bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Uncontrolled gelatin degradation in non-healing chronic wounds
Authors: Trøstrup Hannah , Holstein Per , Karlsmark Tonny , Moser Claus , Ågren Magnus S.
Published: November 2018

Objective:

To compare matrix metalloproteinase (MMP)-9 and the antiproteinase tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinases (TIMP)-1 in wound fluids and sera from patients with chronic non-healing or acute healing wounds. In addition, the functional consequences on MMP-9 activity and general gelatinase activity were assessed.

Method:

In this observational study, samples were collected from patients with venous leg ulcers (VLUs), patients with type 2 diabetes with neuropathic foot ulcers (DFUs), and from another cohort of VLU patients with sterile split-thickness skin graft donor sites after autologous skin grafting, serving as healing control wounds. MMP-9 and TIMP-1 concentrations were determined by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays. MMP-9 and gelatinase activities were determined in wound fluids in subsets of the patients.

Results:

A total of 24 patients took part in the study. No significant differences in MMP-9 wound fluid levels were found among the three groups. TIMP-1 levels were markedly and significantly lower in the two chronic wound groups resulting in a severely unbalanced MMP-9/TIMP-1 ratio, especially notable in the VLU group and possibly in the elevated endogenous MMP-9 activity (p<0.01) compared with the acute wound fluids. At least 20% of the chronic wound fluids displayed atypical patterns on gelatin zymography and showed high general gelatinase activity that was not inhibited by either TIMP-1 or by a gelatinase inhibitor (AG3340). MMP-9 levels were higher in the sera of the patients with type 2 diabetes.

Conclusion:

We hypothesise that non-MMP proteinases contribute to matrix destruction in a significant number of chronic wounds. Blocking the excessive MMP-9 activity may be insufficient to normalise wound healing. The reasons and effects of the very low TIMP-1 levels in chronic wounds need further clarification.
Effects of haem oxygenase-1 expression on oxidative injury and biological behaviours of rat dermal fibroblasts
Authors: Li Qing-ling , Guo Ruo-mi , Zhao Kun , Lin Diao-zhu , Ye Xiao-ming , Chen Li-hong
Published: November 2018

Objective:

This study investigated the effects of high haem oxygenase-1 (HO-1) expression on oxidative injury and the biological behaviours of rat dermal fibroblasts, under high glucose conditions.

Method:

Rat dermal fibroblasts were cultured in normal glucose (1.0g/l), high glucose (4.5g/l) or haemin (5μm). A bilirubin kit, real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and Western blotting measured the protease activity, mRNA, and protein levels of HO-1, respectively. An enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) kit measured media levels of 8-hydroxydeoxyguanosine (8-OHdG), reactive oxygen species (ROS) and collagen (hydroxyproline) secretion. Cell proliferation was measured using flow cytometry. Cell apoptosis was measured using Hoechst 33258 staining and flow cytometry. The transwell method and scratch test evaluated cell migration.

Results:

HO-1 expression exhibited a time-dependent change that was lowest in the high glucose (HG) group at 96 hours compared with the normal glucose (NG) group. In the HG group, the 8-OHdG, ROS and cell apoptosis were increased, and collagen secretion, cell proliferation and cell migration (horizontal and vertical) were decreased compared with the NG group at 96 hours. Haemin treatment sustained high HO-1 expression for at least 96 hours, and the cells exhibited decreased 8-OHdG and ROS, increased collagen synthesis, improved proliferation and migration ability, and decreased apoptosis in the NG and haemin (NH) group/HG and haemin (HH) group compared with the NG/HG groups. These cells recovered from oxidative injury and biological behaviours dysfunction.

Conclusion:

Haemin induces HO-1 expression in fibroblasts and it may influence the oxidative injury and biological behaviours of fibroblasts. These findings suggest that HO-1 may accelerate the healing of diabetic wounds via alleviation of oxidative injury and improvement of biological behaviours of fibroblasts.
KEPEMIMPINAN DONALD TRUMP DAN TURBULENSI TATANAN DUNIA
Authors: Siswanto Siswanto
Published: November 2018

ABSTRACTThe background of this article is based on the consideration that the policy pursued by America under the leadership of President Donald Trump is controversial, leading to a turbulence of world leadership. Furthermore the issue discussed in this paper is the in-consistent personality of President Donald Trump who encourages of controversial policies. The policy of protecting on national interest (America First) leads to protectionism and America's rebuilding policy (make America great again) encourages diplomatic tension. Apart from that, this paper also discusses the consequences of controversial policy direction towards world leadership turbulence especially in Middle East and Asia. The result of this study is a conclusion formulated that the in-consistent personality that existed in President Trump is a stimulus to the controversial policy and the controversial policy becomes the trigger for the world's leadership turbulence. Finally the recommendation of this paper is be careful in relations with America under President Trump.Keywords: controversy, turbulence, American policy, President of Trump
¿Una moda responsable? Emprendimientos de diseño de indumentaria con producción artesanal de pueblos originarios y rurales desde la perspectiva de la responsabilidad social empresarial
Authors: Diaz Valeria Cynthia
Published: November 2018

