Objective video quality metrics for HDTV services : a survey

The exponential growth of video traffic is expected to reach 62% of the global Internet traffic by the end of 2015. This presents as a significant challenge for the television service providers who need to employ networking technologies to monitor specific Quality of Service (QoS) parameters such as packet loss rate, jitter and delay, to ensure an acceptable level of quality. However, recent research has demonstrated that the quality experienced by the end-user does not correlate to the QoS parameters employed by most service providers. This paper investigates the correlation between the QoS parameters and the quality perceived by the end. user. These results indicate that although the QoS parameters may sometimes achieve high correlation with respect to the quality perceived by the viewer, they still have large variances. This suggests that the QoS parameters are not enough to quantify the subjective quality with a high level of confidence. This work further compares a number of existing objective video quality metrics. The results presented in this paper show that the Full-Reference Motion based Video Integrity Evaluation (MOVIE) metric and the Spatio-Temporal Reduced Reference Entropic Differences (STRRED) metric achieve excellent correlation with the subjective scores. This research also demonstrates that the STRRED metric and its derivatives have several advantages over the MOVIE metric since less information needs to be transmitted and it is less computationally intensive.peer-reviewe

Image based Plant leaf disease detection using Deep learning

Agriculture is important for India. Every year growing variety of crops is at loss due to inefficiency in shipping, cultivation, pest infestation in crop and storage of government-subsidized crops.  There is reduction in production of good crops in both quality and quantity due to Plants being affected by diseases. Hence it is important for early detection and identification of diseases in plants. The proposed methodology consists of collection of Plant leaf dataset, Image preprocessing, Image Augmentation and Neural network training. The dataset is collected from ImageNet for training phase. The CNN technique is used to differentiate the healthy leaf from disease affected leaf. In image preprocessing resizing the image is carried out to reduce the training phase time. Image augmentation is performed in training phase by applying various transformation function on Plant images. The Network is trained by Caffenet deep learning framework. CNN is trained with ReLu (Rectified Linear Unit). The convolution base of CNN generates features from image through the multiple convolution layers and pooling layers. The classifier part of CNN classifies the image based on the features extracted from the convolution base. The classification is performed through the fully connected layers. The performance is measured using 10-fold cross validation function. The final layer uses activation function like softmax to categorize the outputs

Caladium bicolor and Wild Dioscorea dumetorum Starches As Dual Purpose Polymer Additive

Increased elastic modulus and ultimate tensile strength of low density polyethylene has been achieved by incorporating Caladium bicolor (ornamental cocoyam) and wild Dioscorea dumetorum (sweet yam) starches into low density polyethylene using a standard hot-melt compounding technique. Some mechanical properties of compression moulded dumb bell shaped films of low density polyethylene containing up to a maximum of 20 wt % of each starch is reported. Increased density of the composite with time after being buried for a total of 12 weeks in composting environment is an evidence of the degradation of LDPE which may be linked to an initial breakdown of starch by microorganism in the soil which probably give rise to diffusion of unsaturated lipids into the porous polymer resulting in degradation by auto-oxidation. @JASE

SEEDLINGS PRODUCTION IN Gnetum africanum AS INFLUENCED BY PROPAGATORY ORGANS

This study was conducted at the experimental site of Akwa Ibom Agricultural Development Programme (AKADEP), Uyo Zone.  The rate of germination of Gnetum africanum as influenced by different planting materials – treated seeds, root cuttings and vine cuttings was on trial.  Sixty of each set of planting materials were used for the experiment.  Sixty seeds were given germination pre-treatment.  Each set of treatment was raised in the nursery with the polythene pots, using Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD).  Twenty Gnetum pre-treated seeds germinated within 75 days out of 60 seeds planted, giving a 20 emergence percentage within 115 days, root cutting had 1 emergence percentage, while the untreated seeds never germinated throughout the experimental period that lasted for 115 days.  The result however showed that the treated seeds germinated earlier (75 days) and more vigorously than the untreated seeds and root cuttings.  The result suggests that Gnetum africanum may be raised through pre-germination treatment for fast development.

