bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
A PRELIMINARY STUDY OF ENVIRONMENTAL NOISE IN PUBLIC UNIVERSITY
Authors: Haron Zaiton , Ming Han Lim , Darus Nadirah , Ling Lee Yee , Jahya Zanariah , Abdul Hamid Mohamad Fauzi , Yahya Khairulzan , Ngian Shek Poi
Published: December 2015

Environmental noise problems have increased every year and have brought negative effects to the neighbouring communities. Educational areas, such as university, college and school, are the places for learning and gaining knowledge. However, students feel stressed and annoyed when they are exposed to noisy environments. The main objective of this research is to investigate the current environmental noise problem in Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM). It is a preliminary study of environmental noise problem and a total of 24 measurement locations were selected based on the working zones in UTM. Each location was measured in an hour during the working period. About 95.8 percent of the measurement results exceeded the permissible limit of the guideline by the Department of Environment (DOE). Besides, the UTM noise zones have been established by referring to the measurement results. The findings of this study could assist the UTM management in deciding the noise abatement strategy. Also, the noise zones could be disseminated to the public in order to increase the public awareness towards the environmental noise problems in UTM.
A REVIEW ON THE POTENTIAL OF SILICON NANOWIRES (SINWS) IN THERMOELECTRIC ENERGY HARVESTERS
Authors: Abd. Tahrim ‘Aqilah , Ahmad Anita , Mohamed Ali Mohamed Sultan
Published: December 2015

There are various types of micro-scale energy harvesters (EH) that have been reported by many researchers around the world such as photovoltaic cells, piezoelectric transducers, electromagnetic transducers, thermoelectric and others. Energy harvester that harvest ambient energy which exists naturally or produced by mankind or machines, are able to be an alternative source for low-power devices such as mobile phone, laptop, health implant and many more. Thermoelectric is an energy harvester that converts heat waste from any sources such as vehicle engines, laptops or human body into electricity. Numerous kind of thermoelectric materials including metals and semiconductors have been investigated by researchers that produce different performances and efficiencies. Recently, researchers are looking forward to nanostructured semiconductors such as nanoribbons, nanotubes, nanowires and quantum dots as a potential to increase the figure of merit (ZT) and efficiency of thermoelectric EH. This paper reviews on silicon as the second most abundant element on earth and commonly used in electronic components is possible to be used as thermoelectric material. Silicon in bulk has high thermal conductivity which is less desirable for thermoelectric application. However, many studies regarding nanostructured silicon such as silicon nanowires have been carried out with promising results in reducing thermal conductivity.
SIMULATION STUDY ON NON-HOMOGENOUS SYSTEM OF NON-INVASIVE ERT USING COMSOL MULTIPHYSICS
Authors: Abdul Wahab Yasmin , Abdul Rahim Ruzairi , Rahiman Mohd Hafiz Fazalul , Pei Ling Leow , Ridzuan Aw Suzzana , Mohd Yunus Fazlul Rahman , Abdul Rahim Herlina , Fadzil Naizatul Shima , Zawahir Mohd Zikrillah , Jamaludin Juliza , Mansor Muhammad Saiful Badri , Abdul Sahib Mohd Fadzli , En Hong Ling
Published: December 2015

The non-invasive sensing technique is one of the favourite sensing techniques applied in the process tomography because it has not a direct contact with the medium of interest. The objective of this paper is to analyse the simulation of the non-homogenous system of the non-invasive ERT using finite element software; COMSOL Multiphysics. In this simulation, the liquid-air medium is chosen as the non-homogenous system. A different analysis of the non-homogenous system in term of the different position of the single air, different size of the single air and the multiple air inside the vessel were investigated in this paper. As a result, the location, size and multiple air inside the pipe will influence the output of the non-invasive ERT system. A liquid-gas medium of non-homogenous ERT system will have a good response if the air is located near the source, the size of the air is large enough and it has multiple air locations inside the pipe.
SIMULATION OF ELECTRODE FOR DUAL-MODALITY ELECTRICAL RESISTANCE TOMOGRAPHY AND ULTRASONIC TRANSMISSION TOMOGRAPHY FOR IMAGING TWO-PHASE LIQUID AND GAS
Authors: Mohd Yunus Fazlul Rahman , Abdul Rahim Ruzairi , Pei Ling Leow , Nor Ayob Nor Muzakkir , Abdul Wahab Yasmin , Ridzuan Aw Suzzana , Ahmad Anita , Ahmad Nasarudin , Fazalul Rahiman Mohd Hafiz
Published: December 2015

Accurate multiphase flow measurement of gas/liquid, liquid/solid and liquid/liquid flow is still challenging for researchers in process tomography. The reconstructed images are poor particularly in the center area because of ill-posed inverse problems and limited of measurements data. Dual-modality tomography has been introduced to overcome the problem by means each modality is sensitive to specific properties of materials to be imaged. This paper proposed combination of ultrasonic transmission tomography (UTT) and electrical resistance tomography (ERT) for imaging two phase gas/liquid. In the proposed combination, detection ability in the medium of interest improved because two different images in the same space can be obtained simultaneously. This paper presents 3D numerical modeling approach using COMSOL software for ERT excitation strategy and electrode pre-designed geometry. Electrical resistance tomography (ERT) can be implemented for gas/liquid flow if the liquid is conductive. The objectives of this work is to analyze the optimum electrode dimension and shape in order to improve the situation of: (1) gas bubble detection located in the centre of the medium, (2) potential distribution and current density in a conductive medium, the developed numerical model simulated the changes in resistivity of the conductive material, with variations of electrode sizes, with opposite current excitation implemented into the region of interest. Simulation results show that the electrode size of 12 mm (w) × 40 mm (h) is suitable, which gives a good detection of center gas bubble with diameter 10mm in 100-mm-diameter acrylic vessel. Finally the findings are verified with Image reconstruction using Linear Back Projection (LBP) which gives good indication of the 10mm gas bubble.
STABILITY ANALYSIS AND VIBRATION CONTROL OF A CLASS OF NEGATIVE IMAGINARY SYSTEMS
Authors: M. Abdullahi Auwalu , Mohamed Z. , Zainal Abidin M. S. , Akmeliawati R. , A. Bature Amiru
Published: December 2015

