Abstract: This study uses natural water and the surface properties of powdered activated carbon to acclimatize organics, forming biofilms on the surface of powdered activated carbon. To investigate the influence of different hydraulic retention times on the removal efficacy of trace organics in raw water, and to determine the optimal hydraulic retention time of a biological powdered activated carbon system, this study selects ozone-treated water processed by Feng-shan Advanced Water Purification Plant in southern Taiwan for the experiment. The evaluation indicators include assimilable organic carbon, dissolved organic carbon, and total organic carbon. The results of this study can improve the quality of drinking water treated using advanced water purification procedures.
Abstract: Simulation of occlusal function during laboratory
material-s testing becomes essential in predicting long-term
performance before clinical usage. The aim of the study was to assess
the influence of chamfer preparation depth on failure risk of heat
pressed ceramic crowns with and without zirconia framework by
means of finite element analysis. 3D models of maxillary central
incisor, prepared for full ceramic crowns with different depths of the
chamfer margin (between 0.8 and 1.2 mm) and 6-degree tapered
walls together with the overlying crowns were generated using
literature data (Fig. 1, 2). The crowns were designed with and
without a zirconia framework with a thickness of 0.4 mm. For all
preparations and crowns, stresses in the pressed ceramic crown,
zirconia framework, pressed ceramic veneer, and dentin were
evaluated separately. The highest stresses were registered in the
dentin. The depth of the preparations had no significant influence on
the stress values of the teeth and pressed ceramics for the studied
cases, only for the zirconia framework. The zirconia framework
decreases the stress values in the veneer.
Abstract: In this paper, we propose a robust disease detection
method, called adaptive orientation code matching (Adaptive OCM),
which is developed from a robust image registration algorithm:
orientation code matching (OCM), to achieve continuous and
site-specific detection of changes in plant disease. We use two-stage
framework for realizing our research purpose; in the first stage,
adaptive OCM was employed which could not only realize the
continuous and site-specific observation of disease development, but
also shows its excellent robustness for non-rigid plant object searching
in scene illumination, translation, small rotation and occlusion changes
and then in the second stage, a machine learning method of support
vector machine (SVM) based on a feature of two dimensional (2D)
xy-color histogram is further utilized for pixel-wise disease
classification and quantification. The indoor experiment results
demonstrate the feasibility and potential of our proposed algorithm,
which could be implemented in real field situation for better
observation of plant disease development.
Abstract: This paper presents an optimal design of linear phase
digital high pass finite impulse response (FIR) filter using Improved
Particle Swarm Optimization (IPSO). In the design process, the filter
length, pass band and stop band frequencies, feasible pass band and
stop band ripple sizes are specified. FIR filter design is a multi-modal
optimization problem. An iterative method is introduced to find the
optimal solution of FIR filter design problem. Evolutionary
algorithms like real code genetic algorithm (RGA), particle swarm
optimization (PSO), improved particle swarm optimization (IPSO)
have been used in this work for the design of linear phase high pass
FIR filter. IPSO is an improved PSO that proposes a new definition
for the velocity vector and swarm updating and hence the solution
quality is improved. A comparison of simulation results reveals the
optimization efficacy of the algorithm over the prevailing
optimization techniques for the solution of the multimodal, nondifferentiable,
highly non-linear, and constrained FIR filter design
problems.
Abstract: Region covariance (RC) descriptor is an effective
and efficient feature for visual tracking. Current RC-based tracking
algorithms use the whole RC matrix to track the target in video
directly. However, there exist some issues for these whole RCbased
algorithms. If some features are contaminated, the whole RC
will become unreliable, which results in lost object-tracking. In
addition, if some features are very discriminative to the
background, other features are still processed and thus reduce the
efficiency. In this paper a new robust tracking method is proposed,
in which the whole RC matrix is decomposed into several low rank
matrices. Those matrices are dynamically chosen and processed so
as to achieve a good tradeoff between discriminability and
complexity. Experimental results have shown that our method is
more robust to complex environment changes, especially either
when occlusion happens or when the background is similar to the
target compared to other RC-based methods.
