Abstract: This paper presents a new spread-spectrum
watermarking algorithm for digital images in discrete wavelet
transform (DWT) domain. The algorithm is applied for embedding
watermarks like patient identification /source identification or
doctors signature in binary image format into host digital
radiological image for potential telemedicine applications.
Performance of the algorithm is analysed by varying the gain factor,
subband decomposition levels, and size of watermark. Simulation
results show that the proposed method achieves higher watermarking
capacity.
Abstract: The neural network's performance can be measured by efficiency and accuracy. The major disadvantages of neural network approach are that the generalization capability of neural networks is often significantly low, and it may take a very long time to tune the weights in the net to generate an accurate model for a highly complex and nonlinear systems. This paper presents a novel Neuro-fuzzy architecture based on Extended Kalman filter. To test the performance and applicability of the proposed neuro-fuzzy model, simulation study of nonlinear complex dynamic system is carried out. The proposed method can be applied to an on-line incremental adaptive learning for the prediction of financial time series. A benchmark case studie is used to demonstrate that the proposed model is a superior neuro-fuzzy modeling technique.
Abstract: Real-time 3D applications have to guarantee
interactive rendering speed. There is a restriction for the number of
polygons which is rendered due to performance of a graphics hardware
or graphics algorithms. Generally, the rendering performance will be
drastically increased when handling only the dynamic 3d models,
which is much fewer than the static ones. Since shapes and colors of
the static objects don-t change when the viewing direction is fixed, the
information can be reused. We render huge amounts of polygon those
cannot handled by conventional rendering techniques in real-time by
using a static object image and merging it with rendering result of the
dynamic objects. The performance must be decreased as a
consequence of updating the static object image including removing
an static object that starts to move, re-rending the other static objects
being overlapped by the moving ones. Based on visibility of the object
beginning to move, we can skip the updating process. As a result, we
enhance rendering performance and reduce differences of rendering
speed between each frame. Proposed method renders total
200,000,000 polygons that consist of 500,000 dynamic polygons and
the rest are static polygons in about 100 frames per second.
Abstract: In the current research, we present an operation framework and protection mechanism to facilitate secure environment to protect mobile agents against tampering. The system depends on the presence of an authentication authority. The advantage of the proposed system is that security measures is an integral part of the design, thus common security retrofitting problems do not arise. This is due to the presence of AlGamal encryption mechanism to protect its confidential content and any collected data by the agent from the visited host . So that eavesdropping on information from the agent is no longer possible to reveal any confidential information. Also the inherent security constraints within the framework allow the system to operate as an intrusion detection system for any mobile agent environment. The mechanism is tested for most of the well known severe attacks against agents and networked systems. The scheme proved a promising performance that makes it very much recommended for the types of transactions that needs highly secure environments, e. g., business to business.
Abstract: In the present study, the pressure drop and laminar convection heat transfer characteristics of nanofluids in microchannel heat sink with square duct are numerically investigated. The water based nanofluids created with Al2O3 and CuO particles in four different volume fractions of 0%, 0.5%, 1%, 1.5% and 2% are used to analyze their effects on heat transfer and the pressure drop. Under the laminar, steady-state flow conditions, the finite volume method is used to solve the governing equations of heat transfer. Mixture Model is considered to simulate the nanofluid flow. For verification of used numerical method, the results obtained from numerical calculations were compared with the results in literature for both pure water and the nanofluids in different volume fractions. The distributions of the particles in base fluid are assumed to be uniform. The results are evaluated in terms of Nusselt number, the pressure drop and heat transfer enhancement. Analysis shows that the nanofluids enhance heat transfer while the Reynolds number and the volume fractions are increasing. The best overall enhancement was obtained at φ=%2 and Re=100 for CuO-water nanofluid.
