Comparison of two methods of noise power spectrum determinations of medical radiography systems

Noise in medical images is recognized as an important factor that determines the image quality. Image noise is characterized by noise power spectrum (NPS). We compared two methods of NPS determination namely the methods of Wagner and Dobbins on Lanex Regular TMG screen-film system and Hologic Lorad Selenia full field digital mammography system, with the aim of choosing the better method to use. The methods differ in terms of various parametric choices and algorithm implementations. These parameters include the low pass filtering, low frequency filtering, windowing, smoothing, aperture correction, overlapping of region of interest (ROI), length of fast Fourier transform, ROI size, method of ROI normalization, and slice selection of the NPS. Overall, the two methods agreed to the practical value of noise power spectrum between 10 -3-10-6mm2 over spatial frequency range 0-10mm-1

Improve performance of the digital sinusoidal generator in FPGA by memory usage optimization

This paper presented the improvement in the performance of the digital sinusoidal signal generator, which was implemented in FPGA, by optimizing the usage of the available memory onboard. The sine wave was generated by using a Lookup Table method, where its pre-calculated values were stored in the onboard memory, and its frequency can be adjustable by changing the incremental step value of the memory address. In this proposed research, the memory stores only 25000 samples of the first quarter from a period of a sine wave and thus, the output signal accuracy was increased and the output frequency range was expanded, compared to the previous research. The proposed design was successfully developed and implemented in ALTERA Cyclone III DE0 FPGA Development Board, and its functionality was validated via functional simulation in Modelsim and also hardware experimental results observation in SignalTap II

Constant DC-DC converter with variable voltage and load resistive in pico hydro turbine generator system

This paper presents a design which improves DC-DC converter that can be used in Pico hydro generation system and deals with low flow water to generate green energy power. The green energy power generates from the transformation of potential power in flow rate water to electrical voltage. The proposed DC-DC converter is used to convert the potential voltage in a variable low water flow to produce electric power, done by applying a Single Boost converter and Constant lock circuit CLC that can raise the input voltage to another fixed DC output voltage which is called hybrid operation mode. Then, the converter output voltage is measured and compared with fixed voltage using MATLAB/Simulink and Proteus Software. The results of the proposed design showed the ability to produce a constant 24v with a variable both input voltage from (5–18) v and resistive load in a high-performance response

Implementing Aproiri Algorithm for Predicting Result Analysis

University or Higher Learning Institution is aplatform to train students in specific domain area that willbecome an asset for a country. One of the critical issues inUniversity is to avoid dropout students. Educational DataMining (EDM) is an emergent discipline in developing methodsto explore the unique types of data from the educationalcontext. One of the techniques applied in EDM is an AssociationRules (AR) which is to find a pattern of one element influencingother element. In this paper, AR technique has been utilized topredict students’ results based on a group of the previousstudents results. Clustering method has been used to classify thespecific subject category. Finally, a system known as ResultPrediction System (REPS) has been developed to performautomatically the AR analysis on the academic data using PHPand MYSQL databases

Enriching student knowledge on sustainable forest management practices by forestry professionals: a look into the generic structure potential of Malaysian forestry annual reports

Despite the establishment of numerous goals related to sustainable forest management (SFM), including the setting of Goal 15 in the 2015 United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), to date, its implementation is seen to be problematic. Its poor implementation is often associated with ineffective management of forests areas, which poses some challenges for students to understand better the nature of forestry professions and the expectations that come with the responsibility of sustainably managing forest reserves and lands. Analysing the practices and agendas conveyed in the forestry annual report (FAR) is indispensable, especially for forestry students who wish better to understand the forestry profession upon their study completion. This study sets out to identify the generic structure potential for the Year under the Review section of the forestry annual report and its functions in portraying forestry professionals throughout ten years (2009–2018). Document analysis following a Systemic Functional Linguistics perspective on generic structure potential is adopted in this study to identify the obligatory and optional elements included in the forestry annual report as well as the functions of each element observed in the Year under Review section of FAR. The results of the study show that eleven obligatory elements constitute the generic structure of the Year under Review section of the forestry annual report, which is directly related to the ideal SFM practices that contribute to SDG Goal 15 (Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss). The establishment of the generic structure potential for the Year under Review section of the Malaysian forestry annual report will help undergraduate forestry students understand the forestry profession's actual practices to equip them with knowledge in real-life settings