El siguiente artículo tiene como objetivo presentar los avances alcanzados en la investigación sobre los modelos de negocio de emprendimientos de diseño de indumentaria argentinos definidos a partir de la alianza estratégica diseñador–artesano, a fin de reflexionar en torno a las tensiones en la construcción de este tipo de iniciativas en su dimensión económica, sociocultural y ambiental desde el paradigma de la Responsabilidad Social Empresarial (RSE). A través de la metodología de estudio de casos, se llevó a cabo el análisis de tres emprendimientos localizados en la Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires (CABA) y La Caldera (provincia de Salta) y la elaboración de dimensiones e indicadores de RSE específicos en sintonía con la identidad organizacional de estos negocios. Partiendo de estas experiencias, el diseño de indumentaria presenta como eje fundamental de estudio las formas de interacción desarrolladas entre el sector del diseño y la artesanía, lo cual genera interrogantes acerca de los tiempos y la modalidad de entrega de la producción, la elaboración de los diseños, la propiedad intelectual de motivos y técnicas utilizadas y la determinación de un precio justo de las artesanías en el marco de las industrias creativas.
Properties of CO2 sand brick
Authors: Krishnaveni S , Balaji P. , Manigandan R. , Mohamed Haroon H. , Kesavan S.
Published: November 2018

Brick is the most commonly used building material for construction. The CO2 absorption in the brick manufacturing process can provide a green environment. Therefore, focus should be now on seeking eco – friendly solutions for greener environment. Thus the paper focused on the Carbon di-oxide sand brick which can be manufactured by using carbon di-oxide gas injected into the air tight mould which contains silica sand with sodium silicate and dipping with epoxy resin as a binding agent which provides 2.5 times higher strength than the normal concrete structure in tensile strength and also it requires less reinforcement in place of concrete walls.
Optimal reconfiguration of distribution network
Authors: Rajesh Kumar V. , Sai Kiran V.
Published: November 2018

This paper proposes a simple method for solving the distribution system reconfiguration to improve the voltage profile and reduce the losses. In this paper power flow studies are used in matrix form of distribution system with radial, weakly meshed and reconfigured forms. The execution of power flow will specify the bus voltages and branch currents. These parameters are used to analyse the system performance and especially branch currents information is used to convert system radial form to weakly meshed and reconfiguration forms by closing the tie-switches and opening the sectionalizing switches. The same information can be used in large networks to show the improvement in voltage profile and reduction in electrical losses.
5G mobile networks based on SDN concepts
Authors: Hicham Magri , Abghour Noureddine , Ouzzif Mohammed
Published: November 2018

With The rapid growth of mobile networks data and the emergence of the new services and applications, Mobile operators should provide a several solutions to cope with the challenges of the next 5G mobile networks and to reduce costs. For these reasons, SDN was proposed to be one of the key technology trends that will facilitate the required architectural agility needed in the next 5G mobile networks.Software Defined Networking (SDN) is the highly promising technology to provide innovation and enforce the main drivers in 5G mobile networks such as flexibility, suability, service–oriented management and to reduce costs by the softwarization of the 5G Core networks functions.Thus, there is an immediate need to study the fundamental architectural principles of SDN, and to analyze the integration and application scenarios of this architecture into the next 5G mobile networks. In this paper, we present a survey on the most relevant research works on SDN concepts and SDN integration in mobile networks. We propose a SDN-based architecture for 5G mobile network; we give an over-view of SDN requirements and challenges for SDN integration in 5G, we address the benefits of IPv6 over SDN in 5G and finally we provide the benefits of SDN integration in 5G mobile networks.
Recent developments in photovoltaic-thermoelectric combined system
Authors: D. Raut Piyush , V. Shukla Vishal , S.Joshi Sandeep
Published: November 2018

The photovoltaic system converts solar radiation into electricity. The output of the solar photovoltaic systems is strongly depending on the operating cell temperature. The power output of photovoltaic system reduces as the operating cell temperature increases. Several techniques have been reported in the literature to maintain the low operating temperature of the solar cell by utilizing module heat for separate thermal application. Integration of photovoltaic thermoelectric (PV-TE) system is one of these techniques. In these PV-TE systems, the hot junctions of thermoelectric modules are coupled with the photovoltaic. The thermoelectric module uses heat from PV system and generates additional power. This PV-TE system not only generates more power but also improves the PV efficiency. The present article reports a comprehensive review of latest developments in the PV-TE systems. A detailed classification, key outcomes of published research and the future research scope are discussed in this article.
Improved-Efficiency Irradiation Facility for Poultry Farming
Authors: Yu. Kovalenko O , A. Pilshchikova Yu.
Published: November 2018

This article discusses the effectiveness of influence of irradiation lighting facility on the productivity and homogeneity of broilers. Irradiation lighting facility of increased efficiency is proposed. Its spectral composition of radiation sources corresponds to the function of relative spectral sensitivity of the organ of vision, and to the functions of relative spectral erythemal and bactericidal efficiency. The results of experiment in the influence of optical radiation, received from irradiation lighting facility, on an industrial herd of broilers are given in the article.
Utilizing Statistical Models for Proposing Hybrid Noise Approach of Image Encryption
Authors: A. Neamah Irtefaa , Rustum Mohammed Hind
Published: November 2018

