Video Quality Assessment: Exploring the Impact of Frame Rate

Technology advancements in the past decades has led to an immense increase in data traffic over various networks. Videos constitute a major percentage of this traffic and their share is projected to increase at an accelerating speed in the coming years. Service providers aim to deliver videos that have high quality while at the same time keeping the data rate as low as possible. Effective and efficient objective Video Quality Assessment~(VQA) algorithms are essential in order to provide real time estimate of video quality so that the best compromise between data rate and quality can be achieved. Data rate of video transmission can be altered by controlling different parameters of the video, among which frame rate is one of the most important parameters. So far, only limited works have been done to study the impact of frame rate variations on video quality. The purpose of this work is to investigate the impact of varying frame rate on the quality of videos and to develop novel VQA models that integrate frame rate variations into the task of quality assessment. In order to achieve this goal, we first construct two new video databases that contain videos of diverse content, and spatial and temporal resolutions. We carry out subjective studies on these databases to obtain human opinions on video quality. The subjective study allows us to evaluate the performance of well known objective VQA algorithms on cross-frame rate videos. The results reveal that there is considerable disparity between the subjective scores and the predictions from state-of-the-art objective models that do not take frame rate into consideration. We explore statistical models for video quality analysis. In particular, we conduct cross-frame local phase statistical analysis, which provides new insights on video motion smoothness as an important factor that affects video quality across different frame rates. Our evaluations of the proposed motion smoothness metric using the subject-rated databases show that this novel measure provides a new means to capture the impact of frame rate on video quality, and demonstrates strong promise at improving the performance of objective video quality assessment models. We also propose the notions of perceptual temporal aliasing factor and perceptual spatiotemporal aliasing factor to incorporate the characteristics of human visual contrast sensitivity variations into the framework of spatial and temporal aliasing analysis. We incorporate the proposed aliasing factors into the VQA process to predict the quality of video under frame rate change, resolution change, and lossy compression. Our performance evaluation using the subjective database shows that the proposed perceptual aliasing factors are strong quality predictors across-frame rate, resolution, and data rate, significantly outperforming baseline VQA methods without aliasing modeling

The Impact of Entrepreneurial Strategy of the manufacturers on timely providing of parts for super-engine manufacturers (Case study: Saipa Megamotor Company)

Purpose: The research objective is to achieve a solution to improve the method of timely providing of parts through the entrepreneurial strategy for super-engine producers. The main question of this research is this: Is there a significant relationship between the entrepreneurial strategy of super-engine producers and the timely providing of parts? The research hypothesis is this: There is a positive relationship between the entrepreneurial strategy of super-engine producers and timely providing of parts. Methodology: The Method of this research is survey research with field study. The data collection tool is a researcher-made questionnaire whose validity has been confirmed by experts in the field. The reliability of the questionnaire was found acceptable by calculating the Cronbach's alpha coefficient. The statistical population of this research is the entrepreneurs in the parts manufacturing industry who are working in Mega motor Saipa company in the industrial towns of Tehran, Karaj, Golpayeghan, and Tabriz, which a total number of those was 400 people in 2016. The statistical sample size is calculated according to Cochran's table and is equal to 196 people. Findings: The AHP method has been used for ranking the effective factors. The software of SPSS 22 and Expert Choice have been used for data extraction and analysis. The results showed that the research hypothesis is confirmed and there is a positive relationship between the entrepreneurial strategy of super-engine producers and the timely providing of parts. This result can be useful in similar manufacturing industries and institutions. It is suggested to be conducted similar researches in other related industries to achieve a definitive conclusion. Originality/Value: In this paper, The Impact of the Entrepreneurial Strategy of the manufacturers on timely providing of parts for super-engine manufacturers is presented

COMPARISON THE ANTHROPOMETRIC CHARACTERISTICS OF 7-14 YEARS OLD GIRLS WITH NCHS STANDARD

Purpose: The purpose of this study was comparison the anthropometric characteristics of 7-14 years old girls in Kashan city with NCHs standard. For this purpose 900 girl students (450 people from elementary school and 450 people from middle grades) using cluster sampling method form Kashan schools were chosen. Anthropometric characteristics included height, weight, body mass index (BMI) and body fat percent were measured. Then data by single-sampling t-test were analyzed (P<0/05).Results: The results showed that the average of height, weight and BMI in subjects were significantly lower than the standard values (P<0/05). Body fat percent in 8-14 years old range were significantly less than the standard values (P<0/05). But the age group of 7 years old had no significant difference with the standard value. The findings also showed that the subjects didn’t have good physical development. It was probably due to nutritional disorders and physical inactivity.Discussion and conclusion: These evidences suggested that to achieve international standards about above mentioned factors and to meet the needs of health in these age groups, following up and controlling the development process, performing regular physical activities, as well as have good nutrition are very essential and important.  Article visualizations

