A Purely Symbol-Based Precoded and LDPC-Coded Iterative-Detection Assisted Sphere-Packing Modulated Space-Time Coding Scheme

In this contribution, we propose a purely symbol-based LDPC-coded scheme based on a Space-Time Block Coding (STBC) signal construction method that combines orthogonal design with sphere packing, referred to here as (STBCSP). We demonstrate that useful performance improvements may be attained when sphere packing aided modulation is concatenated with non-binary LDPC especially, when performing purely symbol-based turbo detection by exchanging extrinsic information between the non-binary LDPC decoder and a rate-1 non-binary inner precoder. We also investigate the convergence behaviour of this symbol-based concatenated scheme with the aid of novel non-binary Extrinsic Information Transfer (EXIT) Charts. The proposed symbol-based turbo-detected STBC-SP scheme exhibits a 'turbo-cliff' at Eb/N0 = 5.0 dB and achieves an Eb/N0 gain of 19.2dB at a BER of 10-5 over Alamouti’s scheme

Iteratively Decoded Irregular Variable Length Coding and Sphere-Packing Modulation-Aided Differential Space-Time Spreading

In this paper we consider serially concatenated and iteratively decoded Irregular Variable Length Coding (IrVLC) combined with precoded Differential Space-Time Spreading (DSTS) aided multidimensional Sphere Packing (SP) modulation designed for near-capacity joint source and channel coding. The IrVLC scheme comprises a number of component Variable Length Coding (VLC) codebooks having different coding rates for the sake of encoding particular fractions of the input source symbol stream. The relative length of these source-stream fractions can be chosen with the aid of EXtrinsic Information Transfer (EXIT) charts in order to shape the EXIT curve of the IrVLC codec, so that an open EXIT chart tunnel may be created even at low Eb/N0 values that are close to the capacity bound of the channel. These schemes are shown to be capable of operating within 0.9 dB of the DSTS-SP channel’s capacity bound using an average interleaver length of 113, 100 bits and an effective bandwidth efficiency of 1 bit/s/Hz, assuming ideal Nyquist filtering. By contrast, the equivalent-rate regular VLC-based benchmarker scheme was found to be capable of operating at 1.4 dB from the capacity bound, which is about 1.56 times the corresponding discrepancy of the proposed IrVLC-aided scheme

Detection of Iris Presentation Attacks Using Feature Fusion of Thepade's Sorted Block Truncation Coding with Gray-Level Co-Occurrence Matrix Features.

Iris biometric detection provides contactless authentication, preventing the spread of COVID-19-like contagious diseases. However, these systems are prone to spoofing attacks attempted with the help of contact lenses, replayed video, and print attacks, making them vulnerable and unsafe. This paper proposes the iris liveness detection (ILD) method to mitigate spoofing attacks, taking global-level features of Thepade's sorted block truncation coding (TSBTC) and local-level features of the gray-level co-occurrence matrix (GLCM) of the iris image. Thepade's SBTC extracts global color texture content as features, and GLCM extracts local fine-texture details. The fusion of global and local content presentation may help distinguish between live and non-live iris samples. The fusion of Thepade's SBTC with GLCM features is considered in experimental validations of the proposed method. The features are used to train nine assorted machine learning classifiers, including naïve Bayes (NB), decision tree (J48), support vector machine (SVM), random forest (RF), multilayer perceptron (MLP), and ensembles (SVM + RF + NB, SVM + RF + RT, RF + SVM + MLP, J48 + RF + MLP) for ILD. Accuracy, precision, recall, and F-measure are used to evaluate the performance of the projected ILD variants. The experimentation was carried out on four standard benchmark datasets, and our proposed model showed improved results with the feature fusion approach. The proposed fusion approach gave 99.68% accuracy using the RF + J48 + MLP ensemble of classifiers, immediately followed by the RF algorithm, which gave 95.57%. The better capability of iris liveness detection will improve human-computer interaction and security in the cyber-physical space by improving person validation

