Perspective:Societally connected multimedia across cultures

The advance of the Internet in the past decade has radically changed the way people communicate and col- laborate with each other. Physical distance is no more a barrier in online social networks, but cultural differences (at the individual, community, as well as societal levels) still govern human-human interactions and must be con- sidered and leveraged in the online world. The rapid de-ployment of high-speed Internet allows humans to interact using a rich set of multimedia data such as texts, pictures, and videos. This position paper proposes to define a new research area called ’connected multimedia’, which is the study of a collection of research issues of the super-area social media that receive little attention in the literature. By connected multimedia, we mean the study of the social and technical interactions among users, multimedia data, and devices across cultures and explicitly exploiting the cultural differences. We justify why it is necessary to bring attention to this new research area and what benefits of this new research area may bring to the broader scientific research community and the humanity.     

A study on measuring surface deformation of the L’Aquila region using the StaMPS technique

This research compares two time-series interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) methods, namely persistent scatterer SAR interferometry (PS-InSAR) and small baseline subset (SBAS) to retrieve the deformation signal from pixels with different scattering characteristics. These approaches are used to estimate the surface deformation in the L’Aquila region in Central Italy where an earthquake of magnitude Mw 6.3 occurred on 6 April 2009. Fourteen Environmental Satellite (ENVISAT) C-band Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR) images, covering the pre-seismic, co-seismic, and post-seismic period, are used for the study. Both the approaches effectively extract measurement pixels and show a similar deformation pattern in which the north-west and south-east regions with respect to the earthquake epicentre show movement in opposite directions. The analysis has revealed that the PS-InSAR method extracted more number of measurement points (21,103 pixels) as compared to the SBAS method (4886 pixels). A comparison of velocity estimates shows that out of 833 common pixels in both the methods, about 62% (517 pixels) have the mean velocity difference below 3 mm year^?1 and nearly 66% pixels have difference below 5 mm year^?1. It is concluded that StaMPS-based PS-InSAR method performs better in terms of extracting more number of measurement pixels and in the estimation of mean line of sight (LOS) velocity as compared to SBAS method.     

Identification of pole-like structures from mobile lidar data of complex road environment

Pole-like structures (PLSs) located in road environment are important roadway assets. They play a vital role in road safety inspection and road planning. The use of light detection and ranging (lidar) based mobile mapping technology for mapping of PLSs is an important area of research as it holds the potential for automation. Point cloud data of rural, peri-urban, and urban road environment are used in this study, which pose special challenge in view of the complexity of terrain, unlike well-planned roads, which have been the subject of interest in existing literature for identification of PLSs. A new five-step method is proposed in this article. The first two steps, i.e. ground filtering and voxelization of filtered non-ground points, are used for data size reduction. Next three steps are used to extract PLSs from reduced data. The proposed method was tested on point cloud data of three test sites having different levels of complexities. PLSs including partially occluded pole, tilted pole, pole situated very close to other objects, and vertical pole attached to tilted pole were accurately identified. Average correctness and completeness, respectively of 92.6% and 94.9%, were achieved in three different complex test sites, i.e. urban, peri-urban, and rural sites, respectively. Computation complexity shows that our proposed method delivers fast and computationally efficient solution for identifying the PLSs from volumetric mobile lidar point cloud. Impact of PLSs on road safety and road planning is also addressed for these selected test sites.     

