Assessment of interfacial polymerization modalities on the performance of polyaniline doped polyethersulphone hollow fiber membranes

Polyethersulfone hollow fiber membranes doped with polyaniline were coated by interfacial polymerization (IP) using different monomer pairs. The coated fibers were characterized using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, and atomic force microscopy, water contact angle (CA), porosity, and mechanical properties. Moreover, the performance of coated fibers has been tested at low to medium pressure by measuring pure water flux and magnesium sulfate salt solution. Characteristics and performance have been assessed and compared for all samples. Porosity decreased for all coated samples as compared to the raw sample. Optimum results were obtained using m-phenylenediamine and trimesoyl chloride depicting the lowest water CA (68°), highest Young's modulus (183 MPa), lowest pure water flux (0.28 LMH/bar), and the highest salt rejection (63% at 9 bar).     

Effect of structure on the glass transition temperatures of linear and crosslinked poly(isobornylacrylate-co-isobutylacrylate)

A series of linear acrylic copolymers based on Isobornyl acrylate (IBOA) and isobutyl acrylate (IsoBA) were elaborated by radical photopolymerization. In addition, several photochemically crosslinked poly(IBOA-co-IsoBA) were prepared by introducing small amounts of 1,6-hexanedioldiacrylate as crosslinking agent. The evolution of the glass transition temperature was determined experimentally by differential scanning calorimetry as a function of composition for both linear and crosslinked poly(IBOA-co-IsoBA), yielding T_g values ranging from (~249) to (~315 K). Theoretical modeling was performed applying Fox, Gordon-Taylor and Couchman-Karasz models by simple calculations using experimental data, leading to only fair agreement between theoretical and experimental values, or by applying fitting procedures involving one or two adjustable parameters. Likewise, the Kwei model, known to take into account hydrogen bonding interactions between monomers, could not describe well the evolution of T_g, indicating the existence of other factors influencing T_g. Finally, a thermodynamic approach based on entropy considerations allowed to attribute an explanation of the evolution of T_g.     

Low bit rate transparent audio compression using adapted wavelets

Describes a novel wavelet based audio synthesis and coding method. The method uses optimal adaptive wavelet selection and wavelet coefficients quantization procedures together with a dynamic dictionary approach. The adaptive wavelet transform selection and transform coefficient bit allocation procedures are designed to take advantage of the masking effect in human hearing. They minimize the number of bits required to represent each frame of audio material at a fixed distortion level. The dynamic dictionary greatly reduces statistical redundancies in the audio source. Experiments indicate that the proposed adaptive wavelet selection procedure by itself can achieve almost transparent coding of monophonic compact disk (CD) quality signals (sampled at 44.1 kHz) at bit rates of 64-70 kilobits per second (kb/s). The combined adaptive wavelet selection and dynamic dictionary coding procedures achieve almost transparent coding of monophonic CD quality signals at bit rates of 48-66 kb/s     

Progressive quantized projection approach to data hiding.

A new image data-hiding technique is proposed. The proposed approach modifies blocks of the image after projecting them onto certain directions. By quantizing the projected blocks to even and odd values, one can represent the hidden information properly. The proposed algorithm performs the modification progressively to ensure successful data extraction without the need for the original image at the receiver side. Two techniques are also presented for correcting scaling and rotation attacks. The first approach is an exhaustive search in nature, which is based on a training sequence that is inserted as part of the hidden information. The second approach uses wavelet maxima as image semantics for rotation and scaling estimation. Both algorithms have proved to be effective in correcting rotation and scaling distortion.     

Contour interaction in fovea and periphery

It has been known for some time that both foveal and peripheral visual acuity are higher for single letters than for letters in a row. Early work showed that this was due to the destructive interaction of adjacent contours (termed contour interaction). It has been assumed to have a neural basis, and a number of competing explanations have been advanced that implicate either high-level or low-level stages of visual processing. Our previous results for foveal vision suggested a much simpler explanation, one determined primarily by the physics of the stimulus rather than the physiology of the visual system. We show that, under conditions of contour interaction or crowding, the most relevant physical spatial-frequency band of the letter is displaced to higher spatial frequencies and that foveal vision tracks this change in spatial scale. In the periphery, however, beyond 5 degrees, the physical explanation is not sufficient. Here we show that there are genuine physiological lateral spatial interactions, which are due to changes in the spatial scale of analysis.     

Blind adaptive modulation systems for wireless channels with binary feedback

In this paper, we investigate the performance of a blind adaptive modulation scheme that does not require any channel knowledge and just uses binary feedback, thereby decreasing feedback load. Retransmission of erroneous packet is not considered. In particular, we present an analytical framework for the performance evaluation of a simple wireless system in terms of receiver and transmitter structure. The system requires no knowledge of the channel and relies on a binary feedback. Slow and fast Rayleigh fading channel conditions are considered. The paper includes the derivation of the closed‐form expressions of the spectral efficiency. In some cases, closed‐form expression for packet error rate (PER) are derived. Our results show relatively high PER but some applications can still operate in a satisfactory fashion in these conditions, such as voice communication. Using coded modulation with high coding gain and increasing the number of blocks per time slot decrease the PER even more. An advantage of this system is that it uses a low complexity receiver, which sends binary feedback. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Completeness of arbitrarily sampled discrete time wavelettransforms

An arbitrarily sampled discrete time wavelet transform is said to be complete if it is uniquely invertible, i.e., if the underlying signal can be uniquely recovered from the available samples of the wavelet transform. We develop easy-to-compute necessary and sufficient conditions and necessary but not sufficient conditions for the completeness of an arbitrarily sampled dyadic discrete time wavelet transform of a periodic signal. In particular, we provide necessary and sufficient conditions for completeness of the sampled wavelet transform when the lowpass filter associated with the dyadic wavelet filter bank has no unit circle zeros other than those at z=1. We present necessary but not sufficient conditions for completeness when the lowpass filter associated with the dyadic wavelet filter bank has arbitrary unit circle zeros. We also provide necessary and sufficient conditions for completeness of a set of samples of both the lowpass approximation to the signal and its wavelet transform. All the conditions we derive use only information about the location of the retained samples and the analyzing wavelet filter bank. They can easily be checked without explicitly computing of the rank of a matrix. Finally, we present a simple signal reconstruction procedure that can be used once we have determined the arbitrarily sampled discrete time wavelet transform is complete     

When seeing isn't believing [multimedia authentication technologies]

Digital multimedia is ubiquitous today. Multimedia is easily reproduced and modified without any trace of manipulations. In most cases, a human will not be able to judge whether a multimedia signal is authentic by perceptual inspection. In this article we provide a compact yet fairly comprehensive introduction of multimedia authentication (MA) to the general signal processing audience. The article gives a brief discussion on the different MA technologies such as hard authentication, soft authentication, quality-based authentication, content-based authentication, block authentication, and lossless watermarking.     

Multimedia data-embedding and watermarking technologies

We review developments in transparent data embedding and watermarking for audio, image, and video. Data-embedding and watermarking algorithms embed text, binary streams, audio, image, or video in a host audio, image, or video signal. The embedded data are perceptually inaudible or invisible to maintain the quality of the source data. The embedded data can add features to the host multimedia signal, e.g., multilingual soundtracks in a movie, or provide copyright protection. We discuss the reliability of data-embedding procedures and their ability to deliver new services such as viewing a movie in a given rated version from a single multicast stream. We also discuss the issues and problems associated with copy and copyright protection and assess the viability of current watermarking algorithms as a means for protecting copyrighted data