New Stereo Vision Algorithm Composition Using Weighted Adaptive Histogram Equalization and Gamma Correction

This work presents the composition of a new algorithm for a stereo vision system to acquire accurate depth measurement from stereo correspondence. Stereo correspondence produced by matching is commonly affected by image noise such as illumination variation, blurry boundaries, and radiometric differences. The proposed algorithm introduces a pre-processing step based on the combination of Contrast Limited Adaptive Histogram Equalization (CLAHE) and Adaptive Gamma Correction Weighted Distribution (AGCWD) with a guided filter (GF). The cost value of the pre-processing step is determined in the matching cost step using the census transform (CT), which is followed by aggregation using the fixed-window and GF technique. A winner-takes-all (WTA) approach is employed to select the minimum disparity map value and final refinement using left-right consistency checking (LR) along with a weighted median filter (WMF) to remove outliers. The algorithm improved the accuracy 31.65% for all pixel errors and 23.35% for pixel errors in nonoccluded regions compared to several established algorithms on a Middlebury dataset.

Machine-Learning Classifiers for Malware Detection Using Data Features

The spread of ransomware has risen exponentially over the past decade, causing huge financial damage to multiple organizations. Various anti-ransomware firms have suggested methods for preventing malware threats. The growing pace, scale and sophistication of malware provide the anti-malware industry with more challenges. Recent literature indicates that academics and anti-virus organizations have begun to use artificial learning as well as fundamental modeling techniques for the research and identification of malware. Orthodox signature-based anti-virus programs struggle to identify unfamiliar malware and track new forms of malware. In this study, a malware evaluation framework focused on machine learning was adopted that consists of several modules: dataset compiling in two separate classes (malicious and benign software), file disassembly, data processing, decision making, and updated malware identification. The data processing module uses grey images, functions for importing and Opcode n-gram to remove malware functionality. The decision making module detects malware and recognizes suspected malware. Different classifiers were considered in the research methodology for the detection and classification of malware. Its effectiveness was validated on the basis of the accuracy of the complete process.

The Use of QLRBP and MLLPQ as Feature Extractors Combined with SVM and kNN Classifiers for Gender Recognition

Security systems must be continuously developed in order to cope with new challenges. One example of such challenges is the proliferation of sexual harassment against women in public places, such as public toilets and public transportation. Although separately designated toilets or waiting and seating areas in public transports are provided, enforcing these restrictions need constant manual surveillance. In this paper we propose an automatic gender classification system based on an individual’s facial characteristics. We evaluate the performance of QLRBP and MLLPQ as feature extractors combined with SVM or kNN as classifiers. Our experiments show that MLLPQ gives superior performance compared to QLRBP for either classifier. Furthermore, MLLPQ is less computationally demanding compared to QLRBP. The best result we achieved in our experiments was the combination of MLLPQ and kNN classifier, yielding an accuracy rate of 92.11%.

Development of Focused Crawlers for Building Large Punjabi News Corpus

Web crawlers are as old as the Internet and are most commonly used by search engines to visit websites and index them into repositories. They are not limited to search engines but are also widely utilized to build corpora in different domains and languages. This study developed a focused set of web crawlers for three Punjabi news websites. The web crawlers were developed to extract quality text articles and add them to a local repository to be used in further research. The crawlers were implemented using the Python programming language and were utilized to construct a corpus of more than 134,000 news articles in nine different news genres. The crawler code and extracted corpora were made publicly available to the scientific community for research purposes.

Efficient Task Scheduling and Fair Load Distribution Among Federated Clouds

The federated cloud is the future generation of cloud computing, allowing sharing of computing and storage resources, and servicing of user tasks among cloud providers through a centralized control mechanism. However, a great challenge lies in the efficient management of such federated clouds and fair distribution of the load among heterogeneous cloud providers. In our proposed approach, called QPFS_MASG, at the federated cloud level, the incoming tasks queue are partitioned in order to achieve a fair distribution of the load among all cloud providers of the federated cloud. Then, at the cloud level, task scheduling using the Modified Activity Selection by Greedy (MASG) technique assigns the tasks to different virtual machines (VMs), considering the task deadline as the key factor in achieving good quality of service (QoS). The proposed approach takes care of servicing tasks within their deadline, reducing service level agreement (SLA) violations, improving the response time of user tasks as well as achieving fair distribution of the load among all participating cloud providers. The QPFS_MASG was implemented using CloudSim and the evaluation result revealed a guaranteed degree of fairness in service distribution among the cloud providers with reduced response time and SLA violations compared to existing approaches. Also, the evaluation results showed that the proposed approach serviced the user tasks with minimum number of VMs.