This paper presents stability analysis and vibration control of a class of negative imaginary systems. A flexible manipulator that moves in a horizontal plane is considered and is modelled using the finite element method. The system with two poles at the origin is shown to possess negative imaginary properties. Subsequently, an integral resonant controller (IRC) which is a strictly negative imaginary controller is designed for the position and vibration control of the system. Using the IRC, the closed-loop system is observed to be internally stable and simuation results show that satisfactory hub angle response is achieved. Furthermore, vibration magnitudes at the resonance modes are suppressed by 48 dB.
DEVELOPMENT AND IMPLEMENTATION OF A PORTABLE NUCLEONIC COMPUTED TOMOGRAPHY SYSTEM WITH CLAMP-ON-FEATURES FOR ENGINEERING INSPECTION
Authors: Abdullah Jaafar , Hassan Hearie , Rabaie Shari Mohamad , Mohd Ibrahim Maslina , Yussup Nolida , Ithnin Hanafi , Mahmood Airwan Affandi
Published: December 2015

The development and implementation of a portable nucleonic computed tomography system with clamp-on-features, called “GammaSpider”, employing gamma-ray for engineering inspection is briefly discussed. Depending on the object to be inspected, a small isotopic gamma-ray source, in combination of a NaI(Tl) scintillation detector and an autonomous mechanical gantry set-up are used. The basic theoretical aspects, the system configurations and the other features are presented. This system is capable of generating high quality tomographic images and thus, offers great promise for in-situ engineering inspection. It is successfully used to inspect blockages in pipelines, to examine wooden electric poles and to study hydrodynamic behavior of multiphase flow in a bubble column.  Some of the preliminary results are presented in this paper.
MEDIUM SIZE DUAL-AXIS SOLAR TRACKING SYSTEM WITH SUNLIGHT INTENSITY COMPARISON METHOD AND FUZZY LOGIC IMPLEMENTATION
Authors: Zakariah Azwaan , Faramarzi Mahdi , Jamian Jasrul Jamani , Md Yunus Mohd Amri
Published: December 2015

Nowadays, renewable energy such as solar power has become important for electricity generation, and solar power systems have been installed in homes. Furthermore, solar tracking systems are being continuously improved by researchers around the world, who focus on achieving the best design and thus maximizing the efficiency of the solar power system. In this project, a fuzzy logic controller has been integrated and implemented in a medium-scale solar tracking system to achieve the best real-time orientation of a solar PV panel toward the sun. This project utilized dual-axis solar tracking with a fuzzy logic intelligent method. The hardware system consists of an Arduino UNO microcontroller as the main controller and Light Dependent Resistor (LDR) sensors for sensing the maximum incident intensity of solar irradiance. Initially, two power window motors (one for the horizontal axis and the other for the vertical axis) coordinate and alternately rotate to scan the position of the sun. Since the sun changes its position all the time, the LDR sensors detect its position at five-minute intervals through the level of incident solar irradiance intensity measured by them. The fuzzy logic controller helps the microcontroller to give the best inference concerning the direction to which the solar PV panel should rotate and the position in which it should stay. In conclusion, the solar tracking system delivers high efficiency of output power with a low power intake while it operates.
LPC AND ITS DERIVATIVES FOR STUTTERED SPEECH RECOGNITION
Authors: Ajibola Alim Sabur , Alang Rashid Nahrul Khair , Sediono Wahju , Nik Hashim Nik Nur Wahidah
Published: December 2015

Stuttering or stammering is disruptions in the normal flow of speech by dysfluencies, which can be repetitions or prolongations of phoneme or syllable. Stuttering cannot be permanently cured, though it may go into remission or stutterers can learn to shape their speech into fluent speech with an appropriate speech pathology treatment. Linear Prediction Coefficient (LPC), Linear Prediction Cepstral Coefficient (LPCC) and Line Spectral Frequency (LSF) were used for the feature extraction, while Multilayer Perceptron (MLP) was used as the classifier. The samples used were obtained from UCLASS (University College London Archive of Stuttered Speech) release 1. The LPCC-MLP system had the highest overall sensitivity, precision and the lowest overall misclassification rate. LPCC-MLP system had challenges with F3, the sensitivity of the system to F3 was negligible, similarly, the precision was moderate and the misclassification rate was negligible, but above 10%.
FINDING SHORTEST ROUTING SOLUTION IN MOBILE AD HOC NETWORKS USING FIREFLY ALGORITHM AND QUEUING NETWORK ANALYSIS
Authors: Zakaria Aznida Hayati , Mohd Saman Md. Yazid , M Noor Ahmad Shukri , Hassan Hasni
Published: December 2015