Dehydration of traditional dried instant noodle (mee siput) using controlled temperature & humidity dryer

Drying process is an essential step to produce instant noodles. Yet, the industries especially Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), is seeking for an efficient method to dry the noodles. This paper discusses the performance of an invented drying system which employed heating and humidifying process. The drying system was tested using 30 kilogram of the raw noodle known as “Mee Siput”. Temperature controlled system were used in the study to control the temperature of the drying process and prevent the dried noodles from damage by maintaining the temperature of lower than 80oC. The analysis shows that the system was drastically decreased the humidity from 80% to 40% just after 200 minutes of the drying process. The complete dehydration time of noodle has also decreased to only 4 hours from 16 hours when using traditional drying system without sacrificed the good quality of the dried noodle. In overall, the invented system believed to increase the production capacity of the noodle, reduce cost of production which would highly beneficial for Small Medium Industries (SMEs) in Malaysia

Estimation of wavelet threshold value for surface EMG baseline removal

High quality of surface electromyography is vital during investigation on muscle activity. Low quality of surface EMG signals causes extracted signals to be inaccurate and lead to misinterpretation and misclassification of the signals. A surface EMG signal quality is determined by the ratio of muscle contraction to its baseline during muscle relaxation period. Baseline noises are originated from powerline, cable motion artefact, electronics of the amplification systems and skin-electrode interface. The noises are quite difficult to be removed by digital or active filter since they do not have specific frequency range like powerline interference and corner frequency noise. However, wavelet de-noising enables users to remove noise by accessing both frequency and time information. Baseline surface EMG noise is possible to be removed by estimating de-noise threshold based on mean absolute value and root mean square of its baseline. The result of this study shows that the proposed estimation of threshold method is better than the conventional threshold setting

Characterization of fabricated optical fiber for food irradiation dosimetry

Food irradiation is a process carried out in order to improve hygienic quality and germination control, retarding sprouting, also enhancing physical attributes of the food product. In order to provide for food safety, radiation dosimetry in irradiated foods is required. In present studies use is made of germanium doped (Ge-doped) optical fibres of various form and dimensions. The fibres are irradiated using a gamma source irradiator (Gamma Cell 220 Excel), with doses from 1 kGy up to 10 kGy. For the particular Ge-doped optical fibres, investigation has been made of linearity with dose, reproducibility, and fading, intercomparisons being made. The fibres all exhibit TL yields that are linear with dose from 1 kGy up to 10 kGy, exceeding the dose range of all commercial high dose dosimeters used in the food irradiation industry. In respect of the flat fibre dosimeters, the mean reproducibility was found to be within 0.53% to 4.96%, also offering low signal loss (fading), within 13.41% (for fibres of cross-sectional dimensions 60 x 180 μm) to 20.12% (for fibres of cross-sectional dimensions 200 x 750μm), after 22 days of storage

Synthesis and application of polypyrrole/carrageenan nano-bio composite as a cathode catalyst in microbial fuel cells

A novel nano-bio composite polypyrrole (PPy)/kappa-carrageenan(KC) was fabricated and characterized for application as a cathode catalyst in a microbial fuel cell (MFC). High resolution SEM and TEM verified the bud-like shape and uniform distribution of the PPy in the KC matrix. X-ray diffraction (XRD) has approved the amorphous structure of the PPy/KC as well. The PPy/KC nano-bio composites were then studied as an electrode material, due to their oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) ability as the cathode catalyst in the MFC and the results were compared with platinum (Pt) as the most common cathode catalyst. The produced power density of the PPy/KC was 72.1 mW/m2 while it was 46.8 mW/m2 and 28.8 mW/m2 for KC and PPy individually. The efficiency of the PPy/KC electrode system is slightly lower than a Pt electrode (79.9 mW/m2) but due to the high cost of Pt electrodes, the PPy/KC electrode system has potential to be an alternative electrode system for MFCs

An approach to enhance aggregated source specific multicast scheme

The Aggregated Source Specific Multicast (ASSM) scheme is proposed to overcome the limitations of Source Specific Multicast (SSM). It aims to handle the scalability issue of SSM. The key idea is that multiple groups are forced to share a single delivery tree. However, the ASSM scheme suffers from routers under utilization problem. In our previous work we have proposed an approach to overcome this problem. In this paper our proposed approach was presented and evaluated. It was shown that our proposed scheme results in achieving higher routers utilization