Abstract: Recent rapid progress in ICT (Information and Communication Technology) has advanced the penetration of sensor networks (SNs) and their attractive applications. Agriculture is one of the fields well able to benefit from ICT. Plant factories control several parameters related to plant growth in closed areas such as air temperature, humidity, water, culture medium concentration, and artificial lighting by using computers and AI (Artificial Intelligence) is being researched in order to obtain stable and safe production of vegetables and medicinal plants all year anywhere, and attain self-sufficiency in food. By providing isolation from the natural environment, a plant factory can achieve higher productivity and safe products. However, the biggest issue with plant factories is the return on investment. Profits are tenuous because of the large initial investments and running costs, i.e. electric power, incurred. At present, LED (Light Emitting Diode) lights are being adopted because they are more energy-efficient and encourage photosynthesis better than the fluorescent lamps used in the past. However, further cost reduction is essential. This paper introduces experiments that reveal which color of LED lighting best enhances the growth of cultured radish sprouts. Radish sprouts were cultivated in the experimental environment formed by a hydroponics kit with three cultivation shelves (28 samples per shelf) each with an artificial lighting rack. Seven LED arrays of different color (white, blue, yellow green, green, yellow, orange, and red) were compared with a fluorescent lamp as the control. Lighting duration was set to 12 hours a day. Normal water with no fertilizer was circulated. Seven days after germination, the length, weight and area of leaf of each sample were measured. Electrical power consumption for all lighting arrangements was also measured. Results and discussions: As to average sample length, no clear difference was observed in terms of color. As regards weight, orange LED was less effective and the difference was significant (p < 0.05). As to leaf area, blue, yellow and orange LEDs were significantly less effective. However, all LEDs offered higher productivity per W consumed than the fluorescent lamp. Of the LEDs, the blue LED array attained the best results in terms of length, weight and area of leaf per W consumed. Conclusion and future works: An experiment on radish sprout cultivation under 7 different color LED arrays showed no clear difference in terms of sample size. However, if electrical power consumption is considered, LEDs offered about twice the growth rate of the fluorescent lamp. Among them, blue LEDs showed the best performance. Further cost reduction e.g. low power lighting remains a big issue for actual system deployment. An automatic plant monitoring system with sensors is another study target.
Abstract: The Bahnar is one of 11 indigenous groups living in the Central Highlands of Vietnam. It is one among the four most popular groups in this area, including the Mnong who speak the same language of Mon Khmer family, while both groups of the Jrai and the Rhade belong to the Malayo-Polynesian language family. These groups once captured fertile plateaus, left their cultural and artistic heritage which affected the remaining small groups. Despite the difference in ethnic origins, these groups seem to share similar beliefs, customs and related folk arts after a very long time living beside each other. However, through an in-depth study, this paper points out the fact that the decorative patterns used by the Bahnar are different from the other ethnic groups, especially in color. Based on historical materials from the local museums and some studies in 1980s when all of the ethnic groups in this area had still lived in self-sufficient condition, this paper characterizes the traditional color scheme used by the Bahnar and identifies the difference in decorative motifs of this group compared to the others by pointing out they do not use green in their usual decorative patterns. Moreover, combined with some field surveys recently, through comparative analysis, it also discovers stylistic variations of these patterns in the process of cultural exchange with the other ethnic groups, both in and out of the region, in modern living conditions. This study helps to preserve and promote the traditional values and cultural identity of the Bahnar people in the Central Highlands of Vietnam, avoiding the fusion of styles among groups during the cultural exchange.
Abstract: The heat island phenomenon and extremely hot summer climate are becoming environmental problems in Japan. Cool pavements reduce the surface temperature compared to conventional asphalt pavements in the hot summer climate and improve the thermal environment in the urban area. The authors have studied cement–based grouting materials poured into voids in porous asphalt pavements to reduce the road surface temperature. For the cement–based grouting material, cement, ceramic waste powder, and natural zeolite were used. This cement–based grouting material developed reduced the road surface temperature by 20 °C or more in the hot summer season. Considering the urban landscape, this study investigates the effect of surface temperature reduction of colored cement–based grouting materials containing pigments poured into voids in porous asphalt pavements by measuring the surface temperature of asphalt pavements outdoors. The yellow color performed the same as the original cement–based grouting material containing no pigment and was thermally better performance than the other color. However, all the tested cement–based grouting materials performed well for reducing the surface temperature and for creating the urban landscape.