Mobile ad hoc network (MANET) is a group of mobile nodes establishing a wireless network without using centralized and fixed infrastructure.  In MANET, nodes may function as hosts and routers. The nodes can move freely and in arbitrary ways. The network topology in MANET is dynamic because of the frequent mobility of nodes, thus routing is challenging aspects in MANET.  Routing protocol plays a role in choosing and selecting the optimal route for transferring the packets of data from the source node to the destination node efficiently. Mostly the previous routing protocols are not practical to this dynamic network topology. Therefore designing an efficient routing protocol for this dynamic network is vital issue. In this paper, the author has proposed an approach, which selects shortest route for transferring the packets of data from source node to the destination node combining firefly algorithm and queuing network analysis. Firefly algorithm can be applied to find the shortest route in this routing problem. The response times taken to send packets of data can be calculated using the suggested queuing model. The result reveals that attractiveness of node in MANET decreases with the increasing value of response time.
SEAMLESS VOIP SERVICE USING CENTRALIZED CODEC ADJUSTMENT: A FRAMEWORK IN WIRELESS NETWORK
Authors: R. Mohamed Rajina , Hashim Wahidah , Md. Din Marina
Published: December 2015

The evolution of wireless technology leads VoIP application to be a good preferred choice among mobile users. Customers can having a VoIP service while being mobile regardless of location, terminal, and it is independent of network access. It is believed to be an alternative to the PSTN and its service is expected to be as good as PSTN. In essence, QoS plays a crucial part in order to maintain the seamless service during the VoIP session. As wireless networks are prone to channel error and VoIP application is known to be a delay-sensitive application, network traffic congestion could easily affect the voice quality of VoIP. Therefore, the codec selection within the VoIP application must be improved so that the codec can operate at various bit rates in order to cater for different traffic conditions. In this paper, we explain how centralize codec switching can help user to communicate seamlessly. We use WiFi network traffic as an example scenario.
IMPROVING CLASSIFICATION ACCURACY FOR NON-COMMUNICABLE DISEASE PREDICTION MODEL BASED ON SUPPORT VECTOR MACHINE
Authors: Abd. Ghani Mohd. Khanapi , Sutanto Daniel Hartono
Published: December 2015

Over recent years, Non-communicable Disease (NCDs) is the high mortality rate in worldwide likely diabetes mellitus, cardiovascular diseases, liver and cancers. NCDs prediction model have problems such as redundant data, missing data, imbalance dataset and irrelevant attribute. This paper proposes a novel NCDs prediction model to improve accuracy. Our model comprisesk-means as clustering technique, Weight by SVM as feature selection technique and Support Vector Machine as classifier technique. The result shows that k-means + weight SVM + SVM improved the classification accuracy on most of all NCDs dataset (accuracy; AUC), likely Pima Indian Dataset (99.52; 0.999), Breast Cancer Diagnosis Dataset (98.85; 1.000), Breast Cancer Biopsy Dataset (97.71; 0.998), Colon Cancer (99.41; 1.000), ECG (98.33; 1.000), Liver Disorder (99.13; 0.998).The significant different performed by k-means + weight by SVM + SVM. In the time to come, we are expecting to better accuracy rate with another classifier such as Neural Network.
AUTONOMIC COMPUTING SYSTEMS UTILIZING AGENTS FOR RISK MITIGATION OF IT GOVERNANCE
Authors: Anthony Jnr Bokolo , Che Pa Noraini , Mohd Aris Teh Noranis , Haizan Nor Rozi Nor , Jusoh Yusmadi Yah
Published: December 2015

Risk mitigation has gained relevance during the last years and has helped to solve risk and improve decision making among decision makers in IT Governance. However, there is still a increasing need of developing innovative tools that can help IT Practitioners to solve risk in IT Governance. Existing risk mitigation approaches or tools lacks need for adequate data which is very important in mitigating risk and there is difficulty of mitigating risk generally in IT Governance. This paper present an autonomic computing model developed to mitigate risk; mainly operational and technical in IT Governance by measuring the risk and providing risk report to the management and staffs in organisations. Autonomic Computing Systems (ACSs) are systems that manage themselves. The core of Autonomic Computing Systems are type of agent with advanced capacities for reasoning to measure the risk probability and risk impact based on available data in the knowledge base or previous experiences.  The Autonomic Computing Systems provide risk advice aimed at providing decision support to management hence mitigating risk in IT Governance. Data was collected via purposely sampling using interview by case study among 13 Malaysia universities. The data was analyzed by Nvivo to get an insight on the current risk mitigation practices and process, after which a risk mitigation model has been developed using autonomic agents.
A CLUSTERED SEMANTIC GRAPH APPROACH FOR MULTI-DOCUMENT ABSTRACTIVE SUMMARIZATION
Authors: Khan Atif , Salim Naomie , Reafee Waleed , Sukprasert Anupong , Kumar Yogan Jaya
Published: December 2015

Multi-document abstractive summarization aims is to create a compact version of the source text and preserves the important information. The existing graph based methods rely on Bag of Words approach, which treats sentence as bag of words and relies on content similarity measure. The obvious limitation of Bag of Words approach is that it ignores semantic relationships among words and thus the summary produced from the source text would not be adequate. This paper proposes a clustered semantic graph based approach for multi-document abstractive summarization. The approach operates by employing semantic role labeling (SRL) to extract the semantic structure (predicate argument structures) from the document text. The predicate argument structures (PASs) are compared pair wise based on Lin semantic similarity measure to build semantic similarity matrix, which is thus represented as semantic graph whereas the vertices of graph represent the PASs and the edges correspond to the semantic similarity weight between the vertices. Content selection for summary is made by ranking the important graph vertices (PASs) based on modified graph based ranking algorithm. Agglomerative hierarchical clustering is performed to eliminate redundancy in such a way that representative PAS with the highest salience score from each cluster is chosen, and fed to language generation to generate summary sentences. Experiment of this study is performed using DUC-2002, a standard corpus for text summarization. Experimental results reveal that the proposed approach outperforms other summarization systems.
GAIT ANALYSIS AND CLASSIFICATION ON SUBJECTS WITH PARKINSON’S DISEASE
Authors: Min Lim Chia , Ng Hu , Tzen Vun Yap Timothy , Ching Ho Chiung
Published: December 2015