COMPARISON OF THE EFFECT OF INTERSET DYNAMIC AND STATIC STRETCHING ON THE UPPER AND LOWER BODY PERFORMANCE OF MALE BODYBUILDERS

Abstract. The objective of this study is to determine the acute effects of interset dynamic and static stretching on the number of repetitions of four consecutive sets of the bench press and leg press in male bodybuilders. The participants in the study were 18 male bodybuilders.The exercise protocol lasted for 14 sessions, consisting of four consecutive bench and leg press exercises in which the participants rested between sets using dynamic stretching, static stretching and non-stretching that was done on counterbalance. For this purpose, two rest intervals of 3 and 5 minutes were included between sets. The results of this study indicated that, in the 3-minute rest, although the average number of repetitions in dynamic and static stretching was greater than in the non-stretching method, the difference was not statistically significant (p< 0.05). Also, in all these three resting methods the average number of repetitions from the first to the fourth was significantly reduced. On the other hand, during the 5-minute rest interval, the difference between the mean number of repetitions of 4 sets for all three resting methods of the bench press and leg press was not significant either. Also, there was no significant difference between the mean numbers of repetitions over consecutive sets. From the findings of this study it can be concluded that, in trained male bodybuilders, stretching between sets does not have a significant effect on the performance of the next sets. In these cases the rest interval is more important than the type of rest. Key words: Bodybuilders, stretching between sets, number of repetitions, muscle performance

Burden of pediatric asthma in Kurdistan Province, West of Iran

BACKGROUND: Asthma is the most common chronic respiratory disease (CRD) and one of the most serious and important pediatric diseases in developing countries. The present study aims to estimate the burden of asthma among children in Kurdistan Province, Iran.METHODS: Disability-adjusted life year (DALY) was used in order to estimate the burden of asthma. In a cross-sectional study, with a sample size of 4000, and using the multi-stage sampling method and Asthma and Allergies in Childhood (ISAAC) questionnaire, the prevalence of asthma was estimated for two 6-7 and 13-14 age groups in Kurdistan Province in 2013. In addition, some necessary data were extracted from the death registration system in Kurdistan Provincial Health Center and Statistical Center of Iran (SCI).RESULTS: Burden of asthma for 6-7 age group was 71.6 DALYs in boys (2.77 DALYs per 1000 population) and 48 in girls (2.22 DALYs per 1000 population) with a total burden of 119.6 DALYs (2.52 DALYs per 1000 population). Moreover, its burden for 13-14 age group was 121.1 DALYs in boys (4.86 DALYs per 1000 population) and 82.3 in girls (3.98 DALYs per 1000 population) with a total burden of 203.4 DALYs (4.46 DALYs per 1000 population).CONCLUSION: Considering the significant prevalence of asthma and its burden among children in Kurdistan Province, it is suggested that prevention and management of this disease be considered as a priority by policy makers and in health programs, in addition to attempting to prevent and reduce its burden by setting out effective interventions

Seroprevalence of West Nile Virus in Regular Blood Donors Referred to the Blood Bank of Kurdistan Province, Iran

Background: West Nile virus is an infection that is most commonly caused by infected mosquito bites, however, blood transfusions, organ transplants, breast feeding, pregnant mother-to-the-fetus transmission, and occupational transmission among laboratory and medical staff are also the less common routes of infection. Given the endemic nature of this virus in the Middle East, the aim of this study was to investigate the presence of this virus in regular blood donors, as the reliable source of blood supply needed for patients in hospitals. Methods: In this descriptive-analytical study, venous blood samples were collected from 259 regular blood donors referred to the Blood Transfusion Organization of Kurdistan. After separating blood serum, the amount of IgM and IgG antibodies against West Nile virus was measured via ELISA test. Results: Concerning antibodies, IgG and IgM against West Nile virus were positive in 14 patients (5.4%) and 3 patients (1.2%), respectively. Seropositive IgG levels were observed in 11 patients over the age of 40 (12.5%) but only in 3 patients under 40 years of age (1.8%). The difference was statistically significant (OR = 7.95; 95% CI: 2.16–29.32; p &lt; 0.01). Conclusion: Given the value of blood and blood products obtained from regular blood donors for therapeutic purposes and the significant prevalence of the virus and considering the presence of cases with positive IgM, it seems necessary to screen blood donors in blood transfusion centers in the western parts of Iran