Abstract: 3D models obtained with advanced survey techniques such as close-range photogrammetry and laser scanner are nowadays particularly appreciated in Cultural Heritage and Archaeology fields. In order to produce high quality models representing archaeological evidences and anthropological artifacts, the appearance of the model (i.e. color) beyond the geometric accuracy, is not a negligible aspect. The integration of the close-range photogrammetry survey techniques with the laser scanner is still a topic of study and research. By combining point cloud data sets of the same object generated with both technologies, or with the same technology but registered in different moment and/or natural light condition, could construct a final point cloud with accentuated color dissimilarities. In this paper, a methodology to uniform the different data sets, to improve the chromatic quality and to highlight further details by balancing the point color will be presented.
Abstract: Solar lentigines appear predominantly on chronically sun-exposed areas of skin, such as the face and the back of the hands. Among the several ways to lentigines treatment, quality-switched lasers are well-known effective treatment for removing solar lentigines. The present pilot study was therefore designed to assess the efficacy of quality-switched ruby laser treatment of such lentigines compare between pretreatment and posttreatment of skin brightness. Twenty-two adults with chronic sun-damaged skin (mean age 52.8 years, range 37–74 years) were treated at the Korean site. A 694 nm Q-switched ruby laser was used, with the energy density set from 1.4 to 12.5 J/cm2, to treat solar lentigines. Average brightness of skin color before ruby laser treatment was 137.3 and its skin color was brightened after ruby laser treatment by 150.5. Also, standard deviation of skin color was decreased from 17.8 to 16.4. Regarding the multivariate model, age and energy were identified as significant factors for skin color brightness change in lentigo depigmentation by ruby laser treatment. Their respective odds ratios were 1.082 (95% CI, 1.007–1.163), and 1.431 (95% CI, 1.051–1.946). Lentigo depigmentation treatment using ruby lasers resulted in a high performance in skin color brightness. Among the relative factors involve with ruby laser treatment, age and energy were the most effective factors which skin color change to brighter than pretreatment.
Abstract: Human skin detection recognized as the primary step in most of the applications such as face detection, illicit image filtering, hand recognition and video surveillance. The performance of any skin detection applications greatly relies on the two components: feature extraction and classification method. Skin color is the most vital information used for skin detection purpose. However, color feature alone sometimes could not handle images with having same color distribution with skin color. A color feature of pixel-based does not eliminate the skin-like color due to the intensity of skin and skin-like color fall under the same distribution. Hence, the statistical color analysis will be exploited such mean and standard deviation as an additional feature to increase the reliability of skin detector. In this paper, we studied the effectiveness of statistical color feature for human skin detection. Furthermore, the paper analyzed the integrated color and texture using eight classifiers with three color spaces of RGB, YCbCr, and HSV. The experimental results show that the integrating statistical feature using Random Forest classifier achieved a significant performance with an F1-score 0.969.
Abstract: Due to the resultant leachate from waste
decomposition in landfills has polluter potential hundred times
greater than domestic sewage, this is considered a problem related to
the depreciation of environment requiring pre-disposal treatment.In
seeking to improve this situation, this project proposes the treatment
of landfill leachate using natural fibers intercropped with advanced
oxidation processes. The selected natural fibers were palm, coconut
and banana fiber.These materials give sustainability to the project
because, besides having adsorbent capacity, are often part of waste
discarded. The study was conducted in laboratory scale.In trials, the
effluents were characterized as Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD),
Turbidity and Color. The results indicate that is technically
promising since that there were extremely oxidative conditions, the
use of certain natural fibers in the reduction of pollutants in leachate
have been obtained results of COD removals between 67.9% and
90.9%, Turbidity between 88.0% and 99.7% and Color between
67.4% and 90.4%.The expectation generated is to continue evaluating
the association of efficiency of other natural fibers with other landfill
leachate treatment processes.
Abstract: This paper presents the development of a robot car
that can track the motion of an object by detecting its color through
an Android device. The employed computer vision algorithm uses the
OpenCV library, which is embedded into an Android application of a
smartphone, for manipulating the captured image of the object. The
captured image of the object is subjected to color conversion and is
transformed to a binary image for further processing after color
filtering. The desired object is clearly determined after removing
pixel noise by applying image morphology operations and contour
definition. Finally, the area and the center of the object are
determined so that object’s motion to be tracked. The smartphone
application has been placed on a robot car and transmits by Bluetooth
to an Arduino assembly the motion directives so that to follow
objects of a specified color. The experimental evaluation of the
proposed algorithm shows reliable color detection and smooth
tracking characteristics.
Abstract: Experimental production methods of Chevreul’s salt
being an intermediate stage product in copper recovery were
investigated on this article. Chevreul’s salt, Cu2SO3.CuSO3.2H2O,
being a mixed valence copper sulphite compound, has been obtained
by using different methods and reagents. Chevreul’s salt has an
intense brick-red color. It is highly stable and expensive. The
production of Chevreul’s salt plays a key role in hydrometallurgy.
