Automatic detection of multiple pavement layers from GPR data

One of the problems encountered in the nondestructive testing of pavements with ground penetrating radar (GPR) is the detection of multiple-layer reflections within the GPR return. Detecting reflections is especially problematic when the pavement layers are thin with respect to the probing pulse width, in which case overlapping between the reflected pulses occurs, causing the weak reflections to be masked by the stronger reflections in their vicinity. In this study, the problem is solved by iteratively detecting the strong reflections present within the GPR signal using either a threshold or a matched filter detector. The detected pulses are then used in a reflection model to synthesize a signal “similar” to the measured GPR signal in the least-squares sense. The synthesized signal is then subtracted from the measured signal to reveal the masked weak reflections, which are later detected iteratively using the same method. This technique was successfully applied to field GPR data collected from an experimental pavement site: the Virginia Smart Road.     

Gait recognition based on modified phase-only correlation

Gait recognition is an emerging biometric technology aiming to identify people purely through the analysis of the way they walk. The technology has attracted interest as a method of identification because it is noncontact and does not require the subject’s cooperation. Clothing, carrying conditions and other intra-class variations, also referred to as “covariates,” affect the performance of gait recognition systems. This paper proposes a supervised feature extraction method, which is able to select relevant discriminative features for human recognition to mitigate the impact of covariates and hence improve the recognition performances. The proposed method is evaluated using the CASIA gait database (dataset B), and the experimental results suggest that our method yields 81.40 % of correct classification when compared against similar techniques which do not exceed 77.96 %.     

A new Quranic Corpus rich in morphosyntactical information

There is not a widely amount of available annotated Arabic corpora. This leads us to contribute to the enrichment of Arabic corpora resources. In this regard, we have decided to start working with correct and carefully selected texts. Thus, beginning with the Quranic Arabic text is the best way to start for such an effort. Furthermore, the annotating linguistic resources, such as Quranic Corpus, are important for researchers working in all Arabic natural language processing fields. To the best of our knowledge, the only available Quranic Arabic corpora are from the University of Leeds, University of Jordan and the University of Haifa. Unfortunately, these corpora have several problems and they do not contain enough grammatical and syntactical information. To build a new Corpus of the Quran, the work used a semi-automatic technique, which consists in using the morphsyntactic of standard Arabic words “AlKhalil Morpho Sys” followed by a manual treatment. As a result of this work, we have built a new Quranic Corpus rich in morphosyntactical information.     

Breaking an image encryption scheme based on Arnold map and Lucas series

Multimedia Tools and Applications - Recently, a novel image encryption based on Arnold scrambling and Lucas series has been proposed in the literature. The scheme design is based on...     

Algorithm development for the application of ground-penetrating radar on asphalt pavement compaction monitoring

Ground-penetrating radar (GPR) is a promising non-destructive technique to be applied on monitoring the density change during asphalt pavement compaction. The utmost challenge of this application is the unknown effect of surface moisture, sprayed by the compactor during compaction, on GPR signals. To extract density information without the effect of surface moisture, a correction algorithm based on reference scan approach was developed. To evaluate the performance of the algorithm, a full-scale test site was constructed with compaction pass number from 0 to 10, and a large amount of GPR data were collected from the pavement with different surface moisture contents. A total of 22 cores were extracted for validation purposes. After applying the algorithm, it was found that the average density prediction error was reduced significantly. By using correction algorithm together with the density model, the density of asphalt pavement was obtained with high accuracy.     

Effect of Frictions on the Ballistic Performance of a 3D Warp Interlock Fabric: Numerical Analysis

3D interlock woven fabrics are promising materials to replace the 2D structures in the field of ballistic protection. The structural complexity of this material caused many difficulties in numerical modeling. This paper presents a new tool that permits to generate a geometry model of any woven fabric, then, mesh this model in shell or solid elements, and apply the mechanical properties of yarns to them. The tool shows many advantages over existing software. It is very handy in use with an organization of the functions in menu and using a graphic interface. It can describe correctly the geometry of all textile woven fabrics. With this tool, the orientation of the local axes of finite elements following the yarn direction facilitates defining the yarn mechanical properties in a numerical model. This tool can be largely applied because it is compatible with popular finite element codes such as Abaqus, Ansys, Radioss etc. Thanks to this tool, a finite element model was carried out to describe a ballistic impact on a 3D warp interlock Kevlar KM2? fabric. This work focuses on studying the effect of friction onto the ballistic impact behavior of this textile interlock structure. Results showed that the friction among yarns affects considerably on the impact behavior of this fabric. The effect of the friction between projectile and yarn is less important. The friction plays an important role in keeping the fabric structural stability during the impact event. This phenomenon explained why the projectile is easier to penetrate this 3D warp interlock fabric in the no-friction case. This result also indicates that the ballistic performance of the interlock woven fabrics can be improved by using fibers with great friction coefficients.     

Security analysis of an audio data encryption scheme based on key chaining and DNA encoding

Multimedia Tools and Applications - Fairly recently, a new audio encryption scheme has been proposed. The cryptosystem is based on a substitution-permutation algorithm using DNA encoding. The...