A restoration method for distorted comics to improve comic contents identification

In recent years, copyright violations due to the illegal copying and distribution of e-comic contents have become an important issue. Although such violations can be rapidly and reliably detected by fingerprinting techniques, scanning introduces photometric and geometric distortions. This paper presents a restoration framework for reducing photometric and geometric distortions in copied comics to improve their content identification. First, the photometric distortion is reduced by conventional homomorphic filtering with histogram equalization. Next, the corner detection is improved by a consecutive pixel difference method. Once the corners are obtained for each page, the geometrical distortion is rectified by a perspective transformation method. When two adjacent pages are coupled, as often occurs in scanned and camera-captured comics, they are separated by a simple low-energy point method. The distortion-reducing performance is measured in terms of identification accuracy using the Hamming distance. In a simulation study, our proposed scheme improved the average fingerprint identification accuracy by more than 30 percentage point for single-page comics and by 28 percentage point for double-page comics, relative to conventional methods. We also analyzed the execution time of distortion reduction and page separation in low-, medium- and high-resolution images. Even for large images, the average processing time of our scheme was within 2 s, which is a sufficiently short time for commercial applications.     

Synthesis and characterizing a novel polymeric flocculant based on amylopectin-graft-polyacrylamide-graft-polyacrylic acid [(AP-g-PAM)-g-PAA]

The article highlights the development of a new generation of polymeric flocculant by grafting binary monomer mixture of acrylamide and acrylic acid onto a natural polymer—amylopectin [(AP-g-PAM)-g-PAA]. Primary graft copolymerization of acrylamide onto AP and binary graft copolymerization of acrylic acid onto AP-g-PAM was accomplished in 84 and 91?% grafting efficiency (% GE) using potassium persulphate as initiator. The influence of initiator concentration onto % GE was investigated. The developed binary graft copolymer was characterized using various materials characterization techniques like viscometry, elemental analysis, FTIR spectroscopy, ¹³C NMR spectroscopy, molecular weight and radius of gyration by Zimm plot using SLS analysis. Flocculation studies reveal that the synthesized binary grafted product is an efficient flocculant, which is because of its higher molecular weight and radius of gyration.     

The performance of future designers on the specification of supervisory HCI: case study of a simulated work situation

This article concerns the performance of future designers on the specification of supervisory human?Ccomputer interfaces (HCI). This paper reports the results of a case study of a simulated work situation. Sixty-three groups of 3?C5 students (Master??s program in Electrical Engineering and Industrial Informatics) were involved. In this article, we first describe the study context and explain how we ran it. Next, we describe the industrial process to be supervised, composed of five interconnected stations. We then present our informal analysis of the global study. After our informal analysis, the article focuses on a second level of analysis, based on the 63 HCI specification reports produced by the groups. Each report is analyzed according to eight groups of criteria. The results of this second-level analysis are presented and discussed.     

Effect of oxides on the reaction kinetics during hot-dip galvanizing of high strength steels

Selective oxidation of the minor alloying elements during annealing prior to hot-dip galvanizing cause poor wetting with liquid zinc, resulting in bare spot defects. The effect of surface coverage, morphology (i.e., size and distribution) of the oxides on the reaction kinetics was examined. The Zn wettability has been determined by sessile drop contact angle measurement method and the Fe–Al interfacial layer was investigated by the use of a novel hot temperature spinning process. It has been found that besides the overall surface oxide coverage, size of the oxide islands is a dominant factor in affecting the reaction kinetics.     

Publication trends in materials science: a global perspective

This paper attempts to highlight quantitatively and qualitatively the growth and development of world literature on materials science in terms of publication output and citations as per Web of Science (2006–2010). The objective of the study was to perform a scientometric analysis of all materials science research publications in the world. The parameters studied include growth of publications and citations, continent-wise distribution of publications and citations, country-wise distribution of publications, domain-wise distribution of publications and citations, publication efficiency index, distribution of publications and citations according to number of collaborating countries, variation of mean impact factor in materials science domains, identification of highly cited publications and highly preferred journals, quality of research output and application of Bradford’s law.     

Assessment of bulb pungency level in different Indian cultivars of onion (Allium cepa L.)

Onion (Allium cepa L.) is an important vegetable crop consumed primarily for its ability to enhance the flavor of other foods. The quality of onion depends on its pungency. While highly pungent onions are popular in India, less pungent ones are preferred in other countries. However, the variability in pungency in bulbs of different cultivars however has not been investigated. The present investigation was therefore undertaken to determine the pungency in three popular Indian onion cultivars viz. N-2-4-1, B-780 and Phule Safed. Randomly selected bulb samples of the cultivars were analyzed for the content of pyruvic acid, total soluble solids (TSS) and reducing, non-reducing and total sugars. The red variety N-2-4-1 showed higher level of pungency, while other two varieties were comparatively less pungent.     

Change in fiber properties due to the heat treatment of nylon 6 tire cords

Nylon 6 is used as a reinforcing material in different rubber products. However, as it is a thermoplastic material, it may undergo some kind of thermal shrinkage during the vulcanization of rubber, which leads to dimensional stability problems in the rubber product. To prevent this, we subjected nylon 6 to some kind of thermal treatment at higher temperatures. During thermal treatment, there was some change in the mechanical properties, shrinkage which may have been correlated with changes in the crystal structure of the polymer. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 2008