An intelligent multimedia information system for multimodal content extraction and querying

Multimedia Tools and Applications - This paper introduces an intelligent multimedia information system, which exploits machine learning and database technologies. The system extracts semantic...     

A review: Recent advances in sol-gel-derived hydroxyapatite nanocoatings for clinical applications

The prospect of modifying the surface properties of the substrate (or base) material to enhance its corrosion and wear resistance as well as its reliability, performance, and more importantly its bioactivity is made possible using nanocoatings. An effective technique of synthesizing high purity nanocoatings in addition to nanopowders and fibers is to utilize the sol-gel approach. It is an attractive and versatile method that can be carried out with relative ease. Ceramic coatings, such as hydroxyapatite (HAp), can be fabricated through chemical means from solutions and consequently complex shapes can be coated economically. Given the fact that mixing takes place on the atomic scale, one of the key advantages of the sol-gel technique is its capacity to produce homogeneous materials, and it has been shown that the mechanical properties of sol-gel coatings are enhanced due to the presence of nanocrystalline grain structures. This review covers a brief insight into the recent application of HAp nanocoatings derived from sol-gel technique.     

Complexity Model Based Proactive Dynamic Voltage Scaling for Video Decoding Systems

Significant power savings can be achieved on voltage/ frequency configurable platforms by dynamically adapting the frequency and voltage according to the workload (complexity). Video decoding is one of the most complex tasks performed on such systems due to its computationally demanding operations like inverse filtering, interpolation, motion compensation and entropy decoding. Dynamically adapting the frequency and voltage for video decoding is attractive due to the time-varying workload and because the utility of decoding a frame is dependent only on decoding the frame before the display deadline. Our contribution in this paper is twofold. First, we adopt a complexity model that explicitly considers the video compression and platform specifics to accurately predict execution times. Second, based on this complexity model, we propose a dynamic voltage scaling algorithm that changes effective deadlines of frame decoding jobs. We pose our problem as a buffer-constrained optimization and show that significant improvements can be achieved over the state-of-the-art dynamic voltage scaling techniques without any performance degradation. Index     

Performance comparison of ZnO photocatalyst in various reactor systems

BACKGROUND: Owing to difficulties in catalyst recovery from slurries the deposition of a catalyst on suitable supports has been investigated extensively in recent years. The support material and the method of coating influence the activity. Photocatalytic decolorization of methyl orange (MO) and Rem Red F3B (RRF3B) was conducted in various reactor systems including a slurry reactor, ZnO thin film coated tube reactor and fixed bed reactor filled with ZnO coated ceramic or glass supports of various geometries. RESULTS: ZnO coating was carried out by the ammonium zincate deposition method. ZnO thin films were quite stable in acidic and basic media and resistant to photocorrosion. Various methods including scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X‐ray diffraction (XRD) were applied for the physical characterization of thin films. The XRD patterns of ZnO thin film exhibit a wurtzite (zincite) crystal structure. SEM analysis revealed the granular morphology of ZnO film with a particle size of 300–400 nm. CONCLUSION: Photocatalytic activities were determined kinetically by calculating first‐order rate constants, which were also related to process variables by regression analysis. From the viewpoint of decolorization efficiency, the coated tube reactor (6 mm i.d.) showed the highest activity, which was equal to that of a powder catalyst loading of 300 mg dm^?3 for MO and of 200 mg dm^?3 for RRF3B. Copyright © 2010 Society of Chemical Industry     

Photocatalytic degradation of Remazol Red F3B using ZnO catalyst

The photocatalytic degradation of aqueous solution of a commercial azo-reactive textile dye, Remazol Red F3B, has been investigated in a batch slurry reactor, in the presence of ZnO catalyst using two different UV light sources emitting at 254 nm and 365 nm. The effects of various process variables on degradation performance of the process have been investigated. The results showed that decolourization and total organic carbon (TOC) removal are both affected in the same manner by the solution pH in the pH range 6-10, showing maxima at pH 7 and pH 10. They are inversely related to the dye concentration, they increase in power-law with the light intensity. Decolourization is faster with 365 nm UV. TOC removal is not affected by UV wavelength in the initial period up to 20 min, after which it progresses faster under 365 nm UV radiation. These results indicate that the UV wavelength influences especially the degradation rate of the intermediate products generated during the initial period of the photocatalytic process. Finally, catalyst loading affects both efficiencies in the same trend, which are maximized at about 2 g/l catalyst loading.     

