Face recognition based on curvelets, invariant moments features and SVM

Recent studies highlighted on face recognition methods. In this paper, a new algorithm is proposed for face recognition by combining Fast Discrete Curvelet Transform (FDCvT) and Invariant Moments with Support vector machine (SVM), which improves rate of face recognition in various situations. The reason of using this approach depends on two things. first, Curvelet transform which is a multi-resolution method, that can efficiently represent image edge discontinuities; Second, the Invariant Moments analysis which is a statistical method that meets with the translation, rotation and scale invariance in the image. Furthermore, SVM is employed to classify the face image based on the extracted features. This process is applied on each of ORL and Yale databases to evaluate the performance of the suggested method. Experimentally, the proposed method results show that our system can compose efficient and reasonable face recognition feature, and obtain useful recognition accuracy, which is able to face and side-face states detection of persons to decrease fault rate of production

Evaluation of Reliability-based Fatigue Strain Data Analysis for an Automobile Suspension Under Various Road Condition

This work aimed to analyse fatigue-based reliability for automobile suspension on the basis of the strain load signal from an automobile under operating conditions. Fatigue life was used to ensure the aging of the component, and it was suitable for use for longer than the standard age given. The damage behaviour patterns for each retained edited signal from 100% to 85% were used to predict the fatigue durability of the suspension with a sampling frequency of 500 Hz for various road conditions. The extended global statistics were computed to determine the behaviour of the signal. Accelerated durability analysis was used to remove the low-amplitude cycles, which contributed minimally toward the total damage, by considering the effects of mean stresses. The reliability assessment, hazard rate function and mean time-to-failure (MTTF) based on the retention signal were predicted through fatigue strain data analysis. Changes were observed from a range of below 15% and above 60% of the length of the actual original signals due to the low amplitude. Extended global statistics showed scale parameter of 75 and 94 with an MTTF of 1.25×103 and 1.27×103 cycles. The retention signal loads provide an accurate signal editing technique for predicting fatigue life with good reliability characteristic understanding for the suspension part

Strain Signal Characterisation Using the 4th Order of Daubechies Wavelet Transform for Fatigue Life Determination

This paper presents the significance of Discrete Wavelet Transform to provide more accuracy by using the Wavelet (Db4) Daubechies approach to analyse original signals obtained from the actual responses of an automotive suspension system. The time-frequency domain considers both time and frequency parameters, making this approach more efficient compared to the time domain and frequency domain approaches. An original signal was obtained from three road types:  highway road, rural road and residential road. These signals were classified into 12 levels of decomposition where each level contained its own frequency range. The decomposed signals were then analysed using fatigue analysis to obtain the fatigue damage at each interval, which was then compared to the original signal. Results show that the decomposition signals from levels 1 to level 2 for highway and residential roads and level 1 to level 3 for rural roads gave a significant value of fatigue life located in the range of 2:1 and 1:2 in the fatigue life prediction graph. In summary, the Daubechies (Db4) Wavelet approach is capable of correlating the fatigue life of those components that contribute to the failure of a suspension system

Detection of Uniaxial Fatigue Stress under Magnetic Flux Leakage Signals using Morlet Wavelet

This paper demonstrates the application of continuous wavelet transform technique for magnetic flux leakage signal generated during a uniaxial fatigue test. This is a consideration as the magnetic signal is weak and susceptible to being influenced by an external magnetic field. The magnetic flux leakage signal response of API steel grade X65 is determined using Metal Magnetic Memory under cyclic load conditions ranging from 50% to 85% of the UTS. To facilitate further signal analysis, the magnetic flux gradient, the dH(y)/dx signal were converted from a length base into time series in this study. Magnetic flux leakage readings indicated a maximum UTS load of 56.5 (A/m)/mm at 85%, where a higher load resulted in a higher reading and the signal contained Morlet wavelet coefficient energy of 1.02×106 µe2/Hz. As increasing percentages of UTS loads were applied, the signal analysis revealed an increasing linear trend in the dH(y)/dx and wavelet coefficient energy. The analysis revealed a strong correlation between the wavelet coefficient energy and the dH(y)/dx amplitude, as indicated by the coefficient of determination (R2) value of 0.8572. Hence, this technique can provide critical information about magnetic flux leakage signals that can be used to detect high stress concentration zones

Bump Energy for Durability Prediction of Coil Spring Based on Local Regularity Analysis

