Multi-component Image Translation for Deep Domain Generalization

Domain adaption (DA) and domain generalization (DG) are two closely related methods which are both concerned with the task of assigning labels to an unlabeled data set. The only dissimilarity between these approaches is that DA can access the target data during the training phase, while the target data is totally unseen during the training phase in DG. The task of DG is challenging as we have no earlier knowledge of the target samples. If DA methods are applied directly to DG by a simple exclusion of the target data from training, poor performance will result for a given task. In this paper, we tackle the domain generalization challenge in two ways. In our first approach, we propose a novel deep domain generalization architecture utilizing synthetic data generated by a Generative Adversarial Network (GAN). The discrepancy between the generated images and synthetic images is minimized using existing domain discrepancy metrics such as maximum mean discrepancy or correlation alignment. In our second approach, we introduce a protocol for applying DA methods to a DG scenario by excluding the target data from the training phase, splitting the source data to training and validation parts, and treating the validation data as target data for DA. We conduct extensive experiments on four cross-domain benchmark datasets. Experimental results signify our proposed model outperforms the current state-of-the-art methods for DG.Comment: Accepted in WACV 201

Plasma nitriding and duplex coating of biocompatible surfaces for low friction and wear resistant applications

The 316L austenitic stainless steels, Ti-6A1-4V and Ultrahigh molecular weight polyethylene (UHMWP) are very attractive and well known materials for diverse engineering applications due to their many superior properties. More specifically, these materials have acquired much attention in biomedical applications due to their excellent biocompatibility. However, the practical use of these materials are limited in many cases by the need to attain specific tribological (that means, low' friction and wear rate) and mechanical (that means, high hardness, high loadbearing capacity) properties. The long-term outcome of the total joint replacement is currently limited by the breakdown of the implant by wear processes. Therefore, much research has been carried out in this area to reduce the incidence of wear. The goal of this project was to enhance the mechanical and tribological properties of the biocompatible surface by the plasma nitriding and duplex coating process. The works consisted of three phases. In the first phase, in order to acquire a preliminary approximation of the different process parameters, finite volume and finite element methods have been employed to determine (i) the gas mixture pattern inside the sputtering chamber and (ii) the thermal stress inside the coating, with and without considering graded interlaycr respectively. In the second phase of the work, a new plasma nitriding process has been used using an existing carbon based coating system. Plasma nitriding was performed on biomaterials substrates where a Saddle field neutral fast atom beam source and an auxiliary heater was used for substrate heating. It has been observed that low temperature plasma nitriding of the stainless steel samples produced a precipitation and black layer free, hard, thick and load supporting nitridcd layer within a short processing time which was suitable for subsequent coating deposition as well. Plasma nitriding has also been carried out on Ti-6A1-4V and non-conductivc UHMWP biomaterials. In both cases plasma nitriding treatment increased the untreated substrate hardness and wear properties substantially. In the third phase o f the w'ork, the additional improvement of mechanical and tribological properties of the solid lubricant based coatings (MoS2 and DLC), a continuous and discontinuous duplex coating system has been investigated. The main focus has been on the improvement of the load bearing capacity of the coating-substratc system. For the first time a continuous duplex process is being introduced consisting of the plasma nitriding followed by in situ deposition of the DLC biomedical coating. The process has been successfully carried out in a single process chamber (PECVD based Saddle field neutral fast atom beam source) without any interlaycr or post nitriding treatment. Rockwell C indention results confirmed the improvement of the adhesion in the duplex treated coating samples compared to the non-duplex treated sample. Duplex treatment significantly increased the composite hardness and reduced the plastic deformation of the substrate. The Pin on disk tests showed that the duplex treatment increase the overall wear properties of the coating compared to the non-duplex coating. In addition, a discontinuous duplex treatment consisting of plasma nitriding and TiN+MoS, coatings with and without a graded interlaycr on the stainless steel substrate were investigated. Low-temperature plasma nitriding was performed with the newly developed process (Saddle field fast atom beam source) and coatings were deposited by closed-field unbalanced magnetron sputtering. Results showed that the graded interlaycr and plasma nitnding had a great influence on the load bearing and overall tribological properties of the coating-substratc system

