Facial expression recognition using modified Viola-John’s algorithm and KNN classifier

Multimedia Tools and Applications - In the way of communication, facial expression act as non-verbal communication and play an important role in social interaction by providing some contextual...     

Exploring the Influence of Methylene Diphenyl Diisocyanate as a Modifier for Ethylene Vinyl Acetate/Thermoplastic Polyurethane Blends

Ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA)/thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) blend at various blend ratios has been modified via reactive processing with 4,4′-methylene diphenyl diisocyanate (MDI). Modification of the blends with even small amount of MDI shows significant improvement in physico-mechanical properties for EVA/TPU 50/50 and 30/70 blends, and it is also supported by the superior melt rheological behavior and dramatic improvement in oil resistance property. After the treatment of electron beam (dose range: 50–150?kGy), radiation crosslinked EVA/TPU (30:70) blend reveals further improvement in various properties. This particular material can find potential application as cable sheathing component.     

Global energy efficiency governance in the context of climate politics

This paper argues that energy efficiency and conservation is a noncontroversial, critical, and equitable option for rich and poor alike. Although there is growing scientific and political consensus on its significance as an important option at global and national level, the political momentum for taking action is not commensurate with the potential in the sector or the urgency with which measures need to be taken to deal with climate change. The current global energy (efficiency) governance framework is diffuse. This paper submits that there are four substantive reasons why global governance should play a complementary role in promoting energy efficiency worldwide. Furthermore, given that market mechanisms are unable to rapidly mobilize energy efficiency projects and that there are no clear vested interests in this field which involves a large number of actors, there is need for a dedicated agency to promote energy efficiency and conservation. This paper provides an overview of energy efficiency options presented by IPCC, the current energy efficiency governance structure at global level, and efforts taken at supranational and national levels, and makes suggestions for a governance framework.     

Erratum to: Malaria infected erythrocyte classification based on a hybrid classifier using microscopic images of thin blood smear

Multimedia Tools and Applications -     

Melt Rheological Behavior and Creep Response of EVA/TPU Blends: Exploring the Effect of Electron Beam Irradiation and Peroxide Cross-linking

The present study focuses on the variation of the melt rheological characteristics and the creep behavior of both electron beam-cross-linked and peroxide-cured ethylene vinyl acetate/thermoplastic polyurethane blends. The variation of complex viscosity, complex modulus, storage modulus, and loss modulus was evaluated over a wide range of frequency and strain amplitude using rubber process analyzer and the effect of radiation dose and peroxide concentration was investigated in detail. The creep study using dynamic mechanical analyzer shows that the creep behavior of the blends significantly improves after cross-linking and the creep compliance gradually decreases with the increasing radiation dose and peroxide content. An attempt was also made to pursue a comparative rheological and creep study among the peroxide-cured, electron beam-cross-linked and the coagent-treated dynamically vulcanized samples.     

Clean development mechanism: a way to sustainable waste management in developing countries?

The Clean Development Mechanism established under the Kyoto Protocol allows investors in the developed world to invest in the developing world in return for emission credits. The CDM has two goals—to contribute to the reduction of emissions in the developed countries, and to promote sustainable development in the developing country. The objective of this paper is to analyze the project portfolio of 400 published CDM projects in the sector “waste handling and disposal” according to their project and technology characteristics.     

The effect of composition of Ni-supported Pt-Ru binary anode catalysts on ethanol oxidation for fuel cells

The effect of the composition of a platinum-ruthenium (Pt-Ru) binary catalyst on a Ni-support for the anodic oxidation of ethanol in aqueous alkaline media has been studied. Co-deposition of nano-crystallites of a Pt-Ru electrocatalyst of varying composition, has been made on Ni-supports by galvanostatic deposition from precursor salt solutions of suitable composition, without using any capping agent. Conjugated scanning electron microscopic-energy dispersion X-ray spectroscopic studies reveal slight alteration of the atomic composition of the electrocatalyst on the electrode surface to that in the deposition bath, as expected. The excellent electrocatalytic activities of the electrodes for the anodic oxidation of ethanol have been found to depend on the mutual variation of composition of the binary catalyst. From cyclic voltammetric, chronopotentiometric, steady state polarization and electrochemical ac impedance studies, it can be inferred that the best catalytic activity of a Pt-Ru binary electrocatalyst on a Ni-support for anodic oxidation of ethanol contains 32–47 at.% of Ru. Moreover, the composition for the best activity within the said range is tilted towards more at.% of Ru when high current density is drawn whereas the composition containing a lower at.% of Ru is favoured when the current density drawn is relatively low.     

The role of devulcanizing agent for mechanochemical devulcanization of styrene butadiene rubber vulcanizate

More or less universally, bis(3‐triethoxysilyl propyl) tetrasulfide (TESPT) has been used as a coupling agent during dispersion of silica filler in a virgin nonpolar rubber compound. It is for the first time that TESPT has been used as a devulcanizing agent and as‐grown devulcanized rubber facilitates the silica dispersion in nonpolar rubber compound without any coupling agent. Dual functionalities of TESPT have been modeled and validated in this work. Various factors like the role of sol‐gel content, inherent viscosity of sol rubber, crosslink density, and degree of devulcanization were investigated as a function of devulcanization time and amount of TESPT to optimize devulcanization time and TESPT amount. To study the silica reinforcement, revulcanization of devulcanized SBR was carried out with silica filler and the curing characteristics of the material were evaluated. From the mechanical properties and thermogravimetry analysis the optimum time for devulcanization is determined. Further, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) studies were undertaken to check the coherency and homogeneity of the material. POLYM. ENG. SCI., 58:74–85, 2018. © 2017 Society of Plastics Engineers     

Hand gesture recognition using two-level speed normalization,feature selection and classifier fusion

Hand gesture recognition provides an alternative way to many devices for human computer interaction. In this work, we have developed a classifier fusion based dynamic free-air hand gesture recognition system to identify the isolated gestures. Different users gesticulate at different speed for the same gesture. Hence, when comparing different samples of the same gesture, variations due to difference in gesturing speed should not contribute to the dissimilarity score. Thus, we have introduced a two-level speed normalization procedure using DTW and Euclidean distance-based techniques. Three features such as ‘orientation between consecutive points’, ‘speed’ and ‘orientation between first and every trajectory points’ were used for the speed normalization. Moreover, in feature extraction stage, 44 features were selected from the existing literatures. Use of total feature set could lead to overfitting, information redundancy and may increase the computational complexity due to higher dimension. Thus, we have tried to overcome this difficulty by selecting optimal set of features using analysis of variance and incremental feature selection techniques. The performance of the system was evaluated using this optimal set of features for different individual classifiers such as ANN, SVM, k-NN and Naïve Bayes. Finally, the decisions of the individual classifiers were combined using classifier fusion model. Based on the experimental results it may be concluded that classifier fusion provides satisfactory results compared to other individual classifiers. An accuracy of 94.78 % was achieved using the classifier fusion technique as compared to baseline CRF (85.07 %) and HCRF (89.91 %) models.     

Malaria infected erythrocyte classification based on a hybrid classifier using microscopic images of thin blood smear

Multimedia Tools and Applications - This paper aims to develop the computer assisted malaria infected erythrocyte classification based on a hybrid classifier. The major issues are feature...