Fuzzy triangulation signature for detection of change in human emotion from face video image sequence

The present article proposes a geometry-based fuzzy relational technique for capturing gradual change in human emotion over time available from relevant face image sequences. As associated features, we make use of fuzzy membership arising out of five triangle signatures such as - (i) Fuzzy Isosceles Triangle Signature (FIS), (ii) Fuzzy Right Triangle Signature (FRS), (iii) Fuzzy Right Isosceles Triangle Signature (FIRS), (iv) Fuzzy Equilateral Triangle Signature (FES), and (v) Other Fuzzy Triangles Signature (OFS) to achieve the task of appropriate classification of facial transition from neutrality to one among the six expressions viz. anger (AN), disgust (DI), fear (FE), happiness (HA), sadness (SA) and surprise (SU). The effectiveness of the Multilayer Perceptron (MLP) classifier is tested and validated through 10 fold cross-validation method on three benchmark image sequence datasets namely Extended Cohn-Kanade (CK+), M&M Initiative (MMI), and Multimedia Understanding Group (MUG). Experimental outcomes are found to have achieved accuracy to the tune of 98.47%, 93.56%, and 99.25% on CK+, MMI, and MUG respectively vindicating the effectiveness by exhibiting the superiority of our proposed technique in comparison to other state-of-the-art methods in this regard.

     

Thermal deformation analysis of tabbed solar cells using solder alloy and conductive film

Finite element analysis (FEA) has been carried out with the aim of understanding the thermal deformation characteristics of two solar cell configurations. One of the solar cell models is tabbed by lead-free solder, the other model by Conductive film (CF). A high temperature soldering process could weaken the bond and reduce the reliability of the cells because of the residual stress caused by the different thermal expansion coefficients of the materials. Moreover, solar irradiation generates temperature distribution across the surface of the solar cell, and the development of solar cells made of thinner crystalline silicon wafers will lead to the reduction in manufacturing costs. In this study, Finite element analysis (FEA) of the manufacturing process has been carried out using both solder and CF bonding. Three temperature cycles were applied to analyze different environmental operating conditions and understand how thermal cycles affect the residual stress during actual service conditions. This investigation provides a comparison of thermal deformations between solder and CF bonded solar cells in order to understand which offers substantial reliability in the long term. Also this study explores the effects of various thicknesses of the silicon wafer on the residual stress and deformation of the solar cells.     

UV-shielding by a polyurethane/f-Oil fly ash-CeO2 protective coating

A waste material called oil fly ash (OFA) was acid-functionalized, yielding f-OFA-COOH, which was then reacted with cerium oxide (CeO₂) to make CeO₂-functionalized OFA, or f-OFA-CeO₂. Pristine OFA and f-OFA-CeO₂ were used to make waterborne polyurethane (WBPU) dispersions, referred to as WBPU/OFA and WBPU/f-OFA-CeO₂, respectively, with defined OFA and f-OFA-CeO₂ content. All the dispersions were applied to mild steel as organic coatings to evaluate their protective properties, such as their hydrophobicity, adhesive strength and UV-shielding resistance. These protective properties varied based on the OFA and f-OFA-CeO₂ content. The highest water contact angle, minimum water swelling and maximum adhesive strength were found using WBPU/f-OFA-CeO₂-20 coating (using 2.00 wt% f-OFA-CeO₂), which also showed the maximum ultraviolet (UV) absorption via UV–vis spectroscopy analysis. This UV shielding result also matched field test results, as that coating was found to exhibit the lowest UV degradation near a marine atmosphere, as shown by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analysis. The least affected hydrophobicity was also recorded for the sample with the WBPU/f-OFA-CeO₂-20 coating.     

Synthesis and characterization of photopolymerizable hydrogels based on poly (ethylene glycol) for biomedical applications

Hydrogels are polymeric materials widely used in medicine due to their similarity with the biological components of the body. Hydrogels are biocompatible materials that have the potential to promote cell proliferation and tissue support because of their hydrophilic nature, porous structure, and elastic mechanical properties. In this work, we demonstrate the microwave-assisted synthesis of three molecular weight varieties of poly(ethylene glycol) dimethacrylate (PEGDMA) with different mechanical and thermal properties and the rapid photo of them using 1-hydroxy-cyclohexyl-phenyl-ketone (Irgacure 184) as UV photoinitiator. The effects of the poly(ethylene glycol) molecular weight and degree of acrylation on swelling, mechanical, and rheological properties of hydrogels were investigated. The biodegradability of the PEGDMA hydrogels, as well as the ability to grow and proliferate cells, was examined for its viability as a scaffold in tissue engineering. Altogether, the biomaterial hydrogel properties open the way for applications in the field of regenerative medicine for functional scaffolds and tissues.     

Perfect secret sharing scheme based on vertex domination set

Due to the fast development in data communication systems and computer networks in recent years, the necessity to protect the secret data has become extremely imperative. Several methods have been proposed to protect the secret data; one of them is the secret sharing scheme. It is a method of distributing a secret K among a finite set of participants, in such a way that only predefined subset of participant is enabled to reconstruct a secret from their shares. A secret sharing scheme realizing uniform access structure described by a graph has received a considerable attention. In this scheme, each vertex represents a participant and each edge represents a minimum authorized subset. In this paper, an independent dominating set of vertices in a graph G is introduced and applied as a novel idea to construct a secret sharing scheme such that the vertices of the graph represent the participants and the dominating set of vertices in G represents the minimal authorized set. While most of the previous schemes were based on the principle of adjacent vertices, the proposed scheme is based upon the principle of non-adjacent vertices. We prove that the scheme is perfect, and the lower bound of the information rate of this new construction is improved when compared to some well-known previous constructions. We include an experiment involving security threats to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.     

