Screen Content Quality Assessment: Overview, Benchmark, and Beyond

Screen content, which is often computer-generated, has many characteristics distinctly different from conventional camera-captured natural scene content. Such characteristic differences impose major challenges to the corresponding content quality assessment, which plays a critical role to ensure and improve the final user-perceived quality of experience (QoE) in various screen content communication and networking systems. Quality assessment of such screen content has attracted much attention recently, primarily because the screen content grows explosively due to the prevalence of cloud and remote computing applications in recent years, and due to the fact that conventional quality assessment methods can not handle such content effectively. As the most technology-oriented part of QoE modeling, image/video content/media quality assessment has drawn wide attention from researchers, and a large amount of work has been carried out to tackle the problem of screen content quality assessment. This article is intended to provide a systematic and timely review on this emerging research field, including (1) background of natural scene vs. screen content quality assessment; (2) characteristics of natural scene vs. screen content; (3) overview of screen content quality assessment methodologies and measures; (4) relevant benchmarks and comprehensive evaluation of the state-of-the-art; (5) discussions on generalizations from screen content quality assessment to QoE assessment, and other techniques beyond QoE assessment; and (6) unresolved challenges and promising future research directions. Throughout this article, we focus on the differences and similarities between screen content and conventional natural scene content. We expect that this review article shall provide readers with an overview of the background, history, recent progress, and future of the emerging screen content quality assessment research.

Peranan Majelis Taklim Untuk Meningkatkan Kesadaran Beragama

Abstrak[English]: The research focused on the role of the taklim assembly on the development of Bergama awareness in the community of Bara Subdistrict, with the aim of: to understand the background established by the taklim assembly in Bara Subdistrict, and to understand the activities of the taklim assembly in Bara Subdistrict, understand the role of the taklim assembly in increasing religious awareness, understand the methods the method used in the activities of the majelis taklim. This research uses descriptive qualitative method, which describes the phenomena found in the research field. In collecting data researchers used techniques; observation, interview, documentation. As for data management techniques and data analysis, researchers use; data reduction, data display, and conclusion drawing. The results showed that; majelis taklim was established in Bara Subdistrict because there are still many Muslims who still do not understand the teachings of Islam properly, majelis taklim is also active in carrying out religious activities and community activities. The researcher also found a significant role for the majelis taklim, because it could change the behavior of the members of the majelis taklim in the direction of the teachings of Islam. Abstrak[Indonesia]: Penelitian difokuskan pada peranan majelis taklim terhadap pengembangan kesadaran Bergama masyarakat Kecamatan Bara, dengan tujuan: (1) untuk memahami latarbelakang didirikan majelis taklim di Kecamatan Bara; (2) untuk memahami kegiatan-kegiatan majelis taklim di Kecamatan Bara; (3) untuk memahami peranan majelis taklim dalam meningkatkan kesadaran beragama, (4) untuk memahami metode-metode yang digunakan dalam kegiatan majelis taklim. Penelitian ini menggunakan metode kualitatif deskriptif, yaitu mendeskripsikan fenomena-fenomena yang ditemukan dalam lapangan penelitian. Dalam mengumpulkan data peneliti menggunakan teknik; observasi, wawancara, dokumentasi. Adapun teknik pengelolaan data dan analisis data, peneliti menggunakan; reduksi data, sajian data, dan penarikan kesimpulan. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa; majelis taklim didirikan di Kecamatan Bara karena masih banyak umat Islam yang masih kurang memahami ajaran Islam dengan baik, majelis taklim juga aktif melakukan kegiatan-kegiatan keagamaan dan kegiatan kemasyarakatan. Peneliti juga menemukan peranan majelis taklim yang signifikan, karena dapat merubah perilaku anggota-anggota majelis taklim ke arah sesuai dengan tuntunan ajaran Islam.

