Abstract: Image watermarking has become an important tool for
intellectual property protection and authentication. In this paper a
watermarking technique is suggested that incorporates two
watermarks in a host image for improved protection and robustness.
A watermark, in form of a PN sequence (will be called the secondary
watermark), is embedded in the wavelet domain of a primary
watermark before being embedded in the host image. The technique
has been tested using Lena image as a host and the camera man as
the primary watermark. The embedded PN sequence was detectable
through correlation among other five sequences where a PSNR of
44.1065 dB was measured. Furthermore, to test the robustness of the
technique, the watermarked image was exposed to four types of
attacks, namely compression, low pass filtering, salt and pepper noise
and luminance change. In all cases the secondary watermark was
easy to detect even when the primary one is severely distorted.
Abstract: In this work we introduce an efficient method to limit
the impact of the hiding process on the quality of the cover speech.
Vector quantization of the speech spectral information reduces drastically
the number of the secret speech parameters to be embedded
in the cover signal. Compared to scalar hiding, vector quantization
hiding technique provides a stego signal that is indistinguishable from
the cover speech. The objective and subjective performance measures
reveal that the current hiding technique attracts no suspicion about the
presence of the secret message in the stego speech, while being able
to recover an intelligible copy of the secret message at the receiver
side.
Abstract: In a chirp spread spectrum (CSS) system, the overlap
technique is used for increasing bit rate. More overlaps can offer
higher data throughput; however, they may cause more intersymbol
interference (ISI) at the same time, resulting in serious bit error
rate (BER) performance degradation. In this paper, we perform the
BER analysis and derive a closed form BER expression for the
overlap-based CSS system. The derived BER expression includes
the number of overlaps as a parameter, and thus, would be very
useful in determining the number of overlaps for a specified BER.
The numerical results demonstrate that the BER derived in a closed
form closely agrees with the simulated BER.
Abstract: The charnockitic and associated granitic rocks of Akure area were studied for their field and petrographic relationship's. The outcrops locations were plotted in Surfer 8. The granitic rock exhibits a porphyritic texture and outcrops in the north-eastern side of the study area while the charnockitics outcrop in the central/western part. An essentially dark coloured and fine grained intrusive exhibiting xenoliths and xenocrysts (plagioclase phenocrysts) of the granite outcrops between the granitic and charnockitic rocks. Mineralogically, the central rock combines the content of the other two indicating that it is most likely a product of their hybridization. The charnockitic magma is believed to have intruded and assimilated the granite substantially thereby contaminating itself and consequently emplacing the hybrid. The presented model of emplacement elucidates the hybridization proposal. Conclusively, the charnockitics are believed to be (a) younger than the granite, (b) of Pan-African age and (c) of igneous origin.
Abstract: A submerged horizontal plate type breakwater is
pointed out as an efficient wave protection device for cage culture in
marine fishery. In order to reveal the wave elimination principle of this
type breakwater, boundary element method is utilized to investigate
this problem. The flow field and the trajectory of water particles are
studied carefully. The flow field analysis shows that: the interaction of
incident wave and adverse current above the plate disturbs the water
domain drastically. This can slow down the horizontal velocity and
vertical velocity of the water particles.
Abstract: Neoclassical and functionalist explanations of self
organization in multiagent systems have been criticized on several accounts including unrealistic explication of overadapted agents and
failure to resolve problems of externality. The paper outlines a more
elaborate and dynamic model that is capable of resolving these dilemmas. An illustrative example where behavioral diversity is
cobred in a repeated nonzero sum task via evolutionary computing is
presented.
Abstract: A study of the H-beam's nanosize structure phase
states after thermomechanical strengthening was carried out by TEM.
The following processes were analyzed. 1. The dispersing of the
cementite plates by cutting them by moving dislocations. 2. The
dissolution of cementite plates and repeated precipitation of the
cementite particles on the dislocations, the boundaries, subgrains and
grains. 3. The decay of solid solution of carbon in the α-iron after
"self-tempering" of martensite. 4. The final transformation of the
retained austenite in beinite with α-iron particles and cementite
formation. 5. The implementation of the diffusion mechanism of γ ⇒
α transformation.
