Efficient analysis of hybrid directional lifting technique for satellite image denoising

Satellite images are often corrupted by noise in the acquisition and transmission process. While removing noise from the image by attenuating the high frequency image components, it removes some important details as well. In order to improve the visual appearance and retain the useful information of the images, an effective denoising technique is required to reduce the noise level. For denoising, many researches exploit the directional correlation in either spatial or frequency domain. However, the orientation estimation for directional correlation becomes inefficient and error prone in noised circumstances. This paper proposes a new hybrid directional lifting (HDL) technique for image denoising that involves pixel classification and orientation estimation, along with adding small amount of noise, in order to improve the performance efficiency of the technique. Experimental results show that the HDL technique improves both peak signal to noise ratio and visual quality of images with rich textures.     

Coupled effects of gold electroplating and electrochemical discharge machining processes on the performance improvement of a capacitive accelerometer

Coupled effects of an electroplated gold layer and damper holes drilled by Electro Chemical Discharge Machining (ECDM) process on the performance improvement of a quad beam capacitive accelerometer is presented in this paper. A simple quad beam-proof mass configuration with its beams located symmetrically at the centre of all the edges of the proof mass and connected to an outer supporting frame is considered in the present study. For a fixed damping ratio, prime-axis sensitivity of the sensor is increased by the damper holes whereas an electroplated gold layer improves the prime-axis sensitivity, cross-axis sensitivity, and Brownian Noise Equivalent Acceleration (BNEA). Moreover, the increased weight of the proof mass due to an electroplated gold layer further reduces the damping of the device which in turn helps to increase the prime-axis sensitivity more. A new figure of merit called Performance Factor (PF), defined as the ratio of the product of the prime-axis sensitivity and resonant frequency to the cross-axis sensitivity at a fixed damping ratio of 0.7 is used as a quantitative index to evaluate the performance improvement caused by the coupled effects of gold electroplating and ECDM processes. Simulation results show that for a device with damper holes of 8???m diameter and electroplated gold layer of dimensions 3,000???m × 3,000???m × 20???m, the prime-axis sensitivity is increased by more than 500 times, rotational cross-axis sensitivity and BNEA are reduced by around 10 and 30%, respectively and the PF is improved by around 482 times at a fixed damping ratio of 0.7.     

External Quantum Efficiency Exceeding 24% with CIEy Value of 0.08 using a Novel Carbene-Based Iridium Complex in Deep-Blue Phosphorescent Organic Light-Emitting Diodes

Deep-blue triplet emitters remain far inferior to standard red and green triplet emitters in terms of exhibiting high-color-purity Commission International de l'Éclairage (CIE) y values of ≤0.1, external quantum efficiencies (EQEs), and high electroluminescent brightnesses in phosphorescent organic light-emitting diodes. In fact, no deep-blue triplet emitter with color purity and high device performance has previously been reported. In this study, a deep-blue triplet emitter, mer-tris(N-phenyl, N-benzyl-pyridoimidazol-2-yl)iridium(III) (mer-Ir1) is developed, which meets the requirements of the National Television System Committee (NTSC) CIE(x, y) coordinates of (0.149, 0.085) with an extremely high EQE of 24.8% and maximum brightness (L_max) of 6453 cd m⁻², by a device with a 40 vol% doping ratio. Moreover, another device demonstrates an EQE_max of 21.3%, an L_max of 5247 cd m⁻², and CIE(x, y) coordinates of (0.151, 0.086) at a 30 vol% doping ratio. This is the first report of a high-performance, deep-blue phosphor, carbene-based Ir(III) complex device with outstanding CIE(x, y) color coordinates and a high EQE. The results of this study indicate that the novel dopant mer-Ir1 is a promising candidate for reducing power consumption in display applications.     

A systems approach to validating the water vision of the Aral Sea Basin

Abstract:

The governments of the Aral Sea Basin countries, in cooperation with international organizations (UNESCO and World Bank) came up with a “water vision “for the region until 2025. The landlocked Aral Sea has been suffering from an imbalance in water evaporation, and, water inflow from its two main sources — Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers, when the planners in the former Soviet Union from the 1960s diverted the river waters for irrigation. The irrigated area has increased from the 1960s by two‐thirds to 7 million hectares and the population by three‐fold to 50 million in the basin countries. Consequently the inflow to the Aral Sea from these two rivers decreased from 55 km³ in 1960 to a few km³ during the 1980s and 1990s. This has resulted in one of the worst man‐made ecological disasters of the century. In this paper, we examine different scenarios to achieve the vision goals and whether it is indeed feasible. Using IWMI basin‐oriented water accounting principles, we have shown that significant amount of water is being wasted in the region. Our analysis concludes that though not all the vision goals are likely to be met over the next 25 years, the inflow into the Aral Sea can be increased to over 20 km³ through better management and use of water resources.     

