51 research outputs found
METHODOLOGY DEVELOPMENT FOR ENVIRONMENTAL MICROBIOLOGY: MEDIUM FORMULATION AND SURFACE CHARGE ANALYSIS
No full textMaster'sMASTER OF ENGINEERING (CDE
Data hiding based on Chinese text automatic proofread
No full textWith the rapid development of network instant messaging technology, data hiding based on text carrier is increasingly becoming an important means of covert communication. In this paper, a new data hiding algorithm based on dynamically generated text carrier is provided. First, it uses big data collection technology to get massive targeted corpus sample. Next, text carrier is dynamically generated through natural language processing technology, and the repository of the right words and the wrong words is built. Then, the secret message is embedded through substitution of error words for candidate correct words after word segment of text carrier. Finally, it locates the pairs of error word and correct word using the Chinese text automatic proofread technology to extract the embedded secret message. Experimental results show that the proposed method has many advantages such as large embedding capacity, good concealment ability, high security level and small file size, etc. Accordingly, the proposed method can be widely applied in network covert communication.EICPCI-S(ISTP)[email protected]; [email protected]
MULTI-SCALE LOCAL BINARY PATTERNS BASED ON PATH INTEGRAL FOR TEXTURE CLASSIFICATION
No full textLocal binary pattern (LBP) is an effective image texture descriptor due to its high discrimination and easy computation. Moreover, as an extension, multi-scale LBP (MS-LBP) has also been explored for enhancing the conventional LBP and its miscellaneous variants by combining local image structures of different scales. However, since LBPs of different scales are simply combined in a concatenate or joint way, the cross-scale correlation is not fully utilized in MS-LBP. Based on this thought, we propose in this paper a new LBP variant named path integral based LBP (pi-LBP). Specifically, unlike MS-LBP which encodes local patterns individually in each scale, the different scales pixels along a specific path are filtered and then encoded in pi-LBP. In this way, by taking different paths and filters, pi-LBP can effectively encode the cross-scale correlation and provide a better texture description. Experimental results on Outex texture suites show that the proposed pi-LBP outperforms MS-LBP and some other LBP variants on texture classification.EICPCI-S(ISTP)26-302015-Decembe
Frequency of occurrence of keywords in journal articles of biological sciences
No full textKeywords are commonly used to describe the main concepts of a journal article. Hence, do they follow a statistical distribution in terms of frequency of occurrence in the article? This work sets out to elucidate if frequency of occurrence of keywords follows a statistical distribution as well as whether the authors draw on the statistical occurrence of the concept to propose keywords. Using an in-house MATLAB machine reading software, the frequency of occurrence of keywords in the main text of 30 journal articles was tabulated. Results reveal that at least one of the authors’ proposed keywords is of high frequency of occurrence. However, occurrence frequency of other keywords largely depends on the scholastic style of the author where there is a substantial number of articles with keywords of low frequency of occurrence. These are likely important concepts of low frequency of occurrence.</p
Summary of concepts and themes in the topic on chip-based biomanufacturing platforms for synthetic biology
No full textSynthetic biology research projects typically require multi-step workflows that are difficult to automate. One recent trend in synthetic biology is to look for possible synergy with microfluidics and lab-on-a-chip technologies. A literature survey by the author in June 2021 revealed the following themes in chip-based biomanufacturing platforms for synthetic biology: 1) Droplet microfluidics for synthetic biology, 2) End-to-end automated platform for synthetic biology able to perform DNA assembly, 3) Microfluidics chip could aid the design of synthetic cells and artificial cells, 4) Cell free synthetic biology, 5) Microfluidics devices for in vivo and in vitro diagnostics, 6) Use of microfluidic device to study phenotypic effects (such as on growth rate) of genomic mutants, 7) Synthetic biology approaches for engineering therapeutic microbes, and 8) Use of microfluidic tools as reactors for metabolic engineering of cyanobacteria and other bacterial species.</p
Identifying microbes from environmental water samples
