Eye gesture blink password: a new authentication system with high memorable and maximum password length

Multimedia Tools and Applications - Authentication systems in which eye is used for entering the password are categorized into two gaze-based and gesture-based groups. In the accurate...     

Optimization of Run-of-River Hydropower Plant Design under Climate Change Conditions

The assessment of climate change and its impacts on hydropower generation is a complex issue. This paper evaluates the application of representative concentration pathways (RCPs, 2.6, 4.5, and 8.5) with the change factor (CF) method and the statistical downscaling method (SDSM) to generate six climatic scenarios of monthly temperature and rainfall over the period 2020–2049 in the Karkheh basin, Iran. The identification of unit hydrographs and component flows from rainfall, evaporation and streamflow data (IHACRES) model was employed to simulate runoff for the purpose of designing a run-of-river hydropower plant in the Karkheh basin. The non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA)-II was employed to maximize yearly energy generation and the plant factor, simultaneously. Results indicate the runoff scenarios associated with the SDSM lead to higher run-of-river hydropower generation in 2020–2049 compared to the CF results.     

Preparation of Au nanoparticles by Q switched laser ablation and their application in 4-nitrophenol reduction

Clean Technologies and Environmental Policy - This work reports the fabrication of Au nanoparticles (NPs) by laser ablation of a gold metal plate immersed in water in the absence of stabilizing...     

FISTA Algorithm for Radiography Images Enhancement with Background Blurring Removal

Testing and detecting potential defects in works of art is usually required to cause minimal or no damage; industrial Radiography Testing (RT) is often the method of choice provided the images are of the required high quality and yield high defect detection sensitivity. Various digital image processing methods can be employed to achieve improved image quality and information extraction as required. The level and nature of the noise in the RT images is usually unknown. In addition to the different noises, the image quality is degraded by the blurring effect. In this study, a modified form of the Fast Iterative Shrinkage-Thresholding Algorithm (FISTA) with quadratic regularization strategy was developed and applied to remove the blurring. The output of the application of the method to number RT images of five art objects was evaluated by industrial radiography and antiquities experts. It was confirmed that the applied method was efficient and improved image quality and defect detection.     

Two‐Layer Terminal Sliding Mode Attitude Control of Satellites Equipped with Reaction Wheels

This paper addresses the global stability and robust attitude tracking problem of a near polar orbit satellite subject to unknown disturbances and uncertainties. It is assumed that the satellite is fully actuated by a set of reaction wheels (RW) as control actuators because of their relative simplicity, versatility and high accuracy. The terminal sliding mode control (TSMC) approach is utilized in a two‐level architecture to achieve control objectives. In the lower layer a detumbling‐like controller is designed which guarantees the finite‐time detumbling and tracking of the desired angular velocities and based on this result a robust attitude tracking controller is designed in the upper layer to achieve 3‐axis attitude tracking in the presence of unknown disturbances and bounded uncertainties. Robust stability and tracking properties of designed controllers are proved using the Lyapunov theory. Finally, a set of numerical simulation results are provided to illustrate the effectiveness and performance of the proposed control method.     

Hyper-chaotic Feeded GA (HFGA): a reversible optimization technique for robust and sensitive image encryption

In recent years, due to their straightforward structure and efficiency, the chaos-based cryptographic algorithms have become a good candidate for image encryption. However, they still suffer from many weaknesses, such as insensitivity to the plain image, weak key streams, small key space, non-resistance to some attacks and failure to meet some security criteria. For this purpose in this paper, a novel hybrid image encryption algorithm named Hyper-chaotic Feeded GA (HFGA) is proposed to fill the gaps in two stages; initial encryption by using a hyper-chaotic system, and then outputs reinforcement by employing a customized Genetic Algorithm (GA). By applying an innovative technique, called gene-labelling, the proposed algorithm not only optimizes the preliminary encrypted images in terms of security criteria but also allows the legal receiver to easily and securely decrypt the optimized cipher image. In fact, in the first stage, besides unpredictable random sequences generated by a hyper-chaotic system, a new sensitive diffusion function is proposed which makes the algorithm resistant to differential attacks. In the second stage, the generated cipher images, which are labeled in a special way, will be used as the initial population of a GA which enhances randomness of the cipher images. The results of several experiments and statistical analysis show that the proposed image encryption scheme provides an efficient and secure way for fast image encrypting as well as providing robustness against some well-known statistical attacks.     