Thermodynamic tendency on precipitation of Chevreul’s salt is
related to pH and temperature. Besides, SO2 gaseous is a versatile
reagent for precipitating of copper sulphites, Using of SO2 for
selective precipitation can be made by appropriate adjustments of pH
and temperature. Chevreul’s salt does not form in acidic solutions if
those solutions contains considerable amount of sulfurous acid. It is
necessary to maintain between pH 2–4.5, because, solubility of
Chevreul’s salt increases with decreasing of pH values. Also, the
region which Chevreul’s salt is stable can be seen from the potentialpH
diagram.
Abstract: In recent years, the compression of date (Phoenix
dactylifera L.) fruit powders (DP) to obtain date tablets (DT) has
been suggested as a promising form of valorization of non
commercial valuable date fruit (DF) varieties. To further improve
and characterize DT, the present study aims to investigate the
influence of the DP particle size and compression force on some
physical properties of DT. The results show that independently of
particle size, the hardness (y) of tablets increases with the increase of
the compression force (x) following a logarithmic law (y = a ln (bx)
where a and b are the constants of model). Further, a full factorial
design (FFD) at two levels, applied to investigate the erosion %,
reveals that the effects of time and particle size are the same in
absolute value and they are beyond the effect of the compression.
Regarding the disintegration time, the obtained results also by means
of a FFD show that the effect of the compression force exceeds 4
times that of the DP particle size. As final stage, the color parameters
in the CIELab system of DT immediately after their obtaining are
differently influenced by the size of the initial powder.
Abstract: The introduction of more stringent pollution regulations, in relation to financial and social pressures for sustainable development, has pressed toward limiting the volumes of industrial and domestic effluents discharged into the environment - as well as to increase the efforts within research and development of new or more efficient wastewater treatment technologies. Considering both discharge volume and effluent composition, wastewater generated by the textile industry is rated as the most polluting among all industrial sectors. The pollution load is mainly due to spent dye baths, which are composed of unreacted dyes, dispersing agents, surfactants, salts and organics. In the present investigation, the textile dye wastewater was characterized by high color, chemical oxygen demand (COD), total dissolved solids (TDS) and pH. Electrochemical oxidation process for four plate electrodes was carried out at five different current intensities, out of which 0.14A has achieved maximum percentage removal of COD with 75% and 83% of color. The COD removal rate in kg COD/h/m2 decreases with increase in the current intensity. The energy consumption increases with increase in the current intensity. Hence, textile dye wastewater can be effectively pretreated by electrochemical oxidation method where the process limits objectionable color while leaving the COD associated with organics left for natural degradation thus causing a sustainable reduction in pollution load.
Abstract: Image processing in today’s world grabs massive attentions as it leads to possibilities of broaden application in many fields of high technology. The real challenge is how to improve existing sorting system applications which consists of two integrated stations of processing and handling with a new image processing feature. Existing color sorting techniques use a set of inductive, capacitive, and optical sensors to differentiate object color. This research presents a mechatronic color sorting system solution with the application of image processing. A 5-DOF robot arm is designed and developed with pick and place operation to act as the main part of the color sorting system. Image processing procedure senses the circular objects in an image captured in real time by a webcam fixed at the end-effector then extracts color and position information out of it. This information is passed as a sequence of sorting commands to the manipulator that has pick-and-place mechanism. Performance analysis proves that this color based object sorting system works accurately under ideal condition in term of adequate illumination, circular objects shape and color. The circular objects tested for sorting are red, green and blue. For non-ideal condition, such as unspecified color the accuracy reduces to 80%.
Abstract: Phytases are enzymes used as an important component
in monogastric animals feeds in order to improve phosphorous
availability, since it is not readily assimilated by these animals in the
form of the phytate presented in plants and grains. As these enzymes
are used in industrial activities, they must retain its catalytic activities
during a certain storage period. This study presents information about
the stability of 4 different phytases, produced by four macromycetes
fungi through solid-state fermentation (SSF). There is a lack of data
in literature concerning phytase from macromycetes shelf-life in
storage conditions at room, cooling and freezing temperatures. The 4
phytases from macromycetes still had enzymatic activities around
100 days of storage at room temperature. At cooling temperature in
146 days of studies, the phytase from G. stipitatum was the most
stable with 44% of the initial activity, in U.gds (units per gram of
dried fermented substrate). The freezing temperature was the best
condition storage for phytases from G. stipitatum and T. versicolor.
