Artifact removal in magnetoencephalogram background activity with independent component analysis

The aim of this study was to assess whether independent component analysis (ICA) could be valuable to remove power line noise, cardiac, and ocular artifacts from magnetoencephalogram (MEG) background activity. The MEGs were recorded from 11 subjects with a 148-channel whole-head magnetometer. We used a statistical criterion to estimate the number of independent components. Then, a robust ICA algorithm decomposed the MEG epochs and several methods were applied to detect those artifacts. The whole process had been previously tested on synthetic data. We found that the line noise components could be easily detected by their frequency spectrum. In addition, the ocular artifacts could be identified by their frequency characteristics and scalp topography. Moreover, the cardiac artifact was better recognized by its skewness value than by its kurtosis one. Finally, the MEG signals were compared before and after artifact rejection to evaluate our method.     

License Plate Recognition for Parking Control System by Mathematical Morphology

Nowadays, license plate recognition for parking systems is a critical task to provide automatic control of customers and payment. This paper introduces a new method for automatic recognition of license plates of vehicles by mathematical morphology.The proposed method can provide the license plate number of the plates in different light conditions, colors,sizes, and inclination(angles). The algorithm can recognize the license plates of European Union vehicles quickly and correctly. The pattern learning of mathematical skeletons has high efficiency in the process. The performance of the algorithm is demonstrated well by the test in a parking control system.     

Distribution and hardness of muscle connective tissue in hake (Merluccius merluccius L.) and trout (Salmo irideus gibb)

Summary The amount of connective tissue and its main protein, collagen, were related to connective tissue shear strength, in order to furnish data on the distribution and physiochemical characteristics of connective tissue in hake and trout. Collagen solubility and the proportions of the a,, and components were also determined, in order to ascertain the degree of aggregation in the muscle collagen and to explain the above relationships. Connective tissue distribution along the length of the fillets was more uneven in the hake than in the trout, with higher levels in the tail. The degree of collagen aggregation was similar in the connective tissue taken from different locations in the hake fillets. However, in the trout fillets, aggregation was higher in the connective tissue taken from near the tail. As a consequence, the amount of connective tissue was significantly correlated to shear strength in the hake but not in the trout.

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Verteilung und Härte des Bindegewebes im Muskel von Seehecht (Merluccius merluccius L.) und Forelle (Salmo irideus Gibb)

Zusammenfassung Die Menge des Bindegewebes und seiner Hauptproteine wurden auf dessen Schnittfestigkeit bezogen, um aus dieser Beziehung und den physikochemischen Daten bei Hecht und Forelle Schlüsse ziehen zu können. Weiterhin wird die Löslichkeit des Kollagens und das Verhältnis der-, - und-Komponenten bestimmt, um den Aggregationsgrad des Muskelkollagens zu ermitteln und auf diese Weise die oben erwähnten Zusammenhänge erklären zu können. Es wird festgestellt, daß das Bindegewebe über die Länge des Seehechtfilets unregelmäßiger verteilt ist als bei der Forelle, wobei ein höherer Anteil im Schwanz beobachtet wird. Der Grad der Kollagenaggregation ist im Bindegewebe an verschiedenen Stellen des Seehechtfilets gleich, jedoch nicht bei der Forelle, wo das näher am Schwanz liegende Gewebe einen höheren Aggregationsgrad aufweist. Das führt dazu, daß beim Seehecht eine signifikante Beziehung zwischen der Bindegewebsmenge und der Schnittfestigkeit besteht, bei der Forelle allerdings nicht.