The Application of CRISPR/Cas9 Technology for Cancer Immunotherapy: Current Status and Problems

Cancer is one of the main causes of disease-related deaths in the world. Although cancer treatment strategies have been improved in recent years, the survival time of cancer patients is still far from satisfied. Cancer immunotherapy, such as Oncolytic virotherapy, Immune checkpoints inhibition, Chimeric antigen receptor T (CAR-T) cell therapy, Chimeric antigen receptor natural killer (CAR-NK) cell therapy and macrophages genomic modification, has emerged as an effective therapeutic strategy for different kinds of cancer. However, many patients do not respond to the cancer immunotherapy which warrants further investigation to optimize this strategy. The clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats and CRISPR-associated protein 9 (CRISPR/Cas9), as a versatile genome engineering tool, has become popular in the biology research field and it was also applied to optimize tumor immunotherapy. Moreover, CRISPR-based high-throughput screening can be used in the study of immunomodulatory drug resistance mechanism. In this review, we summarized the development as well as the application of CRISPR/Cas9 technology in the cancer immunotherapy and discussed the potential problems that may be caused by this combination.

A Comparative Analysis Using Silhouette Extraction Methods for Dynamic Objects in Monocular Vision

Moving or dynamic object analysis continues to be an increasingly active research field in computer vision with many types of research investigating different methods for motion tracking, object recognition, pose estimation, or motion evaluation (e.g. in sports sciences). Many techniques are available to measure the forces and motion of the people, such as force plates to measure ground reaction forces for a jump or running sports. In training and commercial solution, the detailed motion of athlete's available motion capture devices based on optical markers on the athlete's body and multiple calibrated fixed cameras around the sides of the capture volume can be used. In some situations, it is not practical to attach any kind of marker or transducer to the athletes or the existing machinery are being used, while it is required by a pure vision-based approach to use the natural appearance of the person or object. When a sporting event is taking place, there are opportunities for computer vision to help the referee and other personnel involved in the sports to keep track of incidents occurring, which may provide full coverage and analysis in details of the event for sports viewers. The research aims at using computer vision methods, specially designed for monocular recording, for measuring sports activities, such as high jump, wide jump, or running. Just for indicating the complexity of the project: a single camera needs to understand the height at a particular distance using silhouette extraction. Moving object analysis benefits from silhouette extraction and this has been applied to many domains including sports activities. This paper comparatively discusses two significant techniques to extract silhouettes of a moving object (a jumping person) in monocular video data in different scenarios. The results show that the performance of silhouette extraction varies in dependency on the quality of used video data.

In Vitro Methodologies to Study the Role of Advanced Glycation End Products (AGEs) in Neurodegeneration

Advanced glycation end products (AGEs) can be present in food or be endogenously produced in biological systems. Their formation has been associated with chronic neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. The implication of AGEs in neurodegeneration is related to their ability to bind to AGE-specific receptors and the ability of their precursors to induce the so-called “dicarbonyl stress”, resulting in cross-linking and protein damage. However, the mode of action underlying their role in neurodegeneration remains unclear. While some research has been carried out in observational clinical studies, further in vitro studies may help elucidate these underlying modes of action. This review presents and discusses in vitro methodologies used in research on the potential role of AGEs in neuroinflammation and neurodegeneration. The overview reveals the main concepts linking AGEs to neurodegeneration, the current findings, and the available and advisable in vitro models to study their role. Moreover, the major questions regarding the role of AGEs in neurodegenerative diseases and the challenges and discrepancies in the research field are discussed.

Enhancement of the Detection Performance of Paper-Based Analytical Devices by Nanomaterials

Paper-based analytical devices (PADs), including lateral flow assays (LFAs), dipstick assays and microfluidic PADs (μPADs), have a great impact on the healthcare realm and environmental monitoring. This is especially evident in developing countries because PADs-based point-of-care testing (POCT) enables to rapidly determine various (bio)chemical analytes in a miniaturized, cost-effective and user-friendly manner. Low sensitivity and poor specificity are the main bottlenecks associated with PADs, which limit the entry of PADs into the real-life applications. The application of nanomaterials in PADs is showing great improvement in their detection performance in terms of sensitivity, selectivity and accuracy since the nanomaterials have unique physicochemical properties. In this review, the research progress on the nanomaterial-based PADs is summarized by highlighting representative recent publications. We mainly focus on the detection principles, the sensing mechanisms of how they work and applications in disease diagnosis, environmental monitoring and food safety management. In addition, the limitations and challenges associated with the development of nanomaterial-based PADs are discussed, and further directions in this research field are proposed.

