Evaluation of Wavelet Filters for Image Compression

The aim of this paper to characterize a larger set of wavelet functions for implementation in a still image compression system using SPIHT algorithm. This paper discusses important features of wavelet functions and filters used in sub band coding to convert image into wavelet coefficients in MATLAB. Image quality is measured objectively using peak signal to noise ratio (PSNR) and its variation with bit rate (bpp). The effect of different parameters is studied on different wavelet functions. Our results provide a good reference for application designers of wavelet based coder.

Independent Component Analysis to Mass Spectra of Aluminium Sulphate

Independent component analysis (ICA) is a computational method for finding underlying signals or components from multivariate statistical data. The ICA method has been successfully applied in many fields, e.g. in vision research, brain imaging, geological signals and telecommunications. In this paper, we apply the ICA method to an analysis of mass spectra of oligomeric species emerged from aluminium sulphate. Mass spectra are typically complex, because they are linear combinations of spectra from different types of oligomeric species. The results show that ICA can decomposite the spectral components for useful information. This information is essential in developing coagulation phases of water treatment processes.

Block Sorting: A New Characterization and a New Heuristic

The Block Sorting problem is to sort a given permutation moving blocks. A block is defined as a substring of the given permutation, which is also a substring of the identity permutation. Block Sorting has been proved to be NP-Hard. Until now two different 2-Approximation algorithms have been presented for block sorting. These are the best known algorithms for Block Sorting till date. In this work we present a different characterization of Block Sorting in terms of a transposition cycle graph. Then we suggest a heuristic, which we show to exhibit a 2-approximation performance guarantee for most permutations.

Periodic Storage Control Problem

Considering a reservoir with periodic states and different cost functions with penalty, its release rules can be modeled as a periodic Markov decision process (PMDP). First, we prove that policy- iteration algorithm also works for the PMDP. Then, with policy- iteration algorithm, we obtain the optimal policies for a special aperiodic reservoir model with two cost functions under large penalty and give a discussion when the penalty is small.

Fuzzy Adjacency Matrix in Graphs

In this paper a new definition of adjacency matrix in the simple graphs is presented that is called fuzzy adjacency matrix, so that elements of it are in the form of 0 and n N n 1 , ∈ that are in the interval [0, 1], and then some charactristics of this matrix are presented with the related examples . This form matrix has complete of information of a graph.

Competitiveness of the Baltic States within the International Ratings

Baltic competitiveness is quite controversial. In a situation with the rapid structural changes, economy develops in balance very rarely - in different fields will always be more rapid changes in another more stagnation. Analyzing different economic indices developed by international organizations the situation in three Baltic countries are described from a different competitiveness positions highlighting strengths and weaknesses of each country. Exploring the openness of the economy, it is possible to observe certain risks included in the reports describing situation of competitiveness where government policies competing in the tax system, the rates of labour market policies, investment environment, etc. This is a very important factor resulting in competitive advantage. Baltic countries are still at a weak position from a technological perspective, and need to borrow the knowledge and technology from more developed countries.

Comparison of Three Turbulence Models in Wear Prediction of Multi-Size Particulate Flow through Rotating Channel

The present work compares the performance of three turbulence modeling approach (based on the two-equation k -ε model) in predicting erosive wear in multi-size dense slurry flow through rotating channel. All three turbulence models include rotation modification to the production term in the turbulent kineticenergy equation. The two-phase flow field obtained numerically using Galerkin finite element methodology relates the local flow velocity and concentration to the wear rate via a suitable wear model. The wear models for both sliding wear and impact wear mechanisms account for the particle size dependence. Results of predicted wear rates using the three turbulence models are compared for a large number of cases spanning such operating parameters as rotation rate, solids concentration, flow rate, particle size distribution and so forth. The root-mean-square error between FE-generated data and the correlation between maximum wear rate and the operating parameters is found less than 2.5% for all the three models.

Property Aggregation and Uncertainty with Links to the Management and Determination of Critical Design Features

Within the domain of Systems Engineering the need to perform property aggregation to understand, analyze and manage complex systems is unequivocal. This can be seen in numerous domains such as capability analysis, Mission Essential Competencies (MEC) and Critical Design Features (CDF). Furthermore, the need to consider uncertainty propagation as well as the sensitivity of related properties within such analysis is equally as important when determining a set of critical properties within such a system. This paper describes this property breakdown in a number of domains within Systems Engineering and, within the area of CDFs, emphasizes the importance of uncertainty analysis. As part of this, a section of the paper describes possible techniques which may be used within uncertainty propagation and in conclusion an example is described utilizing one of the techniques for property and uncertainty aggregation within an aircraft system to aid the determination of Critical Design Features.