Abstract: The presented paper is related to the design methods and neutronic characterization of the reactivity control system in the large power unit of Generation IV Gas cooled Fast Reactor – GFR2400. The reactor core is based on carbide pin fuel type with the application of refractory metallic liners used to enhance the fission product retention of the SiCcladding. The heterogeneous design optimization of control rod is presented and the results of rods worth and their interferences in a core are evaluated. In addition, the idea of reflector removal as an additive reactivity management option is investigated and briefly described.
Abstract: This paper presents a novel approach for representing
the spatio-temporal topology of the camera network with overlapping
and non-overlapping fields of view (FOVs). The topology is
determined by tracking moving objects and establishing object
correspondence across multiple cameras. To track people successfully
in multiple camera views, we used the Merge-Split (MS) approach for
object occlusion in a single camera and the grid-based approach for
extracting the accurate object feature. In addition, we considered the
appearance of people and the transition time between entry and exit
zones for tracking objects across blind regions of multiple cameras
with non-overlapping FOVs. The main contribution of this paper is to
estimate transition times between various entry and exit zones, and to
graphically represent the camera topology as an undirected weighted
graph using the transition probabilities.
Abstract: Previous the 3D model texture generation from multi-view images and mapping algorithms has issues in the texture chart generation which are the self-intersection and the concentration of the texture in texture space. Also we may suffer from some problems due to the occluded areas, such as inside parts of thighs. In this paper we propose a texture mapping technique for 3D models using multi-view images on the GPU. We do texture mapping directly on the GPU fragment shader per pixel without generation of the texture map. And we solve for the occluded area using the 3D model depth information. Our method needs more calculation on the GPU than previous works, but it has shown real-time performance and previously mentioned problems do not occur.
Abstract: The present study was designed to investigate the
cardio protective role of chronic oral administration of alcoholic
extract of Terminalia arjuna in in-vivo ischemic reperfusion injury
and the induction of HSP72. Rabbits, divided into three groups, and
were administered with the alcoholic extract of the bark powder of
Terminalia arjuna (TAAE) by oral gavage [6.75mg/kg: (T1) and
9.75mg/kg: (T2), 6 days /week for 12 weeks]. In open-chest
Ketamine pentobarbitone anaesthetized rabbits, the left anterior
descending coronary artery was occluded for 15 min of ischemia
followed by 60 min of reperfusion. In the vehicle-treated group,
ischemic-reperfusion injury (IRI) was evidenced by depression of
global hemodynamic function (MAP, HR, LVEDP, peak LV (+) & (-
) (dP/dt) along with depletion of HEP compounds. Oxidative stress
in IRI was evidenced by, raised levels of myocardial TBARS and
depletion of endogenous myocardial antioxidants GSH, SOD and
catalase. Western blot analysis showed a single band corresponding
to 72 kDa in homogenates of hearts from rabbits treated with both the
doses. In the alcoholic extract of the bark powder of Terminalia
arjuna treatment groups, both the doses had better recovery of
myocardial hemodynamic function, with significant reduction in
TBARS, and rise in SOD, GSH, catalase were observed. The results
of the present study suggest that the alcoholic extract of the bark
powder of Terminalia arjuna in rabbit induces myocardial HSP 72
and augments myocardial endogenous antioxidants, without causing
any cellular injury and offered better cardioprotection against
oxidative stress associated with myocardial IR injury.
Abstract: This paper proposes an Interactive Chinese Character
Learning System (ICCLS) based on pictorial evolution as an
edutainment concept in computer-based learning of language. The
advantage of the language origination itself is taken as a learning
platform due to the complexity in Chinese language as compared to
other types of languages. Users especially children enjoy more by
utilize this learning system because they are able to memories the
Chinese Character easily and understand more of the origin of the
Chinese character under pleasurable learning environment, compares
to traditional approach which children need to rote learning Chinese
Character under un-pleasurable environment. Skeletonization is used
as the representation of Chinese character and object with an animated
pictograph evolution to facilitate the learning of the language. Shortest
skeleton path matching technique is employed for fast and accurate
matching in our implementation. User is required to either write a
word or draw a simple 2D object in the input panel and the matched
word and object will be displayed as well as the pictograph evolution
to instill learning. The target of computer-based learning system is for
pre-school children between 4 to 6 years old to learn Chinese
characters in a flexible and entertaining manner besides utilizing
visual and mind mapping strategy as learning methodology.
