Blind Adaptive Watermarking Based on Wavelet Transform and HVS

This paper proposes a novel blind image adaptive watermarking scheme in Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) domain for copyright protection or robust tagging applications. Watermarking scheme effectively utilizes the contrast sensitivity model of Human Visual System (HVS) to embed the watermark adaptively without degradation of the original image. Watermark can be extracted without referring to the original image. Simulation results show the robustness of the proposed algorithm against various attacks

Indian Supercourse Network in Epidemiology - Development and Evaluation

There are many advantages to using locally produced health information, such as its cultural appropriateness, geographic specificity, and flexibility. The Indian Supercourse is an online repository of lectures in Epidemiology, written by authors in India, on topics of particular interest to teachers and students in India.The purpose of this dissertation is to describe the planning, development and evaluation of the Indian Supercourse Network. The Indian Supercourse Network has 6,000 faculty members in India, and more than 200 epidemiology lectures written by authors in India. Evaluation of the Indian Supercourse Network included an assessment of utilization of these educational materials in India using page views measured by web statistics analysis software. The main hypothesis compared page views from India, between the Indian Supercourse and the Main Supercourse. The results of the Wilcoxon Rank-Sum test showed that there were significantly more page views from India to the Indian Supercourse as compared to the Main Supercourse (p < 0.0001). This means that users in India prefer to use the Indian Supercourse more than the Main Supercourse. This may be because information in the Indian Supercourse is more pertinent to the epidemiology education needs of users in India. In contrast, there were significantly more page views from non-Indian countries to the Main Supercourse as compared to the Indian Supercourse (p < 0.0001). Interestingly, there was no significant difference (p = 0.0642) in total page views from all countries considered together, between the Indian Supercourse and the Main Supercourse.Public Health Significance - In India, there is a lack of an adequate system for formal epidemiology education. The Indian Supercourse has made epidemiology education available to everyone interested in learning epidemiology in India. The results of this study have shown that the Indian Supercourse is being utilized by people in India. Information contained on the Indian Supercourse website can eventually be disseminated across the digital divide via low-bandwidth methods and the postal system in India

Face Detection with Effective Feature Extraction

There is an abundant literature on face detection due to its important role in many vision applications. Since Viola and Jones proposed the first real-time AdaBoost based face detector, Haar-like features have been adopted as the method of choice for frontal face detection. In this work, we show that simple features other than Haar-like features can also be applied for training an effective face detector. Since, single feature is not discriminative enough to separate faces from difficult non-faces, we further improve the generalization performance of our simple features by introducing feature co-occurrences. We demonstrate that our proposed features yield a performance improvement compared to Haar-like features. In addition, our findings indicate that features play a crucial role in the ability of the system to generalize.Comment: 7 pages. Conference version published in Asian Conf. Comp. Vision 201

Investigation of the Flux Flow-inhibiting Effect of a Hole-opened Superconducting Bulk Magnet

AbstractA hole-opened bulk material has been proposed to supply magnetic flux into the large-size and high-performance bulk efficiently because superconductivity is intentionally lowered in the portion with holes. We were anxious about the flux flow in a high applied field, while it was confirmed that the flux flow was suppressed in a high applied field at a low temperature. To examine the flux flow-inhibiting effect in detail, in this paper, the time response of flux density in four portions, between the holes, the inside of the inner holes, the side opposite the holes, and the center, was measured. Although small holes served as a channel and magnetic flux flew out through a channel just after applying a pulsed field, a channel closed for up to 0.2seconds, flux flow was disturbed, and then the magnetic flux was trapped. As Jc increased with a decrease in temperature, a channel closed more quickly, and a trapped field was enhanced

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MUSCULOSKELETAL STRENGTH, PHYSIOLOGICAL CHARACTERISTICS, AND KNEE KINESTHESIA FOLLOWING FATIGUING EXERCISE

