Classification of Facial Emotions using Guided Particle Swarm Optimization I

This paper presents a novel approach to facial emotion detection using a modified Particle Swarm Optimization algorithm, which we called Guided Particle Swarm Optimization (GPSO). The approach involves tracking the movements of 10 Action Units (AUs) placed at appropriate points on the face of a subject and captured in video clips. Two dimensional rectangular domains are defined around each of the AUs and Particles are then defined to have a component in each domain, effectively creating a 10- dimensional search space within which particles fly in search of a solution. Since there are more than one possible target emotions at any point in time, multiple swarms are used, with each swarm having a specific emotion as its target. At each frame in the video clip, the solution of the swarm that is nearest to its target is accepted as the solution. Our results so far show the approach to have a promising success rate

Interpreting Analysis on Rhetorical Strategies Modeling in Computer Science Research Articles

Description on rhetorical strategies modeling proposed by experts in the field of language provides clues on strategies used in research writing. However, the interpretation and analysis on the utilization of the rhetorical strategies models are limited to comparing the strategies used in articles grouped according to research disciplines such as biomedical, linguistics, and arts. In view of the constraint, this chapter focuses on the interpretations of rhetorical strategies modeling by analyzing the computer science research articles in a few categories. The first interpretation of analysis is on the articles with high and low citation index, followed by analysis on the articles grouped according to journal wise population and lastly analysis on articles written by non-native writers. The interpretation of the analysis suggested that the strategies proposed in the models are used differently by the writers of articles with high and low citations, writers of different journals, and non-native writers. The descriptions provided in this chapter account on the important strategies utilized by highly cited writers, specific journals, and non-native writers

MALAYSIA- THAILAND CROSSBORDER COMMUNICATION: THE POTENTIAL OF BUSINESS ENGLISH AS LINGUA FRANCA

Recently, with the spread of English as the global language, English has been professed as one of the prominent lingua franca for the new world. It has become the means of communication between nations in the area of judiciary, economic, education and in almost all aspect of global negotiation. Countless studies have been made on the role of English language as a lingua franca; however there is a limited study on the usage of English as lingua franca in crossborder context. It is understood that most people turn to English when communicating across nation, yet it is unclear how English language fare as the lingua franca in crossborder communication especially in South East Asia. Sharing border denoted sharing similar culture, history and exposure and for these similarities it is a wonder if English would still emerge as the language of choice for communication between such parties. This paper analyzes both Malaysian and Thai students’ use of the Business English as Lingua Franca (BELF) during a few crossborder activities held throughout a collaborative project. The findings in this paper suggested that BELF emerged mostly in informal situations for ESL users and as for the formal situations, the ESL users prefer to use the standard English variety. On the other hand, the EFL users use BELF for both formal and informal situations. The EFL users are more inclined to use BELF for both occasions where getting the message across and getting the job done surpassed the concern for English accuracy. ELT implications are cues that English language usage can be encouraged by taking up the following measures such as setting rule on using English for communication, intervening when mother tongue emerges, assigning reports and presentations. In conclusion, this study adds on to the understanding on the role of ELF especially in the context of crossborder communication in South East Asia.\Keywords: Business English Lingua Franca (BELF), crossborder, mother tongue, communication, lingua franca

Child tracking system using smartphone

The number of missing children and kidnapping is on the rise in recent years. Every parent wills definitely going through an agonizing experience to have their children missing. Therefore, there are many safety measurements to prevent this incident from happening. The help of modern technologies is one of the ways to reduce children missing and kidnapping. A child can be tracked by using the global positioning system (GPS) and global system for mobile communication (GSM) technology. Advanced child monitoring systems are expensive. Not all families have the same living standards. For this purpose, a low-cost child tracking system is proposed in this study. The implementation of the proposed approach is reported in real-time

Research publication output by academicians in public and private universities in Malaysia

The number of publication has been one of the measurement values in the performance evaluation for higher education academicians.Over the years, the obligation to publish has amplified to not just on getting published but also on getting published in high quality journal whereby the quality ranking is determined by publication categories.This paper gives an account on the publication output on Scopus by the Malaysian private and the public universities in 2010.The study employed a query search on the Malaysian universities affiliation using Scopus database. The result of the search was tabulated and narrowed to journal publications and the other types of publication such as reviews, proceedings and letters were omitted.The number of journal publications by each university was listed out and comparison on the average was made.Comparison was made between the average number of publications by the private and the public universities. Findings show that the spur on publishing among Malaysian universities has taken effect.The study found that the Malaysian private universities published a distinctively smaller number of documents in Scopus compared to the public universities.The percentage for publication of journal article from the overall Scopus publication type journal articles published by the private universities was also smaller compared to the public universities. In other words, compared to the public universities, the authors in the Malaysian private universities had lower inclination to publish journal articles and were more likely to publish in conference proceedings, reviews and articles in press.The discussion section explores the reasons for these differences and presents the possible trending on the issue of publication in Malaysia