Abstract: This research focuses on micro-enterprise of
Malaysian Malays that are involved in very small-scaled business
activities. Among them include food stall and burger stall operators,
night market hawkers, grocery store operators as well as construction
and small service activities works. The study seeks to explore why
some micro-entrepreneurs still lag in entrepreneurship and what
needs to be rectified. This quantitative study is conducted on 173
Malay micro-enterprise owners (MEOs) and 58 Malay failed microenterprise
owners (FMEOs) involved in all range of businesses
throughout the state of Perak, Malaysia. The main aims are to
identify the gaps between the failed micro-enterprise owners
(FMEOs) and existing micro-enterprise owners (MEOs) and the
problems faced among FMEOs. The results reveal that the MEOs had
strong motivations and better marketing approaches as compared to
FMEOs. Furthermore, the FMEOs failed in the business ventures
mainly due to lack of management, sales and marketing skills and
poor competitive abilities to keep up with rivals.
Abstract: The purpose of this study is to investigate the
relationship between corporate governance and pricing for initial
public offerings (IPOs). Empirical result finds that the prediction of
pricing of IPOs with corporate governance added can have a rather
higher degree of predicting accuracy than that of non governance
added during the training and testing samples. Therefore, it can be
observed that corporate governance mechanism can affect the pricing
of IPOs
Abstract: With the demand of mobility by users, wireless
technologies have become the hotspot developing arena. Internet
Engineering Task Force (IETF) working group has developed Mobile
IP to support node mobility. The concept of node mobility indicates
that in spite of the movement of the node, it is still connected to the
internet and all the data transactions are preserved. It provides
location-independent access to Internet. After the incorporation of
host mobility, network mobility has undergone intense research.
There are several intricacies faced in the real world implementation
of network mobility significantly the problem of nested networks and
their consequences. This article is concerned regarding a problem of
nested network called pinball route problem and proposes a solution
to eliminate the above problem. The proposed mechanism is
implemented using NS2 simulation tool and it is found that the
proposed mechanism efficiently reduces the overload caused by the
pinball route problem.
Abstract: Staphylococcus aureus, one of the microflora in a
human external auditory canal (EAC) is frequently exposed to highfrequency
electromagnetic field (HF-EMF) generated by mobile
phones. It is normally non-pathogenic but in certain circumstances, it
can cause infections. This study investigates the changes in the
physiology of S. aureus when exposed to HF-EMF of a mobile
phone. Exponentially grown S. aureus were exposed to two
conditions of EMF irradiation (standby-mode and on-call mode) at
four durations; 15, 30, 45 and 60 min. Changes in the viability and
biofilm production of the S. aureus were compared between the two
conditions of exposure. EMF from the standby-mode has enhanced
the growth of S. aureus but during on-call, the growth was
suppressed. No significant difference in the amount of biofilm
produced in both modes of exposure was observed. Thus, HF-EMF
of mobile phone affects the viability of S. aureus but not its ability to
produce biofilm.
Abstract: In the meat processing industry the substitution of
meat with non-meat ingredients is considered an important strategy
for reducing overall production costs. The main purpose of the
current research was to evaluate differences in physical-chemical
composition of cooked sausage with different legumes additions.
Peas (Pisum sativum), beans (Phaseolus vulgaris) and lentil (Lens
culinaris) were used in preparation of sausages. The legumes at
proportion of 20% of the total weight of meat were added in
sausages. The whole ingredients were mixed, filled into casing,
compressed, cooked and cooled. After storage the samples were
sensory evaluated. The sensory evaluation was carried out using the
nine point hedonic scale and line scale. Sausages without legumes
flour was used as control sample. The main conclusion of the current
research the legumes flour can be successfully used for cooked
sausages production.
Abstract: This paper is concerned with an investigation into the
localized non-stability of a thin elastic orthotropic semi-infinite plate.
