Abstract: The purpose of this research is to compare the original
intra-oral digital dental radiograph images with images that are
enhanced using a combination of image processing algorithms. Intraoral
digital dental radiograph images are often noisy, blur edges and
low in contrast. A combination of sharpening and enhancement
method are used to overcome these problems. Three types of
proposed compound algorithms used are Sharp Adaptive Histogram
Equalization (SAHE), Sharp Median Adaptive Histogram
Equalization (SMAHE) and Sharp Contrast adaptive histogram
equalization (SCLAHE). This paper presents an initial study of the
perception of six dentists on the details of abnormal pathologies and
improvement of image quality in ten intra-oral radiographs. The
research focus on the detection of only three types of pathology
which is periapical radiolucency, widen periodontal ligament space
and loss of lamina dura. The overall result shows that SCLAHE-s
slightly improve the appearance of dental abnormalities- over the
original image and also outperform the other two proposed
compound algorithms.
Abstract: This paper proposes a three-dimensional motion capture and feedback system of flying disc throwing action learners with use of Kinect device. Rather than conventional 3-D motion capture system, Kinect has advantages of cost merit, easy system development and operation. A novice learner of flying disc is trained to keep arm movement in steady height, to twist the waist, and to stretch the elbow according to the waist angle. The proposing system captures learners- body movement, checks their skeleton positions in pre-motion / motion / post-motion in several ways, and displays feedback messages to refine their actions.
Abstract: At present, increased concerns about global
environmental problems have magnified the importance of
sustainability management. To move towards sustainability,
companies need to look at everything from a holistic perspective in
order to understand the interconnections between economic growth
and environmental and social sustainability. This paper aims to gain
an understanding of key determinants that drive sustainability
management and barriers that hinder its development. It employs
semi-structured interviews with key informants, site observation and
documentation. The informants are production, marketing and
environmental managers of the leading wine producer, which aims to
become an Asia-s leader in wine & wine based products. It is found
that corporate image and top management leadership are the primary
factors influencing the adoption of sustainability management. Lack
of environmental knowledge and inefficient communication are
identified as barriers.
Abstract: The aim of this paper is to develop a new two dimensional time accurate Euler solver for shock tube applications. The solver was developed to study the performance of a newly built short-duration hypersonic test facility at Universiti Tenaga Nasional “UNITEN" in Malaysia. The facility has been designed, built, and commissioned for different values of diaphragm pressure ratios in order to get wide range of Mach number. The developed solver uses second order accurate cell-vertex finite volume spatial discretization and forth order accurate Runge-Kutta temporal integration and it is designed to simulate the flow process for similar driver/driven gases (e.g. air-air as working fluids). The solver is validated against analytical solution and experimental measurements in the high speed flow test facility. Further investigations were made on the flow process inside the shock tube by using the solver. The shock wave motion, reflection and interaction were investigated and their influence on the performance of the shock tube was determined. The results provide very good estimates for both shock speed and shock pressure obtained after diaphragm rupture. Also detailed information on the gasdynamic processes over the full length of the facility is available. The agreements obtained have been reasonable.
Abstract: This paper reports on the theoretical performance
analysis of the 1.3 μm In0.42Ga0.58As /In0.26Ga0.74As multiple quantum
well (MQW) vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL) on the
ternary In0.31Ga0.69As substrate. The output power of 2.2 mW has
been obtained at room temperature for 7.5 mA injection current. The
material gain has been estimated to be ~3156 cm-1 at room
temperature with the injection carrier concentration of 2×1017 cm-3.
The modulation bandwidth of this laser is measured to be 9.34 GHz
at room temperature for the biasing current of 2 mA above the
threshold value. The outcomes reveal that the proposed InGaAsbased
MQW laser is the promising one for optical communication
system.
Abstract: Image watermarking has proven to be quite an
efficient tool for the purpose of copyright protection and
authentication over the last few years. In this paper, a novel image
watermarking technique in the wavelet domain is suggested and
tested. To achieve more security and robustness, the proposed
techniques relies on using two nested watermarks that are embedded
into the image to be watermarked. A primary watermark in form of a
PN sequence is first embedded into an image (the secondary
watermark) before being embedded into the host image. The
technique is implemented using Daubechies mother wavelets where
an arbitrary embedding factor α is introduced to improve the
invisibility and robustness. The proposed technique has been applied
on several gray scale images where a PSNR of about 60 dB was
achieved.