Histopathological and Morphological Defects in the Mice Prenatally Exposed to Low EMF

This research was carried out to determine the possible effects of low electromagnetic field (EMF) exposure to the developing mice fetuses. Pregnant mice were exposed to EMF exposure at 0mT (sham) and 1.2 mT for six hours per session, carried out on gestation day 3, 6, 9, 12 and 15. Samples from the stillborn offspring were observed for morphological defects. The heart didn-t show progressive cellular damage, the lungs were congested and emphysemics. The bones were in advance stage of hypertrophy. Spectrums of morphological defects were observed over 70% of the surviving offspring. These results indicate that even at lower exposure to low EMF, is enough to induce morphological defects in prenatal mice.

Ensuring Data Security and Consistency in FTIMA - A Fault Tolerant Infrastructure for Mobile Agents

Transaction management is one of the most crucial requirements for enterprise application development which often require concurrent access to distributed data shared amongst multiple application / nodes. Transactions guarantee the consistency of data records when multiple users or processes perform concurrent operations. Existing Fault Tolerance Infrastructure for Mobile Agents (FTIMA) provides a fault tolerant behavior in distributed transactions and uses multi-agent system for distributed transaction and processing. In the existing FTIMA architecture, data flows through the network and contains personal, private or confidential information. In banking transactions a minor change in the transaction can cause a great loss to the user. In this paper we have modified FTIMA architecture to ensure that the user request reaches the destination server securely and without any change. We have used triple DES for encryption/ decryption and MD5 algorithm for validity of message.

Simulation Study of Lateral Trench Gate Power MOSFET on 4H-SiC

A lateral trench-gate power metal-oxide-semiconductor on 4H-SiC is proposed. The device consists of two separate trenches in which two gates are placed on both sides of P-body region resulting two parallel channels. Enhanced current conduction and reduced-surface-field effect in the structure provide substantial improvement in the device performance. Using two dimensional simulations, the performance of proposed device is evaluated and compare of with that of the conventional device for same cell pitch. It is demonstrated that the proposed structure provides two times higher output current, 11% decrease in threshold voltage, 70% improvement in transconductance, 70% reduction in specific ON-resistance, 52% increase in breakdown voltage, and nearly eight time improvement in figure-of-merit over the conventional device.

An Assessment of Software Process Optimization Compared to International Best Practice in Bangladesh

The challenge for software development house in Bangladesh is to find a path of using minimum process rather than CMMI or ISO type gigantic practice and process area. The small and medium size organization in Bangladesh wants to ensure minimum basic Software Process Improvement (SPI) in day to day operational activities. Perhaps, the basic practices will ensure to realize their company's improvement goals. This paper focuses on the key issues in basic software practices for small and medium size software organizations, who are unable to effort the CMMI, ISO, ITIL etc. compliance certifications. This research also suggests a basic software process practices model for Bangladesh and it will show the mapping of our suggestions with international best practice. In this IT competitive world for software process improvement, Small and medium size software companies that require collaboration and strengthening to transform their current perspective into inseparable global IT scenario. This research performed some investigations and analysis on some projects- life cycle, current good practice, effective approach, reality and pain area of practitioners, etc. We did some reasoning, root cause analysis, comparative analysis of various approach, method, practice and justifications of CMMI and real life. We did avoid reinventing the wheel, where our focus is for minimal practice, which will ensure a dignified satisfaction between organizations and software customer.

An Approach for Data Analysis, Evaluation and Correction: A Case Study from Man-Made River Project in Libya

The world-s largest Pre-stressed Concrete Cylinder Pipe (PCCP) water supply project had a series of pipe failures which occurred between 1999 and 2001. This has led the Man-Made River Authority (MMRA), the authority in charge of the implementation and operation of the project, to setup a rehabilitation plan for the conveyance system while maintaining the uninterrupted flow of water to consumers. At the same time, MMRA recognized the need for a long term management tool that would facilitate repair and maintenance decisions and enable taking the appropriate preventive measures through continuous monitoring and estimation of the remaining life of each pipe. This management tool is known as the Pipe Risk Management System (PRMS) and now in operation at MMRA. Both the rehabilitation plan and the PRMS require the availability of complete and accurate pipe construction and manufacturing data This paper describes a systematic approach of data collection, analysis, evaluation and correction for the construction and manufacturing data files of phase I pipes which are the platform for the PRMS database and any other related decision support system.

