A module-based LSB substitution method with lossless secret data compression

All the various data hiding methods can be simply divided into two types: (1) the extracted important data are lossy, (2) the extracted important data are lossless. The proposed method belongs to the second type. In this paper, a module-based substitution method with lossless secret data compression function is used for concealing smoother area of secret image by modifying fewer pixels in the generated stego-image. Compared with the previous data hiding methods that extract lossless data, the generated stego-image by the proposed method is always with better quality, unless the hidden image is with very strong randomness.     

MEMS AC voltage reference for miniaturized instrumentation and metrology

This work explores MEMS (Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems) potentialities to fabricate AC voltage references through mechanical-electrical transduction that could be used for high precision electrical metrology and for applications in miniaturized instrumentation. AC voltage reference ranging from 5 V to 90 V have been designed and fabricated using the same Epitaxial Silicon On Insulator (SOI) surface micromachining process allowing an accurate control of both dimensions and material properties. The measured MEMS AC voltage reference values have been found in a good agreement with CoventorWare calculations. These tests structures have also been used to develop the read-out electronics to drive the MEMS.     

PIRF-Nav 2.0: Fast and online incremental appearance-based loop-closure detection in an indoor environment

This paper presents a fast and online incremental solution for an appearance-based loop-closure detection problem in a dynamic indoor environment. Closing the loop in a dynamic environment has been an important topic in robotics for decades. Recently, PIRF-Nav has been reported as being successful in achieving high recall rate at precision 1. However, PIRF-Nav has three main disadvantages: (i) the computational expense of PIRF-Nav is beyond real-time, (ii) it utilizes a large amount of memory in the redundant process of keeping signatures of places, and (iii) it is ill-suited to an indoor environment. These factors hinder the use of PIRF-Nav in a general environment for long-term, high-speed mobile robotic applications. Therefore, this paper proposes two techniques: (i) new modified PIRF extraction that makes the system more suitable for an indoor environment and (ii) new dictionary management that can eliminate redundant searching and conserve memory consumption. The results show that our proposed method can complete tasks up to 12 times faster than PIRF-Nav with only a slight percentage decline in recall. In addition, we collected additional data from a university canteen crowded during lunch time. Even in this crowded indoor environment, our proposed method has better real-time processing performance compared with other methods.     

Nanotextured superhydrophobic micromesh

A superhydrophobic micromesh covered with nanoprotrusions has been introduced and its applicability to a waterproof mobile phone speaker has been evaluated. The nanotextured superhydrophobic micromesh showed excellent water repellency, self-cleaning and waterproofing performances. In a waterproof speaker test using the fabricated nanotextured micromesh, the micromesh did not lose its waterproof function at 2 m water depth and did not form a remnant water film after being removed from the water. The packaged speaker showed almost the same sound quality before and after dipping at a 2 m water depth. These results demonstrate that the superhydrophobic nanotextured micromesh could be directly applicable for various products that need to resist water penetration, yet allow the transmission of gases and sound/light waves.     

Multiple resonances with time delays and enhancement by non-Gaussian noise in Newman-Watts networks of Hodgkin-Huxley neurons

In this paper, we study the effect of time delay on the spiking activity in Newman-Watts small-world networks of Hodgkin-Huxley neurons with non-Gaussian noise, and investigate how the non-Gaussian noise affects the delay-induced behaviors. It was found that, as the delay increases, the neuron spiking intermittently performs the most ordered and synchronized behavior when the delay lengths are integer multiples of the spiking periods, which shows multiple temporal resonances and spatial synchronizations, and reveals that the locking between the delay lengths and the spiking periods might be the mechanism behind the behaviors. It was also found that the delay-optimized spiking behaviors could be enhanced when non-Gaussian noise's deviation from the Gaussian noise is appropriate. These results show that time delay and non-Gaussian noise would cooperate to play more constructive and efficient roles in the information processing of neural networks.     

Stability and synchronization for Markovian jump neural networks with partly unknown transition probabilities

This paper addresses the problems of stability and synchronization for a class of Markovian jump neural networks with partly unknown transition probabilities. We first study the stability analysis problem for a single neural network and present a sufficient condition guaranteeing the mean square asymptotic stability. Then based on the Lyapunov functional method and the Kronecker product technique, the chaos synchronization problem of an array of coupled networks is considered. Both the stability and the synchronization conditions are delay-dependent, which are expressed in terms of linear matrix inequalities. The effectiveness of the developed methods is shown by simulation examples.     

Robust parametric CMAC with self-generating design for uncertain nonlinear systems

In this paper, a robust parametric cerebellar model articulation controller (RP-CMAC) with self-generating design, called RPCSGD, is proposed for uncertain nonlinear systems. The proposed controller consists of two parts: one is the parametric CMAC with self-generating design (PCSGD), which is utilized to approximate the ideal controller and the other is the robust controller, which is designed to achieve a specified H^∞ robust tracking performance of the system. The corresponding memory size of the proposed controller can be suitably constructed via the self-generating design. Thus, the useless or untrained memories will not take possession of the space. Besides, the concept of sliding-mode control (SMC) is adopted so that the proposed controller has more robustness against the approximated error and uncertainties. The stability of the system can be guaranteed surely due to the derivations of the adaptive laws of the proposed RPCSGD based on the Lyapunov function. Finally, the proposed controller is applied to the second-order chaotic system and the one-link rigid robotic manipulator. The tracking performance and effectiveness of the proposed controller are verified by simulations of the computer.     

Growing fuzzy topology adaptive resonance theory models with a push-pull learning algorithm

A new incrementally growing neural network model, called the growing fuzzy topology ART (GFTART) model, is proposed based on integrating the conventional fuzzy ART model with the incremental topology-preserving mechanism of the growing cell structure (GCS) model. This is in addition, to a new training algorithm, called the push-pull learning algorithm. The proposed GFTART model has two purposes: First, to reduce the proliferation of incrementally generated nodes in the F2 layer by the conventional fuzzy ART model based on replacing each F2 node with a GCS. Second, to enhance the class-dependent clustering representation ability of the GCS model by including the categorization property of the conventional fuzzy ART model. In addition, the proposed push-pull training algorithm enhances the cluster discriminating property and partially improves the forgetting problem of the training algorithm in the GCS model.     

Development of high throughput microfluidic cell culture chip for perfusion 3-dimensional cell culture-based chemosensitivity assay

This study reports a microfluidic cell culture chip encompassing 36 microbioreactors for high throughput perfusion 3-dimensional (3D) cell culture-based chemosensitivity assays. Its advantages include the capability for multiplexed medium delivery, and the function for both efficient and high throughput micro-scale 3D culture construct preparation and loading. The results showed that the proposed medium pumping mechanism was able to provide a uniform pumping rates ranging from 1.2 to 3.9 μl h⁻¹. In addition, the simple cell/hydrogel loading scheme has been proven to be able to carry out 3D cell culture construct preparation and loading precisely and efficiently. Furthermore, a chemosensitivity assay was successfully demonstrated using the proposed cell culture chip. The results obtained were also compared with the same evaluation based on a conventional 2D monolayer cell culture. It can be concluded that the choice of cell culture format can result in different chemosensitivity evaluation results. Overall, because of the nature of miniaturized perfusion 3D cell culture, the cell culture chip not only can provide stable, well-defined and more biologically relevant culture environments, but it also features low consumption of research resources. All these traits are found particularly useful for high-precision and high-throughput 3D cell culture-based assays.