Abstract: Oral health is particular important to the hospitalized
patients with chronic schizophrenia for an extreme high potential of the respiratory infections. Due to the degeneration of physical capability, patients of this kind typically fall dependent in the activity of daily living (ADL). A very high percentage of patients had dental
problems of which mostly could be easily avoid by easy regular tooth brushing. Purpose of the project is to develop a mechanism in helping the schizophrenia patients in rebuilding a tooth-cleaning habit. The
project observed and evaluated the tooth-cleaning behavior of 100
male patients in a psychiatric hospital, and found the majority of them
ignored such an activity in a three-month period of time. In the meantime, the primary care-givers were not aware or not convinced
the importance of such a need of dental hygiene, and thus few if any
tooth cleaning training or knowledge on dental hygiene were given to
the patients. The project then developed a program based on the numerous observations and discussions. The improvement program
included patients- group education, care-givers- training, and a
tool-kit for tooth-brush holding was erected. The project launched
with some incentive package. The outcomes were encouraging with
87% of the patients had rebuilt their tooth-brushing habits against
previous 22%, and the tooth cleaning kits were 100% kept against 22%
in the past. This project had significantly improved the oral health of
the patients. The project, included the procedure and the tool-kit
holder specific for this purpose, was a good examples for psychiatric
hospitals.
Abstract: In this paper, a heuristic method for simultaneous
rescue robot path-planning and mission scheduling is introduced
based on project management techniques, multi criteria decision
making and artificial potential fields path-planning. Groups of
injured people are trapped in a disastrous situation. These people are
categorized into several groups based on the severity of their
situation. A rescue robot, whose ultimate objective is reaching
injured groups and providing preliminary aid for them through a path
with minimum risk, has to perform certain tasks on its way towards
targets before the arrival of rescue team. A decision value is assigned
to each target based on the whole degree of satisfaction of the criteria
and duties of the robot toward the target and the importance of
rescuing each target based on their category and the number of
injured people. The resulted decision value defines the strength of the
attractive potential field of each target. Dangerous environmental
parameters are defined as obstacles whose risk determines the
strength of the repulsive potential field of each obstacle. Moreover,
negative and positive energies are assigned to the targets and
obstacles, which are variable with respects to the factors involved.
The simulation results show that the generated path for two cases
studies with certain differences in environmental conditions and
other risk factors differ considerably.
Abstract: This paper is the tomographic images reconstruction
simulation for defects detection in specimen. The specimen is the
thin cylindrical steel contained with low density materials. The
defects in material are simulated in three shapes.The specimen image
function will be transformed to projection data. Radon transform and
its inverse provide the mathematical for reconstructing tomographic
images from projection data. The result of the simulation show that
the reconstruction images is complete for defect detection.
Abstract: Lutein is a dietary oxycarotenoid which is found
to reduce the risks of Age-related Macular Degeneration
(AMD). Supercritical fluid extraction of lutein esters from
marigold petals was carried out and was found to be much
effective than conventional solvent extraction. The
saponification of pre-concentrated lutein esters to produce free
lutein was studied which showed a composition of about 88%
total carotenoids (UV-VIS spectrophotometry) and 90.7%
lutein (HPLC). The lipase catalyzed hydrolysis of lutein esters
in conventional medium was investigated. The optimal
temperature, pH, enzyme concentration and water activity
were found to be 50°C, 7, 15% and 0.33 respectively and the
activity loss of lipase was about 25% after 8 times re-use in at
50°C for 12 days. However, the lipase catalyzed hydrolysis of
lutein esters in conventional media resulted in poor
conversions (16.4%).
Abstract: Early breast cancer detection is an emerging field of
research as it can save the women infected by malignant tumors.
Microwave breast imaging is based on the electrical property contrast
between healthy and malignant tumor. This contrast can be detected
by use of microwave energy with an array of antennas that illuminate
the breast through coupling medium and by measuring the scattered
fields. In this paper, author has been presented the design and
simulation results of the bowtie antenna. This bowtie antenna is
designed for the detection of breast cancer detection.
