Improving Fractal Image Compression Scheme through Quantization Operation

We explore the transform coefficients of fractal and exploit new method to improve the compression capabilities of these schemes. In most of the standard encoder/ decoder systems the quantization/ de-quantization managed as a separate step, here we introduce new way (method) to work (managed) simultaneously. Additional compression is achieved by this method with high image quality as you will see later

Post-war livelihood trends in northern and eastern Sri-Lanka

"Using information collected through, key informant interviews, FGDs and Stakeholder Consultations, this report examines the livelihood shifts in the Northern and Eastern Provinces since the end of war in May 2009. We found that while farming and fishing, including animal husbandry, continue to remain important in these two provinces, for a vast majority of impoverished people remaining in these two provinces casual wage labor in an unstable labor market characterized by low wages, absence of continuous work and wages and other terms being dictated by the employers, have become the main source of livelihood, replacing farming and fishing, the two leading livelihoods in the area prior to the war and during part of the war period as well. The increased importance of wage labor in postwar era is connected with the construction boom in these areas associated with postwar developments as wells as difficulties encountered by the new settlers in restoring their former livelihoods disrupted during the war not only due to the breakdown of irrigation infrastructure, fishing harbors, support services, increased costs of production, and loss of land and equipment, but also due to increased competition for local fishermen from Indian trawlers and Sothern fishermen, and loss of the economic niches occupied by local producers over products such as red onions, chillies, tobacco and fish. Some environmental factors such as droughts and flash floods and threats from wild animals have also contributed to the decline of farming in parts of Vanni and the Paduwankarai region of the Eastern province in particular. Similarly over exploitation of some fishing grounds by the trawlers and environmental impacts of tsunami are among the factors that have adversely affected the local fishing industry. On the social side, factors contributing to the decline of farming and fishing include demographic imbalances as reflected in increase in female-headed households, disability and dependency and outmigration of people with capital and knowhow during the war.

A Data Analytics Suite for Exploratory Predictive, and Visual Analysis of Type 2 Diabetes

Long-term management of chronic disorders such as Type 2 Diabetes (T2D) requires personalised care for patients due to variation in patient characteristics and their response to a specific line of treatment. The availability of large volumes of electronic records of T2D patient data provides opportunities for application of big data analysis to gain insights into the disease manifestation and its impact on patients. Data science in healthcare has the potential to identify hidden knowledge from the database, re-confirm existing knowledge, and aid in personalising treatment. In this paper, we present a suite of data analytics for T2D disease management that allows clinicians and researchers to identify associations between different patient biological markers and T2D related complications. The analytics suite consists of exploratory, predictive, and visual analytics with capabilities including multi-tier classification of T2D patient profiles that associate them to specific conditions, T2D related complication risk prediction, and prediction of patient response to a particular line of treatment. The analytics presented in this paper explore advanced data analysis techniques, which are potential tools for clinicians in decision-making that can contribute to better management of T2D

Content-aware packet scheduling strategy for medical ultrasound videos over LTE wireless networks

In parallel to the advancements in communication technologies, telemedicine research has continually adapted to develop various healthcare applications. The latest wireless technology Long-Term Evolution(LTE) is being increasingly deployed across developed countries and rapidly adopted by developing countries. In this paper, a content-aware packet scheduling approach for medical ultrasound videos is proposed. The contribution of this work is introducing a utility function based on the temporal complexity of the video frames. The utility function is used with four schedulers to prioritise the video packets based on their temporal complexity and type of frame (e.g. I frame). The results show that the utility function improves the packet delay performance obtained in our simulation when compared with content-unaware approach. Further, gain in average PSNR and SSIM are also observed in the received video quality. Research on content-aware packet scheduling for telemedicine applications over advanced wireless networks is limited and our work contributes towards addressing this research gap

A Climatological Study of Hurricane Force Extratropical Cyclones

Using data compiled by the National Weather Service Ocean Prediction Center, a hurricane force extratropical cyclone climatology is created for three cold seasons. Using the criteria of Sanders and Gyakum (1980), it is found that 75% of the 259 storms explosively deepened. The frequency maximum in the Atlantic basin is located to the southeast of Greenland. In the Pacific, two maxima to the east of Japan are identified. These results are in good agreement with previous studies, despite different cyclone subgroups, datasets, and methodologies. Composite analyses illustrate the hurricane force wind subgroup of extratropical cyclones, similar to other extratropical cyclones, form in regions of anomalously strong baroclinicity and begin to intensify upstream of an upper-level positive PV anomaly. By the end of the 24-hour period of maximum deepening rate, the composite storm structure appears nearly vertically stacked. Shortly after this time, the storm begins to weaken. There is some indication that diabatic processes serve as an additional energy source. Brief examination of predictability using ECMWF and NCEP ensemble data to analyze two randomly-selected storms indicate significant features like storm track and intensity are not properly captured by the ensemble prediction systems.http://archive.org/details/aclimatologicals109456821Lieutenant Commander, United States Nav