Abstract: After allowing direct flights from Mainland China to
Taiwan, Chinese tourists increased according to Tourism
Bureaustatistics. There are from 0.19 to 2 million tourists from 2008 to
2011. Mainland China has become the main source of Taiwan
developing tourism industry. Taiwanese government should know
more about comments from Chinese tourists to Taiwan in order
toproperly market Taiwan tourism and enhance the overall quality of
tourism. In order to understand Chinese visitors’ comments, this study
adopts content analysis to analyze electronic word-of-mouth on Web.
This study collects 375 blog articles of Chinese tourists from
Ctrip.com as a database during 2009 to 2011. Through the qualitative
data analysis the traveling destination imagesis divided into seven
dimensions, such as senic spots, shopping, food and beverages,
accommodations, transportation, festivals and recreation activities.
Finally, this study proposes some practical managerial implication to
know both positive and negative images of the seven dimensions from
Chinese tourists, providing marketing strategies and suggestions to
traveling agency industry.
Abstract: To improve HSE standards, oil and gas industries are
interested in using remotely controlled and autonomous robots instead
of human workers on offshore platforms. In addition to earlier reason
this strategy would increase potential revenue, efficient usage of
work experts and even would allow operations in more remote areas.
This article is the presentation of a custom climbing robot, called
Walloid, designed for offshore platform topside automation. This 4
arms climbing robot with grippers is an ongoing project at University
of Oslo.
Abstract: This paper is to explore the relationship and the level
of stock market integration of the Asian countries, primarily
concentrating on Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, and South Korea,
with the world from January 1997 to December 2009. The degree of
short-run and long-run stock market integration of those Asian
countries are analyzed in order to determine the significance of series
of regional and world financial crises, liberalization policies and
other financial reforms in influencing the level of stock market
integration. To test for cointegration, this paper applies coefficient
correlation, univariate regression analyses, cointegration tests, and
vector autoregressive models (VAR) by using the four Asian stock
markets main indices and the MSCI World index. The empirical
findings from this work reveal that there is no long-run stock market
integration for the four countries and the world market. However,
there is short run integration.
Abstract: The evaluation of non-conventional water resources
on seed germination and seedling growth performance at early
growth stages is still in progress especially in forage crops. This
study was designed to test the effect of four types of water qualities
(treated wastewater (TWW), industrial water (IW), grey water (GW),
and Distilled water (DW)) on germination and early seedling vigor of
Leucaena leucocephala. The results showed that the germination
was not significantly affected by the different water qualities. Seed
germination reached maximum after 17, 14, 14, and 21 days under
GW, IW, TWW, and DW treatments, respectively. The highest mean
of shoot length was scored under the GW treatment. And, the highest
mean of root length was scored under DW which was not significant
from GW treatment. The means of shoot fresh was the highest under
the TWW. The means of root fresh weight was not significantly
different from each other's under different treatments. The growth
performance was in progress with no mortality during 21 days of
growth. Thus, the best non-conventional water qualities alternatives
based on the cleanness, nutrients, and toxicity are the GW, TWW and
IW, respectively.
Abstract: Proteins levels produced by bacteria may be increased
in stressful surroundings, such as in the presence of antibiotics. It
appears that many antimicrobial agents or antibiotics, when used at
low concentrations, have in common the ability to activate or repress
gene transcription, which is distinct from their inhibitory effect.
There have been comparatively few studies on the potential of
antibiotics or natural compounds in nature as a specific chemical
signal that can trigger a variety of biological functions. Therefore,
this study was focusing on the effect of essential oils from
Cymbopogon flexuosus and C. nardus in regulating proteins
production by Bacillus subtilis ATCC 21332. The Minimum
Inhibition Concentrations (MICs) of both essential oils on B. subtilis
were determined by using microdilution assay, resulting 0.2% and
1.56% for each C. flexuosus and C. nardus subsequently. The
bacteria were further exposed to each essential oils at concentration
of 0.01XMIC for 2 days. The proteins were then isolated and
analyzed by sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel
electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE). Protein profile showed that a band
with approximate size of 250 kD was appeared for the treated
bacteria with essential oils. Thus, Bacillus subtilis ATCC 21332 in
stressful condition with the presence of essential oils at low
concentration could induce the protein production.
