An FPGA implementation of a neural optimization of block truncation coding for image/video compression

This paper presents a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) implementation for image/video compression using an improved block truncation coding (BTC) image compression technique. The improvement is achieved by employing a Hopfield neural network (HNN) to calculate a cost function upon which a block is classified as either a high- or a low-detail block. Accordingly, different blocks are coded with different bit rates and thus resulting in better compression ratios. The paper formulates the utilization of HNN within the BTC algorithm in such a way that a viable FPGA implementation is produced. The implementation exploits the inherent parallelism of the BTC/HNN algorithm to provide efficient algorithm-to-architecture mapping. The Xilinx VirtexE BTC implementation has shown to provide a processing speed of about 1.113 × 10⁶ of pixels per second with a compression ratio which varies between 1.25 and 2 bits/pixel, according to the image nature.     

Sentence alignment using P-NNT and GMM

Parallel corpora have become an essential resource for work in multilingual natural language processing. However, sentence aligned parallel corpora are more efficient than non-aligned parallel corpora for cross-language information retrieval and machine translation applications. In this paper, we present two new approaches to align English–Arabic sentences in bilingual parallel corpora based on probabilistic neural network (P-NNT) and Gaussian mixture model (GMM) classifiers. A feature vector is extracted from the text pair under consideration. This vector contains text features such as length, punctuation score, and cognate score values. A set of manually prepared training data was assigned to train the probabilistic neural network and Gaussian mixture model. Another set of data was used for testing. Using the probabilistic neural network and Gaussian mixture model approaches, we could achieve error reduction of 27% and 50%, respectively, over the length based approach when applied on a set of parallel English–Arabic documents. In addition, the results of (P-NNT) and (GMM) outperform the results of the combined model which exploits length, punctuation and cognates in a dynamic framework. The GMM approach outperforms Melamed and Moore’s approaches too. Moreover these new approaches are valid for any languages pair and are quite flexible since the feature vector may contain more, less or different features, such as a lexical matching feature and Hanzi characters in Japanese–Chinese texts, than the ones used in the current research.     

A multi-level analysis of factors affecting software developers’ intention to reuse software assets: An empirical investigation

Reuse of software assets in application development has held promise but faced challenges. In addressing these challenges, research has focused on organizational- and project-level factors while neglecting grass-root level adoption of reusable assets. Our research investigated factors associated with individual software developers’ intention to reuse software assets and integrated them in TAM. Towards that end, 13 project managers were interviewed and 207 software developers were surveyed in India. Results revealed that the technological-level (infrastructure), and individual-level factors (reuse-related experience and self-efficacy) were major determinants. Implications are discussed.     

Volume Changes of Iron Oxide Compacts under Isothermal Reduction Conditions

Compacts made from chemically grade Fe₂O₃ were fired at 1473K for 6 hrs. The fired compacts were isothermally reduced either by hydrogen or carbon monoxide at 1073–1373K. The O₂ weight‐loss resulting from the reduction process was continuously recorded as a function of time using TGA technique, whereas the volume change at different reduction conditions was measured by displacement method. Porosity measurements, microscopic examination and X‐ray diffraction analysis were used to characterize the fired and reduced products. The rate of reduction at both the initial and final stages was increased with temperature. The reduction mechanism deduced from the correlations between apparent activation energy values, structure of partially reduced compacts and application of gas‐solid reaction models revealed the reduction rate (dr/dt) at both the initial and final stages. At early stages, the reduction was controlled by a combined effect of gaseous diffusion and interfacial chemical reaction mechanism, while at the final stages the interfacial chemical reaction was the rate determining step. In H₂ reduction, maximum swelling (80%) was obtained at 1373K, which was attributed to the formation of metallic iron plates. In CO reduction, catastrophic swelling (255%) was obtained at 1198K due to the formation of metallic iron plates and whiskers.     

Preparation and characterization of ZnSe nanoparticles by mechanochemical process

Nanocrystalline ZnSe powder was prepared by mechanochemical process from Zn and Se pure granules. Zn and Se granules transformed to powder during mechanochemical reaction and ZnSe phase was observed after milling time of 16 min by XRD measurements. The crystallite size was measured to be 9–10 nm, while the powder particle size was found to be in the range 90–500 nm in the milling time range 20–60 min as measured by size analyzer and SEM. The homogeneity of the powder was confirmed by EDX analysis. The optical band gap was estimated from optical absorbance curve and possess the value in the range 2.58–2.95 eV. The absorbance peak was observed to be wider according the wide distribution of the crystallite size which affect on the energy gap according to energy gap confinement.     

