Technical note: Usability evaluation of the modified CIE1976 Uniform‐Chromaticity scale for assessing image quality of visual display monitors

White uniformity indicates the degree of uniform distribution of white color across the display screen and is one of the important inspection factors determining the image quality of a visual display unit (VDU). Experiments in which participants were confronted with 6 evaluation points embedded in 3 measurement groups on a VDU screen were conducted to gather the psychophysical data that include the levels of white uniformity obtained from participants and a colorimetric system (CA‐100). In an accuracy test, 37.12% of the participants showed the same conclusion led by the original CIE1976 criteria, and 62.88% of the participants showed the same conclusion led by the modified equation. In magnitude estimation evaluating the display's white uniformity, the magnitude score of the modified equation (0.36) was significantly larger than that of the original equation (0.32). It was concluded that the modified equation is more sensitive to the change of white uniformity. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Hum Factors Man 13: 85–95, 2003.     

An accurate and practical buffer allocation model for the buffer cache based on marginal gains

A new dynamic buffer allocation strategy based on the notion of marginal gains is presented for the buffer cache that is used by the operating system to store frequently accessed disk blocks in main memory, and the performance of the proposed strategy is compared with those of previous allocation strategies. In the proposed strategy, marginal gain values are predicted by exploiting functions that approximate the expected number of buffer hits per unit time. Experimental results from both trace-driven simulation and an actual implementation in the FreeBSD operating system show that the proposed strategy accurately predicts the marginal gain values for various workloads resulting in significantly improved buffer hit ratios.     

Fabrication of Functional Nanofibrous Ammonia Sensor

A nanofibrous sensor for ammonia gas is fabricated by electrospinning the composite of poly(diphenylamine) (PDPA) with poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) onto the patterned interdigit electrode. The composite electrospun membrane shows interconnected fibrous morphology. Functional groups in PDPA and the high active surface area of the fibrous membrane make the device detect a lower concentration of ammonia with a good reproducibility. The sensing capability of the device is studied by monitoring the changes in resistance of the membrane with different concentrations of ammonia. The changes in resistance of the membrane shows linearity with the concentration of ammonia in the limit of 10 and 300 ppm. UV-visible spectroscopy reveals the mechanism of sensing ammonia by the membrane.     

Effects of reducing and oxidizing atmospheres on the PTCR characteristics of porous n-BaTiO3 ceramics by adding polyethylene glycol

Donor doped BaTiO₃ (n-BaTiO₃) ceramics were fabricated by adding polyethylene glycol (PEG) at 20 wt %. The effects of reducing and oxidizing atmospheres on the PTCR characteristics of the porous n-BaTiO₃ ceramics were investigated. The PTCR characteristics of the porous n-BaTiO₃ ceramics is strongly affected by chemisorbed oxygen at the grain boundaries and are recovered as the atmosphere is changed from the reducing gas to oxidizing gas. The low room-temperature resistivity of the porous n-BaTiO₃ ceramics in reducing atmospheres may be caused by the decrease in potential barrier height, which originates from an increase in the number of electrons owing to the desorption of chemisorbed oxygen atoms at the grain boundaries. In addition, the high room-temperature resistivity of the porous n-BaTiO₃ ceramics in oxidizing atmospheres may be caused by the increase in potential barrier height, which results from the adsorption of chemisorbed oxygen atoms at the grain boundaries.     

Foveation-Based Error Resilience and Unequal Error Protection over Mobile Networks

By exploiting new human-machine interface techniques, such as visual eyetrackers, it should be possible to develop more efficient visual multimedia services associated with low bandwidth, dynamic channel adaptation and robust visual data transmission. In this paper, we introduce foveation-based error resilience and unequal error protection techniques over highly error-prone mobile networks. Each frame is spatially divided into foveated and background layers according to perceptual importance. Perceptual importance is determined either through an eye tracker or by manually selecting a region of interest. We attempt to improve reconstructed visual quality by maintaining the high visual source throughput of the foveated layer using foveation-based error resilience and error correction using a combination of turbo codes and ARQ (automatic reQuest). In order to alleviate the degradation of visual quality, a foveation based bitstream partitioning is developed. In an effort to increase the source throughput of the foveated layer, we develop unequal delay-constrained ARQ (automatic reQuest) and rate compatible punctured turbo codes where the punctual pattern of RCPC (rate compatible punctured convolutional) codes in H.223 Annex C is used. In the simulation, the visual quality is significantly increased in the area of interest using foveation-based error resilience and unequal error protection; (as much as 3 dB FPSNR (foveal peak signal to noise ratio) improvement) at 40% packet error rate. Over real-fading statistics measured in the downtown area of Austin, Texas, the visual quality is increased up to 1.5 dB in PSNR and 1.8 dB in FPSNR at a channel SNR of 5 dB.     

Sensitivity analysis of simulations for magnetic particle inspection using the finite-element method

Magnetic particle inspection (MPI) is widely used for nondestructive evaluation in aerospace applications in which interpretation of inspection results is currently limited to empirical knowledge and experience-based approaches. Advances in computational magnetics, particularly the use of finite-element calculations, have enabled realistic numerical simulations of magnetic particle inspection to be undertaken with complicated geometries. In this paper, we report a sensitivity analysis using finite-element-method simulations of magnetic particle inspection for defects with various sizes and geometries. As a result, improved quantitative understanding of the MPI technique and factors that affects its sensitivity and reliability has been achieved. These results can be used to optimize conditions for conducting these inspections and should lead to improvement in analysis and interpretation of experimental results.     

Sensor technologies for monitoring metabolic activity in single cells-part I: optical methods

A review of optical, chemical, and biological sensors to detect metabolic activity at the single-cell level is presented in the context of the development of lab-on-a-chip research instrumentation. The sensors reviewed include optical sensors, at both research and commercial levels, that can optically detect intracellular metabolites including adenosine triphosphate, nicotinamide-adenine dinucleotide, reduced flavin adenine dinucleotide, and other metabolites, including oxygen, carbon dioxide, and glucose. Methods to optically detect pH changes which are a general indicator of activity in extracellular space are also briefly reviewed. Performance metrics such as sensitivity, sensor size, drift, time response, and sensing range are included when available. Highly suitable optical sensor technologies for monitoring cellular metabolic activity include luminescent (fluorescent, phosphorescent, and chemiluminescent) and colorimetric optical probes. Different approaches to extracting luminescent and colorimetric information are reviewed, including benchtop techniques, fiber-optic approaches, and the use of probes encapsulated by biologically localized embedding. A brief discussion of alternate optical sensor technologies, such as surface plasmon resonance and infrared absorption spectroscopy, is also presented.