Bio-Inspired Generalized Global Shape Approach for Writer Identification

Writer identification is one of the areas in pattern recognition that attract many researchers to work in, particularly in forensic and biometric application, where the writing style can be used as biometric features for authenticating an identity. The challenging task in writer identification is the extraction of unique features, in which the individualistic of such handwriting styles can be adopted into bio-inspired generalized global shape for writer identification. In this paper, the feasibility of generalized global shape concept of complimentary binding in Artificial Immune System (AIS) for writer identification is explored. An experiment based on the proposed framework has been conducted to proof the validity and feasibility of the proposed approach for off-line writer identification.

Two Undetectable On-line Dictionary Attacks on Debiao et al.’s S-3PAKE Protocol

In 2011, Debiao et al. pointed out that S-3PAKE protocol proposed by Lu and Cao for password-authenticated key exchange in the three-party setting is vulnerable to an off-line dictionary attack. Then, they proposed some countermeasures to eliminate the security vulnerability of the S-3PAKE. Nevertheless, this paper points out their enhanced S-3PAKE protocol is still vulnerable to undetectable on-line dictionary attacks unlike their claim.

Functional Near Infrared Spectroscope for Cognition Brain Tasks by Wavelets Analysis and Neural Networks

Brain Computer Interface (BCI) has been recently increased in research. Functional Near Infrared Spectroscope (fNIRs) is one the latest technologies which utilize light in the near-infrared range to determine brain activities. Because near infrared technology allows design of safe, portable, wearable, non-invasive and wireless qualities monitoring systems, fNIRs monitoring of brain hemodynamics can be value in helping to understand brain tasks. In this paper, we present results of fNIRs signal analysis indicating that there exist distinct patterns of hemodynamic responses which recognize brain tasks toward developing a BCI. We applied two different mathematics tools separately, Wavelets analysis for preprocessing as signal filters and feature extractions and Neural networks for cognition brain tasks as a classification module. We also discuss and compare with other methods while our proposals perform better with an average accuracy of 99.9% for classification.

Using the Combined Model of PROMETHEE and Fuzzy Analytic Network Process for Determining Question Weights in Scientific Exams through Data Mining Approach

Need for an appropriate system of evaluating students- educational developments is a key problem to achieve the predefined educational goals. Intensity of the related papers in the last years; that tries to proof or disproof the necessity and adequacy of the students assessment; is the corroborator of this matter. Some of these studies tried to increase the precision of determining question weights in scientific examinations. But in all of them there has been an attempt to adjust the initial question weights while the accuracy and precision of those initial question weights are still under question. Thus In order to increase the precision of the assessment process of students- educational development, the present study tries to propose a new method for determining the initial question weights by considering the factors of questions like: difficulty, importance and complexity; and implementing a combined method of PROMETHEE and fuzzy analytic network process using a data mining approach to improve the model-s inputs. The result of the implemented case study proves the development of performance and precision of the proposed model.

Investigation of Layer Thickness and Surface Roughness on Aerodynamic Coefficients of Wind Tunnel RP Models

Traditional wind tunnel models are meticulously machined from metal in a process that can take several months. While very precise, the manufacturing process is too slow to assess a new design's feasibility quickly. Rapid prototyping technology makes this concurrent study of air vehicle concepts via computer simulation and in the wind tunnel possible. This paper described the Affects layer thickness models product with rapid prototyping on Aerodynamic Coefficients for Constructed wind tunnel testing models. Three models were evaluated. The first model was a 0.05mm layer thickness and Horizontal plane 0.1μm (Ra) second model was a 0.125mm layer thickness and Horizontal plane 0.22μm (Ra) third model was a 0.15mm layer thickness and Horizontal plane 4.6μm (Ra). These models were fabricated from somos 18420 by a stereolithography (SLA). A wing-body-tail configuration was chosen for the actual study. Testing covered the Mach range of Mach 0.3 to Mach 0.9 at an angle-of-attack range of -2° to +12° at zero sideslip. Coefficients of normal force, axial force, pitching moment, and lift over drag are shown at each of these Mach numbers. Results from this study show that layer thickness does have an effect on the aerodynamic characteristics in general; the data differ between the three models by fewer than 5%. The layer thickness does have more effect on the aerodynamic characteristics when Mach number is decreased and had most effect on the aerodynamic characteristics of axial force and its derivative coefficients.