Abstract: Communication is an important factor and a prop in
directing corporate activities efficiently, in ensuring the flow of
knowledge which is necessary for the continuity of the institution, in
creating a common language in the institution, in transferring
corporate culture and ultimately in corporate success. The idea of
transmitting the knowledge among the workers in a healthy manner
has revived knowledge communication. Knowledge communication
can be defined as the act of mutual creation and communication of
intuitions, assessments, experiences and capabilities, as long as
maintained effectively, can provide advantages such as corporate
continuity, access to corporate objectives and making true
administrative decisions. Although the benefits of the knowledge
communication to corporations are known, and the necessary worth
and care is given, some hardships may arise which makes it difficult
or even block it. In this article, difficulties that prevent knowledge
communication will be discussed and solutions will be proposed.
Abstract: The control of commutation of switched reluctance
(SR) motor has nominally depended on a physical position detector.
The physical rotor position sensor limits robustness and increases
size and inertia of the SR drive system. The paper describes a method
to overcome these limitations by using magnetization characteristics
of the motor to indicate rotor and stator teeth overlap status. The
method is using active current probing pulses of same magnitude that
is used to simulate flux linkage in the winding being probed. A
microprocessor is used for processing magnetization data to deduce
rotor-stator teeth overlap status and hence rotor position. However,
the back-of-core saturation and mutual coupling introduces overlap
detection errors, hence that of commutation control. This paper
presents the concept of the detection scheme and the effects of backof
core saturation.
Abstract: The cost of damage to the non-structural systems in
critical facilities like nuclear power plants and hospitals can exceed
80% of the total cost of damage during an earthquake. The failure of
nonstructural components, especially, piping systems led to leakage of
water and subsequent shut-down of hospitals immediately after the
event. Consequently, the evaluation of performance of these types of
structural configurations has become necessary to mitigate the risk and
to achieve reliable designs.
This paper focuses on a methodology to evaluate the static and
dynamic characteristics of complex actual piping system based on
NFPA-13 and SMACNA guidelines. The result of this study revealed
that current piping system subjected to design lateral force and design
spectrum based on UBC-97 was failed in both cases and mode shapes
between piping system and building structure were very different
Abstract: We report the results of an lattice Boltzmann
simulation of magnetohydrodynamic damping of sidewall convection
in a rectangular enclosure filled with a porous medium. In particular
we investigate the suppression of convection when a steady magnetic
field is applied in the vertical direction. The left and right vertical
walls of the cavity are kept at constant but different temperatures
while both the top and bottom horizontal walls are insulated. The
effects of the controlling parameters involved in the heat transfer and
hydrodynamic characteristics are studied in detail. The heat and mass
transfer mechanisms and the flow characteristics inside the enclosure
depended strongly on the strength of the magnetic field and Darcy
number. The average Nusselt number decreases with rising values of
the Hartmann number while this increases with increasing values of
the Darcy number.
Abstract: In the project FleGSens, a wireless sensor network
(WSN) for the surveillance of critical areas and properties is currently developed which incorporates mechanisms to ensure information
security. The intended prototype consists of 200 sensor nodes for
monitoring a 500m long land strip. The system is focused on ensuring
integrity and authenticity of generated alarms and availability in the
presence of an attacker who may even compromise a limited number
of sensor nodes. In this paper, two of the main protocols developed
in the project are presented, a tracking protocol to provide secure
detection of trespasses within the monitored area and a protocol for secure detection of node failures. Simulation results of networks
containing 200 and 2000 nodes as well as the results of the first prototype comprising a network of 16 nodes are presented. The focus of the simulations and prototype are functional testing of the protocols
and particularly demonstrating the impact and cost of several attacks.