A proposed strategy for an encryption of image based on image noise by statistical models is represented in this paper. An image encryption algorithm has been designed and simulated for some of the common various types of image noise. The proposed method (Hybrid Noise) consisting of a composition of more than one of probability density functions.Further, the hybrid approach has been compared with some standard noise types such as Gaussian, salt, and pepper, and speckle noise based on some of the performance scales like Peak Signal to Noise Ratio, variance and standard deviation and other comparison tools. The results show that our hybrid method has more security of image with less Peak Signal to Noise Ratio values, which means high noise level.
A Multi-level Evidence-based Cyber Crime Prosecution Information System
Authors: Adah Agana Moses , Wario Ruth
Published: November 2018

This research work was designed to utilize multi-level cyber crime detection and control system to provide enhanced real-time evidence to cyber crime investigators to aid them in prosecuting cyber criminals. The design was based on a robust system combining user-identity, device identity, geographical location and user activities to provide evidences to uniquely identify a cyber user and detect crimes committed. The system captures the user’s facial image and biometric finger print as mandatory login parameters in addition to username and password before granting access. The system was tested and implemented in a real time cyber security website www.ganamos.org.  The results showed that it is possible to divulge the identity of cyber users and associate their activities with the devices they use, the date, time and location of operation. These can provide real-time evidences to law enforcement agencies to track down and prosecute cyber criminals.
Design and Development of an LNB based DVB-S receiver
Authors: H Mahmudul , M Sirajum , N.S Syed , K.M. F.H A , H Shahina , I.R Tasnim
Published: November 2018

This paper introduces an LNB-based DVB-S receiver with respect to sync byte detection. The basic configuration of DVB-S for decoding is the major focus of this work, where the main task is to decode the received signal from the satellite with a good SNR. Sync-byte detection is one of the challenges of receiver design. An algorithm is developed to overcome the problems associated with Sync-byte detection which can efficiently perform Sync-byte detection. After decoding the signal, the SNR is found to be 9.62 dB, which represents quiet a good signal. A channel list is identified in the final result.
3D Technologies in the Production of Jewelry with Elements of Complicated Design
Authors: O.A Kazachkova , O.A Zyabneva , I.Y Mamedova , E.A Kulishova
Published: November 2018

The article analyzes the objects of complicated shapes and technologies of their exact reproduction in jewelry which allow creating elements of complicated design at the stage of creation of master-models. The possibilities of applying 3D technologies are correlated with the sizes of objects that are complicated in design. The technologies allowing to most accurately convey the shape and texture of objects of complex shape - forming on a small-sized object with a complex design, using a ductile metallic mass and using a scanned 3D model of an object of a large shape with a complicated design - are considered in detail.
Account of Temperature Change at Calibration of Air Flow Sensor
Authors: A. Kryukov Yu. , A. Mikheev M , Е. Golovchenko T , V. Ivanov V , K. Lytkin L
Published: November 2018

The article describes of temperature change consideration during the calibration of air flow sensor for a car engine. The sensor uses a blade made of elastic material with strain gauges applied to the front and the back surfaces, the deformation of which is measured and recalculated into a mass flow of air. They suggested the system of equations whose solution makes it possible to determine the mass flow rate and air temperature according to the known signal values at the measuring bridge output and the measuring circuit resistance. The coefficients of equation system are determined during calibration and then are recorded into the memory of the microcontroller sensor.
TQM: А Continuous Improvement Process
Authors: M Kozlov A , D. Аntаr Sh. , M. Al-jonid Kh.
Published: November 2018

TQM is а mаnаgement soundness, а incessant change method to cooperating by а novel mаnаgement appear. The TQM hypothesis progressed from the constant change objectivity with а target quаlity аs the improtant estimation of business. Under TQM, emphаsizing the quаlity of the stock or organization predominаtes. TQM expаnds on the far side stаtisticаl system organization to embrаce а more broad degree of mаnаgement аctivities of at any rate we tend to mаnаge individuals аnd orgаnizаtions by that have viable involvement in the whole technique, not simply straightforward meаsurements.
Towards Cross-site Scripting Vulnerability Detection in Mobile Web Applications
Authors: Hydara Isatou , Bakar Md Sultan Abu , Zulzalil Hazura , Admodisastro Novia
Published: November 2018