DCT statistics-based digital dropout detection in degraded archived media

With the rapid development of visual digital media, the demand for better quality of service has increased the pressure on broadcasters to automate their error detection and restoration activities for preserving their archives. Digital dropout is one of the defects that affect archived visual materials and tends to occur in block by block basis (size of 8 × 8). It is well established that human visual system (HVS) is highly adapted to the statistics of its visual natural environment. Consequently, in this paper, we have formulated digital dropout detection as a classification problem which predicts block label based on statistical features. These statistical features are indicative of perceptual quality relevant to human visual perception, and allow pristine images to be distinguished from distorted ones. Here, the idea is to extract discriminant block statistical features based on discrete cosine transform (DCT) coefficients and determine an optimal neighborhood sampling strategy to enhance the discrimination ability of block representation. Since this spatial frame based approach is free from any motion computation dependency, it works perfectly in the presence of fast moving objects. Experiments are performed on video archives to evaluate the efficacy of the proposed technique.     

Voiced/non-voiced speech classification using adaptive thresholding with bivariate EMD

This paper introduces a robust voiced/non-voiced (VnV) speech classification method using bivariate empirical mode decomposition (bEMD). Fractional Gaussian noise (fGn) is employed as the reference signal to derive a data adaptive threshold for VnV discrimination. The analyzing speech signal and fGn are combined to generate a complex signal which is decomposed into a finite number of complex-valued intrinsic mode functions (IMFs) by using bEMD. The real and imaginary parts of the IMFs represent the IMFs of observed speech and fGn, respectively. The log-energies of both types of IMFs are calculated. There exist similarities between the IMF log-energy representation of fGn and unvoiced speech signals. Hence, the upper confidence limit from IMF log-energies of fGn is used as data adaptive threshold for VnV classification. If the subband log-energy of speech segment exceeds the threshold, the segment is classified as voiced and unvoiced otherwise. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithm performs better than the recently reported methods without requiring any training data for a wide range of SNRs.     

Data-driven next-generation smart grid towards sustainable energy evolution: techniques and technology review

Meteorological changes urge engineering communities to look for sustainable and clean energy technologies to keep the environment safe by reducing CO2 emissions. The structure of these technologies relies on the deep integration of advanced data-driven techniques which can ensure efcient energy generation, transmission, and distribution. After conducting thorough research for more than a decade, the concept of the smart grid (SG) has emerged, and its practice around the world paves the ways for efcient use of reliable energy technology. However, many developing features evoke keen interest and their improvements can be regarded as the next-generation smart grid (NGSG). Also, to deal with the non-linearity and uncertainty, the emergence of data-driven NGSG technology can become a great initiative to reduce the diverse impact of non-linearity. This paper exhibits the conceptual framework of NGSG by enabling some intelligent technical features to ensure its reliable operation, including intelligent control, agent-based energy conversion, edge computing for energy management, internet of things (IoT) enabled inverter, agent-oriented demand side management, etc. Also, a study on the development of data-driven NGSG is discussed to facilitate the use of emerging data-driven techniques (DDTs) for the sustainable operation of the SG. The prospects of DDTs in the NGSG and their adaptation challenges in real-time are also explored in this paper from various points of view including engineering, technology, et al. Finally, the trends of DDTs towards securing sustainable and clean energy evolution from the NGSG technology in order to keep the environment safe is also studied, while some major future issues are highlighted. This paper can ofer extended support for engineers and researchers in the context of data-driven technology and the SG.     

ESPAR array design for the UHF RFID wireless sensor communication system

In this paper, in order to improve the received signal strength (RSS) and signal quality, three arrays of electronically steerable parasitic array radiator (ESPAR) antennas are suggested for the ultra-high frequency (UHF) radio frequency identification (RFID) communication and sensing system applications. Instead of the single antenna, the array antennas have recently been widely used in many communication systems because of their peak gains, better radiation patterns, and higher radiation efficiency. Also, there are some important issues to use the antenna array like high data rates in wireless communication systems and to better understand the many targets or sensors. In this article, a wireless sensor network (WSN) is being investigated to overcome multipath fading and interference by antenna nulling technology that can be achieved through beam control ESPAR array antennas. The proposed ESPAR array antennas exhibit higher gains like 9.63, 10.2, and 12 dBi and proper radiation patterns from one array to another. Moreover, we investigate the mutual coupling effect on the performance of array antennas with different spacing (0.5λ, 0.75λ, λ) and configurations. It is found that the worst mutual coupling reduced by −28 to −34 dB for 2 × 2 array, −3 to −43 dB for 2 × 3 array, and finally −42 dB to −51 dB due to the antenna spacing from 0.5λ to λ. Thus, these suggested antennas could effectively be applied in the WSN communication systems, internet of things (IoT) networks, and massive wireless and backscatter communication systems.     

Multicast Network Security with Asymmetric Cooperative Relaying

International Journal of Wireless Information Networks - This paper exhibits the confidentiality performance study of a cooperative multicast network consisting of $${\mathcal {K}}$$ asymmetric...