Abstract: Basel III (or the Third Basel Accord) is a global
regulatory standard on bank capital adequacy, stress testing and
market liquidity risk agreed upon by the members of the Basel
Committee on Banking Supervision in 2010-2011, and scheduled to
be introduced from 2013 until 2018. Basel III is a comprehensive set
of reform measures. These measures aim to; (1) improve the banking
sector-s ability to absorb shocks arising from financial and economic
stress, whatever the source, (2) improve risk management and
governance, (3) strengthen banks- transparency and disclosures.
Similarly the reform target; (1) bank level or micro-prudential,
regulation, which will help raise the resilience of individual banking
institutions to periods of stress. (2) Macro-prudential regulations,
system wide risk that can build up across the banking sector as well
as the pro-cyclical implication of these risks over time. These two
approaches to supervision are complementary as greater resilience at
the individual bank level reduces the risk system wide shocks.
Macroeconomic impact of Basel III; OECD estimates that the
medium-term impact of Basel III implementation on GDP growth is
in the range -0,05 percent to -0,15 percent per year. On the other hand
economic output is mainly affected by an increase in bank lending
spreads as banks pass a rise in banking funding costs, due to higher
capital requirements, to their customers. Consequently the estimated
effects on GDP growth assume no active response from monetary
policy. Basel III impact on economic output could be offset by a
reduction (or delayed increase) in monetary policy rates by about 30
to 80 basis points. The aim of this paper is to create a framework
based on the recent regulations in order to prevent financial crises.
Thus the need to overcome the global financial crisis will contribute
to financial crises that may occur in the future periods. In the first
part of the paper, the effects of the global crisis on the banking
system examine the concept of financial regulations. In the second
part; especially in the financial regulations and Basel III are analyzed.
The last section in this paper explored the possible consequences of
the macroeconomic impacts of Basel III.
Abstract: WIMAX relay station mesh network has been approved by IEEE 802.16j as a standard to provide a highly data rate transmission, the RS was implemented to extend the coverage zone of the BS, for instance the MSs previously were out of the coverage of the BS they become in the coverage of the RS, therefore these MSs can have Admission control from the BS through the RS. This paper describe a problem in the mesh network Relay station, for instance the problem of how to serve the mobile stations (MSs) which are out of the Relay station coverage. This paper also proposed a solution for mobile stations out of the coverage of the WIMAX Relay stations mesh Network. Therefore Ad-hoc network defined as a solution by using its admission control schema and apply it on the mobiles inside and outside the Relay station coverage.
Abstract: India is currently the second most populous nation in
the world with over 1.2 billion people, growing annually at the rate of
1.5%. It is experiencing a surge in energy demands, expected to grow
more than three to four times in 25 years. Most of the energy
requirements are currently satisfied by the import of fossil fuels –
coal, petroleum-based products and natural gas. Biofuels can satisfy
these energy needs in an environmentally benign and cost effective
manner while reducing dependence on import of fossil fuels, thus
providing National Energy Security. Among various forms of
bioenergy, bioethanol is one of the major options for India because of
availability of feed stock crops.
This paper presents an overview on bioethanol production and
technology, steps taken by the Indian government to facilitate and
bring about optimal development and utilization of indigenous
biomass feedstocks for production of this biofuel.
Abstract: This paper presents the use of a newly created network
structure known as a Self-Delaying Dynamic Network (SDN) to
create a high resolution image from a set of time stepped input
frames. These SDNs are non-recurrent temporal neural networks
which can process time sampled data. SDNs can store input data
for a lifecycle and feature dynamic logic based connections between
layers. Several low resolution images and one high resolution image
of a scene were presented to the SDN during training by a Genetic
Algorithm. The SDN was trained to process the input frames in order
to recreate the high resolution image. The trained SDN was then used
to enhance a number of unseen noisy image sets. The quality of high
resolution images produced by the SDN is compared to that of high
resolution images generated using Bi-Cubic interpolation. The SDN
produced images are superior in several ways to the images produced
using Bi-Cubic interpolation.