Cross-site scripting vulnerabilities are among the top ten security vulnerabilities affecting web applications for the past decade and mobile version web applications more recently. They can cause serious problems for web users such as loss of personal information to web attackers, including financial and health information, denial of service attacks, and exposure to malware and viruses. Most of the proposed solutions focused only on the Desktop versions of web applications and overlooked the mobile versions. Increasing use of mobile phones to access web applications increases the threat of cross-site scripting attacks on mobile phones. This paper presents work in progress on detecting cross-site scripting vulnerabilities in mobile versions of web applications. It proposes an enhanced genetic algorithm-based approach that detects cross-site scripting vulnerabilities in mobile versions of web applications. This approach has been used in our previous work and successfully detected the said vulnerabilities in Desktop web applications. It has been enhanced and is currently being tested in mobile versions of web applications. Preliminary results have indicated success in the mobile versions of web applications also. This approach will enable web developers find cross-site scripting vulnerabilities in the mobile versions of their web applications before their release.
Evolutionary Cost Cognizant Regression Test Prioritization for Object-Oriented Programs Based on Fault Dependency
Authors: Bello Abdulkarim , Md Sultan Abubakar , Azim Abdul Ghani Abdul , Zulzalil Hazura
Published: November 2018

Regression testing performed to provide confidence on the newly or updated software system is a resource consuming process. To ease this process, various techniques are developed. One such technique, test case prioritization, orders test cases with respect to the goals such that the most important test case in achieving those goals is scheduled earlier during the testing session. Among such performance goals, the rate of faults detections, measure how faults are detected quickly throughout the regression testing process. Improved dependency detection among faults provides faster feedback to the developers which gives chance to debug leading faults earlier in time. One other goal, the rate of fault severity detection, measure how fast severe fault can be detected in the testing process. Although, previous works address these issues but assumed that the costs of executing test cases and severities of detected faults are the same. However, costs of test and severities of faults varied. Furthermore, they did not consider incorporating evolution process such as applying genetic algorithms to their technique. In this work, we proposed an evolutionary cost-cognizant regression testing approach that prioritizes test case according to the rate of severity detection of test cases connected with dependent faults using genetic algorithms. The aim is to reveal more severe leading faults earlier using least cost in executing the test suite and to measure the efficacy of the technique using APFDc.
Face Recognition Using Location Averaging and Intensity’s Position Estimation Techniques for Human Authentication
Authors: A Parivazhagan. , Brintha Therese.A Dr.
Published: November 2018

Face recognition is an effective tool in the biometric human recognition system. In this competitive world, several techniques and systems are emerging to satisfy the needs of the face recognition system’s performance. To obtain the high-performance ratio novel techniques are combined and created a new face recognition system. Spatial domain techniques like Gray averaging technique, Location averaging technique and Intensity’s position estimation technique are united with frequency domain technique like Discrete Cosine Transform. Intensity’s position estimation is a novel feature extraction and classification technique proposed in this work. Three standard face databases are tested using this system. Accuracy and runtime are major parameters used to validate the obtained results. The maximum accuracy rate of about 86% is obtained.
Optimal Sizing of UPQC to Mitigate Power Quality Issues Using ANF Controller
Authors: Vadivu U. Senthil , K. Keshavan B.
Published: November 2018

A design of compact converter based Unified Power Quality Conditioner (UPQC) is proposed to alleviate the power quality issues on both linear and non-linear load by means of a four switch three phase series and shunt converter with DC link capacitor. DC-link voltage regulation is obtained by Photovoltaic based boost converter. The recommended four switch converter system not only reduces the switching losses but also the cost of the converter as well as it reduces the number of active elements.  Balancing of capacitors leg, filters and transformer are chosen based on the amount of sag and swell magnitude. The proposed scheme is implemented using sinusoidal pulse width modulation, simple space vector pulse width modulation and PI-Fuzzy control strategy to verify power quality issues like sag, swell and harmonics compensation added with the control performances. The performance of the optimized system is validated through simulations using MATLAB/SIMULINK.
Grundy Number of Some Chordal Graphs
Authors: Nagarathinam R. , Parvathi N. , . .
Published: November 2018

For a given graph G and integer k, the Coloring problem is that of testing whether G has a k-coloring, that is, whether there exists a vertex mapping c : V → {1, 2, . . .} such that c(u) 12â‰ "> c(v) for every edge uv ∈ E. For proper coloring, colors assigned must be minimum, but for Grundy coloring which should be maximum. In this instance, Grundy numbers of chordal graphs like Cartesian product of two path graphs, join of the path and complete graphs and the line graph of tadpole have been executed
Temperature Field and Residual Stress of Butt Welding for IN182 Plate
Authors: Vemanaboina Harinadh , Janardhana Raju G. , Sreenivas Bura
Published: November 2018

The welding process is a nonlinear phenomenon in nature which leads to deformation and residual stresses in weldments. To overcome the structural changes in the weldments the computational packages can be effectively used for analyzing the changes in its life. Inconel superalloys have excellent mechanical properties and are used in the industrial applications. The present simulation is carried out for single pass butt-joint. Simulation studies are used for effective selection of process parameters for improving mechanical properties in the weld structures. In this work, coupled thermo-mechanical simulation process was carried out for predicting the temperatures, distortion and residual stress distribution in the weldments using Finite element analysis at the transverse direction on the welded surface.
Wearable Sensor and Internet of Things Technology for Better Medical Science: A Review
Authors: Olivia Putri Arisa , A. M. Ali Musab , Saad Mohammad , Samsul Hidayat Sidiq
Published: November 2018