No full textWhat is the microbe that we are dealing with? Whether it is cholera or anthrax, we want to know the disease-causing microorganism as quickly as possible since prompt identification of the causative organism would help control disease spread - and potentially save lives through provision of appropriate care and medication. Yet, despite the advent of rapid microbial identification tools – particularly those based on mass spectrometry – most undergraduate curricula continue to focus on culture- and nucleic acid-based identification techniques since they are widely used for detecting and identifying microbes in clinical and environmental samples. Mass spectrometry-based methods, however, have increasingly complemented traditional approaches in clinical and research laboratories - but are rarely featured in undergraduate curricula. Motivated by the desire to address the curriculum gap, the author of this study developed an inquiry-based laboratory exercise for introducing students to the operating principles and methodology of mass spectrometry-based microbial identification. By requiring students to identify microbes in environmental water samples – a real-life problem with unknown answers – the exercise piqued the students’ interest in learning, while helping to stir their curiosity through an interesting field activity in which they could put on a scientist’s hat in solving a mystery. This synopsis article summarizes a piece of published educational research and expands on the discussion of concepts underlying matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS)-based microbial identification. Herein, the article discusses the relative advantages and disadvantages of the pattern recognition and proteome database search approaches for analyzing mass spectra data. Additionally, the effect of general and tailored sample preparation protocols on identification accuracy is also elaborated. Finally, the pedagogical utility of field- and inquiry-based educational tools is also discussed in greater detail from a post-publication perspective. A full-length synopsis of the work and a structured abstract can be found in the accompanying PDF file, the original article being entitled: “Teaching Microbial Identification with Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption/Ionization Time-of-Flight Mass Spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) and Bioinformatics Tools”
Perfect competition-based allocation may lead to inefficient resource allocation that may magnify into severe economic disequilibrium at the national level
No full textPerfect competition is one method for allocating resources in an economy. It is widely thought to be better and more efficient than other approaches for allocating scarce resources. However, actual practice and practical experience with perfect competition-based approaches in observational economics suggest that the method can lead to inefficient resource allocation that, in some cases, magnify into severe economic disequilibrium at the national level. This abstract preprint uses two examples to illustrate how perfect competition model can lead to inefficient resource allocation, sometimes at the national level. Firstly, United States created 364 SARS-CoV-2 diagnostic kits in the recent COVID-19 pandemic. This is much higher than the 42 tests created by second-placed China. Tremendous amount of time and money was expended in creating these 364 test kits, and is a result of the perfect competition mechanism espouses by the U.S. economy where different stakeholders attempt to produce a more accurate and easy to use test kit to seize a large fraction of the U.S. diagnostic market. But, is this necessary? Could we use some of the research manpower to create diagnostic kits for other pathogens? Secondly, in the textbook publishing business, there are often multiple similar textbooks for the same or related titles in the marketplace, all competing for readers and their purchase. Naturally, perfect competition and the desire to beat other textbook authors generate the economic phenomenon of multiple similar textbooks of similar content for the same topic. Such a situation meant that resources (author time, expertise, and printing capacity) were misaligned with the under-appreciated real need of informing readers of more topics from different angles and perspectives. Overall, the rush to market and hot topic and trendy topic phenomenon created by the perfect competition model leads to inefficient allocation of resources at the national level, where the extra resources (time and capital) should be put to use in other areas of similar need. </p
Feature reduction of multi-scale LBP for texture classification
No full textLocal binary pattern (LBP) is a simple yet powerful texture descriptor modeling the relationship of pixels to their local neighborhood. By considering multiple neighborhood radii, multi-scale LBP (MS-LBP) is derived. For MS-LBP generation, different scales LBP histograms are first extracted separately, and then combined in concatenate or joint way, resulting in a one-dimensional or multi-dimensional histogram, respectively. Concatenate MS-LBP has low feature dimension but loses some important discriminative information, while joint MS-LBP performs well but suffers high feature dimension. In this work, based on the similarity between different scales patterns and the sparsity of joint MS-LBP histogram, a feature reduction method for joint MS-LBP is proposed. Experiments on Outex and CURet show that the proposed method and its extension have performance comparable to the original joint MS-LBP but have lower feature dimension.EICPCI-S(ISTP)[email protected]
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