Abstract: This paper presents a novel template-based method to
detect objects of interest from real images by shape matching. To
locate a target object that has a similar shape to a given template
boundary, the proposed method integrates three components: contour
grouping, partial shape matching, and boundary verification. In the
first component, low-level image features, including edges and
corners, are grouped into a set of perceptually salient closed contours
using an extended ratio-contour algorithm. In the second component,
we develop a partial shape matching algorithm to identify the
fractions of detected contours that partly match given template
boundaries. Specifically, we represent template boundaries and
detected contours using landmarks, and apply a greedy algorithm to
search the matched landmark subsequences. For each matched
fraction between a template and a detected contour, we estimate an
affine transform that transforms the whole template into a hypothetic
boundary. In the third component, we provide an efficient algorithm
based on oriented edge lists to determine the target boundary from
the hypothetic boundaries by checking each of them against image
edges. We evaluate the proposed method on recognizing and
localizing 12 template leaves in a data set of real images with clutter
back-grounds, illumination variations, occlusions, and image noises.
The experiments demonstrate the high performance of our proposed
method1.
Abstract: The recent development of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) enables new ways of "democratic" decision-making such as a page-ranking system, which estimates the importance of a web page based on indirect trust on that page shared by diverse group of unorganized individuals. These kinds of "democracy" have not been acclaimed yet in the world of real politics. On the other hand, a large amount of data about personal relations including trust, norms of reciprocity, and networks of civic engagement has been accumulated in a computer-readable form by computer systems (e.g., social networking systems). We can use these relations as a new type of social capital to construct a new democratic decision-making system based on a delegation network. In this paper, we propose an effective decision-making support system, which is based on empowering someone's vote whom you trust. For this purpose, we propose two new techniques: the first is for estimating entire vote distribution from a small number of votes, and the second is for estimating active voter choice to promote voting using a delegation network. We show that these techniques could increase the voting ratio and credibility of the whole decision by agent-based simulations.
Abstract: In recent years, we see an increase of interest for efficient tracking systems in surveillance applications. Many of the proposed techniques are designed for static cameras environments. When the camera is moving, tracking moving objects become more difficult and many techniques fail to detect and track the desired targets. The problem becomes more complex when we want to track a specific object in real-time using a moving Pan and Tilt camera system to keep the target within the image. This type of tracking is of high importance in surveillance applications. When a target is detected at a certain zone, the possibility of automatically tracking it continuously and keeping it within the image until action is taken is very important for security personnel working in very sensitive sites. This work presents a real-time tracking system permitting the detection and continuous tracking of targets using a Pan and Tilt camera platform. A novel and efficient approach for dealing with occlusions is presented. Also a new intelligent forget factor is introduced in order to take into account target shape variations and avoid learning non desired objects. Tests conducted in outdoor operational scenarios show the efficiency and robustness of the proposed approach.
Abstract: Arms detection is one of the fundamental problems in
human motion analysis application. The arms are considered as the
most challenging body part to be detected since its pose and speed
varies in image sequences. Moreover, the arms are usually occluded
with other body parts such as the head and torso. In this paper,
histogram-based skin colour segmentation is proposed to detect the
arms in image sequences. Six different colour spaces namely RGB,
rgb, HSI, TSL, SCT and CIELAB are evaluated to determine the best
colour space for this segmentation procedure. The evaluation is
divided into three categories, which are single colour component,
colour without luminance and colour with luminance. The
performance is measured using True Positive (TP) and True Negative
(TN) on 250 images with manual ground truth. The best colour is
selected based on the highest TN value followed by the highest TP
value.