The Contraction Point for Phan-Thien/Tanner Model of Tube-Tooling Wire-Coating Flow

The simulation of extrusion process is studied widely in order to both increase products and improve quality, with broad application in wire coating. The annular tube-tooling extrusion was set up by a model that is termed as Navier-Stokes equation in addition to a rheological model of differential form based on singlemode exponential Phan-Thien/Tanner constitutive equation in a twodimensional cylindrical coordinate system for predicting the contraction point of the polymer melt beyond the die. Numerical solutions are sought through semi-implicit Taylor-Galerkin pressurecorrection finite element scheme. The investigation was focused on incompressible creeping flow with long relaxation time in terms of Weissenberg numbers up to 200. The isothermal case was considered with surface tension effect on free surface in extrudate flow and no slip at die wall. The Stream Line Upwind Petrov-Galerkin has been proposed to stabilize solution. The structure of mesh after die exit was adjusted following prediction of both top and bottom free surfaces so as to keep the location of contraction point around one unit length which is close to experimental results. The simulation of extrusion process is studied widely in order to both increase products and improve quality, with broad application in wire coating. The annular tube-tooling extrusion was set up by a model that is termed as Navier-Stokes equation in addition to a rheological model of differential form based on single-mode exponential Phan- Thien/Tanner constitutive equation in a two-dimensional cylindrical coordinate system for predicting the contraction point of the polymer melt beyond the die. Numerical solutions are sought through semiimplicit Taylor-Galerkin pressure-correction finite element scheme. The investigation was focused on incompressible creeping flow with long relaxation time in terms of Weissenberg numbers up to 200. The isothermal case was considered with surface tension effect on free surface in extrudate flow and no slip at die wall. The Stream Line Upwind Petrov-Galerkin has been proposed to stabilize solution. The structure of mesh after die exit was adjusted following prediction of both top and bottom free surfaces so as to keep the location of contraction point around one unit length which is close to experimental results.

The Concept of Place and Sense of Place In Architectural Studies

Place is a where dimension formed by people-s relationship with physical settings, individual and group activities, and meanings. 'Place Attachment', 'Place Identity'and 'Sense of Place' are some concepts that could describe the quality of people-s relationships with a place. The concept of Sense of place is used in studying human-place bonding, attachment and place meaning. Sense of Place usually is defined as an overarching impression encompassing the general ways in which people feel about places, senses it, and assign concepts and values to it. Sense of place is highlighted in this article as one of the prevailing concepts among place-based researches. Considering dimensions of sense of place has always been beneficial for investigating public place attachment and pro-environmental attitudes towards these places. The creation or preservation of Sense of place is important in maintaining the quality of the environment as well as the integrity of human life within it. While many scholars argued that sense of place is a vague concept, this paper will summarize and analyze the existing seminal literature. Therefore, in this paper first the concept of Sense of place and its characteristics will be examined afterward the scales of Sense of place will be reviewed and the factors that contribute to form Sense of place will be evaluated and finally Place Attachment as an objective dimension for measuring the sense of place will be described.

Trust Building Mechanisms for Electronic Business Networks and Their Relation to eSkills

Globalization, supported by information and communication technologies, changes the rules of competitiveness and increases the significance of information, knowledge and network cooperation. In line with this trend, the need for efficient trust-building tools has emerged. The absence of trust building mechanisms and strategies was identified within several studies. Through trust development, participation on e-business network and usage of network services will increase and provide to SMEs new economic benefits. This work is focused on effective trust building strategies development for electronic business network platforms. Based on trust building mechanism identification, the questionnairebased analysis of its significance and minimum level of requirements was conducted. In the paper, we are confirming the trust dependency on e-Skills which play crucial role in higher level of trust into the more sophisticated and complex trust building ICT solutions.