Employee Loyalty and Telecommuting

Telecommuting has become an increasingly popular work arrangement. However, little research has examined the impact of telecommuting on the relationship between employees and the organization. This study aims to shed light on this aspect by comparing the loyalty of telecommuters and non telecommuters as it can be viewed from three angles: organizational loyalty, peer loyalty, and professional loyalty. Furthermore, this paper will explore the dynamics among employee loyalty, productivity, and job satisfaction. Whereas previous studies had looked on employees that are not fully telecommuting, the current study concentrates on employees that are exclusively working from home.

3D Oil Reservoir Visualisation Using Octree Compression Techniques Utilising Logical Grid Co-Ordinates

Octree compression techniques have been used for several years for compressing large three dimensional data sets into homogeneous regions. This compression technique is ideally suited to datasets which have similar values in clusters. Oil engineers represent reservoirs as a three dimensional grid where hydrocarbons occur naturally in clusters. This research looks at the efficiency of storing these grids using octree compression techniques where grid cells are broken into active and inactive regions. Initial experiments yielded high compression ratios as only active leaf nodes and their ancestor, header nodes are stored as a bitstream to file on disk. Savings in computational time and memory were possible at decompression, as only active leaf nodes are sent to the graphics card eliminating the need of reconstructing the original matrix. This results in a more compact vertex table, which can be loaded into the graphics card quicker and generating shorter refresh delay times.

Psychological Structure of “Aitys“ as a Process of Oral Creative Competition in Kazakh Traditional Folklore

the aim of this study was to analyze ethnopsychological content of “Aitys" as a process of creative competition in Kazakh traditional folklore by means of Transaction analysis (three types of Ego states are Parent, Adult and Child). “Aitys" is as sources of Kazakh national self-consciousness and form of oral Kazakh national creativity. Comparative psychological analysis of classical and modern “aityses" is carried out. Empirical proved that the victory in “Aitys" is provided with a position of egostate “Adult".

The Relationship between Employability and Training

The aim of this paper is to provide an empirical evidence about the effects that the management of continuous training have on employability (or employment stability) in the Spanish labour market. With this purpose a binary logit model with interaction effect is been used. The dependent variable includes two situations of the active workers: continuous and discontinuous employability. To distinguish between them an Employability Index Stability (ESI) was calculated taking into account two factors: time worked and job security. Various aspects of the continuous training and personal workers data are used as independent variables. The data obtained from a survey of a sample of 918 employed have revealed a relationship between the likelihood of continuous employability and continuous training received. The empirical results support the positive and significant relationship between various aspects of the training provided by firms and employability likelihood of the workers, postulate alike from a theoretical point of view.

Kalman-s Shrinkage for Wavelet-Based Despeckling of SAR Images

In this paper, a new probability density function (pdf) is proposed to model the statistics of wavelet coefficients, and a simple Kalman-s filter is derived from the new pdf using Bayesian estimation theory. Specifically, we decompose the speckled image into wavelet subbands, we apply the Kalman-s filter to the high subbands, and reconstruct a despeckled image from the modified detail coefficients. Experimental results demonstrate that our method compares favorably to several other despeckling methods on test synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images.

A Systematic Construction of Instability Bounds in LIS Networks

In this work, we study the impact of dynamically changing link slowdowns on the stability properties of packetswitched networks under the Adversarial Queueing Theory framework. Especially, we consider the Adversarial, Quasi-Static Slowdown Queueing Theory model, where each link slowdown may take on values in the two-valued set of integers {1, D} with D > 1 which remain fixed for a long time, under a (w, p)-adversary. In this framework, we present an innovative systematic construction for the estimation of adversarial injection rate lower bounds, which, if exceeded, cause instability in networks that use the LIS (Longest-in- System) protocol for contention-resolution. In addition, we show that a network that uses the LIS protocol for contention-resolution may result in dropping its instability bound at injection rates p > 0 when the network size and the high slowdown D take large values. This is the best ever known instability lower bound for LIS networks.

Evolutionary Distance in the Yeast Genome

Whole genome duplication (WGD) increased the number of yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae chromosomes from 8 to 16. In spite of retention the number of chromosomes in the genome of this organism after WGD to date, chromosomal rearrangement events have caused an evolutionary distance between current genome and its ancestor. Studies under evolutionary-based approaches on eukaryotic genomes have shown that the rearrangement distance is an approximable problem. In the case of S. cerevisiae, we describe that rearrangement distance is accessible by using dedoubled adjacency graph drawn for 55 large paired chromosomal regions originated from WGD. Then, we provide a program extracted from a C program database to draw a dedoubled genome adjacency graph for S. cerevisiae. From a bioinformatical perspective, using the duplicated blocks of current genome in S. cerevisiae, we infer that genomic organization of eukaryotes has the potential to provide valuable detailed information about their ancestrygenome.