The objective of this paper is to analyse the gait of subjects with suffering Parkinson's Disease (PD), plus to differentiate their gait from those of normal people. The data is obtained from a medical gait database known as Gaitpdb [1]. In the data set, there are 73 control subjects and 93 subjects with PD. In our study, we first obtained the gait features using statistical analysis, which include minimum, maximum, median, kurtosis, mean, skewness, standard deviation and average absolute deviation of the gait signal. Next, selection of the extracted features is performed using PSO search, Tabu search and Ranker. Finally the selected features will undergo classification using BFT, BPANN, k-NN, SVM with Ln kernel, SVM with Poly kernel and SVM with Rbf kernel. From the experimental results, the proposed model achieved average of 66.43%, 89.97%, 87.00%, 88.47%, 86.80% and 87.53% correct classification rates respectively.
A MANUFACTURING FAILURE ROOT CAUSE ANALYSIS IN IMBALANCE DATA SET USING PCA WEIGHTED ASSOCIATION RULE MINING
Authors: Ong Phaik-Ling , Choo Yun-Huoy , Kamilah Muda Azah
Published: December 2015

Root cause analysis is key issue for manufacturing processes. It has been a very challenging problem due to the increasing level of complexity and huge number of operational aspects in manufacturing systems. Association rule mining (ARM) which aids in root cause analysis was introduced to extract interesting correlations, frequent patterns, associations or casual structures among items in the transactional database. Although ARM was proven outstanding in many application domains, not many researches were focusing on solving rare items problem in imbalance dataset. The existence of imbalanced dataset in manufacturing environment make the classical ARM fails to extract interesting pattern in an efficient way. Weighted association rule mining (WARM) overcomes the rare items problem by assigning weights to items. The goal of using weighted support is to make use of the weight in the mining process and priorities the selection of the selection of targeted itemsets according to their significance, rather than frequency alone. However, the development of a suitable weight assignment scheme has been an important issue. In this research, we proposed principal component analysis (PCA) to automate the weight in WARM. The result shows that PCA-WARM is capable in capturing pattern from the data of industrial process. These patterns are proven able to explain industrial failure.
A THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK OF DATA QUALITY IN PARTICIPATORY SENSING: A CASE OF MHEALTH
Authors: Suci Pratiwi Andita , Anawar Syarulnaziah
Published: December 2015

Research in data quality is important in participatory sensing area to provide integrity of the data contributed by participants in mHealth participatory campaign. Many factors can influence the integrity of data contribution. One of major concerns is the possibility of data truthfulness of being uncertain due to incompleteness, imprecision, vagueness, and fragmentary. In participatory sensing, the interpretation of data quality is rather loose and there is no established theoretical framework that represents the elements of data quality in mHealth participatory sensing system.  Therefore, the objective of this paper is two-fold: First, to investigate the variables of data quality that suits participatory sensing system. Second to propose a theoretical framework of data quality in mHealth participatory sensing. The finding will serve a guideline of data quality in mhealth participatory sensing.
AUTONOMOUS NETWORK SELECTION STRATEGY FOR TELECARDIOLOGY APPLICATION IN HETEROGENEOUS WIRELESS NETWORKS
Authors: Tung Yew Hoe , Supriyanto Eko , Satria M. Haikal , Wen Hau Yuan
Published: December 2015

Existing telecardiology systems are mostly relying on a high bandwidth wireless technology. However, in developing countries, the coverage of high bandwidth wireless network is still imperfect. Thus, the existing telecardiology systems are unable to guarantee users are always connected to the healthcare service provider at anywhere. To overcome this issue, an autonomous network selection strategy for telecardiology application in heterogeneous wireless networks is proposed. This strategy is aware of user velocity, network quality, and telecardiology service setting (e.g. image, vital signs, ECG, etc.). It performs handover from one network to another without disruption to the link. The simulation results show that the proposed strategy outperforms conventional bandwidth-based strategy in term of handover rate, ping-pong effect and handover failure. It has successfully reduced the handover rate up to 97%, eliminated the ping-pong effect and handover failure in both high and low speed scenarios.
A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF STATISTICAL AND NATURAL LANGUAGE PROCESSING TECHNIQUES FOR SENTIMENT ANALYSIS
Authors: Khong Wai-Howe , Soon Lay-Ki , Goh Hui-Ngo
Published: December 2015

Sentiment analysis has emerged as one of the most powerful tools in business intelligence. With the aim of proposing an effective sentiment analysis technique, we have performed experiments on analyzing the sentiments of 3,424 tweets using both statistical and natural language processing (NLP) techniques as part of our background study.  For statistical technique, machine learning algorithms such as Support Vector Machines (SVMs), decision trees and Naïve Bayes have been explored. The results show that SVM consistently outperformed the rest in both classifications. As for sentiment analysis using NLP techniques, we used two different tagging methods for part-of-speech (POS) tagging.  Subsequently, the output is used for word sense disambiguation (WSD) using WordNet, followed by sentiment identification using SentiWordNet.  Our experimental results indicate that adjectives and adverbs are sufficient to infer the sentiment of tweets compared to other combinations. Comparatively, the statistical approach records higher accuracy than the NLP approach by approximately 17%.
VISION BASED OF TACTILE PAVING DETECTION METHOD IN NAVIGATION SYSTEM FOR BLIND PERSON
Authors: Mohamed Kassim Anuar , Yasuno Takashi , Mohd Aras Mohd Shahrieel , Shukor Ahmad Zaki , Jaafar Hazriq Izzuan , Baharom Mohamad Faizal , Jafar Fairul Azni
Published: December 2015