Study of Remote Sensing and Satellite Images Ability in Preparing Agricultural Land Use Map (ALUM)

In this research the Preparation of Land use map of scanner LISS III satellite data, belonging to the IRS in the Aghche region in Isfahan province, is studied carefully. For this purpose, the IRS satellite images of August 2008 and various land preparation uses in region including rangelands, irrigation farming, dry farming, gardens and urban areas were separated and identified. Therefore, the GPS and Erdas Imaging software were used and three methods of Maximum Likelihood, Mahalanobis Distance and Minimum Distance were analyzed. In each of these methods, matrix error and Kappa index were calculated and accuracy of each method, based on percentages: 53.13, 56.64 and 48.44, were obtained respectively. Considering the low accuracy of these methods in separation of land preparation use, the visual interpretation of the map was used. Finally, regional visits of 150 points were noted at random and no error was observed. It shows that the map prepared by visual interpretation is in high accuracy. Although the probable errors due to visual interpretation and geometric correction might happen but the desired accuracy of the map which is more than 85 percent is reliable.

Evaluation of Chlorophyll Content and Chlorophyll Fluorescence Parameters and Relationships between Chlorophyll a, b and Chlorophyll Content Index under Water Stress in Olea europaea cv. Dezful

This study was conducted to determine effect of water stress on chlorophyll content and chlorophyll fluorescence parameter in young `Dezful- olive trees. Three irrigation regimes (40% ETcrop, 65% ETcrop and 100% ETcrop) were used. After irrigation treatments were applied, some of biochemical parameters including chlorophyll a, b, total chlorophyll, chlorophyll fluorescence and also chlorophyll content index (C.C.I) were measured. Results of Analysis of variance showed that irrigation treatments had significant effect on chlorophylla, total chlorophyll (chl a+b), C.C.I and Fv/Fm ratio. The amount of decreased chlorophyll a and total chlorophyll in plants were received 40% ETcrop were 51.55% and 46.86%, respectively, compared with 100% ETcrop.

Increase of Heat Index over Bangladesh: Impact of Climate Change

Heat Index describes the combined effect of temperature and humidity on human body. This combined effect is causing a serious threat to the health of people because of the changing climate. With climate change, climate variability and thus the occurrence of heat waves is likely to increase. Evidence is emerging from the analysis of long-term climate records of an increase in the frequency and duration of extreme temperature events in all over Bangladesh particularly during summer. Summer season has prolonged while winters have become short in Bangladesh. Summers have become hotter and thus affecting the lives of the people engaged in outdoor activities during scorching sun hours. In 2003 around 62 people died due to heat wave across the country. In this paper Bangladesh is divided in four regions and heat index has been calculated from 1960 to 2010 in these regions of the country. The aim of this paper is to identify the spots most vulnerable to heat strokes and heat waves due to high heat index. The results show upward trend of heat index in almost all the regions of Bangladesh. The highest increase in heat index value has been observed in areas of South-west region and North-west Region. The highest change in average heat index has been found in Jessore by almost 5.50C.

Operational Risk – Scenario Analysis

This paper focuses on operational risk measurement techniques and on economic capital estimation methods. A data sample of operational losses provided by an anonymous Central European bank is analyzed using several approaches. Loss Distribution Approach and scenario analysis method are considered. Custom plausible loss events defined in a particular scenario are merged with the original data sample and their impact on capital estimates and on the financial institution is evaluated. Two main questions are assessed – What is the most appropriate statistical method to measure and model operational loss data distribution? and What is the impact of hypothetical plausible events on the financial institution? The g&h distribution was evaluated to be the most suitable one for operational risk modeling. The method based on the combination of historical loss events modeling and scenario analysis provides reasonable capital estimates and allows for the measurement of the impact of extreme events on banking operations.

