Face verification across age progression.

Human faces undergo considerable amounts of varialions with aging. While face recognition systems have been proven to be sensitive to factors such as illumination and pose, their sensitivity to facial aging effects is yet to be studied. How does age progression affect the similarity between a pair of face images of an individual? What is the confidence associated with establishing the identity between a pair of age separated face images? In this paper, we develop a Bayesian age difference classifier that classifies face images of individuals based on age differences and performs face verification across age progression. Further, we study the similarity of faces across age progression. Since age separated face images invariably differ in illumination and pose, we propose preprocessing methods for minimizing such variations. Experimental results using a database comprising of pairs of face images that were retrieved from the passports of 465 individuals are presented. The verification system for faces separated by as many as nine years, attains an equal error rate of 8.5%.     

A comparison between the enhanced mass transfer in boundary and pressure driven oscillatory flow

Mass transport in pulsating flow devices using either moving boundaries or oscillating imposed pressure drops are compared with each other by means of a calculation using a simple model. We conclude that there is no difference between the two configurations as long as one is interested only in the power required to move the fluid for the convective mass transport achieved. However, the boundary driven configuration is more efficient if the power is divided by the total mass transport where both the diffusive and convective parts are taken into account, the boundary driven configuration is more efficient. The amplitude of the piston stroke in the pressure driven configuration and the amplitude in the boundary driven case are assumed to be the same, and the inertia of the moving devices themselves are ignored in this calculation.     

Augmentation of boiling heat transfer from horizontal cylinder to liquid by movable particles

This paper presents a series of experimental results on a passive augmentation technique of boiling heat transfer by supplying solid particles in liquid. A cylindrical heater 0.88 mm in diameter is placed in saturated water, in which a lot of mobile particles exist, and the nucleate and film boiling heat transfer characteristics are measured. Particle materials used were alumina, glass, and porous alumina, and the diameter ranged from 0.3 mm to 2.5 mm. Particles are fluidized by the occurrence of boiling without any additive power, and the heat transfer is augmented. The maximum augmentation ratio obtained in this experiment reaches about ten times the heat transfer coefficient obtained in liquid alone. The augmentation ratio is mainly affected by the particle material, diameter, and the height of the particle bed set at no boiling condition. The augmentation mechanism is discussed on the basis of the experimental results. © 2001 Scripta Technica, Heat Trans Asian Res, 31(1): 28–41, 2002     

LDPC-based space-time coded OFDM systems over correlated fadingchannels: Performance analysis and receiver design

We consider a space-time coded (STC) orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) system with multiple transmitter and receiver antennas over correlated frequency- and time-selective fading channels. It is shown that the product of the time-selectivity order and the frequency-selectivity order is a key parameter to characterize the outage capacity of the correlated fading channel. It is also observed that STCs with large effective lengths and ideal built-in interleavers are more effective in exploiting the natural diversity in multiple-antenna correlated fading channels. We then propose a low-density parity-check (LDPC)-code-based STC-OFDM system. Compared with the conventional space-time trellis code (STTC), the LDPC-based STC can significantly improve the system performance by exploiting both the spatial diversity and the selective-fading diversity in wireless channels. Compared with the previously proposed turbo-code-based STC scheme, LDPC-based STC exhibits lower receiver complexity and more flexible scalability. We also consider receiver design for LDPC-based STC-OFDM systems in unknown fast fading channels and propose a novel turbo receiver employing a maximum a posteriori expectation-maximization (MAP-EM) demodulator and a soft LDPC decoder, which can significantly reduce the error floor in fast fading channels with a modest computational complexity. With such a turbo receiver, the proposed LDPC-based STC-OFDM system is a promising solution to highly efficient data transmission over selective-fading mobile wireless channels     

Measurements of thick target fission yields as a probe of fission excitation functions for deep sub-barrier energies

A close-geometry experimental technique has been developed and used to measure thick target fission yields for protons on ²³⁸U from 4.2 to 12 MeV. Fission fragments were detected at back angles by an annular photo-voltaic detector in coincidence with γ-ray registered in large NaI(Tl) detector. The neutron induced fission background was monitored by a detector on the downstream side of the thick target. Measured yields compare well with those calculated from published thin target cross sections. This method has the required sensitivity to carry out measurements at still lower energies where recent measurements give conflicting findings.