Fatiguing exercise may result in impaired functional joint stability and increased risk of unintentional injury. While there are several musculoskeletal and physiological characteristics related to fatigue onset, their relationship with proprioceptive changes following fatigue has not been examined. The purpose of this study was to establish the relationship between musculoskeletal and physiological characteristics and changes in proprioception, measured by threshold to detect passive motion (TTDPM), following fatiguing exercise. Twenty, physically active females participated (age: 28.65 ± 5.6 years, height: 165.6 ± 4.3 cm, weight: 61.8 ± 8.0 kg, BMI: 22.5± 2.3 kg/m2, BF: 23.3 ± 5.4%). During Visit 1, subjects completed an exercise history and 24-hour dietary questionnaire, and body composition, TTDPM familiarization, isokinetic knee strength, and maximal oxygen uptake/lactate threshold assessments. During Visit 2, subjects completed TTDPM and isometric knee strength testing prior to and following a fatiguing exercise protocol. Wilcoxon signed rank tests determined TTDPM and isometric knee strength changes from pre- to post- fatigue. Spearman’s rho correlation coefficients determined the relationship between strength and physiological variables with pre- to post-fatigue changes in TTDPM and with pre-fatigue and post-fatigue TTDPM in extension and flexion (α=0.05). No significant differences were demonstrated from pre-fatigue to post-fatigue TTDPM despite a significant decrease in isometric knee flexion strength (P<0.01) and flexion/extension ratio (P<0.05) following fatigue. No significant correlations were observed between strength or physiological variables and changes in TTDPM from pre- to post-fatigue in extension or flexion. Flexion/extension ratio was significantly correlated with pre-fatigue TTDPM in extension (r=-0.231, P<0.05). Peak oxygen uptake was significantly correlated with pre-fatigue (r=-0.500, P<0.01) and post-fatigue (r=-0.520, P<0.05) TTDPM in extension. No significant relationships were demonstrated between musculoskeletal and physiological characteristics and changes in TTDPM following fatigue. The results suggest that highly trained individuals may have better proprioception, and that the high fitness level of subjects in this investigation may have contributed to absence of TTDPM deficits following fatigue despite reaching a high level of perceptual and physiological fatigue. Future studies should consider various subject populations, other musculoskeletal strength characteristics, and different modalities of proprioception to determine the most important contributions to proprioceptive changes following fatigue

Stakeholders of Nature Tourism Management in SPTN Area II Majalengka, Gunung Ciremai National Park

Ecotourism management in Gunung Ciremai National Park is fully managed by third party which are community organizations, state-owned enterprises, and non-governmental organizations. The aims of this research is to identify stakeholders, categorize stakeholders based on interests and influences, also to identify space and determine the level of stakeholder participation. The data obtained using questionnaire, interview, and direct observation were analyzed with stakeholder analysis matrix and the level of stakeholder participation. Fourteen stakeholders involved within the programs based on interests and influences are governmental institutions, cooperations, non-governmental organizations, and community organization with two classifications (key player and crowd). In this management there is no subject and context setter. Most of the stakeholders participate to control level in level of participation

Pengaruh Naungan Pada Teknik Pembibitan Bud Chip Tiga Varietas Tebu (Saccharum Officinarum L.)

Tebu ialah bahan baku utama dalam pem-buatan gula pasir di Indonesia. Penelitian yang telah dilakukan untuk mengetahui pengaruh tingkat naungan yang tepat terhadap pertumbuhan bibit dengan teknik bud chip dari tiga varietas tanaman tebu (Saccharum officinarum L.). Penelitian ini dilaksanakan di lahan PT PG Krebet Baru yang berlokasi di Desa Krebet, Kecamatan Bululawang, Kabupaten Malang Jawa Timur, pada bulan April sampai dengan Juli 2013. Penelitian ini meng-gunakan metode Rancangan Petak Terbagi (RPT) dengan 3 kali ulangan. Sebagai petak utama adalah tingkat naungan yaitu N0 (tanpa naungan), N1 (naungan 20%), N2 (naungan 40%), dan N3 (naungan 60%). Sebagai anak petak adalah varietas yaitu V1 (PS 881), V2 (PS 882), dan V3 (Bululawang). Parameter pengamatan pertumbuhan meliputi dia-meter batang, tinggi tanaman, dan jumlah daun. Parameter pengamatan hasil meliputi luas daun, bobot segar total tanaman, dan bobot kering daun. Hasil penelitian me-nunjukkan bahwa perlakuan naungan dengan tingkat 20% berpengaruh nyata terhadap tinggi tanaman, luas daun, bobot segar total tanaman, dan bobot kering daun. Perlakuan varietas berpengaruh nyata ter-hadap diameter batang, tinggi tanaman, jumlah daun, luas daun, dan bobot segar total tanaman. Interaksi antara tingkat naungan dan varietas berpengaruh nyata terhadap luas daun bibit tebu pada umur 45 Hari Setelah Tanam (HST)