An overview of rate control techniques in HEVC and SHVC video encoding

Video standards are crucial for exchanging video content, enabling a myriad of services and supporting a wide variety of devices ranging from personal devices to clouds and IoT. One of the core requirements in video standards is the rate control that regulates the bit allocation and picture quality. This paper presents an overview of rate control techniques in the HEVC video coding standard. While providing an insight into the rate control mechanism specific to HEVC, it describes the basic operating principle of rate control algorithms, including their essential parameter, outputs, and performance measures. We review rate control in past coding standards and bring out the basic features of HEVC that drive the need for new rate control algorithms. Alongside, we delineate the Rate-Distortion model-based taxonomy of various algorithms, including their classification criteria. The paper gives out another classification of the rate control algorithms based on their basic principle and mechanisms. The article also explains the scalable extension of HEVC, namely SHVC, while highlighting some of the possible SHVC rate control design challenges. Finally, we present some of the unresolved research issues in HEVC rate control and outline possible future research directions.

     

Lightweight authentication protocol for e-health clouds in IoT-based applications through 5G technology

Modern information technology has been utilized progressively to store and distribute a large amount of healthcare data to reduce costs and improve medical facilities. In this context, the emergence of e-Health clouds offers novel opportunities, like easy and remote accessibility of medical data. However, this achievement produces plenty of new risks and challenges like how to provide integrity, security, and confidentiality to the highly susceptible e-Health data. Among these challenges, authentication is a major issue that ensures that the susceptible medical data in clouds is not available to illegal participants. The smart card, password and biometrics are three factors of authentication which fulfill the requirement of giving high security. Numerous three-factor ECC-based authentication protocols on e-Health clouds have been presented so far. However, most of the protocols have serious security flaws and produce high computation and communication overheads. Therefore, we introduce a novel protocol for the e-Health cloud, which thwarts some major attacks, such as user anonymity, offline password guessing, impersonation, and stolen smart card attacks. Moreover, we evaluate our protocol through formal security analysis using the Random Oracle Model (ROM). The analysis shows that our proposed protocol is more efficient than many existing protocols in terms of computation and communication costs. Thus, our proposed protocol is proved to be more efficient, robust and secure.     

Physical deployment of enhanced visible light communication system using forward error correction codes

With the development of new generation lighting sources, visible light communication (VLC) system has become a complementary solution to traditional radio frequency wireless system. However, the error performance of VLC system is degraded because of multipath effects and interference from other lighting sources that, in turn, reduce the communication range. This work targets the issue of performance degradation of VLC systems in terms of communication range and demonstrates a VLC system design that utilizes forward error correction (FEC) codes as the main tool to fix this issue. Furthermore, the work also covers practical implementation of the proposed VLC system using UART modules programmed in MATLAB. The hardware results demonstrate that the communication range of the proposed VLC system is enhanced up to 0.5 m. Over and above, it is also shown through simulations that the coding gain of the proposed design is more when compared with existing VLC system(s).     

Bituminous impurity in the elemental sulphur from the Mishraq deposit

The bituminous impurity incorporated with the elemental sulphur in the Mishraq deposit was separated by solvent extraction. The extract was further fractionated by column chromatography and the fractions were studied spectroscopically (i.r. u.v., and p.m.r.) The observation that the bituminous material is basically asphaltic (ca. 80% of the total weight, precipitated by straight-chain pentane) with no detection of light components, coupled with the p.m.r. results on carbon type distribution, may add support to the existing theories about the origin of elemental sulphur in the Mishraq region. Elemental analysis of bitumen samples isolated from Frasch sulphur when compared with those isolated from borehole samples using identical isolation techniques may indicate that a reaction between elemental sulphur and the bituminous impurity is taking place under the thermal conditions of the Frasch Process.     

The role of silver minerals on the cyanidation of gold particles embedded within multi‐sulphidic mineral matrices

The effect of silver minerals on the dissolution behaviour of gold particles embedded within multi‐sulphidic minerals was investigated. A multi‐layer packed‐bed reactor approach was used to study the leaching behaviour of free gold (within silica) and gold associated with a series of synthetic multi‐mineral systems consisting of pyrite, silica, and successively, X = chalcopyrite, sphalerite, and stibnite. The reactor was filled with sieved powders of sulphidic minerals (pyrite, X), gold and silica and arranged as electrically‐isolated three‐layer //Pyrite//X//Silica// and two‐layer //Pyrite + X//Silica// systems. Gold powder was introduced successively in each layer of the three‐ and two‐layer mineral systems and the gold leaching behaviour was studied. The highest gold recovery was achieved for the gold particles within the pyrite layer while the lowest was within the silica layer. In case of the //Pyrite//Stibnite//Silica// system, the surface passivation inhibited gold leaching strongly. Gold cyanidation experiments were also performed with the addition of silver minerals, with both Au and Ag minerals dispersed in a three‐layer //Pyrite//X//Silica// and two‐layer //Pyrite + X//Silica// systems. Silver minerals addition proved beneficial for the pyrite‐sphalerite‐silica system. Gold leaching was severely retarded for the pyrite‐chalcopyrite‐silica and pyrite‐stibnite‐silica systems. Passivating films were observed at the surface of gold particles in case of gold cyanidation with pyrite‐chalcopyrite‐silica and pyrite‐stibnite‐silica systems.

     

Microwave power absorption profile of detergent surfactant agglomerates during microwave heating

The microwave energy absorption behavior of the linear alkylbenzene sulfonate (LAS) surfactant detergent agglomerates was studied while considering changes in the physical properties of the samples. Microwave heating was used to change the internal structure of the agglomerates to make a reduced density (fluffy) product. The absorption of energy within LAS samples indicated fluctuating trends as microwave heating progressed. This was associated with the dielectric properties of the material which are strongly dependent upon the nature (“free” or “bound”) and quantity of water present in them at any instant which changes during heating. Therefore, complete profiles of the energy absorbed by the samples have been recorded to determine their actual power absorption behavior/total energy consumption over time. The bulk density of the agglomerates decreased significantly when exposed to microwave fields. Hot air drying can be combined with microwave heating to reduce the total heating time. It has been observed that the pre-heating of the samples reduces the total heating time and microwave energy requirement. This is due to the temperature-dependent decomposition of hydrates releasing more “free” water.     

Morphological studies of polyurethane based pressure sensitive adhesives by tapping mode atomic force microscopy

The polyurethane pressure sensitive adhesive (PUPSA) films have been prepared on polypropylene sheets with coating bars. The topographical information of the dried films is investigated using phase images by using Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) in tapping mode. The film develops a segmental architecture by using different compositions. Various samples of PUPSA comprising of polypropylene glycol PPG (M_n?=?425, 1000, 2000 and 2700 g-mol^?1) and hydroxyl terminated polybutadiene HTPB (M_n?=?1984 and 2912 g-mol^?1) along with three different isocyanates: 1,6 hexane diisocyanate (HDI), isophorone diisocyanate (IPDI) and hexamethylene diisocyanate (H₁₂MDI) have been used for capturing the images through AFM. The samples contained 40 wt.% of solid content containing different nature of macrodiols and diisocyanate. Due to varying composition, dispersion in domain area along with different contour and dimension has been observed in the images. Apparently, there seems no correlation of spherulites and lamellae in different domains. However, the properties imparted by high molecular weight HTPB resulted in non-adhesive stiff material.

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Fourier‐transform infrared spectroscopic study of plasticization effects on the photodegradation of poly(fluorostyrene) isomers films

The photodegradation of poly(fluorostyrene) isomers with different amounts of phthalate and terephthalate plasticizers has been investigated with the aid of Fourier‐transform infrared spectroscopy. Photo irradiation was carried out with light from a Hydrogen‐Xenon lamp at 265 nm and 293 K. As irradiation time increased, changes occurred in the structure of the polymers due to the destruction of polymeric chains and the formation of new photo products during the degradation. The photo products caused shifts, an increase or decrease of the polymer vibrational frequencies, as well as changes in numerous infrared band intensities. The increase in the intensities of the analyzed ranges is attributed to the formation of carbonyl, hydroxyl, and aliphatic ketones and to the increase in the number of polyene structures that resulted from hydrogen abstraction during photodegradation reactions. The analysis of the Fourier‐transform infrared spectra of the irradiated and nonirradiated samples showed a noticeable formation of a new broad band centered at (1,727 cm^?1, C=O), assigned to the growth of aliphatic ketones formerly from the reaction of reactive alkoxy radicals. Its intensity was found to increase with the increase in irradiation time and also with the increase in the amount of added terephthalate and phthalates plasticizer, indicating an increase in the efficiency of the photo degradation process. Trends of photostability of these isomers were found such that poly(para‐fluorostyrene) > poly(meta‐fluorostyrene) > poly(ortho‐fluorostyrene). The photodegradation process for these plasticized isomers was found to increase by the increase in the bulkiness of the plasticizer molecule . J. VINYL ADDIT. TECHNOL., 24:75–83, 2018. © 2015 Society of Plastics Engineers     

Competent,selective and high yield of 7-hydroxy-4-methyl coumarin over sulfonated mesoporous silica as solid acid catalysts

Highly ordered mesoporous MCM-41 and SBA-15 have been synthesized and functionalized with different amounts of propyl sulfonic acid groups using 3-mercaptopropyltrimethoxysilane as sulfur source. The synthesized catalysts have been well-characterized by different techniques such as XRD, FTIR and BET surface area and pore size distribution by BJH method. FTIR spectra of chemisorbed pyridine and temperature programmed desorption of NH₃ techniques have been successfully used to characterize the acidic sites. The results showed that, both surface area, mean pore diameter and pore volume decrease as the extent of sulfonation increase. XRD results and TEM images confirm the stability of mesoporous long range order even after sulfonation process done. In addition, the study also showed that, sulfonation enhances the surface acidity and new moderate and strong acid sites were created. All the sulfonated catalysts under investigations have been found to be highly active and selective for the Pechmann condensation reaction of resorcinol with ethyl acetoacetate. More than 98% yield of 7-hydroxy-4-methyl coumarin was obtained with 100% selectivity. Presence of high number of moderate and strong Brönsted acid sites in sulfonated catalysts help in achieving high yields. Furthermore, the MCM-41 sulfonated catalysts showed higher catalytic performance due to their higher surface acidities.     

A robust discrete‐time adaptive control approach for systems with almost periodic time‐varying parameters

A periodic adaptive control approach is proposed for a class of nonlinear discrete‐time systems with time‐varying parametric uncertainties which are almost periodic, and the only prior knowledge is the periodicity. The new adaptive controller updates the parameters and the control signal periodically in a pointwise manner over one entire period, in the sequel that achieves a bounded tracking convergence. The result is further extended to scenarios with unknown input gain, higher order dynamics, and tracking. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.