Return to Hanging Rock: Lost Children in a Gothic Landscape

Using the philosophical position of phenomenology this article examines the ways in which ideas of wildness combine with Australian Gothic tropes such as the white colonial lost child and the bush as a haunted locale to compose key features of an Australian Ecogothic. Joan Lindsay’s enigmatic novel Picnic at Hanging Rock (1967) has prompted scholars such as Lesley Kathryn Hawkes to describe how in Australian literature for both adults and children ‘the environment is far more than a setting or backdrop against which the plot takes place’ (Hawkes, 2011,67). On St Valentine’s Day in 1900 three young Australian girls and their teacher disappear from a school picnic at the ancient site of Mount Macedon in Victoria. The analysis, which focuses on Lindsay’s posthumously published chapter eighteen (1987) examines how elements of the material, sensing world combine with the mythological or sacred to connect the human protagonists with the gothic landscape they inhabit. The resulting intersubjectivity problematizes colonial ideology and unsettles notions of national identity. Using the philosophical position of phenomenology this article examines the ways in which ideas of wildness combine with Australian Gothic tropes such as the white colonial lost child and the bush as a haunted locale to compose key features of an Australian Ecogothic. Joan Lindsay’s enigmatic novel Picnic at Hanging Rock (1967) has prompted scholars such as Lesley Kathryn Hawkes to describe how in Australian literature for both adults and children ‘the environment is far more than a setting or backdrop against which the plot takes place’ (Hawkes, 2011,67). On St Valentine’s Day in 1900 three young Australian girls and their teacher disappear from a school picnic at the ancient site of Mount Macedon in Victoria. The analysis, which focuses on Lindsay’s posthumously published chapter eighteen (1987) examines how elements of the material, sensing world combine with the mythological or sacred to connect the human protagonists with the gothic landscape they inhabit. The resulting intersubjectivity problematizes colonial ideology and unsettles notions of national identity

METHOD FOR INHIBITING METAL CORROSION DURING ACID CLEANING OR PICKLING

A corrosion inhibitor composition , which includes i ) an aqueous alcohol base fluid , ii ) a mixture of at least three polysaccharides selected from carboxymethyl cellulose , gum arabic , pectin , a salt of alginic acid , chitosan , dextran , hydroxyethyl cellulose , and soluble starch , with each poly saccharide that is present in the mixture being present in an amount of 0.05 to 0.5 wt . % , based on a total weight of the corrosion inhibitor composition , iii ) silver nanoparticles , and iv ) a pineapple leaves extract . A method of inhibiting corrosion of metal during acid cleaning / pickling whereby the metal is treated with an acidic treatment fluid containing an acid and the corrosion inhibitor composition

Mining safely: Examining the moderating role of safety climate on mineworkers\u27 mental health and safety behavior nexus

Purpose: The study aims to investigate the impact of anxiety and depression (dimensions of mental health) on mineworkers\u27 safety behaviors (safety compliance and safety participation) while examining the moderating role of safety climate on these relationships. Design/methodology/approach: A quantitative research approach with an explanatory cross-sectional survey research design was adopted. A total of 274 purposively selected mineworkers participated in the study. Responses were obtained from participants through a structured questionnaire which was analyzed using the partial least square structural equation modeling. Findings: Anxiety had a significant negative effect on safety compliance but not participation. However, depression was found to have a significant negative effect on both mineworkers\u27 safety compliance and participation behaviors. The findings of the study also show that safety climate moderates the relationships between the dimensions of mental health and mineworkers\u27 safety behavior except for the relationship between anxiety and mineworkers\u27 safety participation behavior. Originality/value: The study offers an account of the negative effect of mental health on mineworkers\u27 safety behavior whiles highlighting that safety climate is an important construct to mitigate the negative effects of mental illness on the safety behaviors of mineworkers. © 2023, Emerald Publishing Limited

CORROSION INHIBITOR COMPOSITION AND METHODS OF INHIBITING CORROSION DURING ACID PICKLING

A corrosion inhibitor composition , which includes i ) an aqueous alcohol base fluid , ii ) a mixture of at least three polysaccharides selected from carboxymethyl cellulose , gum arabic , pectin , a salt of alginic acid , chitosan , dextran , hydroxyethyl cellulose , and soluble starch , with each poly saccharide that is present in the mixture being present in an amount of 0.05 to 0.5 wt . % , based on a total weight of the corrosion inhibitor composition , iii ) silver nanoparticles , and iv ) a pineapple leaves extract . A method of inhibiting corrosion of metal during acid cleaning / pickling whereby the metal is treated with an acidic treatment fluid containing an acid and the corrosion inhibitor composition