Customized physical and structural features of phosphate-based glass-ceramics: role of ag nanoparticles and ho3+ impurities

The effects of silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs) embedment on the physical and structural characteristics of the holmium ions (Ho3+) activated phosphate-based glass-ceramics were assessed. Two series of such glass-ceramics were prepared using the melt-quenching and characterized. In the first series, the Ag NPs were nucleated from the incorporated AgCl via the redox process. In the second series, the pure Ag nanopowder was directly added. The overall properties of these glass-ceramics were strongly sensitive to the cooling procedure and NPs addition strategies, leading to different density and refractive index modifications in the two series. The recorded O1s XPS peaks were exploited to determine the bridging to non-bridging oxygen ratios in the studied glass-ceramics network that enabled to unfold the differences in the observed inferences. A compelling correlation among various attributes in the achieved glass-ceramics was established. Briefly, the overall traits of the proposed glass-ceramics were tailored by regulating the preparation conditions

PMT : opposition based learning technique for enhancing metaheuristic algorithms performance

Metaheuristic algorithms have shown promising performance in solving sophisticated real-world optimization problems. Nevertheless, many metaheuristic algorithms are still suffering from a low convergence rate because of the poor balance between exploration (i.e. roaming new potential search areas) and exploitation (i.e., exploiting the existing neighbors). In some complex problems, the convergence rate can still be poor owing to becoming trapped in local optima. Opposition-based learning (OBL) has shown promising results to address the aforementioned issue. Nonetheless, OBL-based solutions often consider one particular direction of the opposition. Considering only one direction can be problematic as the best solution may come in any of a multitude of directions. Addressing these OBL limitations, this research proposes a new general OBL technique inspired by a natural phenomenon of parallel mirrors systems called the Parallel Mirrors Technique (PMT). Like existing OBL-based approaches, the PMT generates new potential solutions based on the currently selected candidate. Unlike existing OBL-based techniques, the PMT generates more than one candidate in multiple solution-space directions. To evaluate the PMT’s performance and adaptability, the PMT was applied to four contemporary metaheuristic algorithms, Differential Evolution, Particle Swarm Optimization, Simulated Annealing, and Whale Optimization Algorithm, to solve 15 well-known benchmark functions as well as 2 real world problems based on the welded beam design and pressure vessel design. Experimentally, the PMT shows promising results by accelerating the convergence rate against the original algorithms with the same number of fitness evaluations comparing to the original metaheuristic algorithms in benchmark functions and real-world optimization problems

Improved Otsu and Kapur approach for white blood cells segmentation based on LebTLBO optimization for the detection of Leukemia.

The diagnosis of leukemia involves the detection of the abnormal characteristics of blood cells by a trained pathologist. Currently, this is done manually by observing the morphological characteristics of white blood cells in the microscopic images. Though there are some equipment- based and chemical-based tests available, the use and adaptation of the automated computer vision-based system is still an issue. There are certain software frameworks available in the literature; however, they are still not being adopted commercially. So there is a need for an automated and software- based framework for the detection of leukemia. In software-based detection, segmentation is the first critical stage that outputs the region of interest for further accurate diagnosis. Therefore, this paper explores an efficient and hybrid segmentation that proposes a more efficient and effective system for leukemia diagnosis. A very popular publicly available database, the acute lymphoblastic leukemia image database (ALL-IDB), is used in this research. First, the images are pre-processed and segmentation is done using Multilevel thresholding with Otsu and Kapur methods. To further optimize the segmentation performance, the Learning enthusiasm-based teaching-learning-based optimization (LebTLBO) algorithm is employed. Different metrics are used for measuring the system performance. A comparative analysis of the proposed methodology is done with existing benchmarks methods. The proposed approach has proven to be better than earlier techniques with measuring parameters of PSNR and Similarity index. The result shows a significant improvement in the performance measures with optimizing threshold algorithms and the LebTLBO technique

Localized Algorithm for Segregation of Critical/Non-critical Nodes in Mobile Ad Hoc and Sensor Networks

