A generic camera model and calibration method for conventional, wide-angle, and fish-eye lenses

Fish-eye lenses are convenient in such applications where a very wide angle of view is needed, but their use for measurement purposes has been limited by the lack of an accurate, generic, and easy-to-use calibration procedure. We hence propose a generic camera model, which is suitable for fish-eye lens cameras as well as for conventional and wide-angle lens cameras, and a calibration method for estimating the parameters of the model. The achieved level of calibration accuracy is comparable to the previously reported state-of-the-art.     

Particle growth behavior of poly(methyl methacrylate) nanoparticles synthesized by the reversible addition fragmentation transfer living radical polymerization reaction

PMMA nanoparticles with highly mono‐dispersed size distribution were prepared using the RAFT living radical emulsion polymerization technique. A novel sur‐iniferter for the RAFT reaction, DTBA, was synthesized and its chemical structure was identified using several spectroscopic techniques. The relationship between the particle size and the molecular weight of the polymer was investigated measuring the rate of growth of each during formation of particles, and was well explained by the simple random flight molecular conformation model. The particle size increased up to a certain value with decreasing sur‐iniferter concentration and then leveled off, because the surface charge density of the growing particles was not high enough to stabilize the particles in aqueous medium above that value. The core‐shell type di‐block copolymer nanoparticles were also successfully prepared via RAFT reaction. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 2007     

SERA: a secure energy reliability aware data gathering for sensor networks

Wireless sensor networks are used in many applications in military, ecology, health, and other areas. These applications often include the monitoring of sensitive information making the security issue one of the most important aspects to consider in this field. However, most of protocols optimize for the limited capabilities of sensor nodes and the application specific nature of the networks, but they are vulnerable to serious attacks. In this paper, a Secure Energy and Reliability Aware data gathering protocol (SERA) is proposed, which provides energy efficiency and data delivery reliability as well as security. The proposed protocol’s security was confirmed by a formal verification carried out using the AVISPA tool and analysis of the most common network layer attacks such as selective forwarding, sinkhole, Sybil, wormhole, HELLO flood, and acknowledgment spoofing attacks. Additionally, a visual simulation environment was developed to evaluate the performance of the proposed protocol.     

Effect of precursor particle size and morphology on lithiation of Ni0.6Mn0.2Co0.2(OH)2

In this paper, Ni_0.6Mn_0.2Co_0.2(OH)₂ precursors with several different morphologies and particle sizes are mixed with Li₂CO₃ and heat treated for 5, 7.5 and 10 h. The effects of the precursor properties on the degree of lithiation, electrochemical properties and volumetric capacities of lithiated product are compared. Based on the characterization results, a small (3 μm), narrow span precursor can be lithiated in a short period of time (5 h) and has good initial discharge capacity (185 mA h g^??1) and capacity retention (93% for 55 cycles). In contrast, a large wide-span precursor requires over 10 h for full lithiation. A highly porous precursor can be lithiated faster than traditional large wide-span materials, and has low cation mixing and good crystallinity. However, the volumetric energy density of porous material is low after lithiation compared to the other tested materials. Capacity retention after washing correlated with crystallographic properties of the sample.

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Efficient Multisplitting Revisited: Optima-Preserving Elimination of Partition Candidates

We consider multisplitting of numerical value ranges, a task that is encountered as a discretization step preceding induction and also embedded into learning algorithms. We are interested in finding the partition that optimizes the value of a given attribute evaluation function. For most commonly used evaluation functions this task takes quadratic time in the number of potential cut points in the numerical range. Hence, it is a potential bottleneck in data mining algorithms.We present two techniques that speed up the optimal multisplitting task. The first one aims at discarding cut point candidates in a quick linear-time preprocessing scan before embarking on the actual search. We generalize the definition of boundary points by Fayyad and Irani to allow us to merge adjacent example blocks that have the same relative class distribution. We prove for several commonly used evaluation functions that this processing removes only suboptimal cut points. Hence, the algorithm does not lose optimality.Our second technique tackles the quadratic-time dynamic programming algorithm, which is the best schema for optimizing many well-known evaluation functions. We present a technique that dynamically—i.e., during the search—prunes partitions of prefixes of the sorted data from the search space of the algorithm. The method works for all convex and cumulative evaluation functions.Together the use of these two techniques speeds up the multisplitting process considerably. Compared to the baseline dynamic programming algorithm the speed-up is around 50 percent on the average and up to 90 percent in some cases. We conclude that optimal multisplitting is fully feasible on all benchmark data sets we have encountered.     

Weibull Skewness and Kurtosis as a Function of the Shape Parameter

Numerical results are presented for points in the (β₁, β₂) plane for the Weibull shape parameter values 0.2 to 25.0.     

Composition and biochemical properties of ale beer enriched with lignans from Schisandra chinensis Baillon (omija) fruits

Food Science and Biotechnology - To develop a beverage with high antioxidant capacity and desirable sensory characteristics, Schisandra chinensis (omija) fruits were added to ale type beer at...