M-tensors and The Positive Definiteness of a Multivariate Form

We study M-tensors and various properties of M-tensors are given. Specially, we show that the smallest real eigenvalue of M-tensor is positive corresponding to a nonnegative eigenvector. We propose an algorithm to find the smallest positive eigenvalue and then apply the property to study the positive definiteness of a multivariate form

Extenics-based Study on Evaluation of Urban Community Home-care Service for the Elderly

AbstractThis paper tries to introduce extenics theory into the evaluation of the urban community home-care service for the elderly. The paper analyzes the feasibility of using extenics to evaluate the service, uses analytic hierarchy process to decide the weight of index and constructs a comprehensive evaluation model for the service on the basis of extenics. Based on the case study of communities in Ningbo, the paper has completed the evaluation of home-care service in operation and put forward countermeasures to the existing problems

Facial Expression Recognition Based on SVM in E-learning

AbstractFacial expression is one of the most powerful channels of nonverbal communication which contains plenty of affective information. Recognition of facial expression and sending them back to the teacher is potentially helpful in E-learning. In this paper, we differentiate between person-relevant and person-irrelevant situations. Our goal is to extract powerful features used for facial expression recognition system in real-time and person-irrelevant situation. Previous work suggests that both facial shape features and appearance features could be used to recognize facial expressions. The first type is shape features calculated from positions on a face. The second type is a set of multi-scale and multi-orientation Gabor wavelet coefficients. The classifier is based on Support Vector Machines (SVM) and our expriments cover both person-relevant and person-irrelevant situations. The result shows that in person-irrelevant situation, using facial shape features outperforms using Gabor wavelet and it is faster. Furthermore, the radial basis function of SVM is more suitable for person-associated situation and the linear function describes person-irrelevant problems better

Establishing a TaqMan-Based Real-Time PCR Assay for the rapid detection and quantification of the newly emerged duck tembusu virus

To establish an accurate, rapid, and a quantifiable method for the detection of the newly emerged duck Tembusu virus (DTMUV) that recently caused a widespread infectious disease in ducks in China, we developed a TaqMan-based real-time PCR assay by using E gene-specific primers and a TaqMan probe. This real-time PCR assay was 100 times more sensitive than the conventional PCR. The reproducibility and specificity of the real-time PCR assay were confirmed using plasmids containing E genes or RNAs and DNAs extracted from well-known viruses causing duck diseases. The reliability of this real-time PCR assay was confirmed in 19 of the 24 swab samples, 22 of the 24 tissue samples collected from experimentally infected ducks, as well as 15 of the 21 clinical samples collected from sick ducks since they were verified as DTMUV-positive. The results reveal that the newly established real-time PCR assay might be a useful diagnostic method for epidemiologically investigating and closely observing the newly emerged DTMUV

Comparisons of the Generalized Potential Temperature in Moist Atmosphere with the Equivalent Potential Temperature in Saturated Moist Atmosphere

The real tropospheric atmosphere is neither absolutely dry nor completely saturated. It is in general moist but not saturated. Here the generalized potential temperature (GPT) was introduced to describe this humid feature of real moist atmosphere. GPT's conservation property in moist adiabatic process was discussed and proved. Comparisons of GPT in moist atmosphere with the equivalent potential temperature (EPT) in saturated moist atmosphere were made by analyzing three torrential rain cases occurring over Jianghuai Valleys in 2003, the north China in 2004, and with the typhoon Fung-Wong in 2008, respectively. Results showed that the relative humidity is not up to 100% even in torrential rain systems, the saturated condition for EPT is not always held, and thus GPT can describe the moisture concentration and moisture gradient better than EPT. The GPT's definition includes the process that the air changes from dry to moist, then up to saturated. Therefore, potential temperature (PT) and EPT can be considered as its two special status. Similar as PT and EPT, GPT can be used to study atmospheric dynamic and thermodynamic processes more generally because of its conservation property in moist adiabatic process

Audio steganography with AES for real-time covert Voice over Internet Protocol communications

As a popular real-time service on the Internet, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) communication attracts more and more attention from the researchers in the information security field. In this study, we proposed a VoIP steganographic algorithm with variable embedding capacities, incorporating AES and key distribution, to realize a real-time covert VoIP communication. The covert communication system was implemented by embedding a secret message encrypted with symmetric cryptography AES-128 into audio signals encoded by PCM codec. At the beginning of each VoIP call, a symmetric session key (SK) was assigned to the receiver with a Session Initiation Protocol-based authentication method. The secret message was encrypted and then embedded into audio packets with different embedding algorithms before sending them, so as to meet the real-time requirements of VoIP communications. For each audio packet, the embedding capacity was calculated according to the specific embedding algorithm used. The encryption and embedding processes were almost synchronized. The time cost of encryption was so short that it could be ignored. As a result of AES-based steganography, observers could not detect the hidden message using simple statistical analysis. At the receiving end, the corresponding algorithm along with the SK was employed to retrieve the original secret message from the audio signals. Performance evaluation with state-of-the-art network equipment and security tests conducted using the Mann-Whitney-Wilcoxon method indicated that the proposed steganographic algorithm is secure, effective, and robust

Preparation and characterization of poly(vinylidene fluoride) composite membranes blended with nano-crystalline cellulose

AbstractPoly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) composite membranes blended with nano-crystalline cellulose (NCC) for ultrafiltration were prepared by a Loeb–Sourirajan (L–S) phase inversion process. The effects of NCC concentration on the membrane performances were investigated. Surface chemical compositions, surface and cross-section morphologies, degree of crystallinity and the thermal stability of the membranes were characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA) respectively. The mechanical properties of the membranes were also investigated. All the experimental results indicated that the properties of the composite membranes were improved due to the addition of NCC. The pure water flux of composite membranes can reach 230.8L/(m2h) and increase up to 47.5% compared with pure PVDF membranes. At the same time, the rejection ratio of a bovine serum albumin solution (1g/L) was up to 92.5%. The porosity and the mean pore size of the composite membranes were 65% and 49nm, respectively. Due to the addition of NCC, the degree of crystallinity was increased to 52.1% resulting in the enhanced mechanical properties. A typical asymmetric structure, which was composed of sponge-like dense layer and finger-like microporous support layer, was observed in SEM images of composite membranes