This paper aims to study the identification of bumps in vibrational signals and develop bump-energy-based durability predictive models for a suspension coil spring. The bump energy of the loading signal is affected by high frequency noises and can lead to inaccurate results. Therefore, it is necessary to eliminate high frequency noise during bump identification. Local regularity analysis was employed to determine the singular points in road signals. Bump signals were then reconstructed from these singular points. Subsequently, bump-energy-based models were developed by correlating with the fatigue lives estimated using the Coffin–Manson, Morrow and Smith–Watson–Topper strain-life models. The results show that the bump signals extracted from the road excitations had a frequency band within 0–50 Hz, indicating that the high frequency noises had been successfully removed during extraction of the bumps. The bump-energy-based models predicted a fatigue life ranging from 3.98x104 to 4x109 cycles within a 95% confidence interval, where the Coffin–Manson-based model showed the highest fatigue life. This is because the Coffin–Manson model did not consider the mean stress effects. When compared with the experimental results, the Coffin–Manson-based model indicates the highest accuracy, given its highest R2 of 0.948. The bump-energy-based models developed in this study contributed an accurate durability prediction of coil springs

Observing the simulation behaviour of Magnesium alloy metal sandwich panel under cyclic loadings

This study aims to investigate the delamination effect of a metal sandwich panel using a four-point bending simulation under continual spectrum loading. The most recent core designs of the sandwich panel have a cavity that can increase vulnerability in terms of bonding strength under constant cyclic loading. The sandwich panel is simulated under constant cyclic loading using different core design configurations, which are rounded dimple, hemispherical dimple, and smooth surface core design. There are two types of conditions used; no pre-stress and pre-stress loads with variable stress ratios based on Gerber stress life theory. Results showed that dimple core design enhanced mechanical behaviour and fatigue life performance about 33% and 5%, respectively, compared to the sandwich panel with a smooth surface core design. It is highlighted that modification on the surface of core design could be beneficial to enhance the bonding strength performance of sandwich panels and prevent early delamination under extreme conditions such as constant cyclic loading. This study is beneficial to enhance the bonding strength for sandwich panels against extreme conditions such as high impact load and continuous cyclic load

Assessing the Safety Behaviour of the Bus Express Driving Condition from the Passengers' Perspective

This paper presents the passengers' perspective towards express bus safety issues based on the driver's behavioural characteristics, providing an important aspect in reducing the accidents in Malaysia.  A pilot study with a respondent of 40 people, aged between 16 to 41 years old were conducted in Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. The developed questionnaires based on the five-point Likert Scale were implemented to assess the safety perception on express buses, and it has a higher reliability of Cronbach's Alpha score at 0.91. The findings show that more than 45 % of the respondents agreed that dangerous behaviour of express bus drivers were mainly due to the use of mobile during driving (63.33%), tailgating (57.58%) and driving above the given speed limit (48.59%). The reason of this behaviour is insufficient time to stick to running schedules and the shift pattern rotations. In terms of safety precautions, about 77% passengers preferred safety briefing using audio due to its ease in understanding the meaningful instruction. In addition, 97% passengers agreed on the needs of a second driver to ensure a safe journey to their destination. Hence, a proposed mitigated solution such as drivers monitoring is needed by the respective agencies to reduce this careless behaviour that may influence the dangerous driving behaviour

Probabilistic-Based Analysis for Damaging Features of Fatigue Strain Loadings

This paper presents the behaviour of fatigue damage extraction in fatigue strain histories of automotive components using the probabilistic approach. This is a consideration for the evaluation of fatigue damage extraction in automotive components under service loading that is vital in a reliability analysis. For the purpose of research work, two strain signals data are collected from a car coil spring during a road test. The fatigue strain signals are then extracted using the wavelet transform in order to extract the high amplitude segments that contribute to the fatigue damage. At this stage, the low amplitude segments are removed because of their minimal contribution to the fatigue damage. The fatigue damage based on all extracted segments is calculated using some significant strain-life models. Subsequently, the statistics-based Weibull distribution is applied to evaluate the fatigue damage extraction. It has been found that about 70% of the probability of failure occurs in the 1.0 x 10-5 to 1.0 x 10-4 damage range for both signals, while 90% of the probability of failure occurs in the 1.0 x 10-4 to 1.0 x 10-3 damage range. Lastly, it is suggested that the fatigue damage can be determined by the Weibull distribution analysi

The descriptive epidemiology of DSM-IV Adult ADHD in the World Health Organization World Mental Health Surveys

