A hybrid predictive technique for lossless image compression

Compression of images is of great interest in applications where efficiency with respect to data storage or transmission bandwidth is sought.The rapid growth of social media and digital networks have given rise to huge amount of image data being accessed and exchanged daily. However, the larger the image size, the longer it takes to transmit and archive. In other words, high quality images require huge amount of transmission bandwidth and storage space. Suitable image compression can help in reducing the image size and improving transmission speed. Lossless image compression is especially crucial in fields such as remote sensing healthcare network, security and military applications as the quality of images needs to be maintained to avoid any errors during analysis or diagnosis. In this paper, a hybrid prediction lossless image compression algorithm is proposed to address these issues. The algorithm is achieved by combining predictive Differential Pulse Code Modulation (DPCM) and Integer Wavelet Transform (IWT). Entropy and compression ratio calculation are used to analyze the performance of the designed coding. The analysis shows that the best hybrid predictive algorithm is the sequence of DPCM-IWT-Huffman which has bits sizes reduced by 36%, 48%, 34% and 13% for tested images of Lena, Cameraman, Pepper and Baboon, respectively

Chemical composition and physicochemical properties of red seaweed (Kappaphycus alvarezii) and brown seaweed (Sargassum polycystum) from Sabah, Malaysia

The proximate composition, amino acid composition and some physico-chemical properties of two type of seaweeds Kappaphycus alvarezii and Sargassum polycystum which widely cultivated in Sabah, Malaysia were investigated. S. polycystum showed the highest level of protein and crude fibre with 11.69% and 39.863% dry weight, respectively. Minor component was fat 0.12-0.13% in both seaweeds. As for the physicochemical properties of the seaweeds, their swelling capacity (SWC) ranged from 13.33 to 35.83 mL/g while water retention capacity (WRC), and oil retention capacity (ORC) ranged from 8.18 to10.59 g/g dry weight and 2.68 to 3.32 g/g dry weight, respectively. SWC and ORC of K. alvarezzi was higher than S. polycystum (p<0.05). Both seaweeds contained high amounts of minerals and balanced amino acid profiles. This study suggested that K. alvarezzi has high nutritional value which could be potentially used as ingredients in human food application

Analysis on background subtraction for street surveillance

Background subtraction is a well-known technique used in computer vision applications. However, in public surveillance system, the utilization of background subtraction still new and far from being solved. Insufficient analysis of the background subtraction algorithms made the situation getting worse. The analysis of the commonly-used algorithms is presented in this paper. Experiments are conducted to quantitatively evaluate the performance of the algorithms by using three video sequences. The more suitable algorithm for various conditions is expected to be presented as the results in this paper

Microfungal community in sandy beaches located in Kedah, Pahang and Sabah, Malaysia

Microfungi are fundamental organisms help in balancing the ecosystem. The aims of this study are to identify microfungi isolated from sandy beaches based on internal transcribed spacers (ITS) sequence analysis and to determine the phylogenetic relationship among the locations of sampling areas. Fifty-seven isolates of microfungi were obtained from six beaches located in Kedah (Chenang Beach), Pahang (Balok Beach) and Sabah (Mamutik Island, Manukan Island, Sapi Island and Tanjung Aru Beach) to be used in this study. From the finding, the highest identified species were Aspergillusspecies (27 isolates) followed by Trichodermaspecies (12 isolates), Penicilliumspecies (10 isolates), Fusariumspecies (6 isolates), Bipolarisspecies (1 isolate) and Chaetomiumspecies (1 isolate). ITS fragment of all isolates was amplified in within the size range of 533–658 bp. A phylogenetic tree was constructed using maximum likelihood (ML) method; the isolates were grouped into three clades according to their classes. In conclusion, diverse microfungi isolated from sandy beach soil depicting 19 species were discovered. Future studies are highly recommended to focus on intra-and interspecies diversity based on microsatellite markers analysis, consequently the originality and distribution of the fungal isolates. The outcome of this study includesa baseline data on the occurrence and species-diversity as well as important information on the status of microfungi in Malaysia beaches located in Kedah, Melaka and Sabah. It can be used as a checklist for future studies related to fungi distributionin the tropical beaches

Characterization of semi-refined carrageenan film plasticized with glycerol incorporated with Persicaria minor extract as antioxidant additives

Semi refined carrageenan (2%w/w) plasticized with 0.9% (w/w) glycerol (G) added with Persicaria minor (PM) extract and 0.4% (w/w) BHA as antioxidant additives for the development of active packaging films. The extraction of PM using 75% (v/v) ethanol: water ratio showed the highest polyphenol content with 176.80±4.37 Gallic Acid Equivalent (GAE)/L sample and 94.65±0.17% inhibition analyzed using DPPH antioxidant activity (p<0.05). The characterization of SRC-G based film containing 0.4, 1.0, 1.5 and 2.0% (w/w) PM and BHA were observed using FTIR, mechanical and physical properties of the treated films. FTIR spectrum band showed insight analysis of PM extract and BHA with carrageenan. SRC film plasticized with glycerol improved overall physical properties including thickness, barrier and flexibility and increased tensile strength and elongation at break compared to the SRC film only (p<0.05). The active films with PM extracts (2.0% w/w) exhibited good mechanical properties with tensile strength and elongation at break with 28.01±0.17 and 37.37±0.29 respectively (p<0.05). The addition of PM extract in SRC films increased the moisture content and opacity as proportionally to the concentration of PM extracts. Film treated with 2.0% PM showed lowest value of films solubility compare to all sample (p<0.05). Hence, the characterization measurement of SRC based films demonstrated great potential with natural extract formulation for the development of active film packaging for food products

Moving object detection and classification using neuro-fuzzy approach

Public surveillance monitoring is rapidly finding its way into Intelligent Surveillance System. Street crime is increasing in recent years, which has demanded more reliable and intelligent public surveillance system. In this paper, the ability and the accuracy of an Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS) was investigated for the classification of moving objects for street scene applications. The goal of this paper is to classify the moving objects prior to its communal attributes that emphasize on three major processes which are object detection, discriminative feature extraction, and classification of the target. The intended surveillance application would focus on street scene, therefore the target classes of interest are pedestrian, motorcyclist, and car. The adaptive network based on Neuro-fuzzy was independently developed for three output parameters, each of which constitute of three inputs and 27 Sugeno-rules. Extensive experimentation on significant features has been performed and the evaluation performance analysis has been quantitatively conducted on three street scene dataset, which differ in terms of background complexity. Experimental results over a public dataset and our own dataset demonstrate that the proposed technique achieves the performance of 93.1% correct classification for street scene with moving objects, with compared to the solely approaches of neural network or fuzzy

Lesson learnt: first reported case of complicated cutaneous pythiosis in a dog in Malaysia

This report documents a case of 5-month old intact male German Shepherd dog diagnosed with pythiosis on its left forelimb. This is the first ever reported case of pythiosis presented at the University Veterinary Teaching Hospital (UVH), Universiti Putra Malaysia and may be the first ever reported incidence in Malaysia with a complaint of a chronic non-healing wound. The case became complicated as the dog was concurrently infected with a mixed bacterial infection and the identified bacteria were resistant towards a number of antibiotics tested. The antibiotic that was determined to be sensitive was only able to act on certain bacteria and not to the others. The journey of getting to the final diagnosis was almost impossible if we had not tried different media preparation: with and without Dermasel supplement; and through molecular approach using amplification at ITS region followed by DNA sequence analysis. The unwarranted lack during the diagnosis process of this incidence has made us more aware of the presence of Pythium insidiosum in Malaysia and plan for a more strategize ways of diagnosing the suspected fungus at laboratory setting in future. The objective of this paper is to share our experience and reflection on the diagnosis of the rare incidence of pythiosis present in Malaysia

Effect of surface roughness and temperature on the performance of low-temperature vacuum drying with induced nucleation boiling method in dewatering stingless bees honey

The Low-Temperature Vacuum Drying with Induced Nucleation Boiling (LTVD-NB) was developed to dewater honey. However, the effects of surface roughness (SR) and temperature of the LTVD-NB for honey are still unknown. Thus, the objective of this study is to investigate the effect of SR and temperature on dewatering rate and heat transfer performance. The honey sample was heated at 40-50 °C using heater pipes with SR 0.80-11.33 µm at a 5 kPa. It was found that the dewatering rate obtained at the highest SR and temperature was five times higher than the lowest SR and temperature. By increasing the SR from 0.80 to 11.33 µm, the Heat Transfer Coefficient (HTC) increased by 143% as more nucleation sites were present on the surface. Besides, when temperature increased heat flux, bubble frequency and HTC also increased. In conclusion, the dewatering rate increases when SR and temperature increase, which is correlated with nucleation sites and bubble frequency

Environmental impacts of utilization of ageing fixed offshore platform for ocean thermal energy conversion

Most Malaysian jacket platforms have outlived their design life. As these old platforms have outlived their design life, other alternatives must be considered. As several offshore oil and gas extraction installations approach the end of their operational life, many options such as decommissioning and the development of a new source of energy such as wind farms are introduced. The objective of this paper is to investigate the environmental impacts of utilising ageing fixed offshore platform as a source for Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC). The environmental impact of utilising an ageing fixed offshore platform as an OTEC source is discussed. OTEC produces energy by taking advantage of temperature variations between the ocean surface water and the colder deep water through cold-water intake piping, which requires a seawater depth of 700 metres. The output of this study shows that OTEC is envisioned to preserve marine life, becoming a new and reliable source of energy, assist clean water production, and reduce the negative impact of climate change. OTEC platforms utilising ageing platforms may lead to 44 % of fish catch in the ocean, remove 13 GW of surface ocean heat for every GW of electricity production per year, generate 1.3105 tonnes of hydrogen per year for each GW of electricity generated. In addition, OTEC platforms can reduce approximately 5106 tonnes of carbon dioxide from the environment for 1 GW of electricity generated per year, and supply 2 million litres of water per day for a 1 MW platform. Since Malaysia's seawater profile allows for installing a fixed offshore platform as an OTEC power plant, Malaysia has many potentials to profit from the OTEC process

Offshore structural reliability assessment by probabilistic procedures—a review

Offshore installations must be built to resist fatigue as well as extreme forces caused by severe environmental conditions. The structural reliability analysis is the popular practise to assess a variety of natural waves determined by the long‐term probability distribution of wave heights and corresponding periods on the site. In truth, however, these structures are subjected to arbitrary wave‐induced forces in the open ocean. Hence, it is much more reasonable to account for the changed loading characteristics by determining the probabilistic characteristics of the random loads and outcomes responses. The key challenges are uncertainties and the non‐linearity of Morison’s drag element, which results in non‐Gaussian loading and response distributions. This study would analyze advances achieved to date in a comprehensive probabilistic review of offshore fixed jacket-type platforms