E-health becomes one of the internet's products for healthcare. The problems of health service such as far hospital and expensive examination fees become the emergence of this technology. Consequently, people reluctant to check their health to hospital. E-health provides information on disease prevention, detecting early symptoms, and monitoring the patient's condition based on medical parameters from a far distance. Internet of things became the main concept in this system, which combines wearable sensors, communication systems, and mobile user interfaces. Reliable and valid system, easily carried, help the doctor to monitor patients from far distance expectantly to overcome the problems. The aims of this paper review are describing how an internet of things technology and wearable sensor help medical science and find the best way to create a health monitoring system.Â Â Â
Robust Approach of De-noising ECG Signal Using Multi-Resolution Wavelet Transform
Authors: Jaenul Ariep , Alyousif Shahad , Amer Ahmed Alrawi Ali , K. Salih Samer
Published: November 2018

The ECG signal expresses the behavior of human heart against time. The analysis of this signal performs great information for diagnosing different cardiac diseases. In other hand, the ECG signal used for analyzing must be clean from any type of noises that corrupted it by the external environment. In this paper, a new approach of ECG signal noise reduction is proposed to minimize noise from all parts of ECG signal and maintains main characteristics of ECG signal with lowest changes. The new approach applies simple scaling down operation on the detail resolution in the wavelet transform space of noisy signal. The proposed noise reduction approach is validated by some ECG records from MIT-BIH database. Also, the performance of the proposed approach is evaluated graphically using different SNR levels and some standard metrics. The results improve the ability of the proposed approach to reduce noise from the ECG signal with high accuracy in comparison to the existing methods of noise reduction.Â Â
Performance of Hospital Information System in Malaysian Public Hospital: a Review
Authors: Desi Hertin Revita , Ismael Al-Sanjary Omar
Published: November 2018

This paper presents an extensive literature review of Hospital Information System (HIS) in public hospital in Malaysia. This paper aims to deliver information (guideline) about the importance and benefits of HIS so that can help government to enhance the standard of healthcare quality. Accordingly, the Malaysian Government Ministry of Health (MoH) has presented three groups of HIS such as Basic Hospital Information System (BHIS), Intermediate Hospital Information System (IHIS), and Total Hospital Information System (THIS) amongst Malaysian government owned (public) hospitals. In Malaysia, there are 138 public hospitals but at this time only 21 hospitals implementing HIS. In this paper, researcher explains the three groups of HIS (THIS, BHIS, IHIS), the benefits, the challenges, the frameworks, also the current issues of HIS.Â
A Systematic Review of Formative Assessment Tools in the Blended Learning Environment
Authors: Febriani Indah , M. Irsyad Abdullah M.
Published: November 2018

An effective method of student assessment technique is necessary for assessing student knowledge. Nowadays, the utilization of formative assessment tools in blended learning is increasing because it can enhance the learning quality. The main aim of this study to identify and classify existing research through the research approach, assessment tools type, and assessment specialty on formative assessment tools in a blended learning environment. This study guiding the educators in choosing and developing new assessment tools. The methodology of this research using a systematic review. This method using the inclusion and exclusion process to make a systematic review focused and choose appropriate studies. The result shows that the highest usage of assessment tool type is automatic assessment with the percentage of 87%. Semi-Automatic assessment has 13% and manual assessment 0%. It proves that technology is an important part of education and teaching because significantly transform the method of assessment from manual to automatic assessment type. This is a great transformation from the traditional method to the modern method of assessment. We recommend to further improve methods for online formative assessment and develop computer-based testing in a blended learning environment for future work.Â Â
Investigation of Human Electromagnetic Radiation Characteristic For Kidney Disease Patients
Authors: Zura A. Jalil Siti , Nazerah Shamsuddin Aimi , Armiza Mohd Aris Siti , Aini Bani Nurul , Mad Kaidi Hazilah , Nabil Muhtazaruddin Mohd , Usman Sahnius , Azri Mohd Izhar Mohd , Yusuf Rihana , Syilawani S. Abdul Kadir Ros
Published: November 2018

The human body is shown to have their own radiation that emits at certain frequencies into the space surround the body. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the characteristic of human electromagnetic radiation among kidney disease patients and non-kidney disease participants. The body radiation frequencies are measured using body radiation wave detector at twenty-two points of the human body. The properties of human electromagnetic radiation are evaluated using statistical analysis of dependent t-test of Wilcoxon Signed Rank test and independent t-test of Mann-Whitney U test. Significant results with the Sig. value below 0.05 are shown in lower body, torso, chakra, arm and upper body, thus indicates the characteristic differences of human electromagnetic radiation frequency between kidney disease patients and non-kidney disease participants.Â Â
Various Passive Filter Designs Proposed for Harmonic Extenuation in Industrial Distribution Systems
Authors: Junesco Devan , Al-Youif Shahad , Jabbar Mnati Mohannad , Ali Tofigh Mohammad
Published: November 2018