In general, a blind person is relying on guide canes in order to walk outside besides depending only on a tactile pavement as warning and directional tools in order for avoiding any obstructions or hazardous situation. However, there still need a lot of training in order to recognize the tactile pattern and it’s quite difficult for new blind person. This paper describes the development and evaluation of vision based on the tactile paving detection method for blind person. The developed tactile paving detection system can be used by blind person for blind navigation purpose. Experiments will be conducted on how it works to detect the tactile pavement. In this experiment, we propose the vision based method by using MATLAB including Arduino platform and speaker as warning tools. There are two types of tactile pattern need to recognize which are circle acts as warning tactile and bar acts as directional tactile. Output of this system will be based on the result found from the tactile detection in MATLAB, then produces auditory output and notifies the blind about the type of tactile detected. As a result of this project, it will definitely help the blind by easing their mobility.
DEVELOPMENT AND EVALUATION OF TWO-PARALLEL CRAWLER ROBOT BY USING PROPORTIONAL CONTROLLER
Authors: Mohamed Kassim Anuar , Mohd Aras Mohd Shahrieel , Shukor Ahmad Zaki , Jaafar Hazriq Izzuan , Ab Rashid Mohd Zamzuri , Baharom Mohamad Faizal , Jafar Fairul Azni
Published: December 2015

Nowadays, the crawler type robots are widely used in rescuing and inspection missions. However, most of the existing crawler type robots available now are not moving consistently in one direction. This project aim on design and develop a crawler type robot which can pass through several types of terrain as well as to analyze and evaluate the performance of developed crawler type robot in term of its accuracy and repeatability by using Proportional (P) controller. Moreover, the terrains involved in this project are focused only on flat surface and rough surface respectively. The experiments are conducted in two methods which are lab test and field test. Lab test is conducted on flat surface while field test is conducted on rough surface. Then, the performance (accuracy and repeatability) of both experiments will be measured. As the results, the experiments which have been conducted on both methods by using Proportional (P) controller are implemented successfully.
A PERFORMANCE IMPROVED CERTIFICATELESS KEY AGREEMENT SCHEME OVER ELLIPTIC CURVE BASED ALGEBRAIC GROUPS
Authors: Ghoreishi Seyed-Mohsen , Isnin Ismail Fauzi , Abd Razak Shukor , Chizari Hassan
Published: December 2015

Due to the importance of key in providing secure communication, various Key Agreement protocols have been proposed in the recent years. The latest generation of Public Key Cryptosystems (PKC) called Certificateless PKC played an important role in the transformation of Key Agreement protocols. In this scientific area, several Key Agreement protocols have been proposed based on Bilinear Pairings. However, pairing operation is known as an expensive cryptographic function. Hence, utilization of pairing operation in the mentioned works made them complex from overall computational cost perspective. In order to decrease the computational cost of Key Agreement protocols, several Certificateless Key Agreement protocols have been proposed by the use of operations over Elliptic Curve based Algebraic Groups instead of using Bilinear Pairings. In this paper, we propose a Pairing-free Certificateless two-party Key Agreement protocol. Our results indicate that our secure protocol is significantly more lightweight than existing related works.
INFLUENCE OF HEAT TRANSFER ON THE MHD STAGNATION POINT FLOW OF A POWER LAW FLUID WITH CONVECTIVE BOUNDARY CONDITION
Authors: Jahan Shah , Sakidin Hamzah
Published: December 2015

In this article, we examined the impact of heat transfer on the magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) stagnation point flow of a non-Newtonian power- law fluid with convective boundary condition. By using suitable similarity transformations, coupled nonlinear partial differential equations are transformed to ordinary differential equations. Then solved the resulting equations with Homotopy analysis method.  Interesting flow parameters such as MHD , stagnation parameter  convective parameter  are discussed graphically. Convergence is checked at 20th order of approximation. Numerical values of physical interested parameter such as local Nusselt number are also tabulated.
THE EFFECTIVENESS OF FISH LENGTH MEASUREMENT SYSTEM USING NON-CONTACT MEASURING APPROACH
Authors: Jamaluddin Muhammad Herman , Siong Seng Chong , Shukor Ahmad Zaki , Ali @ Ibrahim Fariz , Miskon Muhammad Fahmi , Mohd Aras Mohd Shahrieel , Md Ghazaly Mariam , Ranom Rahifa
Published: December 2015

This paper presents the development of fish length measurement system to obtain the fish length effectively without any contact to the fish. The device which are small and portable, consists of a USB camera that will be connected to a computer for image capturing. A range sensor is combined with the USB camera to detect and fix the image capturing distance. A microcontroller will be the control circuit for the range sensor and LED indication light will be used to allocate the device at the right distance from the fish that it measures. Image processing software, Halcon will be used to analyze and calibrate the fish image for length measurement. Mathematical equations or algorithms are introduced in the image processing software to obtain the actual fish length from the image. The actual fish length from the calculation will be illustrated in the image processing software itself. The experimental results confirms the effectiveness of the proposed system.
DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF LEAD-THROUGH PROGRAMMING METHOD USING LOW COST INCREMENTAL ENCODER FEEDBACK
Authors: Miskon Muhammad Fahmi , Omer Kanzal Sameh Mohsen , Jamaluddin Muhammad Herman , Shukor Ahmad Zaki , Ali Fariz
Published: December 2015