Noise Performance Optimization of a Fast Wavelength Calibration Algorithm for OSAs

A new fast correlation algorithm for calibrating the wavelength of Optical Spectrum Analyzers (OSAs) was introduced in [1]. The minima of acetylene gas spectra were measured and correlated with saved theoretical data [2]. So it is possible to find the correct wavelength calibration data using a noisy reference spectrum. First tests showed good algorithmic performance for gas line spectra with high noise. In this article extensive performance tests were made to validate the noise resistance of this algorithm. The filter and correlation parameters of the algorithm were optimized for improved noise performance. With these parameters the performance of this wavelength calibration was simulated to predict the resulting wavelength error in real OSA systems. Long term simulations were made to evaluate the performance of the algorithm over the lifetime of a real OSA.

Advanced Stochastic Models for Partially Developed Speckle

Speckled images arise when coherent microwave, optical, and acoustic imaging techniques are used to image an object, surface or scene. Examples of coherent imaging systems include synthetic aperture radar, laser imaging systems, imaging sonar systems, and medical ultrasound systems. Speckle noise is a form of object or target induced noise that results when the surface of the object is Rayleigh rough compared to the wavelength of the illuminating radiation. Detection and estimation in images corrupted by speckle noise is complicated by the nature of the noise and is not as straightforward as detection and estimation in additive noise. In this work, we derive stochastic models for speckle noise, with an emphasis on speckle as it arises in medical ultrasound images. The motivation for this work is the problem of segmentation and tissue classification using ultrasound imaging. Modeling of speckle in this context involves partially developed speckle model where an underlying Poisson point process modulates a Gram-Charlier series of Laguerre weighted exponential functions, resulting in a doubly stochastic filtered Poisson point process. The statistical distribution of partially developed speckle is derived in a closed canonical form. It is observed that as the mean number of scatterers in a resolution cell is increased, the probability density function approaches an exponential distribution. This is consistent with fully developed speckle noise as demonstrated by the Central Limit theorem.

Increasing Fishery Economic Added Value through Post Fishing Program: Cold Storage Program

The purpose of this paper is to guide the effort in improving the economic added value of Indonesian fisheries product through post fishing program, which is cold storage program. Indonesia's fisheries potential has been acknowledged by the world. FAO (2009) stated that Indonesia is one of the tenth highest producers of fishery products in the world. Based on BPS (Statistics Indonesia data), the national fisheries production in 2011 reached 5.714 million tons, which 93.55% came from marine fisheries and 6.45% from open waters. Indonesian territory consist of 2/3 of Indonesian waters, has given enormous benefits for Indonesia, especially fishermen. To improve the economic level of fishermen requires efforts to develop fisheries business unit. On of the efforts is by improving the quality of products which are marketed in the regional and international levels. It is certainly need the support of the existence of various fishery facilities (infrastructure to superstructure), one of which is cold storage. Given the many benefits of cold storage as a means of processing of fishery resources, Indonesia Maritime Security Coordinating Board (IMSCB) as one of the maritime institutions for maritime security and safety, has a program to empower the coastal community through encourages the development of cold storage in the middle and lower fishery business unit. The development of cold storage facilities which able to run its maximum role requires synergistic efforts of various parties.

A Knowledge-Based E-mail System Using Semantic Categorization and Rating Mechanisms

Knowledge-based e-mail systems focus on incorporating knowledge management approach in order to enhance the traditional e-mail systems. In this paper, we present a knowledgebased e-mail system called KS-Mail where people do not only send and receive e-mail conventionally but are also able to create a sense of knowledge flow. We introduce semantic processing on the e-mail contents by automatically assigning categories and providing links to semantically related e-mails. This is done to enrich the knowledge value of each e-mail as well as to ease the organization of the e-mails and their contents. At the application level, we have also built components like the service manager, evaluation engine and search engine to handle the e-mail processes efficiently by providing the means to share and reuse knowledge. For this purpose, we present the KS-Mail architecture, and elaborate on the details of the e-mail server and the application server. We present the ontology mapping technique used to achieve the e-mail content-s categorization as well as the protocols that we have developed to handle the transactions in the e-mail system. Finally, we discuss further on the implementation of the modules presented in the KS-Mail architecture.