This paper discusses various passive filter designs to reduce the harmonic in the industrial distributions system. The passive filter used is a single and double tuned harmonic filter. In the designing of this filter, analyzing filter properties of passive component of the filter. The study was conducted to examine the efficacy of using single and double tuned filters in reducing harmonic as well as determining the best location to install the filters. Different system effects and load limits on harmonic distortion and performance of filters are also being examined. The output of the simulation indicated that a superior performance in extenuating harmonics by the double tuned filter is more effective in reducing harmonics when it is placed near the harmonic generating loads.
Partial Histogram Bayes Learning Algorithm for Classification Applications
Authors: O. Lawend Haider , M. Muad Anuar , Hussain Aini
Published: November 2018

This paper presents a proposed supervised classification technique namely partial histogram Bayes (PHBayes) learning algorithm. Conventional classifier based on Gaussian function has limitation when dealing with different probability distribution functions and requires large memory for large number of instance. Alternatively, histogram based classifiers are flexible for different probability density function. The aims of PHBayes are to handle large number of instances in datasets with lesser memory requirement, and fast in training and testing phases. The PHBayes depends on portion of the observed histogram that is similar to the probability density function. PHBayes was analyzed using synthetic and real data. Several factors affecting classification accuracy were considered. The PHBayes was compared with other established classifiers and demonstrated higher accurate classification, lesser memory even when dealing with large number of instance, and faster in training and testing phases.Â Â
Modified Curvature-based Trigonometric Identities for Retinal Blood Vessel Tortuosity Measurement in Diabetic Retinopathy Fundus Images
Authors: Badariah A. Mustafa N. , Mimi Diyana W. Zaki W. , Hussain Aini , Che Hamzah Jemaima
Published: November 2018

In current clinical practice, there is no specific standard and grading system that can be used to measure the behaviour of the retinal blood vessel curvature. The retinal blood vessel curvature is measured based on clinical experiences. It is very subjective and inconsistent to describe the presence of tortuosity in fundus images. Thus, this paper aims to measure the tortuosity of retinal blood vessel using curvature-based method and investigate its relationship with diabetic retinopathy (DR) disease. The proposed tortuosity measures have been tested on 43 fundus images belonging to patients who have been diagnosed with DR disease and validated by two clinical experts from our collaborative hospital. On average, the proposed algorithm achieved 90.7% (accuracy), 98.72% (sensitivity) and 9.3% (false negative rate), that shows significant tortuosity presence in diabetic retinopathy fundus images.Â
Using K-Fold Cross Validation Proposed Models for Spikeprop Learning Enhancements
Authors: Y.H. Ahmed Falah , Hassan Ali Yasir , Mariyam Shamsuddin Siti
Published: November 2018

Spiking Neural Network (SNN) uses individual spikes in time field to perform as well as to communicate computation in such a way as the actual neurons act. SNN was not studied earlier as it was considered too complicated and too hard to examine. Several limitations concerning the characteristics of SNN which were not researched earlier are now resolved since the introduction of SpikeProp in 2000 by Sander Bothe as a supervised SNN learning model. This paper defines the research developments of the enhancement Spikeprop learning using K-fold cross validation for datasets classification. Hence, this paper introduces acceleration factors of SpikeProp using Radius Initial Weight and Differential Evolution (DE) Initialization weights as proposed methods. In addition, training and testing using K-fold cross validation properties of the new proposed method were investigated using datasets obtained from Machine Learning Benchmark Repository as an improved Bohteâ€™s algorithm. A comparison of the performance was made between the proposed method and Backpropagation (BP) together with the Standard SpikeProp. The findings also reveal that the proposed method has better performance when compared to Standard SpikeProp as well as the BP for all datasets performed by K-fold cross validation for classification datasets.Â Â Â
Segmenting Retinal Blood Vessels with Gabor Filter and Automatic Binarization
Authors: Ali Aziah , Hussain Aini , Mimi Diyana Wan Zaki Wan
Published: November 2018

For timely diagnosis of retinal disease, routine retinal monitoring of people with high risk should be put in place. To assist the ophthalmologists in performing retinal analysis efficiently and accurately, numerous studies have been conducted to propose an automated retinal diagnosis system. One of the crucial steps for such a system is accurate detection of retinal blood vessels from retinal image. In this paper, we investigated the use of automatic binarization methods on pre-processed fundus image to detect retinal blood vessels. Three methods for binarization were investigated in this study, namely Otsuâ€™s method, ISODATA and K-means clustering method. The resulting binarized output indicated good detection of large vessels but most of the smaller vessels were left undetected. To address this issue, Gabor wavelet filter was used to enhance the small blood vessel structures before binarization of the filter output. Combining the binary images from both binarization with and without Gabor filter resulted in significant improvement of the overall detection rate of the retinal blood vessels. The proposed method proved to be comparable to other unsupervised techniques in the literature when validated using the publicly available fundus image database, DRIVE.Â Â
Pose and Illumination Invariance of Attribute Detectors in Person Re-identification
Authors: Saghafi Mohammadali , Hussain Aini , Hanif Md. Saad Mohamad , Asyraf Zulkifley Mohd , Md Tahir Nooritawati , Faisal Ibrahim Mohd
Published: November 2018