Abstract: Money laundering has been described by many as the lifeblood of crime and is a major threat to the economic and social well-being of societies. It has been recognized that the banking system has long been the central element of money laundering. This is in part due to the complexity and confidentiality of the banking system itself. It is generally accepted that effective anti-money laundering (AML) measures adopted by banks will make it tougher for criminals to get their "dirty money" into the financial system. In fact, for law enforcement agencies, banks are considered to be an important source of valuable information for the detection of money laundering. However, from the banks- perspective, the main reason for their existence is to make as much profits as possible. Hence their cultural and commercial interests are totally distinct from that of the law enforcement authorities. Undoubtedly, AML laws create a major dilemma for banks as they produce a significant shift in the way banks interact with their customers. Furthermore, the implementation of the laws not only creates significant compliance problems for banks, but also has the potential to adversely affect the operations of banks. As such, it is legitimate to ask whether these laws are effective in preventing money launderers from using banks, or whether they simply put an unreasonable burden on banks and their customers. This paper attempts to address these issues and analyze them against the background of the Malaysian AML laws. It must be said that effective coordination between AML regulator and the banking industry is vital to minimize problems faced by the banks and thereby to ensure effective implementation of the laws in combating money laundering.
Abstract: Comparison of two approaches for the simulation of
the dynamic behaviour of a permanent magnet linear actuator is
presented. These are full coupled model, where the electromagnetic
field, electric circuit and mechanical motion problems are solved
simultaneously, and decoupled model, where first a set of static
magnetic filed analysis is carried out and then the electric circuit and
mechanical motion equations are solved employing bi-cubic spline
approximations of the field analysis results. The results show that the
proposed decoupled model is of satisfactory accuracy and gives more
flexibility when the actuator response is required to be estimated for
different external conditions, e.g. external circuit parameters or
mechanical loads.
Abstract: Multi-energy systems will enhance the system
reliability and power quality. This paper presents an integrated
approach for the design and operation of distributed energy resources
(DER) systems, based on energy hub modeling. A multi-objective
optimization model is developed by considering an integrated view of
electricity and natural gas network to analyze the optimal design and
operating condition of DER systems, by considering two conflicting
objectives, namely, minimization of total cost and the minimization
of environmental impact which is assessed in terms of CO2
emissions. The mathematical model considers energy demands of the
site, local climate data, and utility tariff structure, as well as technical
and financial characteristics of the candidate DER technologies. To
provide energy demands, energy systems including photovoltaic, and
co-generation systems, boiler, central power grid are considered. As
an illustrative example, a hotel in Iran demonstrates potential
applications of the proposed method. The results prove that
increasing the satisfaction degree of environmental objective leads to
increased total cost.
Abstract: We present a novel scheme to evaluate sinusoidal functions with low complexity and high precision using cubic spline interpolation. To this end, two different approaches are proposed to find the interpolating polynomial of sin(x) within the range [- π , π]. The first one deals with only a single data point while the other with two to keep the realization cost as low as possible. An approximation error optimization technique for cubic spline interpolation is introduced next and is shown to increase the interpolator accuracy without increasing complexity of the associated hardware. The architectures for the proposed approaches are also developed, which exhibit flexibility of implementation with low power requirement.
Abstract: The objectives of this research are to produce
prototype coconut oil based solvent offset printing inks and to
analyze a basic quality of printing work derived from coconut oil
based solvent offset printing inks, by mean of bringing coconut oil
for producing varnish and bringing such varnish to produce black
offset printing inks. Then, analysis of qualities i.e. CIELAB value,
density value, and dot gain value of printing work from coconut oil
based solvent offset printing inks which printed on gloss-coated
woodfree paper weighs 130 grams were done. The research result of
coconut oil based solvent offset printing inks indicated that the
suitable varnish formulation is using 51% of coconut oil, 36% of
phenolic resin, and 14% of solvent oil 14%, while the result of
producing black offset ink displayed that the suitable formula of
printing ink is using varnish mixed with 20% of coconut oil, and the
analyzing printing work of coconut oil based solvent offset printing
inks which printed on paper, the results were as follows: CIELAB
value of black offset printing ink is at L* = 31.90, a* = 0.27, and b* =
1.86, density value is at 1.27 and dot gain value was high at mid tone
area of image area.