AbstractTimely segregation of connectivity-centric critical/non-critical nodes is extremely crucial in mobile ad hoc and sensor networks to assess network vulnerabilities against critical node failures and provide precautionary means for survivability. This paper presents a localized algorithm for segregation of critical/non-critical nodes (LASCNN) that opts to distinguish critical/non-critical nodes to the network connectivity based on limited topology information. Each node establishes and maintains a k-hop connection list and employ LASCNN to determine whether it is critical/non- critical. Based on the list, LASCNN marks a node as critical if its k-hop neighbor's become disconnected without the node, non-critical otherwise. Simulation experiments demonstrate the scalability of LASCNN and shows the performance is quite competitive compared to a scheme with global network information. The accuracy of LASCNN in determining critical nodes is 87% (1-hop) and 93% (2-hop) and non-critical nodes 91% (1-hop) and 93% (2-hop)

Interventions for increasing acceptance of local anaesthetic in children and adolescents having dental treatment

BACKGROUND: Delivery of pain-free dentistry is crucial for reducing fear and anxiety, completion of treatment, and increasing acceptance of future dental treatment in children. Local anaesthetic (LA) facilitates this pain-free approach but it remains challenging. A number of interventions to help children cope with delivery of LA have been described, with no consensus on the best method to increase its acceptance. OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the effects of methods for acceptance of LA in children and adolescents during dental treatment. SEARCH METHODS: Cochrane Oral Health's Information Specialist searched the Cochrane Oral Health's Trials Register (to 24 May 2019); the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL; 2019 Issue 4) in the Cochrane Library (searched 24 May 2019); MEDLINE Ovid (1946 to 24 of May 2019); Embase Ovid (1980 to 24 May 2019); and Web of Science (1900 to 24 May 2019). The US National Institutes of Health Ongoing Trials Register (ClinicalTrials.gov) and World Health Organization International Clinical Trials Registry Platform were also searched to 24 May 2019. There were no restrictions on language or date of publications. SELECTION CRITERIA: Parallel randomised controlled trials (RCTs) of interventions used to increase acceptance of dental LA in children and adolescents under the age of 18 years. DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS: We used standard methodological procedures expected by Cochrane. We performed data extraction and assessment of risk of bias independently and in duplicate. We contacted authors for missing information. We assessed the certainty of the body of evidence using GRADE. MAIN RESULTS: We included 26 trials with 2435 randomised participants aged between 2 and 16 years. Studies were carried out between 2002 and 2019 in dental clinics in the UK, USA, the Netherlands, Iran, India, France, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Mexico, and Korea. Studies included equipment interventions (using several LA delivery devices for injection or audiovisual aids used immediately prior to or during LA delivery or both) and dentist interventions (psychological behaviour interventions delivered in advance of LA (video modelling), or immediately prior to or during delivery of LA or both (hypnosis, counter-stimulation). We judged one study to be at low risk and the rest at high risk of bias. Clinical heterogeneity of the included studies rendered it impossible to pool data into meta-analyses. None of the studies reported on our primary outcome of acceptance of LA. No studies reported on the following secondary outcomes: completion of dental treatment, successful LA/painless treatment, patient satisfaction, parent satisfaction, and adverse events. Audiovisual distraction compared to conventional treatment: the evidence was uncertain for the outcome pain-related behaviour during delivery of LA with a reduction in negative behaviour when 3D video glasses where used in the audiovisual distraction group (risk ratio (RR) 0.13, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.03 to 0.50; 1 trial, 60 participants; very low-certainty evidence). The wand versus conventional treatment: the evidence was uncertain regarding the effect of the wand on pain-related behaviour during delivery of LA. Four studies reported a benefit in using the wand while the remaining studies results suggested no difference between the two methods of delivering LA (six trials, 704 participants; very low-certainty evidence). Counter-stimulation/distraction versus conventional treatment: the evidence was uncertain for the outcome pain experience during delivery of LA with children experiencing less pain when counter-stimulation was used (RR 0.12, 95% CI 0.04 to 0.34; 1 trial, 134 participants; very low-certainty evidence). Hypnosis versus conventional treatment: the evidence was uncertain for the outcome pain experience during delivery of LA with participants in the hypnosis group experiencing less pain (mean difference (MD) -1.79, 95% CI -3.01 to -0.57; 1 trial, 29 participants; very low-certainty evidence). Other comparisons considered included pre-cooling of the injection site, the wand versus Sleeper One, the use of a camouflage syringe, use of an electrical counter-stimulation device, and video modelling acclimatisation, and had a single study each. The findings from these other comparisons were insufficient to draw any affirmative conclusions about their effectiveness, and were considered to be very low-certainty evidence. AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS: We did not find sufficient evidence to draw firm conclusions as to the best interventions to increase acceptance of LA in children due to variation in methodology and nature/timing of outcome measures. We recommend further parallel RCTs, reported in line with the CONSORT Statement. Care should be taken when choosing outcome measures