Child rights based water, sanitation and hygiene in practice in Bangladesh, India and Nepal

The child rights based WASH programme was implemented by WaterAid and Save the Children in South Asia from 2008-13. Child rights situation analysis showed that lack of participation of children in WASH programmes is compounded by the lack of accountability of duty bearers towards ensuring children’s rights. As a result WASH programmes often fail to ensure that services are accessible to children or targeted to the most excluded. Two key areas of focus were identified; to develop accountability mechanisms at the local level for provision of WASH services that meet children’s needs; and to ensure children’s meaningful participation in WASH activities, especially the poorest and most marginalised. This paper will share the approaches developed, the key outcomes, and learning to take forward. It will also demonstrate how the child rights based approach to WASH brings children’s needs and opinions into WASH discussion at community and institutional level and can lead to improved access, and a better realisation of children’s rights overall

Laser machined macro and micro structures on glass for enhanced light trapping in solar cells

In order to increase the efficiency of solar cell modules it is necessary to make the optimum use of light incident upon them. Much research has been done on improving light absorption through front surface texturisation and light trapping schemes. Laser light is commonly used in industry for various applications including marking and texturisation. By controlling laser parameters, it is possible to tailor macro and micro structures in most materials. The CO2 laser used in this investigation emits radiation at 10.6 μm with the ability to pulse in the micro-second range. The laser was used to ablate grooved textures in the fused quartz material, used in this study as the light trapping medium, following which an analysis of the effects of the laser parameters on the texture geometry and surface morphology was performed through a combination of cross sectioning and scanning electron microscopy. Transmission through the textured glass was improved for most samples after acid etching. The light trapping effects of the best performing textures were analysed by investigating the effects on a silicon solar cell’s performance at varying angles of incidence. Results indicated a significant increase in light trapping when light was incident at acute angles. For an angle of incidence of 10◦ a relative increase in efficiency of up to 51 % was observed

Wavelet Based Performance Analysis of Image Compression

In this paper, our aim is to compare for the different wavelet-based image compression techniques. The effects of different wavelet functions filter orders, number of decompositions, image contents and compression ratios were examined. The results of the above techniques WDR, ASWDR, STW, SPIHT, EZW etc., were compared by using the parameters such as PSNR, MSE BPP values from the reconstructed image. These techniques are successfully tested by four different images

Identification of short-length oligonucleotides biomarker for canine species detection using mitochondrial cytochrome b gene

Introduction: Stray dogs are still available in certain countries without any offered price and made it as a potential source for adulteration with costly meats for more benefit. Furthermore, human forensic evidences from crime scenes were often integrated with biomaterial of canine origin. Most of the DNA based assay for canine species detection used longer amplicon size (>150 bp) which are not suitable for highly degraded food or forensic sample analysis. Therefore, in this study for development of short length canine specific biomarker, mitochondrial cytochrome b (cytb) gene was targeted using simple PCR assay. Objective: Detection of canine species using short length DNA biomarker targeting cytb gene. Methods: The assay targeted a 100-bp fragment of cytochrome b gene using a pair of canine specific primers. The primers specificity were tested under Insilco, as well as in real PCR assay using dog and eight other species DNAs. The consensus 100 bp canine specific site along with cytb sequences of 14 species including dog and human were used for analysis of pair wise distances, construct dendogram and primers mismatch calculation. The stability of the biomarker was tested under commonly used cooking condition and extensive autoclaving state which was known for degradation of target DNA. The sensitivity of the assay was tested using binary admixture composed of dog and most consumed chicken DNA pool. Results & Discussion: The biomarker was 100% canine specific and successfully amplified 100 bp region of canine cytb gene specific target. It was highly stable and sensitive enough to detect as low as 0.1% (0.02 ng) of canine specific target from admixed DNAs. Conclusion: The primers provided the shortest DNA biomarker for canine species detection. The shortest amplicon length, high stability and sensitivity offered its potentiality for canine biomaterials determination from food as well as from degraded samples

Virtual Rendering based Second Life Mobile Application to Control Ambient Media Services