Flexural and Interfacial Behavior of FRP-Strengthened Reinforced Concrete Beams

Although there is a large amount of experimental data available on the fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) strengthening of concrete structures, a full understanding of the various debonding phenomena is somewhat lacking. As a contribution to fill this need, two-dimensional and three-dimensional (3D) nonlinear displacement-controlled finite-element (FE) models are developed to investigate the flexural and FRP/concrete interfacial responses of FRP-strengthened reinforced concrete beams. Interface elements are used to simulate the FRP/concrete interfacial behavior before and after cracking. The analysis is carried out using two different relations for the interface; namely, nonlinear and bilinear bond–slip laws. The results predicted using these two laws are compared to those based on the full-bond assumption. The FE models are capable of simulating the various failure modes, including debonding of the FRP, either at the plate end or at intermediate cracks. The 3D model is created to accommodate cases of FRP-strengthened reinforced concrete beams utilizing FRP anchorage systems. In addition, the models successfully represent the actual interfacial behavior at the vicinities of cracks including the stress/slip concentrations and fluctuations. Results are presented in terms of the ultimate load carrying capacities, failure modes and deformational characteristics. Special emphasis is placed on the FRP/concrete interfacial behavior and cracking of the concrete. The numerical results are compared to available experimental data for 25 specimens categorized in six series, and they show a very good agreement.     

Successful Delivery of Public-Private Partnerships for Infrastructure Development

Two common approaches have been used by governments for the implementation of public-private partnerships (PPPs): a finance-based approach that aims to use private financing to satisfy infrastructure needs, and a service-based approach that aims to optimize the time and cost efficiencies in service delivery. The implementation of PPPs, however, may suffer from legal, political, and cultural impediments. In the United States, the federal government enabled a number of acts to ease the impediments and promote PPPs for infrastructure development. Based on a detailed analysis of PPPs in the United Kingdom and British Columbia, Canada, this paper describes principles that would characterize the implementation of PPPs at the program level (e.g., whether the implementation is successful). The principles pertain to the: availability of a PPP legal framework and implementation units; perception of the private finance objectives, risk allocation consequences, and value-for-money objectives; maintenance of PPPs process transparency; standardization of procedures; and use of performance specifications. Guidelines for successful implementation are explained and discussed in the context of the United States PPPs experience and impediments.     

Evaluation of Augmented Reality for Rapid Assessment of Earthquake-Induced Building Damage

This paper discusses the feasibility of using augmented reality (AR) to evaluate earthquake-induced building damage. In the proposed approach, previously stored building information is superimposed onto a real structure in AR. Structural damage can then be quantified by measuring and interpreting key differences between the real and augmented views of the facility. Proof-of-concept experiments were performed in conjunction with large-scale cyclic shear wall tests. In these, CAD images of the walls were superimposed onto the wall specimens. Then, as the wall specimens were deformed under applied loading, the horizontal drifts between the walls and the augmented images were computed using two different techniques and compared with actual wall drifts. The obtained results highlight the potential of using AR for rapid damage detection and indicate that the accuracy of structural displacements measured using AR is a direct function of the accuracy with which augmented images can be registered with the real world. The limitations of the technology, considerations for field implementation, and the potential for other related applications of AR are also discussed.     

Notice of Violation of IEEE Publication PrinciplesLDPC decoder: A cognitive radio perspective for next generation (XG) communication

With the rapid growth of multimedia communication systems during the last decade, there has been an increasing demand for improved technology for Error Correcting Code (ECO to enable the communication systems to have a reliable transmission over noisy channels. Low Density Parity Check (LDPC) codes are the best known ECC codes that can achieve data rates very close to the Shannon limit. In addition, superior error correction performance and parallelizable decoding algorithms have made LDPC codes a powerful competitor to turbo codes for reliable high speed communication applications. Recently, Cognitive Radio (CR) has been proposed as a promising technology to solve today's spectrum scarcity problem. CR promises to alleviate this spectrum shortage problem by dynamically accessing free spectrum resources. This implies that the radio has to work in multi-band, cope with various wireless channels and support various services such as voice, data and video. The basic requirement for CR is that it has a reconfigurable architecture to support multi-band and frequency adaptive operations. One of the ambitious design goals of future wireless systems, including 4G, IEEE 802.11n/802.16 standards, is to provide reliably very high data rate transmission in hostile environments: for example, around 100 Mb/s peak rate for downlink and around 30 Mb/s sum rate for uplink transmission with a low frame error rate (FER), typically less than 5 times10^-4. To ensure reliable nd error-free communication, there is a demand to consider implementing LDPC decoders in CR and frequency agile environments. In this article we discuss the design of adaptable as well as efficient LDPC decoders with low bit-error rate (BER) in low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) channels for CR environments.     

Is there the potential for an epidemic of variant Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease via blood transfusion in the UK?

The discovery of three individuals suspected to have contracted variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) through blood transfusions has heightened concerns that a secondary epidemic via human-to-human transmission could occur in the UK. The Department of Health responded immediately to this threat by banning those who had received blood transfusions since 1980 from donating blood. In this paper, we conduct a sensitivity analysis to explore the potential size of a blood-borne vCJD epidemic and investigate the effectiveness of public health interventions. A mathematical model was developed together with an expression for the basic reproduction number (R0). The sensitivity of model predictions to unknown parameters determining the transmission of vCJD via infected blood was assessed under pessimistic modelling assumptions. We found that the size of the epidemic (up until 2080) was bounded above by 900 cases, with self-sustaining epidemics (R0>1) also possible; but the scenarios under which such epidemics could arise were found to be biologically implausible. Under optimistic assumptions, public health interventions reduced the upper bound to 250 and further still when only biologically plausible scenarios were considered. Our results support the belief that scenarios leading to large or self-sustaining epidemics are possible but unlikely, and that public health interventions were effective.