Biological and Behavioural Markers of Parkinson’s Disease

Today, upwards of 10 million people—approximately 9 500 of whom reside in New Zealand—are living with Parkinson’s disease (PD). Yet, the means of diagnosing PD remain somewhat similar to those available to James Parkinson in 1817. Recently, however, there has been an increasing interest in the role of biomarkers in PD; these, in turn, are hoped to provide the necessary means by which PD can be diagnosed earlier, treated better and—ultimately—altogether prevented and/or cured. Given the multifaceted nature of the aetiology underlying PD, a “multi-system” approach to biomarkers is more likely to yield fruitful results. Thus, the overarching aim of this study was to explore several biomarkers (within two realms—biological and behavioural) that may be used at different time-points as the disease progresses. In the biological markers trials, biofluid samples (i.e., cerebrospinal fluid ‘CSF’ and plasma) were obtained from 11 patients with PD. Analyses of these samples did not detect any blackcurrant anthocyanins either before or after oral supplementation with blackcurrant concentrate for four weeks. Consumption of blackcurrant concentrate, however, significantly increased the CSF concentration of cyclic glycine-proline. This led to the hypothesis of an indirect mechanism underlying the putative benefit of berry-fruit consumption on the risk of developing PD—perhaps through modulating the peripheral resistance to insulinlike growth factor-1 otherwise observed in patients with PD. CSF concentrations of the aminoterminal fragment of C-type natriuretic peptide were significantly lower in PD patients than the reported range from a group of pre-operative orthopaedic patients. Finally, the obtained samples were utilised to characterise the profile of exosomes present in the CSF and plasma of PD patients. The three patients with the highest plasma exosome concentrations also had the lowest scores on the Montreal Cognitive Assessment. The behavioural markers study investigated biomarkers in patients with established PD—a stage when cognition may become involved. The emphasis was to obtain an in-depth evaluation of novel eye movement-performance associations. In general, no remarkable differences in eye movement parameters were noted among the three study groups (n = 16 per group): PD with normal cognition (PDN), PD with mild cognitive impairment (PD-MCI) and matched controls (NC) in natural and laboratory-based neuropsychological tasks. This indicates a relatively preserved organisation of neuropsychological task performance as evident from eye movements among the participants. In addition, some insights into human behaviour on several tasks were gained. In the animal naming task, participants from all three groups tended to fixate on the animal’s head in order to name it. Participants also fixated on the distal ends of lines when attempting the Judgement of Line Orientation task. PD-MCI participants were found to make significantly more vertical saccades when searching the Where’s Wally?™ Maze task in comparison with NC and PD-N participants. On the Symbol Digit Modalities Test, PD-MCI participants scored significantly lower than NC and PDN participants. Finally, task organisation of the tea-making task was mostly consistent among the study participants; PD participants (of both groups) executed the task significantly slower than NC participants. Given the relatively small sample sizes, an exploratory approach was generally taken. To gain confidence in the results of individual findings, further research ought to be carried out in order to exclude the possibility of sampling variability accounting for the reported observations