Each condition provided a study for each mushroom phytase,
totalizing 12 studies. The phytases showed to be stable for a long
period without the addition of additives.
Abstract: Many of the compounds present in potato are important because of their beneficial effects on health, therefore, are highly desirable in the human diet. Potato tubers contain significant amounts of anthocyanins. The aim of this research was to determine the content of anthocyanins and its relationship with the colour of organically and conventionally cultivated potato varieties. In the research eight potato samples of three potato varieties were analyzed on anthocyanins, dry matter content and color. Obtained results show that there was no significant influence on amount of anthocyanins between different cultivation environments (p>0.05) while between varieties – significant difference (p
Abstract: Pineapples can be classified using an index with seven
levels of maturity based on the green and yellow color of the skin. As
the pineapple ripens, the skin will change from pale green to a golden
or yellowish color. The issues that occur in agriculture nowadays are
to do with farmers being unable to distinguish between the indexes of
pineapple maturity correctly and effectively. There are several
reasons for why farmers cannot properly follow the guideline provide
by Federal Agriculture Marketing Authority (FAMA) and one of
reason is that due to manual inspection done by experts, there are no
specific and universal guidelines to be adopted by farmers due to the
different points of view of the experts when sorting the pineapples
based on their knowledge and experience. Therefore, an automatic
system will help farmers to identify pineapple maturity effectively
and will become a universal indicator to farmers.
Abstract: This paper presents a dominant color descriptor
technique for medical image retrieval. The medical image system
will collect and store into medical database. The purpose of
dominant color descriptor (DCD) technique is to retrieve medical
image and to display similar image using queried image. First, this
technique will search and retrieve medical image based on keyword
entered by user. After image is found, the system will assign this
image as a queried image. DCD technique will calculate the image
value of dominant color. Then, system will search and retrieve again
medical image based on value of dominant color query image.
Finally, the system will display similar images with the queried
image to user. Simple application has been developed and tested
using dominant color descriptor. Result based on experiment
indicates this technique is effective and can be used for medical
image retrieval.
Abstract: In this paper, we study on color transformation
method on website images for the color blind. The most common
category of color blindness is red-green color blindness which is
viewed as beige color. By transforming the colors of the images, the
color blind can improve their color visibility. They can have a better
view when browsing through the websites. To transform colors on
the website images, we study on two algorithms which are the
conversion techniques from RGB color space to HSV color space and
self-organizing color transformation. The comparative study focuses
on criteria based on the ease of use, quality, accuracy and efficiency.
The outcome of the study leads to enhancement of website images to
meet the color blinds- vision requirements in perceiving image
detailed.
Abstract: Bean common mosaic necrosis virus (BCMNV) is a
potyvirus with a worldwide distribution. This virus causes serious
economic losses in Iran in many leguminoses. During 20008,
samples were collected from soybeans fields in Tehran Province.
Four isolates (S1, S2 and S3) were inoculated on 15 species of
Cucurbitaceae, Chenopodiaceae, Solanacae and Leguminosae.
Chenopodium quinoa and C. amaranticolor.
Did not developed any symptoms.all isolates caused mosaic
symptoms on Phaseolus vulgaris cv. Red Kidney and P. vulgaris cv.
Bountiful. The molecular weights of coat protein using SDS-PAGE
and western blotting were estimated at 33 kDa. Reverse transcription
polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) was performed using one
primer pairs designed by L. XU et al. An approximately 920 bp
fragment was amplified with a specific primer.
Abstract: It is important to give input information without other device in AR system. One solution is using hand for augmented reality application. Many researchers have proposed different solutions for hand interface in augmented reality. Analyze Histogram and connecting factor is can be example for that. Various Direction searching is one of robust way to recognition hand but it takes too much calculating time. And background should be distinguished with skin color. This paper proposes a hand tracking method to control the 3D object in augmented reality using depth device and skin color. Also in this work discussed relationship between several markers, which is based on relationship between camera and marker. One marker used for displaying virtual object and three markers for detecting hand gesture and manipulating the virtual object.
Abstract: Recently, the design is becoming important in product development. The technology which is a strong point of Japan is immediately caught up by the foreign countries, and the price competition begins. Therefore companies tend to plan differentiation of products by the design or a color. The purpose of my work was to consider the optimal color for using by product development. We needed to clarify the thing leading to color preference for this purpose. Two kinds of investigations were made. By the first investigation, we found out that a geographical factor difference existed in color preference. Then, investigation which regarded the difference as latitude was conducted. However, the result expected from the difference in latitude was not obtained. It seems that it is necessary to set up difference of latitude a little more greatly, or to reexamine by other geographical factors.