We previously reported on the cross-national epidemiology of ADHD from the first 10 countries in the WHO World Mental Health (WMH) Surveys. The current report expands those previous findings to the 20 nationally or regionally representative WMH surveys that have now collected data on adult ADHD. The Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI) was administered to 26,744 respondents in these surveys in high-, upper-middle-, and low-/lower-middle-income countries (68.5% mean response rate). Current DSM-IV/CIDI adult ADHD prevalence averaged 2.8% across surveys and was higher in high (3.6%)- and upper-middle (3.0%)- than low-/lower-middle (1.4%)-income countries. Conditional prevalence of current ADHD averaged 57.0% among childhood cases and 41.1% among childhood subthreshold cases. Adult ADHD was significantly related to being male, previously married, and low education. Adult ADHD was highly comorbid with DSM-IV/CIDI anxiety, mood, behavior, and substance disorders and significantly associated with role impairments (days out of role, impaired cognition, and social interactions) when controlling for comorbidities. Treatment seeking was low in all countries and targeted largely to comorbid conditions rather than to ADHD. These results show that adult ADHD is prevalent, seriously impairing, and highly comorbid but vastly under-recognized and undertreated across countries and cultures

Global, regional, and national incidence and mortality for HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria during 1990–2013: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2013

BACKGROUND: The Millennium Declaration in 2000 brought special global attention to HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria through the formulation of Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 6. The Global Burden of Disease 2013 study provides a consistent and comprehensive approach to disease estimation for between 1990 and 2013, and an opportunity to assess whether accelerated progress has occured since the Millennium Declaration. METHODS: To estimate incidence and mortality for HIV, we used the UNAIDS Spectrum model appropriately modified based on a systematic review of available studies of mortality with and without antiretroviral therapy (ART). For concentrated epidemics, we calibrated Spectrum models to fit vital registration data corrected for misclassification of HIV deaths. In generalised epidemics, we minimised a loss function to select epidemic curves most consistent with prevalence data and demographic data for all-cause mortality. We analysed counterfactual scenarios for HIV to assess years of life saved through prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) and ART. For tuberculosis, we analysed vital registration and verbal autopsy data to estimate mortality using cause of death ensemble modelling. We analysed data for corrected case-notifications, expert opinions on the case-detection rate, prevalence surveys, and estimated cause-specific mortality using Bayesian meta-regression to generate consistent trends in all parameters. We analysed malaria mortality and incidence using an updated cause of death database, a systematic analysis of verbal autopsy validation studies for malaria, and recent studies (2010-13) of incidence, drug resistance, and coverage of insecticide-treated bednets. FINDINGS: Globally in 2013, there were 1·8 million new HIV infections (95% uncertainty interval 1·7 million to 2·1 million), 29·2 million prevalent HIV cases (28·1 to 31·7), and 1·3 million HIV deaths (1·3 to 1·5). At the peak of the epidemic in 2005, HIV caused 1·7 million deaths (1·6 million to 1·9 million). Concentrated epidemics in Latin America and eastern Europe are substantially smaller than previously estimated. Through interventions including PMTCT and ART, 19·1 million life-years (16·6 million to 21·5 million) have been saved, 70·3% (65·4 to 76·1) in developing countries. From 2000 to 2011, the ratio of development assistance for health for HIV to years of life saved through intervention was US$4498 in developing countries. Including in HIV-positive individuals, all-form tuberculosis incidence was 7·5 million (7·4 million to 7·7 million), prevalence was 11·9 million (11·6 million to 12·2 million), and number of deaths was 1·4 million (1·3 million to 1·5 million) in 2013. In the same year and in only individuals who were HIV-negative, all-form tuberculosis incidence was 7·1 million (6·9 million to 7·3 million), prevalence was 11·2 million (10·8 million to 11·6 million), and number of deaths was 1·3 million (1·2 million to 1·4 million). Annualised rates of change (ARC) for incidence, prevalence, and death became negative after 2000. Tuberculosis in HIV-negative individuals disproportionately occurs in men and boys (versus women and girls); 64·0% of cases (63·6 to 64·3) and 64·7% of deaths (60·8 to 70·3). Globally, malaria cases and deaths grew rapidly from 1990 reaching a peak of 232 million cases (143 million to 387 million) in 2003 and 1·2 million deaths (1·1 million to 1·4 million) in 2004. Since 2004, child deaths from malaria in sub-Saharan Africa have decreased by 31·5% (15·7 to 44·1). Outside of Africa, malaria mortality has been steadily decreasing since 1990. INTERPRETATION: Our estimates of the number of people living with HIV are 18·7% smaller than UNAIDS's estimates in 2012. The number of people living with malaria is larger than estimated by WHO. The number of people living with HIV, tuberculosis, or malaria have all decreased since 2000. At the global level, upward trends for malaria and HIV deaths have been reversed and declines in tuberculosis deaths have accelerated. 101 countries (74 of which are developing) still have increasing HIV incidence. Substantial progress since the Millennium Declaration is an encouraging sign of the effect of global action. FUNDING: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation