Machine vision theory and applications for cyber-physical systems

Multimedia Tools and Applications -     

ICT4D research: a call for a strong critical approach

ABSTRACT

ICT for development ( ICT4D) research seeks to examine the social and economic changes in developing countries brought about by the deployment and use of ICT. This intent of ICT4D research parallels that of the critical research paradigm in IS, since both focus on transformation and change. The overall goals of this paper are to( 1)understand the extent of critical research in ICT4Dand ( 2)propose an approach, the“strong critical” approach, to conduct critical research in ICT4D. The proposed approach is based on the writings of two social theorists, Arturo Escobar and Gayatri Spivak, and consists of four concepts– the nature of the post-colonial state, provenience or local history of the ICT phenomena, the influence of the Washington Consensusand the issues of representation and subjectivity of subaltern subjects. A review of ICT4D papers showed that only about 20% follow the critical research approach. In-depth reviews ofeight papers that follow the critical approach showed that the“strong critical” lens can enable a deeper and richer analysis. The main contribution of this paper is in addressing a gap in the ICT4D literature about theorizing in the context of developing countries. The paper also reveals, through in-depth reviews, the value of the strong critical approach.     

A grid density based framework for classifying streaming data in the presence of concept drift

Mining data streams is the process of extracting information from non-stopping, rapidly flowing data records to provide knowledge that is reliable and timely. Streaming data algorithms need to be one pass and operate under strict limitations of memory and response time. In addition, the classification of streaming data requires learning in an environment where the data characteristics might change constantly. Many of the classification algorithms presented in literature assume a 100 % labeling rate, which is impractical and expensive when data records are rapidly flowing in. In this paper, a new incremental grid density based learning framework, the GC3 framework, is proposed to perform classification of streaming data with concept drift and limited labeling. The proposed framework uses grid density clustering to detect changes in the input data space. It maintains an evolving ensemble of classifiers to learn and adapt to the model changes over time. The framework also uses a uniform grid density sampling mechanism to obtain a uniform subset of samples for better classification performance with a lower labeling rate. The entire framework is designed to be one-pass, incremental and work with limited memory to perform any-time classification on demand. Experimental comparison with state of the art concept drift handling systems demonstrate the GC3 frameworks ability to provide high classification performance, using fewer models in the ensemble and with only 4-6 % of the samples labeled. The results show that the GC3 framework is effective and attractive for use in real world data stream classification applications.     

Octadecyl‐silica—PVDF membrane of superior MD desalination performance

Despite its widespread industrial and residential uses for production of potable water, the reverse osmosis (RO) desalination process has some drawbacks by discharging harmful concentrated saline water as reject stream. A hydrophobic porous membrane can treat such environmentally unfriendly RO reject stream via Membrane Distillation (MD) process. Here, we describe preparation of superior polyvinylidenefluoride (PVDF) membrane modified with superhydrophobic silica nanoparticles for desalination application. Superhydrophobicity (contact angle of 151°) of silica nanoparticles of 7 nm sizes was achieved by reaction of the silica particles with octadecyltrichlorosilane in toluene to form ? Si? O? Si? links with C18 alkyl chain. A homogeneous polymer dope mixture containing a desired amount of modified silica colloids suspended in toluene was used for the membrane preparation. The PVDF membrane with optimal silica content exhibited excellent flux with >99% salt rejection efficiency when used for MD at room temperature from the saline water feed of 3.5 wt % NaCl. The prepared hydrophobic PVDF membrane has the potential for MD application in treating the RO reject stream and other aqueous industrial effluents. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2018 , 135, 46043.     

Clinical Advances in Molecular Biomarkers for Cancer Diagnosis and Therapy

Cancer diagnosis is currently undergoing a paradigm shift with the incorporation of molecular biomarkers as part of routine diagnostic panel. The molecular alteration ranges from those involving the DNA, RNA, microRNAs (miRNAs) and proteins. The miRNAs are recently discovered small non-coding endogenous single-stranded RNAs that critically regulates the development, invasion and metastasis of cancers. They are altered in cancers and have the potential to serve as diagnostic markers for cancer. Moreover, deregulating their activity offers novel cancer therapeutic approaches. The availability of high throughput techniques for the identification of altered cellular molecules allowed their use in cancer diagnosis. Their application to a variety of body specimens from blood to tissues has been helpful for appreciating their use in the clinical context. The development of innovative antibodies for immunohistochemical detection of proteins also assists in diagnosis and risk stratification. Overall, the novel cancer diagnostic tools have extended their application as prognostic risk factors and can be used as targets for personalized medicine.     

Tunable Visible Emission of Ag-Doped CdZnS Alloy Quantum Dots

Highly luminescent Ag-ion-doped Cd_1−xZn_xS (0 ≤ x ≤ 1) alloy nanocrystals were successfully synthesized by a novel wet chemical precipitation method. Influence of dopant concentration and the Zn/Cd stoichiometric variations in doped alloy nanocrystals have been investigated. The samples were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and high resolution transmission electron microscope (HRTEM) to investigate the size and structure of the as prepared nanocrystals. A shift in LO phonon modes from micro-Raman investigations and the elemental analysis from the energy dispersive X-ray analysis (EDAX) confirms the stoichiometry of the final product. The average crystallite size was found increasing from 1.0 to 1.4 nm with gradual increase in Ag doping. It was observed that photoluminescence (PL) intensity corresponding to Ag impurity (570 nm), relative to the other two bands 480 and 520 nm that originates due to native defects, enhanced and showed slight red shift with increasing silver doping. In addition, decrease in the band gap energy of the doped nanocrystals indicates that the introduction of dopant ion in the host material influence the particle size of the nanocrystals. The composition dependent bandgap engineering in CdZnS:Ag was achieved to attain the deliberate color tunability and demonstrated successfully, which are potentially important for white light generation.     

Amalgamation of ROAD-TGM and progressive PCA using performance booster method for detail persevering image denoising

Multimedia Tools and Applications - This paper presents a two-stage sequential method for noisy grayscale and color images. At first proposed method enhances the accuracy of the noise detection...