Serious Game Development Model Based on the Game-Based Learning Foundation

Serious games or applied games are digital games applied in serious fields such as education, advertising, health, business, and the military. Currently, serious game development is mostly based on the Game Development Life Cycle (GDLC) approach. A serious game is a game product with unique characteristics that require a particular approach to its development. This paper proposes a serious game development model adapted from the Game-Based Learning Foundation. This paper’s main contribution is to enhance knowledge in the game development field and game-related application research. The proposed model was validated using the relativism approach and it was used to develop several game prototypes for universities, national companies, and the military.

Revealing the Characteristics of Balinese Dance Maestros by Analyzing Silhouette Sequence Patterns Using Bag of Visual Movement with HoG and SIFT Features

The aim of this research was to reveal and explore the characteristics of Balinese dance maestros by analyzing silhouette sequence patterns of Balinese dance movements. A method and complete scheme for the extraction and construction of silhouette features of Balinese dance movements are proposed to enable performing quantitative analysis of Balinese dance movement patterns. Two different feature extraction methods, namely the Histogram of Gradient (HoG) feature and the Scale Invariant Features Transform (SIFT) descriptor, were used to build the final feature, called the Bag of Visual Movement (BoVM) feature. This research also makes a technical contribution with the proposal of quantifying measures to analyze the movement patterns of Balinese dances and to create the profile and characteristics of dance maestros/creators. Eight Balinese dances from three different Balinese dance maestros were analyzed in this work. Based on the experimental results, the proposed method was able to visually detect and extract patterns from silhouette sequences of Balinese dance movements. Quantitatively, the pattern measures for profiling of Balinese dances and maestros revealed a number of significant characteristics of different dances and different maestros.

Extraction of the Major Features of Brain Signals using Intelligent Networks

The brain-computer interface is considered one of the main tools for implementing and designing smart medical software. The analysis of brain signal data, called EEG, is one of the main tasks of smart medical diagnostic systems. While EEG signals have many components, one of the most important brain activities pursued is the P300 component. Detection of this component can help detect abnormalities and visualize the movement of organs of the body. In this research, a new method for processing EEG signals is proposed with the aim of detecting the P300 component. Major features were extracted from the BCI Competition IV EEG data set in a number of steps, i.e. normalization with the purpose of noise reduction using a median filter, feature extraction using a recurrent neural network, and classification using Twin Support Vector Machine. Then, a series of evaluation criteria were used to validate the proposed approach and compare it with similar methods. The results showed that the proposed approach has high accuracy.

Cell Selection Mechanism Based on Q-learning Environment in Femtocell LTE-A Networks

Universal mobile networks require enhanced capability and appropriate quality of service (QoS) and experience (QoE). To achieve this, Long Term Evolution (LTE) system operators have intensively deployed femtocells (HeNBs) along with macrocells (eNBs) to offer user equipment (UE) with optimal capacity coverage and best quality of service. To achieve the requirement of QoS in the handover stage among macrocells and femtocells we need a seamless cell selection mechanism. Cell selection requirements are considered a difficult task in femtocell-based networks and effective cell selection procedures are essential to reduce the ping-pong phenomenon and to minimize needless handovers. In this study, we propose a seamless cell selection scheme for macrocell-femtocell LTE systems, based on the Q-learning environment. A novel cell selection mechanism is proposed for high-density femtocell network topologies to evaluate the target base station in the handover stage. We used the LTE-Sim simulator to implement and evaluate the cell selection procedures. The simulation results were encouraging: a decrease in the control signaling rate and packet loss ratio were observed and at the same time the system throughput was increased.

Unsupervised Detection of Anomalous Sound for Machine Condition Monitoring using Fully Connected U-Net

Anomaly detection in the sound from machines is an important task in machine monitoring. An autoencoder architecture based on the reconstruction error using a log-Mel spectrogram feature is a conventional approach for this domain. However, because of the non-stationary nature of some sounds from the target machine, such a conventional approach does not perform well in those circumstances. In this paper, we propose a novel approach regarding the choice of used features and a new auto-encoder architecture. We created the Mixed Feature, which is a mixture of different sound representations, and a new deep learning method called Fully-Connected U-Net, a form of autoencoder architecture. With experiments on the same dataset as the baseline system, using the same architecture for all types of machines, the experimental results showed that our methods outperformed the baseline system in terms of the AUC and pAUC evaluation metrics. The optimized model achieved 83.38% AUC and 64.51% pAUC on average overall machine types on the developed dataset and outperformed the published baseline by 13.43% AUC and 8.13% pAUC.