses given by the respondents were analyzed by Pearson-s chi-squire test and bivariate correlation techniques. The results of Pearson-s chi-squire test revealed that family communication patterns (X2= 25. 90, df= 2, p<0.01, p>0.05) were significantly different between the Muslim and Santal communities. In addition, Spearman-s bivariate correlation coefficients suggested that among the exogenous factors, family type (rs=.135, p<0.05) and occupation of both husband (rs= .197, p<0.01) and wife (rs= .265, p<0.01) were significantly positive associations, and marital arrangement (rs= -.177, p<0.01), education of husband (rs= -.108, p<0.05) and wife (rs= -.142, p<0.01 & p<0.05), and family income (rs= -.164, p<0.01) were significantly negative relations with the family communication patterns followed between the two communities, although age difference between husband and wife, family head and residence patterns were not significant relations with ones.

Keywords: Bangladesh, Cross-Cultural Comparison, Family Communication Patterns, Family Socio-Cultural Status, Muslim, Santal.

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Authors: V. Emery David Jr., J. Wenchao, D. Mmereki, Y. John, F. Heriniaina

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Healthcare waste management continues to present an array of challenges for developing countries, and Liberia is of no exception. There is insufficient information available regarding the generation, handling, and disposal of health care waste. This face serves as an impediment to healthcare management schemes. The specific objective of this study is to present an evaluation of the current health care management practices in Liberia. It also presented procedures, techniques used, methods of handling, transportation, and disposal methods of wastes as well as the quantity and composition of health care waste. This study was conducted as an investigative case study, covering three different health care facilities; a hospital, a health center, and a clinic in Monrovia, Montserrado County. The average waste generation was found to be 0-7kg per day at the clinic and health center and 8-15kg per/day at the hospital. The composition of the waste includes hazardous and non-hazardous waste i.e. plastic, papers, sharps, and pathological elements etc. Nevertheless, the investigation showed that the healthcare waste generated by the surveyed healthcare facilities were not properly handled because of insufficient guidelines for separate collection, and classification, and adequate methods for storage and proper disposal of generated wastes. This therefore indicates that there is a need for improvement within the healthcare waste management system to improve the existing situation.

Keywords: Disposal, Healthcare waste, management, Montserrado County, Monrovia.

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Authors: S. Chabbak

Abstract:

In a widely globalized world, the influence of audiovisual translation on the culture and identity of audiences is unmistakable. However, in the Arab World, there is a noticeable disproportion between this growing influence and the research carried out in the field. As a matter of fact, the voiced-over documentary is one of the most abundantly translated genres in the Arab World that carries lots of ideological elements which are in many cases rendered by manipulation. However, voiced-over documentaries have hardly received any focused attention from researchers in the Arab World. This paper attempts to scrutinize the process of translation of voiced-over documentaries in the Arab World, from French into Arabic in the present case study, by sub-categorizing the ideological items subject to manipulation, identifying the techniques utilized in their translation and exploring the potential extra-linguistic factors that prompt translation agents to opt for manipulative translation. The investigation is based on a corpus of 94 episodes taken from a series entitled 360° GEO Reports, produced by the French German network ARTE in French, and acquired, translated and aired by Al Jazeera Documentary Channel for Arab audiences. The results yielded 124 cases of manipulation in four sub-categories of ideological items, and the use of 10 different oblique procedures in the process of manipulative translation. The study also revealed that manipulation is in most of the instances dictated by the editorial line of the broadcasting channel, in addition to the religious, geopolitical and socio-cultural peculiarities of the target culture.

Keywords: Audiovisual translation, ideological items, manipulation, voiced-over documentaries.

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