Recently robots are widely used in a various field particularly in the industry. Despite this fact robot still requires an undeniable amount of knowledge from the operators or workers who deal with them. As a result, robots cannot be easily programmed if the operator or the worker is not experienced in robotics field. One of the programming methods that has been introduced to make programming task user friendly is lead-through robot programming. However, the existing lead-through programming methods still requires an amount of knowledge that is not available for most of the operators and workers. The main objective of this project is to design a lead through method for point to point robot programming using incremental encoder feedback, which can record, save and playback the robot motion while considering the accuracy and precision of the robot. To validate the method, experiments were conducted in this project, where an operator manually moves a two DOF (degree of freedom) robotic arm on a white board while the encoder feedback was recorded and later played back by the robot. Then both recorded and playback trajectories were compared and analyzed. The result shows that the played back accuracy is 96.17% for motor 1 and 97.86% for motor 2 with standard deviation of 0.9593 for motor 1 and 2.33583 for motor 2.
Germline editing dominates DNA summit
Authors: Travis John
Published: December 2015

Prospect of heritable changes sparks questions about safety, ethics, and rationale.
A whale's life, inscribed in baleen
Authors: Kessler Rebecca
Published: December 2015

Fibrous keratin can store a chemical record of pregnancies and stress.
CubeSats promise to fill weather data gap
Authors: Hand Eric
Published: December 2015

Companies bet on a GPS technique and an agency shift to commercial data.
Controversial test finds no sign of a holographic universe
Authors: Cho Adrian
Published: December 2015

Speculative effort was destined to fail, critics say.
The impact of new technologies on clinical decision-making in health care
Authors: Rosenquist Brandell Richard , Kallioniemi Olli , Wedell Anna
Published: December 2015

Decision-making in the clinic has been revolutionized by high-throughput technologies for genomic/transcriptomic sequencing and proteome/metabolome analysis. Close collaborations between academia and health care have driven the implementation of frontline technologies and bioinformatics in clinical diagnostics. As a result, clinicians are able to make faster and better-informed assessments of a patient’s condition, allowing treatment to be personalized for maximum efficacy. These advances have also provided new opportunities to understand disease mechanisms and develop novel treatment strategies. In this webinar, our expert panel will demonstrate how both diagnosis and treatment can be improved and lives saved using next-generation genomic profiling and functional analyses.
Principles of assembly reveal a periodic table of protein complexes
Authors: Ahnert Sebastian E. , Marsh Joseph A. , Hernández Helena , Robinson Carol V. , Teichmann Sarah A.
Published: December 2015

The principles of protein assembly

A knowledge of protein structure greatly enhances our understanding of protein function. In many cases, function depends on oligomerization. Ahnert
et al.
used mass spectrometry data together with a large-scale analysis of structures of protein complexes to examine the fundamental steps of protein assembly. Systematically combining assembly steps revealed a large set of quaternary topologies that were organized into a periodic table. Based on this table, the authors accurately predicted the expected frequencies of quaternary structure topologies.

Science
, this issue p.
10.1126/science.aaa2245
High-speed recording of neural spikes in awake mice and flies with a fluorescent voltage sensor
Authors: Gong Yiyang , Huang Cheng , Li Jin Zhong , Grewe Benjamin F. , Zhang Yanping , Eismann Stephan , Schnitzer Mark J.
Published: December 2015

In vivo imaging of neuronal voltage spikes

Neuroscientists have long sought tools that allow optical imaging of individual neurons' membrane voltage dynamics in awake behaving animals. Gong
et al.
genetically engineered a protein voltage indicator that can report action potentials with <1-ms precision and orders of magnitude lower spike detection error rates than were previously possible. They were thus able to record action potentials and membrane voltage dynamics in the brains of awake mice and fruit flies.

Science
, this issue p.
1361
Human-level concept learning through probabilistic program induction
Authors: Lake Brenden M. , Salakhutdinov Ruslan , Tenenbaum Joshua B.
Published: December 2015

Handwritten characters drawn by a model

Not only do children learn effortlessly, they do so quickly and with a remarkable ability to use what they have learned as the raw material for creating new stuff. Lake
et al.
describe a computational model that learns in a similar fashion and does so better than current deep learning algorithms. The model classifies, parses, and recreates handwritten characters, and can generate new letters of the alphabet that look “right” as judged by Turing-like tests of the model's output in comparison to what real humans produce.

Science
, this issue p.
1332
Wrapping it up in a person: Examining employment and earnings outcomes for Ph.D. recipients
Authors: Zolas Nikolas , Goldschlag Nathan , Jarmin Ron , Stephan Paula , Smith Jason Owen- , Rosen Rebecca F. , Allen Barbara McFadden , Weinberg Bruce A. , Lane Julia I.
Published: December 2015

Tracking the knowledge economy

Although the U.S investment in scientific research can be documented readily, its output is harder to track. Zolas
et al.
combined data obtained from eight universities on their doctorate recipients with data from business registries and the U.S. Census Bureau. This allowed them to link Ph.D. recipients to all their subsequent employers. Doctoral recipients tended to stay in academia or join large companies with high salaries. Roughly 20% stayed in the state in which they received their degree. In the year after receiving a Ph.D., mathematicians and computer scientists received the highest salaries, and biologists received the lowest.