The use of attributes in person re-identification and video surveillance applications has grabbed attentions of many researchers in recent times. Attributes are suitable tools for mid-level representation of a part or a region in an image as it is more similar to human perception as compared to the quantitative nature of the normal visual features description of those parts. Hence, in this paper, the preliminary experimental results to evaluate the robustness of attribute detectors against pose and light variations in contrast to the use of local appearance features is discussed. Results attained proven that the attribute-based detectors are capable to overcome the negative impact of pose and light variation towards person re-identification activities. In addition, the degree of importance of different attributes in re-identification is evaluated and compared with other previous works in this field.Â Â
Towards Revolutionizing Stem Education Via IoT and Blockchain Technology
Authors: Kamal N. , H. Md Saad M. , S. Kok C. , Hussain A.
Published: November 2018

Internet of Things (IoT) has been implemented in most advance technologies as part of the emerging 4th industrial revolution, and recently, blockchain technology is being welcomed. These rapid growing technologies giving a big challenge to the students. As such, learning these new technologies should be made easy and simple. However, current education does not specifically offer a curriculum to empower skills and knowledge in IoT and blockchain technology. The aim of this research is to develop learning kit that can provide suitable training to understand concept of IoT and blockchain technology. The kit consists of three parts namely â€œbrainâ€, â€œmuscleâ€ and â€œcloudâ€. Raspberry Pi is used as â€œbrainâ€ of operation that will be interact with the Caiser Cloud platform. A testbox operates as â€œmuscleâ€ to provide simple data input. The input from testbox will be sent, stored and displayed on a platform created using Xojo software. The results show that the learning kit is successfully interact with Caiser Cloud platform and can be used as a training tools for education purpose.Â Â
Blockchain Technology for Islamic Marriage Certificate
Authors: Elysha Kamaruzaman Nor , Mohd Yassin Ihsan , Zabidi Azlee , Hafizhelmi Kamaru Zaman Fadhlan , Ismael Rizman Zairi , Baharom Rahimi , Abdul Wahab Norfishah
Published: November 2018

In recent years, an individual under the pseudonym of Satoshi Nakamoto devised a revolutionary technology called blockchain as the engine behind the first decentralized virtual currency called Bitcoin. A radical concept departing from government-centric controlled currencies, Bitcoin has emerged as a disruptive technology with the power to revolutionize business and its processes. Advantages of the blockchain include decentralized control, immutability, elimination of central authority and solution of concurrency problems in traditional databases. Leveraging on the advantages of blockchain technology defined above, this paper discusses the potential application of blockchain technology for storage of Islamic marriage certificates. Marriage certificates are documents issued to couples to legally recognize their marriage. Due to its paper-based nature, there is significant risk for them to be forged or frauded. These issues can be addressed effective using blockchain. The proposed application was implemented using smart contracts on a simulated Ethereum platform. A smart contract is designed to execute automatically under certain predefined conditions. The use of smart contracts eliminate manipulation by a single party. In addition, the immutable concept of blockchain ensures that data integrity is always preserved, greatly reducing the risk of fraud.Â Â
Improving Low-Cost Solutions for Path Mapping in Autonomous Vehicle
Authors: Hafizhelmi Kamaru Zaman Fadhlan , Johari Juliana , Afzal Che Abdullah Syahrul , Md Tahir Nooritawati
Published: November 2018

One of the main challenge in designing autonomous vehicle is developing the algorithms necessary for simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM). While this process heavily depends on an expensive hardware called Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR), there are cheaper alternatives that can be implemented in earlier stage of autonomous vehicle development. Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU), vehicle odometry, and Global Positioning System (GPS) can be used as a solution. The main problem is these cheaper alternatives relies heavily on the precision of the hardware used. In this project, we outline the mapping process using these cheaper solutions which can also be used to complement LiDAR-based SLAM. We show that using simple approaches such as static bias drift removal, high-pass filtering, signal downsampling and linear interpolation, we can increase the robustness and improve the accuracy and precision of the IMU and GPS used respectively. We manage to increase the precision of the GPS readings and reduce the drift of IMU on average from -17.105 deg/min to -0.1177 deg/min. We show the improvement achieved by our proposed method by mapping the road around Engine Square, Jalan Ilmu 1/1, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia.Â Â
Performance Analysis of LPWAN Using LoRa Technology for IoT Application
Authors: Muaz Abdul Rahman Amir , Hafizhelmi Kamaru Kamaru Zaman Fadhlan , Afzal Che Abdullah Syahrul
Published: November 2018