     

Special Issue: Technological Advancements in Wireless and Optical Communication Systems

Wireless Personal Communications -     

A Parallel Hill Climbing Algorithm for Pushing Dependent Data in Clients–Providers–Servers Systems

The up-link bandwidth in satellite networks and in advanced traffic wireless information system is very limited. A server broadcasts data files provided by different independent providers and accessed by many clients in a round-robin manner. The clients who access these files may have different patterns of access. Some clients may wish to access several files in any order (AND), some wish to access one out of several files (OR), and some clients may access a second file only after accessing another file (IMPLY). The goal of the server is to order the files in a way that minimizes the access time of the clients given some a priori knowledge of their access patterns. An appropriate clients–servers model was recently proposed by Bay-Noy, Naor and Schieber. They formulated three separate problems and proposed an algorithm that evaluates certain number of random permutations and chooses the one whose access time is minimized. In this paper, we formulate a combined AOI (AND-OR-IMPLY) problem, and propose to apply a parallel hill climbing algorithm (to each of the four problems), which begins from certain number of random permutations, and then applies hill climbing technique on each of them until there is no more improvement. The evaluation time of neighboring permutations generated in hill climbing process is optimized, so that it requires O(n) time per permutation instead of O(n ²) time required for evaluating access time of a random permutation, where n is the number of files the server broadcasts. Experiments indicate that the parallel hill climbing algorithm is O(n) times faster that random permutations method, both in terms of time needed to evaluate the same number of permutations, and time needed to provide a high quality solution. Thus the improvement is significant for broadcasting large number of files.     

Lowpass minimum phase filter design using IFIR filters

A design procedure for minimum-phase FIR filters using an interpolated FIR (IFIR) filter is proposed. The IFIR technique allows two linear-phase filters of much lower order to be designed thereby making it easier to apply mipizing than is possible in high order FIR prototype filters. In this way, the problem of finding the roots of high order polynomials is overcome     

On Burst Length Distribution and Preemption Probabilities in OBS Networks with Burst Segmentation

Recently, preemption techniques have attracted considerable attention as a means to provide differentiated quality of service in optical burst switching (OBS) networks. This paper is focused on the analysis of preemption probabilities for bursts within the same priority class. As proposed by Vokkarane and Jue ((2003)* IEEE J Select Areas Commun 21(7): 1198–1209) an incoming burst will preempt the burst in service, within the same priority class, if the residual length of the burst in service is smaller than the incoming burst length. For a general case with wavelength conversion, the preemption probability of contending bursts with a generic service distribution, not necessarily exponential, is analyzed. First, we show that the size distribution for the preempting bursts is shifted to larger values, in comparison to the original burst size distribution. Second, we obtain an upper and lower bound for the preemption probability. Finally, the asymptotic behavior of the OBS switch is analyzed showing that preemption will always occur for a very large number of wavelengths.     

BETaaS: A Platform for Development and Execution of Machine-to-Machine Applications in the Internet of Things

Wireless Personal Communications - The integration of everyday objects into the Internet represents the foundation of the forthcoming Internet of Things (IoT). Smart objects will be the building...     

The importance of access to information and knowledge coordination on quality and economic benefits obtained from Six Sigma

Wireless Networks - This paper presents a structural equation model that relates knowledge coordination with access to information in the process of implementing Six Sigma and their impact on the...     

Impact of the radio channel modelling on the performance of?VANET communication protocols

The expected traffic safety and efficiency benefits that can be achieved through the development and deployment of vehicular ad-hoc networks has attracted a significant interest from the networking research community that is currently working on novel vehicular communication protocols. The time-critical nature of vehicular applications and their reliability constraints require a careful protocol design and dimensioning. To this aim, adequate and accurate models should be employed in any research study. One of the critical aspects of any wireless communications system is the radio channel propagation. This is particularly the case in vehicular networks due to their low antenna heights, the fast topology changes and the reliability and latency constraints of traffic safety applications. Despite the research efforts to model the vehicle-to-vehicle communications channel, many networking studies are currently simplifying and even neglecting the radio channel effects on the performance and operation of their protocols. As this work demonstrates, it is critical that realistic and accurate channel models are employed to adequately understand, design and optimize novel vehicular communications and networking protocols.