Experimental Studies on the Self-Shielding Effect in Fissile Fuel Breeding Measurement in Thorium Oxide Pellets Irradiated with 14 MeV Neutrons

The 14 MeV neutrons produced in the D-T fusion reactions have the potential of breeding Uranium-233 fissile fuel from fertile material Thorium-232. In order to estimate the amount of U-233 produced, experiments are carried out by irradiating thorium dioxide pellets with neutrons produced from a 14 MeV neutron generator. The objective of the present work is to measure the reaction rates of 232 Th + 1 n → 233 Th → 233 Pa → 233 U in different pellet thicknesses to study the self-shielding effects and adopt a procedure for correction. An appropriate assembly consisting of high-density polyethylene is designed and fabricated to slow down the high-energy neutrons, in which Thorium pellets are irradiated. The amount of fissile fuel ( 233 U) produced is estimated by measuring the 312 keV gammas emitted by Protactinium-233 (half-life of 27 days). A calibrated High Purity Germanium (HPGe) detector is used to measure the gamma ray spectrum. The amount of 233 U produced by Th 232 (n, γ) is calculated using MCNP code. The self-shielding effect is evaluated by calculating the reaction rates for different foil thickness. MCNP calculation results are compared with the experimental values and appropriate correction factors are estimated for self-shielding of neutrons and absorption of gamma rays.     

An adaptive approach for the reduction of quantization errors†

This paper presents an adaptive quantization scheme for the reduction of the percentage error in the output of the quantizer. The improvement in the system performance is illustrated by simulating a uniform step and an adaptive quantizer on a digital computer and comparing their outputs. A significant improvement in the output is achieved by using the suggested scheme.     

Tolerance analysis using fuzzy sets

A method for the analysis of the effects of subjective and objective tolerances in networks and systems is presented in this paper. The imprecision of the components is represented using fuzzy sets and then the value of the desired attribute is computed. The resulting attribute is also fuzzy and is obtained in the form of a fuzzy set. This fuzzy set contains the extremal and other values of the desired attribute along with their grades of membership. Thus, apart from getting the extremel values, we get the overall picture of the attribute. Since this method is directly applicable for the analysis of subjective tolerances, networks representing humanistic systems may be analysed using this method.     

Modelling of hybrid energy system—Part II: Combined dispatch strategies and solution algorithm

Computer simulation is an increasingly popular tool for determining the most suitable hybrid energy system type, design and control for an isolated community or a cluster of villages. This paper presents the development of the optimum control algorithm based on combined dispatch strategies, to achieve the optimal cost of battery incorporated hybrid energy system for electricity generation, during a period of time by solving the mathematical model, which was developed in Part I of this tri-series paper.The main purpose of the control system proposed here is to reduce, as much as possible, the participation of the diesel generator in the electricity generation process, taking the maximum advantage of the renewable energy resources available.The overall load dispatch scenario is controlled by the availability of renewable power, total system load demand, diesel generator operational constraints and the proper management of the battery bank. The incorporation of a battery bank makes the control operation more practical and relatively easier.     

Environmental crisis in Bhilai,an industrial complex of Madhya Pradesh,India

The emergence of Bhilai on the industrial scene of India and its growth and development as an industrial complex are a significant landmark in the history of industrialization of the country. In our paper an attempt is made to identify the emerging environmental problems associated with the infra‐structural facilities of the study area, a backward and neglected poverty stricken part of the country. In the area, air, water and noise pollution arise from the emissions of the iron and steel plants. There is no provision for sewage and water disposal. Industrial waste is another serious problem for the complex, e.g. slags from the steel furnaces. Bhilai also suffers from slums and overcrowding. Bearing these facts in view, some suitable suggestions for the proper environmental planning of the area are made.     

Strong separation of learning classes

Abstract

Suppose LC ₁ and LC ₂ are two machine learning classes each based on a criterion of success. Suppose, for every machine which learns a class of functions according to the LC ₂ criterion of success, there is a machine which learns this class according to the LC ₂ criterion. In the case where the converse does not hold LC, is said to be separated from LC ₂. It is shown that for many such separated learning classes from the literature a much stronger separation holds: (?𝒞∈LC ₁) (?𝒞' ∈LC ₂ - LC ₁(( [' ?𝒞] It is also shown that there is a pair of separated learning classes from the literature for which the stronger separation above does not hold. A philosophical heuristic toward the design of artificially intelligent learning programs is presented with each strong separation result.