Rhetorical structures in academic research writing by non-native writers

Writers of research articles are expected to present research information in a structured manner by following a certain rhetorical patterns determined by the discourse community.Failures to keep to the writing standard and rhetorical pattern are likely to lower the acceptance rate. While producing a research article is understandably a complex task, it is even more difficult if one is writing in his or her second or third language. Even if grammatical mistakes can be ironed out by a language editor, researchers are on their own when it comes to rhetorical presentation of their research ideas. The available research writing guidelines constructed in the native speaker context often fall short in addressing rhetorical aspects related to cultural issues that have been known to influence most non native English (NNE) writings. Motivated by the complexity of rhetorical presentation in research articles and the problems on writing research articles by NNE writers, this paper is aimed to explore the rhetorical moves used by the Malaysian writers in the introduction section of Computer Science research articles for journal publication.CARS model (Swales, 2004) is used to analyze the rhetorical moves in the introduction section of Computer Science research articles by the Malaysian writers.The study begins with a corpus compilation of five research articles (RA) by the writers followed by move analysis use in the CARS model (Swales, 2004) was conducted to analyze the articles.The analysis revealed that majority of the writers adopted most of the rhetorical strategies in Swales model (2004).The paper concludes that CARS model is suitable in identifying the rhetorical moves in the RA by Malaysian writers

Conceptual design for oil palm evacuation to improve ergonomics issues of collecting fresh fruit bunch

Oil palm evacuation are still labour dependent and room for mechanisation may still exist. With the importance of this industry as one of nation’s economic contribution the efforts are still considered viable. In order to reduce, improve and empower labours a new concept design was developed. A mock-up interaction was done in virtual environment in order to assess the ergonomic aspect of the design in order to determine the pros and cons of the concept design. The findings had led to a conclusion for a requirement of a more thorough assessment to assess human machine interaction in terms of biomechanical effects

CFD analysis on mismatched end-to-end internal diameter of RSVG models

A digital arterial disease in upper extremity is uncommon happened compare to arterial disease in lower extremity. A surgical vein graft interposition is performed as revascularization procedure. However, mismatching between end-to-end internal diameter of reverse saphenous vein graft (RSVG) and existing digital artery cause blockage in RSVG vessel. In previous study, size discrepancy (small to large) in vessel causes the abnormal blood flow and will initiate the thrombosis formations as stated by Rory F. et al. Furthermore, their previous study is also supported by clinical theory as written in Wilmer W. et al. and Krishnan B. Chandran et al.s’ text books. The main goal of this study is to analyze the relationship the patterns of blood flow through mismatching between end-to-end internal diameter of RSVG models and existing digital artery (large to small) with effect to the initiation of thrombus formation in RSVG models. A Three-dimensional Computational Fluid Dynamic (3-D CFD) method is employed to investigate blood flow velocity, blood pressure gradient and wall shear stress (WSS) on ideal straight (well matched between internal diameter of RSVG and recipient arteries) and internal diameter mismatched of end-to-end RSVG models. In this experiment, we expect that steady state laminar blood flow demonstrates abnormal flow pattern in mismatched internal diameter RSVG models compared to an ideal straight model. As conclusion, any abnormal blood flow pattern will initiate the formation of thrombus and reduce the vein graft survival

Enhancing Multilevel Inverter Performance: A Novel Dung Beetle Optimizer-based Selective Harmonic Elimination Approach

This paper introduces a novel approach for enhancing the performance of multilevel inverters by applying a dung beetle optimizer (DBO)-based Selective Harmonic Elimination (SHE) technique. Focusing on a 3-phase multilevel inverter (MLI) with a non-H-bridge structure, the proposed method offers advantages such as cost-effective hardware implementation and eliminating the traditional H-bridge inverter requirement. To assess its efficacy, we compare the presented DBO-based SHE technique (DBOSHE) with Genetic Algorithm (GA) and Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO), evaluating their ability to determine optimal switching angles for achieving low-distorted load voltage. Unlike methods reliant on time-consuming calculations or fixed solutions, DBO provides a flexible approach, considering multiple possibilities to yield accurate switching angles. Using Simulink, harmonic component values and Total Harmonic Distortion (THD) are obtained for each optimization technique, specifically emphasizing on 9-level and 11-level MLI topologies. Our study aims to identify the most effective optimization technique for achieving lower THD and THDe values while eliminating odd-order harmonics from the 3-phase load voltage. Finally, we demonstrate the effectiveness of employing DBO for THD and THDe optimization within the SHE technique