In this paper we propose the development details of a mobile client that allows virtual 3D avatar interaction and virtual 3D annotation control in Second Life. We established adaptation based virtual rendering of the Second Life client and encoded the real-time frames into video stream, which is suitable for mobile client rendering. Additionally, we re-mapped the touch-based interaction of the user and feed that to the Second Life client in a form of keyboard and mouse interactions. As a proof of concept, we annotated a virtual environment object in Second Life and linked that with a media service by UPnP [5]. Further, we captured the mobile interaction of the user and provided controller interface to change states of the media object through the virtual object interaction. We argue that by using the mobile Second Life virtual interface the user has a better look to monitor and control the home appliances. We present illustration of the prototype system and show its application in a smart environment setup

Prevalence and Therapeutic Efficacy of Anthelmintic against Neoascaris vitulorum in Buffalo Populations from Sylhet District of Bangladesh

Background and Objectives: The epidemiological features of Neoascaris vitulorum infection in buffaloes are important to know their transmission and risk factors assessment as well treatment regimens. This study was conducted with the objectives of determining the prevalence of Neoascaris vitulorum infection in buffaloes in Sylhet district of Bangladesh and to evaluate the efficacy of anthelmintics against the parasite. Materials and Method: A total of 211 fecal samples were collected from buffaloes and examined for the detection of parasitic eggs during the period from July 2017 to June 2018. For the determination of therapeutic efficacy, animals were randomly divided into 6 groups (T0, Ti, T1, T2, T3, T4) where each group consisting of 3 buffaloes. The group T0 (negative control-non infected) and Ti (positive control-infected) were treated only with phosphate buffer saline (PBS). The other four infected groups were treated as T1 with albendazole, T2 with piperazine citrate, T3 with ivermectin and T4 with combination of tetramisole HCL and oxyclosanide. Before trials day 0 and after treatment of 7th, 14th, 21st and 28th days fecal samples examined using McMaster technique. Results: The overall prevalence was estimated 17.06% (36/211). The prevalence was higher among buffalo calves of below six months (39.28%) followed by 6 months to 1 year, 1 to 2 years and above 2 years as 25%, 22.5% and 7.20% respectively. The infection rate was high in females (20.0%) than males (13.18%). The parasite was more prevalent in rainy (21.42%) than summer (16.67%) and winter (14.29%) seasons. The EPG results revealed piperazine citrate was the most effective (100%) against Neoascaris vitulorum. The percent efficacies of other anthelmintic used in this study were albendazole, ivermectin and combination of tetramisole HCL and oxyclozanide as 95.49%, 86.20% and 95.58% respectively. Conclusion: The prevalence of Neoascaris vitulorum infection in buffalo at Sylhet district of Bangladesh was relatively high. The results revealed that piperazine citrate, tetramisole HCL and oxyclozanide combination are highly effective for the reduction of egg per gram (EPG) of Neoascaris vitulorum infection in buffalo. On the other hand ivermectin and albendazole were also around ninety percent effective respectively

A novel catalytic method for the synthesis of spherical aragonite nanoparticles from cockle shells

For the first time, we report here a novel top down catalytic approach for the synthesis of aragonite nanoparticles with spherical morphology from cockleshells. Cockle shell is a natural reservoir of aragonite which is a biogenic polymorph of calcium carbonate. Aragonite polymorph is widely used in the repair of fractured bone, development of advanced drug delivery systems, and tissue scaffolds. The method involves an easily performable and low-cost mechanical stirring of the micron-sized cockle shell powders in presence of a nontoxic biomineralization catalyst, dodecyl dimethyl betaine (BS-12). It produces spherical shaped aragonite nanoparticles of 35 ± 5 nm in diameter with a good reproducibility and without any additional impurities at room temperature. The findings were verified with a variable pressure scanning electron microscopy (VPSEM), energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), transmission electron microscopy (TEM),Fourier transmission infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), X-ray diffractometer (XRD), and thermogravimetric analyzer (TGA).The reproducibility, low-cost and simplicity of the method suggested its potential applications in large scale synthesis of aragonite nanoparticles with spherical morphology in an industrial set up