In this study, a semi-infinite plate, simply supported on two edges
and different boundary conditions, clamped, hinged, sliding contact
and free on the other edge, are considered. The mathematical model
is used and a general solution is presented the conditions under which
localized solutions exist are investigated.
Abstract: In this paper, we present the preconditioned mixed-type
splitting iterative method for solving the linear systems, Ax = b,
where A is a Z-matrix. And we give some comparison theorems
to show that the convergence rate of the preconditioned mixed-type
splitting iterative method is faster than that of the mixed-type splitting
iterative method. Finally, we give a numerical example to illustrate
our results.
Abstract: Micro power sources are required to be used in autonomous microelectromechanical system (MEMS). In this paper,
we designed and fabricated a three dimensional (3D) MEMS supercapacitor, which is consisting of conformal silicon
dioxide/titanium/polypyrrole (PPy) layers on silicon substrate. At first, ''through-structure'' was fabricated on the silicon substrate by high-aspect-ratio deep reactive ion etching (DRIE) method, which enlarges the available surface area significantly. Then the SiO2/Ti/PPy layers grew sequentially on the ³through-structure´. Finally, the supercapacitor was investigated by electrochemical methods.
Abstract: By means of Contractor Iteration Method, we solve and visualize the Lane-Emden(-Fowler) equation Δu + up = 0, in Ω, u = 0, on ∂Ω. It is shown that the present method converges quadratically as Newton’s method and the computation of Contractor Iteration Method is cheaper than the Newton’s method.
Abstract: An application framework provides a reusable design
and implementation for a family of software systems. Application
developers extend the framework to build their particular
applications using hooks. Hooks are the places identified to show
how to use and customize the framework. Hooks define the
Framework Interface Classes (FICs) and their possible specifications,
which helps in building reusable test cases for the implementations of
these classes. This paper introduces a novel technique called all
paths-state to generate state-based test cases to test the FICs at class
level. The technique is experimentally evaluated. The empirical
evaluation shows that all paths-state technique produces test cases
with a high degree of coverage for the specifications of the
implemented FICs comparing to test cases generated using round-trip
path and all-transition techniques.
Abstract: The effect of a time delay on the transmission on
dengue fever is studied. The time delay is due to the presence of an
incubation period for the dengue virus to develop in the mosquito
before the mosquito becomes infectious. The conditions for the
existence of a Hopf bifurcation to limit cycle behavior are
established. The conditions are different from the usual one and they
are based on whether a particular third degree polynomial has
positive real roots. A theorem for determining whether for a given
set of parameter values, a critical delay time exist is given. It is
found that for a set of realistic values of the parameters in the model,
a Hopf bifurcation can not occur. For a set of unrealistic values of
some of the parameters, it is shown that a Hopf bifurcation can occur.
Numerical solutions using this last set show the trajectory of two of
the variables making a transition from a spiraling orbit to a limit
cycle orbit.
Abstract: Medical services are usually provided in hospitals; however, in developing country, some rural residences have fewer opportunities to access in healthcare services due to the limitation of transportation communication. Therefore, in Thailand, there are charitable organizations operating to provide medical treatments to these people by shifting the medical services to operation sites; this is commonly known as mobile medical service. Operation routing is important for the organization to reduce its transportation cost in order to focus more on other important activities; for instance, the development of medical apparatus. VRP is applied to solve the problem of high transportation cost of the studied organization with the searching techniques of saving algorithm to find the minimum total distance of operation route and satisfy available time constraints of voluntary medical staffs.
Abstract: The important issue considered in the widespread deployment of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) is an efficiency of the energy consumption. In this paper, we present a study of the optimal relay station planning problems using Binary Integer Linear Programming (BILP) model to minimize the energy consumption in WSNs. Our key contribution is that the proposed model not only ensures the required network lifetime but also guarantees the radio connectivity at high level of communication quality. Specially, we take into account effects of noise, signal quality limitation and bit error rate characteristics. Numerical experiments were conducted in various network scenarios. We analyzed the effects of different sensor node densities and distribution on the energy consumption.