Science
, this issue p.
1367
Subnoise detection of a fast random event
Authors: Ataie V. , Esman D. , Kuo B. P.-P. , Alic N. , Radic S.
Published: December 2015

Detecting a transient needle in a haystack

Discriminating signals within a noisy environment is an issue crucial to many disciplines, from observational astronomy to secure communication and imaging. If the signal is periodic, then averaging over many measurements can help enhance the signal-to-noise ratio. However, for signals that present as a single transient event, the detection capability has been limited. Ataie
et al.
developed a detector that can lift that limitation by combining signal cloning with frequency combs and signal-processing techniques (see the Perspective by Vasilyev). Their detector could detect signals buried within noise that would otherwise be undetectable.

Science
, this issue p.
1343
; see also p.
1314
Spectroscopic characterization of isomerization transition states
Authors: Baraban Joshua H. , Changala P. Bryan , Mellau Georg Ch. , Stanton John F. , Merer Anthony J. , Field Robert W.
Published: December 2015

Shaking out details of transition states

Chemists liken reaction energetics to a landscape with hills and valleys. In this context, the transition state represents the highest barrier that reagents must pass over en route to forming products. Baraban
et al.
introduce a framework for extracting details about the transition state of rearrangement reactions directly from vibrational spectral data. They identified a characteristic pattern in the spacing between vibrational energy levels near the transition state, which revealed its energy as well as the specific motions involved in surmounting the barrier.

Science
, this issue p.
1338
The enchantress of numbers
Ada Lovelace Science Museum, London
Through 31 March 2016
Authors: Robinson Andrew
Published: December 2015

Two hundred years after her birth, a new exhibition explores the life of Ada Lovelace
Opening the gate on superconductivity
Authors: Suderow Hermann J.
Published: December 2015

Superconducting two-dimensional materials are found to be remarkably robust

[Also see Report by

Lu
et al.

]
Matched filtering of ultrashort pulses
Authors: Vasilyev Michael
Published: December 2015

Optical signal processing can help reduce noise in detection of ultrafast electrical pulses

[Also see Report by

Ataie
et al.

]
A kid's guide to chemistry
MEL Chemistry Starter kit: $73.80, individual sets: $11.95
https://melscience.com
Authors: Fahrenkamp-Uppenbrink Julia
Published: December 2015

The classic chemistry set gets a 21st-century upgrade
Protection and Long-Lived Immunity Induced by the ID93/GLA-SE Vaccine Candidate against a Clinical Mycobacterium tuberculosis Isolate
Authors: Baldwin Susan L. , Reese Valerie A. , Huang Po-wei D. , Beebe Elyse A. , Podell Brendan K. , Reed Steven G. , Coler Rhea N.
Published: December 2015

Mycobacterium tuberculosis
HN878 represents a virulent clinical strain from the W-Beijing family, which has been tested in small animal models in order to study its virulence and its induction of host immune responses following infection. This isolate causes death and extensive lung pathology in infected C57BL/6 mice, whereas lab-adapted strains, such as
M. tuberculosis
H37Rv, do not. The use of this clinically relevant isolate of
M. tuberculosis
increases the possibilities of assessing the long-lived efficacy of tuberculosis vaccines in a relatively inexpensive small animal model. This model will also allow for the use of knockout mouse strains to critically examine key immunological factors responsible for long-lived, vaccine-induced immunity in addition to vaccine-mediated prevention of pulmonary immunopathology. In this study, we show that the ID93/glucopyranosyl lipid adjuvant (GLA)-stable emulsion (SE) tuberculosis vaccine candidate, currently in human clinical trials, is able to elicit protection against
M. tuberculosis
HN878 by reducing the bacterial burden in the lung and spleen and by preventing the extensive lung pathology induced by this pathogen in C57BL/6 mice.
Diagnostic Accuracy of the InBios Scrub Typhus Detect Enzyme-Linked Immunoassay for the Detection of IgM Antibodies in Northern Thailand
Authors: Blacksell Stuart D. , Tanganuchitcharnchai Ampai , Nawtaisong Pruksa , Kantipong Pacharee , Laongnualpanich Achara , Day Nicholas P. J. , Paris Daniel H.
Published: December 2015

In this study, we examined the diagnostic accuracy of the InBios Scrub Typhus Detect IgM enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and determined the optimal diagnostic optical density (OD) cutoffs for screening and diagnostic applications based on prospectively collected, characterized samples from undifferentiated febrile illness patients in northern Thailand. Direct comparisons with the serological gold standard, indirect immunofluorescence assay (IFA), revealed strong statistical correlation of ELISA OD values and IFA IgM titers. Determination of the optimal ELISA cutoff for seroepidemiology or screening purposes compared to the corresponding IFA reciprocal titer of 400 as previously described for Thailand was 0.60 OD, which corresponded to a sensitivity (Sn) of 84% and a specificity (Sp) of 98%. The diagnostic performance against the improved and more-stringent scrub typhus infection criteria (STIC), correcting for low false-positive IFA titers, resulted in an Sn of 93% and an Sp of 91% at an ELISA cutoff of 0.5 OD. This diagnostic ELISA cutoff corresponds to IFA reciprocal titers of 1,600 to 3,200, which greatly reduces the false-positive rates associated with low-positive IFA titers. These data are in congruence with the recently improved serodiagnostic positivity criteria using the Bayesian latent class modeling approach. In summary, the InBios Scrub Typhus Detect IgM ELISA is affordable and easy-to-use, with adequate diagnostic accuracy for screening and diagnostic purposes, and should be considered an improved alternative to the gold standard IFA for acute diagnosis. For broader application, regional cutoff validation and antigenic composition for consistent diagnostic accuracy should be considered.
Mucosal IgG Levels Correlate Better with Respiratory Syncytial Virus Load and Inflammation than Plasma IgG Levels
Authors: Vissers Marloes , Ahout Inge M. L. , de Jonge Marien I. , Ferwerda Gerben
Published: December 2015