Abstract: Finding the minimal logical functions has important applications in the design of logical circuits. This task is solved by many different methods but, frequently, they are not suitable for a computer implementation. We briefly summarise the well-known Quine-McCluskey method, which gives a unique procedure of computing and thus can be simply implemented, but, even for simple examples, does not guarantee an optimal solution. Since the Petrick extension of the Quine-McCluskey method does not give a generally usable method for finding an optimum for logical functions with a high number of values, we focus on interpretation of the result of the Quine-McCluskey method and show that it represents a set covering problem that, unfortunately, is an NP-hard combinatorial problem. Therefore it must be solved by heuristic or approximation methods. We propose an approach based on genetic algorithms and show suitable parameter settings.
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: The classic problem of recovering arbitrary values of
a band-limited signal from its samples has an added complication
in software radio applications; namely, the resampling calculations
inevitably fold aliases of the analog signal back into the original
bandwidth. The phenomenon is quantified by the spur-free dynamic
range. We demonstrate how a novel application of the Remez (Parks-
McClellan) algorithm permits optimal signal recovery and SFDR, far
surpassing state-of-the-art resamplers.
Abstract: CFD simulations are carried out in arterial stenoses
with 48 % areal occlusion. Non-newtonian fluid model is selected for
the blood flow as the same problem has been solved before with
Newtonian fluid model. Studies on flow resistance with the presence
of surface irregularities are carried out. Investigations are also
performed on the pressure drop at various Reynolds numbers. The
present study revealed that the pressure drop across a stenosed artery
is practically unaffected by surface irregularities at low Reynolds
numbers, while flow features are observed and discussed at higher
Reynolds numbers.
Abstract: Low temperature (LT) is one of the most abiotic
stresses causing loss of yield in wheat (T. aestivum). Four major
genes in wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) with the dominant alleles
designated Vrn–A1,Vrn–B1,Vrn–D1 and Vrn4, are known to have
large effects on the vernalization response, but the effects on cold
hardiness are ambiguous. Poor cold tolerance has restricted winter
wheat production in regions of high winter stress [9]. It was known
that nearly all wheat chromosomes [5] or at least 10 chromosomes of
21 chromosome pairs are important in winter hardiness [15]. The
objective of present study was to clarify the role of each chromosome
in cold tolerance. With this purpose we used 20 isogenic lines of
wheat. In each one of these isogenic lines only a chromosome from
‘Bezostaya’ variety (a winter habit cultivar) was substituted to
‘Capple desprez’ variety. The plant materials were planted in
controlled conditions with 20º C and 16 h day length in moderately
cold areas of Iran at Karaj Agricultural Research Station in 2006-07
and the acclimation period was completed for about 4 weeks in a
cold room with 4º C. The cold hardiness of these isogenic lines was
measured by LT50 (the temperature in which 50% of the plants are
killed by freezing stress).The experimental design was completely
randomized block design (RCBD)with three replicates. The results
showed that chromosome 5A had a major effect on freezing
tolerance, and then chromosomes 1A and 4A had less effect on this
trait. Further studies are essential to understanding the importance of
each chromosome in controlling cold hardiness in wheat.
Abstract: A study was undertaken to investigate the effect of
liquid nitrogen aeration on mortalities of adult Cryptolestes
furrugineus, rusty grain beetles, in a prototype cardboard grain bin
equipped with an aeration system. The grain bin was filled with Hard
Red Spring wheat and liquid nitrogen was introduced from the bottom
of the bin. The survival of both cold acclimated and unacclimated C.
furrugineus was tested. The study reveals that cold acclimated insects
had higher survival than unacclimated insects under similar cooling
conditions. In most cases, mortalities of as high as 100% were
achieved at the bottom 100 cm of the grain bin for unacclimated
insects for most of the trials. Insect survival increased as the distance
from the bottom of the grain bin increased. There was no adverse
effect of liquid nitrogen aeration on wheat germination.