Fourier Image Watermarking: Print-Cam Application

Digital image watermarking is an active research field since it provides protection, security, and authenticity of data. This paper presents development and implementation of a blind and robust watermarking application for ID images under a print-cam system. In the present case, the images are watermarked and printed on ID cards and then detected freehandedly with a smartphone camera. In order to design an efficient and robust image watermarking application, the attacks produced in print-cam processes, such as geometric distortions, must be resolved. Accordingly, the proposed watermarking approach is applied in the Fourier domain. Then, a frame-based projective rectification is integrated to deal with geometric distortions by using detection of Hough lines. Moreover, better robustness against print-cam watermarking attacks was achieved compared with the existing methods, and an Android application was designed and implemented based on the proposed scheme.

Worldwide Research on Open Innovation in SMEs

Research on open innovation (OI) has increased in recent years, showing its potential in various areas of knowledge. Its relation to small and medium-sized enterprises has attracted the attention of academics. This article aims to evaluate the intellectual structure of the scientific study of OI, and its close relationship with various scientific fields, through a bibliometric analysis of this academic field using the Scopus database and the application of the VOSviewer software. The methodology comprises a rigorous systematic and transparent process divided into four phases: (i) the establishment of search criteria for the research field, through a literature review for its selection; (ii) the selection of the database, the establishment of the search equation and extraction of information; (iii) the application of inclusion and exclusion criteria for the selected documents and an explanation of the usefulness of the software; and (iv) the analysis of the results through the approaches of scientific output performance and bibliometric mapping. The results show an increasing trend of IO publications in SMEs, consolidated in 396 articles with contributions from 65 countries and 947 authors. The intellectual structure shows seven themes related to firm performance, R&D networks, business management, business models, capabilities and knowledge transfer. This study contributes to the field by providing an overview of IO in SME contexts. It also provides insightful information to policymakers for developing policies for firm economic growth.

Insect Diapause

Our highly seasonal world restricts insect activity to brief portions of the year. This feature necessitates a sophisticated interpretation of seasonal changes and enactment of mechanisms for bringing development to a halt and then reinitiating it when the inimical season is past. The dormant state of diapause serves to bridge the unfavourable seasons, and its timing provides a powerful mechanism for synchronizing insect development. This book explores how seasonal signals are monitored and used by insects to enact specific molecular pathways that generate the diapause phenotype. The broad perspective offered here scales from the ecological to the molecular and thus provides a comprehensive view of this exciting and vibrant research field, offering insights on topics ranging from pest management, evolution, speciation, climate change and disease transmission, to human health, as well as analogies with other forms of invertebrate dormancy and mammalian hibernation.

Plasmonic–perovskite solar cells, light emitters, and sensors

The field of plasmonics explores the interaction between light and metallic micro/nanostructures and films. The collective oscillation of free electrons on metallic surfaces enables subwavelength optical confinement and enhanced light–matter interactions. In optoelectronics, perovskite materials are particularly attractive due to their excellent absorption, emission, and carrier transport properties, which lead to the improved performance of solar cells, light-emitting diodes (LEDs), lasers, photodetectors, and sensors. When perovskite materials are coupled with plasmonic structures, the device performance significantly improves owing to strong near-field and far-field optical enhancements, as well as the plasmoelectric effect. Here, we review recent theoretical and experimental works on plasmonic perovskite solar cells, light emitters, and sensors. The underlying physical mechanisms, design routes, device performances, and optimization strategies are summarized. This review also lays out challenges and future directions for the plasmonic perovskite research field toward next-generation optoelectronic technologies.