Comparative Study of Ant Colony and Genetic Algorithms for VLSI Circuit Partitioning

This paper presents a comparative study of Ant Colony and Genetic Algorithms for VLSI circuit bi-partitioning. Ant colony optimization is an optimization method based on behaviour of social insects [27] whereas Genetic algorithm is an evolutionary optimization technique based on Darwinian Theory of natural evolution and its concept of survival of the fittest [19]. Both the methods are stochastic in nature and have been successfully applied to solve many Non Polynomial hard problems. Results obtained show that Genetic algorithms out perform Ant Colony optimization technique when tested on the VLSI circuit bi-partitioning problem.

An Approach for Reducing the End-to-end Delay and Increasing Network Lifetime in Mobile Adhoc Networks

Mobile adhoc network (MANET) is a collection of mobile devices which form a communication network with no preexisting wiring or infrastructure. Multiple routing protocols have been developed for MANETs. As MANETs gain popularity, their need to support real time applications is growing as well. Such applications have stringent quality of service (QoS) requirements such as throughput, end-to-end delay, and energy. Due to dynamic topology and bandwidth constraint supporting QoS is a challenging task. QoS aware routing is an important building block for QoS support. The primary goal of the QoS aware protocol is to determine the path from source to destination that satisfies the QoS requirements. This paper proposes a new energy and delay aware protocol called energy and delay aware TORA (EDTORA) based on extension of Temporally Ordered Routing Protocol (TORA).Energy and delay verifications of query packet have been done in each node. Simulation results show that the proposed protocol has a higher performance than TORA in terms of network lifetime, packet delivery ratio and end-to-end delay.

Difference in Psychological Well-Being Based On Comparison of Religions: A Case Study in Pekan District, Pahang, Malaysia

The psychological well-being of a family is a subjective matter for evaluation, all the more when it involves the element of religions, whether Islam, Christianity, Buddhism or Hinduism. Each of these religions emphasises similar values and morals on family psychological well-being. This comparative study is specifically to determine the role of religion on family psychological well-being in Pekan district, Pahang, Malaysia. The study adopts a quantitative and qualitative mixed method design and considers a total of 412 samples of parents and children for the quantitative study, and 21 samples for the qualitative study. The quantitative study uses simple random sampling, whereas the qualitative sampling is purposive. The instrument for quantitative study is Ryff’s Psychological Well-being Scale and the qualitative study involves the construction of a guidelines protocol for in-depth interviews of respondents. The quantitative study uses the SPSS version .19 with One Way Anova, and the qualitative analysis is manual based on transcripts with specific codes and themes. The results show nonsignificance, that is, no significant difference among religions in all family psychological well-being constructs in the comparison of Islam, Christianity, Buddhism and Hinduism, thereby accepting a null hypothesis and rejecting an alternative hypothesis. The qualitative study supports the quantitative study, that is, all 21 respondents explain that no difference exists in psychological wellbeing in the comparison of teachings in all the religious mentioned. These implications may be used as guidelines for government and non-government bodies in considering religion as an important element in family psychological well-being in the long run. 

Molecular Evolutionary Analysis of Yeast Protein Interaction Network

To understand life as biological system, evolutionary understanding is indispensable. Protein interactions data are rapidly accumulating and are suitable for system-level evolutionary analysis. We have analyzed yeast protein interaction network by both mathematical and biological approaches. In this poster presentation, we inferred the evolutionary birth periods of yeast proteins by reconstructing phylogenetic profile. It has been thought that hub proteins that have high connection degree are evolutionary old. But our analysis showed that hub proteins are entirely evolutionary new. We also examined evolutionary processes of protein complexes. It showed that member proteins of complexes were tend to have appeared in the same evolutionary period. Our results suggested that protein interaction network evolved by modules that form the functional unit. We also reconstructed standardized phylogenetic trees and calculated evolutionary rates of yeast proteins. It showed that there is no obvious correlation between evolutionary rates and connection degrees of yeast proteins.