Maternal vaccination is currently considered a strategy against respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infections. In RSV-infected infants, high mucosal IgG levels correlated better with reduced RSV load and lower mucosal CXCL10 levels than plasma IgG levels. For future vaccination strategies against RSV, more focus should be on the mucosal humoral immune response.
Serological Responses to a Norovirus Nonstructural Fusion Protein after Vaccination and Infection
Authors: Hesse Shayla , Neill Frederick H. , Estes Mary K. , Shanker Sreejesh , Prasad B. V. Venkataram , Ferreira Jennifer , Atmar Robert L.
Published: December 2015

The performance of an assay to detect antibodies to a norovirus nonstructural fusion protein, designated VPR and consisting of three proteins (GI.1 virus protein genome-linked [VPg], a virus protease, and an RNA-dependent RNA polymerase), was evaluated. The assay sensitivity and specificity were 74.5% and >95%, respectively, for identifying GI.1 norovirus infection among persons who received either a monovalent GI.1 norovirus virus-like particle (VLP) vaccine or placebo by the intranasal route followed by an oral live GI.1 norovirus challenge.
Complete Genome Sequencing of Stenotrophomonas acidaminiphila ZAC14D2_NAIMI4_2, a Multidrug-Resistant Strain Isolated from Sediments of a Polluted River in Mexico, Uncovers New Antibiotic Resistance Genes and a Novel Class-II Lasso Peptide Biosynthesis Gene Cluster
Authors: Vinuesa Pablo , Ochoa-Sánchez Luz Edith
Published: December 2015

Here, we report the first complete genome sequence of a
Stenotrophomonas acidaminiphila
strain, generated with PacBio RS II single-molecule real-time technology, consisting of a single circular chromosome of 4.13 Mb. We annotated mobile genetic elements and natural product biosynthesis clusters, including a novel class-II lasso peptide with a 7-residue macrolactam ring.
Complete Genome Sequence of the Freshwater Colorless Sulfur Bacterium
Beggiatoa leptomitiformis
Neotype Strain D-402
T
Authors: Fomenkov Alexey , Vincze Tamas , Grabovich Margarita Y. , Dubinina Galina , Orlova Maria , Belousova Elena , Roberts Richard J.
Published: December 2015

In this report, we announce the availability of a complete closed genome sequence and methylome analysis of
Beggiatoa leptomitiformis
neotype strain D-402
T
(DSM 14946, UNIQEM U 779).
Draft Genome Sequence of a Probiotic Strain, Lactobacillus fermentum UCO-979C
Authors: Karlyshev Andrey V. , Villena Julio , Gonzalez Carlos , Albarracin Leonardo , Barros Javier , Garcia Apolinaria
Published: December 2015

This report describes a draft genome sequence of
Lactobacillus fermentum
strain UCO-979C. The reads generated by a Ion Torrent PGM were assembled into contigs, with a total size of 2.01 Mb. The data were annotated using the NCBI GenBank and RAST servers. Specific features of the genome are highlighted.
Whole-Genome Sequence of Stenotrophomonas maltophilia ZBG7B Reveals Its Biotechnological Potential
Authors: Chan Kok-Gan , Chong Teik-Min , Adrian Tan-Guan-Sheng , Kher Heng Leong , Hong Kar-Wai , Grandclément Catherine , Faure Denis , Yin Wai-Fong , Dessaux Yves
Published: December 2015

Stenotrophomonas maltophilia
ZBG7B was isolated from vineyard soil of Zellenberg, France. Here, we present the draft genome sequence of this bacterial strain, which has facilitated the prediction of function for several genes encoding biotechnologically important enzymes, such as xylosidase, xylanase, laccase, and chitinase.
Draft Genome Sequence of the Commercial Biocontrol Strain Pantoea agglomerans P10c
Authors: Smits Theo H. M. , Rezzonico Fabio , Blom Jochen , Goesmann Alexander , Abelli Azzurra , Kron Morelli Roberto , Vanneste Joël L. , Duffy Brion
Published: December 2015

We report here the draft genome sequence of the biocontrol strain
Pantoea agglomerans
P10c, composed of a draft chromosome and two plasmids: the 559-kb large
Pantoea
plasmid 1 (pPag3) and a 182-kb plasmid (pPag1). A genomic island containing pantocin A biosynthesis genes was identified.
Draft Genome Sequence of Bacillus marisflavi TF-11
T
(JCM 11544), a Carotenoid-Producing Bacterium Isolated from Seawater from a Tidal Flat in the Yellow Sea
Authors: Wang Jie-ping , Liu Bo , Liu Guo-hong , Chen De-ju , Chen Qian-qian , Zhu Yu-jing , Chen Zheng , Che Jian-mei
Published: December 2015

Bacillus marisflavi
TF-11
T
(JCM 11544) is a Gram-positive, spore-forming, and carotenoid-producing bacterium isolated from seawater from a tidal flat in the Yellow Sea. Here, we report the first draft genome sequence of
B. marisflavi
TF-11
T
, which comprises 4.31 Mb in 11 scaffolds with a G+C content of 48.57%.