IAM: an improved mapping on a 2-D network on chip to reduce communication cost and energy consumption

Photonic Network Communications - Based on the recent research, the communication cost has been the most important open issue in network on chip (NoC). In other words, the lower the communication...     

Flexural behavior of metallic fiber-reinforced adhesively bonded single lap joints

Incorporation of additives into the adhesive layer in adhesively bonded joints can improve the stress distriution in the adhesive layer and increase adhesive toughness. In this paper, the geometric and material parameters of metal fibers utilized for strengthening adhesively bonded single lap joints under flexural loading were investigated by using experimental investigations and finite element modeling. According to the experimental results, incorporating metal fibers in the adhesive layer of a bonded joint can have a significant impact on the flexural load bearing of the joint. This was in relationship with the numerical results foreseeing enhanced stress distributions of the adhesive layer, when the metal fibers were added to the adhesive layer. Some important parameters in the design of metal fiber-reinforced adhesive joints include the volume fraction (the distance between the fibers and the fiber diameter), orientation, and mechanical properties of the fibers. It was concluded that the peak normal stresses in the adhesive layer can be reduced, and consequently the load bearing of the joint can be improved by reducing the distance between the fibers, increasing the fiber diameter and choosing a stiffer material for the fibers in the longitudinal direction.     

In Vitro Starch Digestibility of Commercial Gluten‐Free Pasta: The Role of Ingredients and Origin

Gluten replacement in gluten‐free (GF) products presents major challenges for the food industry in terms of sensorial, technological and nutritional characteristics. The absence of gluten reportedly affects starch digestibility, thus increasing the postprandial glycaemic response. However, the role of ingredients and processing conditions has been addressed only seldom. We investigated the in vitro starch digestibility of 9 commercial GF products (5 Italian pasta and 4 Oriental noodles) differing in formulation and processing conditions. Content of rapidly digestible starch (RDS), slowly digestible starch (SDS), and resistant starch (RS) were assessed and combined with information on starch pasting properties and on the overall protein organization. Oriental noodles presented higher relative levels of RS and RDS than Western‐style pasta, that often had SDS levels compatible with low rates of starch digestion. As regard formulation, presence of multiple ingredients seems to likely increase the RDS level, as did the different protein organization in the various samples.     

Enhancement of simultaneous hydrogen production and methanol synthesis in thermally coupled double-membrane reactor

Coupling the methanol synthesis with the dehydrogenation of cyclohexane to benzene in a co-current flow, catalytic fixed-bed double-membrane reactor configuration in order to simultaneous pure hydrogen and methanol production was considered theoretically. The thermally coupled double-membrane reactor (TCDMR) consists of two Pd/Ag membranes, one for separation of pure hydrogen from endothermic side and another one for permeation of hydrogen from feed synthesis gas side (inner tube) into exothermic side. A steady-state heterogeneous model is developed to analyze the operation of the coupled methanol synthesis. The proposed model has been used to compare the performance of a TCDMR with conventional reactor (CR) and thermally coupled membrane reactor (TCMR) at identical process conditions. This comparison shows that TCDMR in addition to possessing advantages of a TCMR has a more favorable profile of temperature and increased productivity compared with other reactors. The influence of some operating variables is investigated on hydrogen and methanol yields. The results suggest that utilizing of this reactor could be feasible and beneficial. Experimental proof of concept is needed to establish the validity and safe operation of the recuperative reactor.