Gravitational wave signal templates,pattern recognition,and reciprocal Eulerian gamma functions

The direct   detection of Gravitational Waves (GWs) is one of the most challenging problems in experimental gravitation today. It necessitates the use of highly advanced large laser interferometers such as LIGO, VIRGO, LISA, TAMA 300, GEO 600 and AIGO. The analysis of the data from such instruments requires and combines the expertise from a multitude of scientific disciplines. The verification of a detected signal demands an effective way to distinguish the source signal from the background noise. Such a study is required for an all-sky search to determine the ?$?$ and θ$\theta$ angles on the sky of gravitational wave sources and their frequencies. In this paper, we present analytical solutions and associated numerical approximations for the inner products employed in matched filtering a GW signal using templates. An exact closed-form expression for the inner products is rigourously derived using the special functions of mathematical physics. The inner products involve reciprocal Eulerian gamma functions, which occur in the study of many diverse phenomena. The spectral noise density of the VIRGO GW detector is shown to be amenable to our analysis. Spectral noise densities like those for LIGO and GEO 600, although different and in a slightly more restricted frequency band, are likewise amenable. We study numerical computation of the inner products, estimate the computational time of the solution on serial and parallel computers, and show the efficiency of the resulting algorithms. The fitting factor that indicates the goodness of fit between a signal and a template is given in closed-form and computed numerically. The numerical plots display an approximate symmetry in the template ?$?$ and θ$\theta$ domain.     

An intelligent biological inspired evolutionary algorithm for the suppression of incubator interference in premature infants ECG

Electromagnetic interference produced by the incubator medical equipments may interrupt or degrade the premature infant’s electrocardiography (ECG) signal. The premature infant’s ECG is usually contaminated by an interference caused by the incubator devices. The interference cancellation system is designed using an adaptive learning ability of artificial neural network Levenberg–Marquardt (LM) algorithm. In this paper the swarm intelligent-LM algorithm is used for the electromagnetic interference cancellation in infant ECG signal. The swarm intelligent algorithm is used for the optimization by selecting the optimized number of neurons in the hidden layer, learning rate and momentum factor of the neural network. Also, this paper presents a comparison of residual mean square error (RMSE) values for neural network trained by LM algorithm, hybrid genetic-LM algorithm and hybrid swarm intelligent-LM algorithm. The LM algorithm is used for the weight updating and reducing the content of electromagnetic interference noise present in the signal. The performance analysis of the proposed noise cancellation approach is compared with gradient based and evolutionary based algorithms. The result analysis shows that the interferences in infant ECG signal is removed successfully using the proposed approach.     

Temperature and power consumption measurements as a means for evaluating building thermal performance

A simple methodology is introduced to obtain an empirical relation between power consumption and indoor–outdoor temperature variations for a small residential building. The effects of house occupants, air/moisture leakage, material deterioration, etc. were not considered in the analysis. The Tuskegee Healthy House was used as a test building for the experiment. Empirical equations for power consumption as a function of temperature area differences were obtained from the measured data of winter 2009 with and without mechanically-induced ventilation fresh air, i.e. using fan “ON” and fan “OFF” condition, respectively. The equations were applied to the measured temperature data of winter 2002 to compare and evaluate the thermal performance of the test house. The equations agree favorably with the winter 2002 data revealing that there is no significant difference in power consumption values of winter 2002 and winter 2009 and, hence, no appreciable change in the thermal performance of the house. The methodology presented in the work can be utilized to compare and evaluate the thermal performance of a given building envelope from season to season and between the same seasons in different years.     

Precipitation kinetics in Al-Si-Mg/TiB2 in-situ composites

Al-7Si-0.3Mg-TiB₂ in-situ composites were made by the salt-metal reaction i.e., the reaction of K₂TiF₆ and KBF₄ salts with the molten alloy. The kinetics of the formation of intermediate metastable precipitates in the process of Mg₂Si formation in Al-7Si-0.3Mg-TiB₂ in-situ composites with three different amounts of TiB₂ particles (2.5, 5 and 10 wt.%) were studied using differential scanning calorimeter (DSC) and also compared with the Al-7Si-0.3Mg base alloy. Kissinger analysis of non-isothermal DSC scans at various heating rates was carried out to evaluate the activation energies associated with the precipitation processes. The metastable precipitates were characterized by taking the solutionized samples to their respective DSC peak temperatures at a particular heating rate and the samples were then observed under a transmission electron microscopy. It was found that there is a decrease in the activation energies of the GP zones with increase in TiB₂ content.