This paper was dedicated to study the performance of an Internet of Things (IoT) application using LoRa Wide Area Network (LoRaWAN). LoRa is a Low Power Wide Area Network (LPWAN) technology developed for IoT applications specifically. Due to the facts that LoRa is a new product, there are questions about its reliability. Hence, a conclusive experiment has been made. The experiment conducted to get an insight to LoRa received signal strength (RSSI) and packet loss. The analysis also includes a measurement of the application Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) between the transmitter and receiver. The results of the experiment show that with a higher spreading factor, LoRa end device provides more immunity against multi-path and signal fading. The proposed IoT application based on this LoRa technology is for autonomous vehicle status information transmission and intervehicle communications, specifically deployed in UiTM Autonomous Vehicle 1 (UiTM AV1).Â Â
Securing RF Communication Using AES-256 Symmetric Encryption: a Performance Evaluation
Authors: Jamaluddin A. , N. Mohamed N. , Hashim H.
Published: November 2018

Radio Frequency (RF) communication plays a vital role for sensor node data transmission, which typically runs on top of lightweight protocol such as Constrained Application (CoAP) and Trivial File Transfer Protocol (TFTP). Introducing a cryptographic scheme to the process is known to be the common and most efficient method to protect RF communication. This paper presents the performance comparison of AES-encrypted data transmission over RF communication via Raspberry Pi boards, experimented on a client-server architecture. The performance analysis is measured based on throughput metric and the transmission time delay when sending three types of payload which are, a plaintext data, a ciphertext with padding and a ciphertext without padding. The result from the study indicates that there is a significant difference in data transmission time between the three types of data due to the data expansion factor. The result also showed that adding padding to the ciphertext has increased the data size slightly but not significant enough to affect transmission time of ciphertext.Â
Speech Enhancement based on 2D Gabor Filters for Arabic Phoneme Spoken by Malay Speakers
Authors: Abd Almisreb Ali , Md Tahir Nooritawati , Farid Abidin Ahmad , Md Din Norashidah
Published: November 2018

In this paper, a speech enhancement method using 2D Gabor filter is proposed. The proposed filter is used to enhance Arabic phoneme speech signals that have been recorded under control environment namely indoor room recording. All the phoneme signals are spoken by Malay speakers and considered as non-native Arabic speakers. Firstly, corrupted speech signals by noise must be enhanced before further processing. The effectiveness of the suggested approach is evaluated in compare with Wiener filter. It is proven that the proposed 2D Gabor filters performed appropriately for speech enhancement purpose at different wavelengths.Â Â
Development of Boost Inverter Using Single Phase Matrix Converter Topology
Authors: F. Mohd Zin M. , Baharom R. , Mohd Yassin I.
Published: November 2018

This paper presents the development of boost inverter using a single phase matrix converter (SPMC). A new switching algorithm was developed to control the SPMC circuit topology to operate as a boost inverter. The pulse width modulation (PWM) technique was used to calculate the switching duty ratio to synthesize the output. As part of boost inverter operation, a safe-commutation switching algorithm has been applied to avoid the voltage and current spikes due to the effect of inductive loads. The simulation of the proposed converter was carried out in MATLAB/SIMULINK. Selected simulation are presented to verify the proposed operation.Â
Design of high speed Wallace tree multiplier using 8-2 and 4-2 adder compressors
Authors: Jagadeeswara Rao E , Jayaram Kumar K , T. V. Prasad Dr.
Published: November 2018

Multiplication is one of the most common arithmetic operations employed in digital systems such as FIR filters and DSP processors but multipliers are the most time, area, and power consuming circuits. Improvement in any of these parameters can be advantageous for improv-ing the efficiency of the circuit. High-speed multiplier which uses the high-speed adder is designed based on the Wallace tree concept in this paper. In this paper first we present an approach towards the reduction of delay in Wallace tree multipliers by using 8:2 and 4:2 adder com-pressors, in the partial product reduction stage. The proposed design is also compared to the Wallace Tree multiplier which uses 4:2 and 8:2 adder compressors in terms of propagation delay. The proposed design enhances speed of the system by 74.1% compared to the conven-tional Wallace Tree multiplier, while 24.1 % reduction was achieved in the delay of the system relative to Wallace tree multiplier with 16-bit adder with one of the 8-2 adder compressors.
Mechanical properties and microstructure of recycled mortar reinforced with hybrid fiber
Authors: Ismail Sallehan , Asri Abd Hamid Mohammad , Yaacob Zaiton , Ismail Dzulkarnaen , Md Akil Hazizan
Published: November 2018

This study investigated the hybrid effects of two types of microfiber, namely, polypropylene and nylon, on the mechanical properties of high-strength mortar, which produced fine recycled aggregate (FRA). The amount of microfibers was maintained at a volumetric fraction of 0.6%. The microstructure and mechanical strength properties (compressive strength and flexural strength) of recycled mortar reinforced with hybrid-size microfibers were evaluated at various curing ages. Experimental results show that the inclusion of hybrid fibers significantly influenced the mechanical performance of the recycled mortar. The hybridization fiber at volume fraction 0.3% polypropylene + 0.3% nylon yielded the most promising mechanical performance. Enhancements of 8% on compressive and 11% flexural strength were achieved at 28 days. Scanning electron microscopy observations revealed that reinforcement at the microscale prohibited the initiation and growth of cracks at the micro level. High loads were required to form macrocracks within composites, thereby improving the mechanical strength of the mortar matrix.