Patent analysis of wind energy technology using the patent alert system

Using publicly available information effectively is important to remain competitive in technology related industries. The main difficulty in this is determining how to use the information effectively and in a manner that will yield results that can be acted upon. Several different methodologies are being developed in the Technology Watch area of research including the Patent Alert System (PAS) by Dereli and Durmusoglu. By using two different variations of the Patent Alert System, this paper will analyze two different technologies based on wind energy. These variations include Linear Regression based PAS and Fuzzy Logic based PAS. Each approach uses a different methodology to evaluate the available data and generate a trend that will be used to predict future values of patent counts in the applied area of technology. The results of these different approaches are compared in order to determine if either method produces more reliable results which would then lead to better decisions by the organization. In order to connect the results with real-world events, trend changes will be evaluated against global events which should have an impact on technological development in this area.     

A two-stage bid-price control for make-to-order revenue management

Capacity control implementations in make-to-order (MTO) revenue management typically are based on bid-prices, which are used to approximate the opportunity cost of accepting a customer request. However, in the face of stochastic demand, this approximation becomes less accurate and the performance of bid-prices may deteriorate. To address this problem, we examine the informational dynamics inherent in MTO capacity control problems and propose a two-stage capacity control approach based on bid-price updates. Updating is realized with neural networks, which are applied to adjust the selection criteria during the booking period with respect to online demand information. Not only is the resulting contribution margin positively influenced by the update, but also the downside risk of performing worse than a naive first-come-first-served policy. Results from computational experiments show that the proposed approach dominates traditional revenue management methods like randomized linear programming with and without resolving in expected contribution margin as well as in risk.     

The degradation of an azo dye in a batch slurry photocatalytic reactor

The photocatalytic degradation of a commercial azo-reactive textile dye, Remazol Red F-3B, has been investigated in a batch slurry reactor using semiconductor catalysts like, ZnO and TiO₂, and two UV sources emitting mainly at 254 and 365 nm. Non-irradiated catalysts and non-catalyzed UV irradiation have negligible effect on the dye degradation. Initial pH, dye concentration, light power and catalyst loading as well as the catalyst type and UV wavelength are considered as process variables. The results showed that decolorization and TOC removal efficiencies of ZnO are higher under 365 nm UV. On the other hand, when two photocatalysts are compared, the decolorization performance of ZnO is higher than TiO₂ under 365 nm UV_, while TiO₂ performs better under 254 nm UV. Furthermore, from the TOC removal point, TiO₂ performs better than ZnO irrespective of the UV wavelength. TiO₂ irradiated under 254 nm UV degrades successfully both benzene and naphthalene derivatives.     

Multi-response optimization of process parameters for remediation of tetrachloroethylene pools by surfactants: Application of Taguchi design of experiment and Artificial Neural Network

Within the scope of the study, the effectiveness of the experimental conditions was tested by performing a multi-response Taguchi experimental design for the optimization of the minimum cost remediation performance with Tween 80, Methyl beta cyclodextrine (MCD) and Sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) from tetrachloroethylene (PCE) contaminated porous media. Tween 80, MCD and SDS were extensively used in cosmetic industry as emulsifier. Both time of remediation and cost of remediation were studied as two separate response variables in three replicate experiments conducted according to the Taguchi L9 orthogonal experimental design. In the multi-response Taguchi analysis, the sensitivity analysis was performed by systematically changing the weights determined for two separate response variables in the calculation of total loss of quality (TNQLj). Optimum experimental conditions were determined with the help of the calculated multi-response signal/noise (S/N) ratios (MRSN). The results show that the type of Flushing Agent is the most important factor in optimizing the remediation time and remediation cost for the removal of dense non-aqueous phase liquid (DNAPL) PCE mass. Flushing rate is considered to be the least contributing factor. Furthermore, the results of the analysis of variance (ANOVA) showed that all parameters used in the system had a significant effect on the experimental results and the Taguchi method could explain 97.15% of the Remediation Time and 92.03% of the Remediation Cost. Afterwards, the data obtained from the experiments performed according to the experimental design were modelled using Artificial Neural Network (ANN) to estimate the remediation performance and remediation cost without performing new experiments.