Abstract: Majority of Business Software Systems (BSS)
Development and Enhancement Projects (D&EP) fail to meet criteria
of their effectiveness, what leads to the considerable financial losses.
One of the fundamental reasons for such projects- exceptionally low
success rate are improperly derived estimates for their costs and time.
In the case of BSS D&EP these attributes are determined by the work
effort, meanwhile reliable and objective effort estimation still appears
to be a great challenge to the software engineering. Thus this paper is
aimed at presenting the most important synthetic conclusions coming
from the author-s own studies concerning the main factors of
effective BSS D&EP work effort estimation. Thanks to the rational
investment decisions made on the basis of reliable and objective
criteria it is possible to reduce losses caused not only by abandoned
projects but also by large scale of overrunning the time and costs of
BSS D&EP execution.
Abstract: This study reports an empirical investigation of
fatigue crack initiation and propagation in 2024 T351 aluminium
alloy using constant amplitude loading. In initiation stage, local
strain approach at the notch was used and in stable propagation stage
NASGRO model was applied.
In this investigation, the flat plate of double through crack at hole
is used. Based on experimental results (AFGROW Database), effect
of stress ratio, R, is highlights on fatigue initiation life (FIL) and
fatigue crack growth rate (FCGR). The increasing of dimension of
hole characterizing the notch effect decrease the fatigue life.
Abstract: We present analysis of spatial patterns of generic
disease spread simulated by a stochastic long-range correlation SIR
model, where individuals can be infected at long distance in a power
law distribution. We integrated various tools, namely perimeter,
circularity, fractal dimension, and aggregation index to characterize
and investigate spatial pattern formations. Our primary goal was to
understand for a given model of interest which tool has an advantage
over the other and to what extent. We found that perimeter and
circularity give information only for a case of strong correlation–
while the fractal dimension and aggregation index exhibit the growth
rule of pattern formation, depending on the degree of the correlation
exponent (β). The aggregation index method used as an alternative
method to describe the degree of pathogenic ratio (α). This study may
provide a useful approach to characterize and analyze the pattern
formation of epidemic spreading
Abstract: The spectral action balance equation is an equation that
used to simulate short-crested wind-generated waves in shallow water
areas such as coastal regions and inland waters. This equation consists
of two spatial dimensions, wave direction, and wave frequency which
can be solved by finite difference method. When this equation with
dominating propagation velocity terms are discretized using central
differences, stability problems occur when the grid spacing is chosen
too coarse. In this paper, we introduce the splitting modified donorcell
scheme for avoiding stability problems and prove that it is
consistent to the modified donor-cell scheme with same accuracy. The
splitting modified donor-cell scheme was adopted to split the wave
spectral action balance equation into four one-dimensional problems,
which for each small problem obtains the independently tridiagonal
linear systems. For each smaller system can be solved by direct or
iterative methods at the same time which is very fast when performed
by a multi-cores computer.
Abstract: Highly ordered arrays of TiO2 nanotubes (TiNTs) were grown vertically on Ti foil by electrochemical anodization. We controlled the lengths of these TiNTs from 2.4 to 26.8 ¶üÇóμm while varying the water contents (1, 3, and 6 wt%) of the electrolyte in ethylene glycol in the presence of 0.5 wt% NH4F with anodization for various applied voltages (20–80 V), periods (10–240 min) and temperatures (10–30 oC). For vertically aligned TiNT arrays, not only the increase in their tube lengths, but also their geometric (wall thickness and surface roughness) and crystalline structure lead to a significant influence on photocatalytic activity. The length optimization for methylene blue (MB) photodegradation was 18 μm. Further extending the TiNT length yielded lower photocatalytic activity presumably related to the limited MB diffusion and light-penetration depth into the TiNT arrays. The results indicated that a maximum MB photodegradation rate was obtained for the discrete anatase TiO2 nanotubes with thick and rough walls.