An expressive framework and efficient algorithms for the analysis of collaborative tagging

The rise of Web 2.0 is signaled by sites such as Flickr, del.icio.us, and YouTube, and social tagging is essential to their success. A typical tagging action involves three components, user, item (e.g., photos in Flickr), and tags (i.e., words or phrases). Analyzing how tags are assigned by certain users to certain items has important implications in helping users search for desired information. In this paper, we develop a dual mining framework to explore tagging behavior. This framework is centered around two opposing measures, similarity and diversity, applied to one or more tagging components, and therefore enables a wide range of analysis scenarios such as characterizing similar users tagging diverse items with similar tags or diverse users tagging similar items with diverse tags. By adopting different concrete measures for similarity and diversity in the framework, we show that a wide range of concrete analysis problems can be defined and they are NP-Complete in general. We design four sets of efficient algorithms for solving many of those problems and demonstrate, through comprehensive experiments over real data, that our algorithms significantly out-perform the exact brute-force approach without compromising analysis result quality.     

Prediction of dispersed phase holdup in a modified multi‐stage bubble column scrubber

This paper reports on the experimental investigation carried out to evaluate fractional dispersed phase holdup for a gas‐liquid mixture in a modified multi‐stage bubble column (with contraction and expansion disks), which has been conceived, designed and fabricated as a wet scrubber for control of air pollution; in addition it has versatile use as a gas‐liquid contactor in chemical process industries. A correlation developed for predicting fractional dispersed phase holdup has been found to be encouraging and highly significant from statistical analysis.     

IEVCA: An efficient image encryption technique for IoT applications using 2-D Von-Neumann cellular automata

Multimedia Tools and Applications - Present era is marked by exponential growth in transfer of multimedia data through internet. Most of the Internet-of-Things(IoT) applications send images to...     

Long-wave interfacial instabilities in a thin electrolyte film undergoing coupled electrokinetic flows: a nonlinear analysis

Spatiotemporal deformations of the free charged surface of a thin electrolyte film undergoing a coupled electrokinetic flow composed of an electroosmotic flow (EOF) on a charged solid substrate and an electrophoretic flow (EPF) at its free surface are explored through linear stability analysis and the long-wave nonlinear simulations. The nonlinear evolution equation for the deforming surface is derived by considering both the Maxwell’s stresses and the hydrodynamic stresses. The electric potential across the film is obtained from the Poisson–Boltzmann equation under the Debye–Hückel approximation. The simulations show that at the charged electrolyte–air interface, the applied electric field generates an EPF similar to that of a large charged particle. The EOF near the solid–electrolyte interface and the EPF at the electrolyte–air interface are in the same (or opposite) directions when the zeta potentials at the two interfaces are of the opposite (or same) signs. The linear and nonlinear analyses of the evolution equation predict the presence of travelling waves, which is strongly modulated by the applied electric field and the magnitude/sign of the interface zeta potentials. The time and length scales of the unstable modes reduce as the sign of zeta potential at the two interfaces is varied from being opposite to same and also with the increasing applied electric field. The increased destabilization is caused by a reverse EPF near the free surface when the interfaces bear the same sign of zeta potentials. Flow reversal by EPF at the free surface occurs at smaller zeta potential of the free surface when the film is thicker because of less influence of the EOF arising at the solid–electrolyte boundary. The amplitude of the surface waves is found to be smaller when the unstable waves travel at a faster speed. The films can undergo pseudo-dewetting when the free surface is almost stationary under the combined influences of EPF and EOF. The free surface instability of the coupled EOF and EPF has some interesting implications in the development of micro/nano fluidic devices involving a free surface.     

An improved transport layer protocol for wireless sensor networks

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are a kind of communication networks having independent sensor nodes that form multi-hop ad hoc network to transfer data. In the past few years, various transport control protocols in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have been developed and proposed in the literature. In this paper, we have analyzed pump slowly, fetch quickly (PSFQ) protocol and presented an improved transport layer protocol for wireless sensor networks. The improved protocol has been analyzed based on various factors such as average latency and average error tolerance and it is found that the proposed protocol is better than PSFQ in terms of these factors.     

Characterization of a novel bioactive composite using advanced X-ray computed tomography

A novel bioactive, porous silica–calcium phosphate nanocomposite (SCPC) that can be used to treat large bone defects in load-bearing positions has been tested and has shown great potential for applications in tissue engineering. Porosity is essential to the performance of the composite material as a tissue engineering scaffold, as porous scaffolds provide a physical, 3-D template to support new tissue formation. However, porosity characterization using conventional techniques such as porosimetry or scanning electron microscopy requires extensive preparation of samples and may destroy important features during preparation and analysis stage. In this work, the new composite is characterized using an advanced high resolution X-ray computed tomography, which is a non-destructive testing technique that allows construction of the 3-D topology of the microstructure. The results clearly show the effectiveness and versatility of this technique in characterizing the porous architecture of the novel composite biomaterial. The pore distribution, morphology and interconnectivity in the composite scaffolds were found to be ideal for use in tissue engineering applications.     

On a batch arrival Poisson queue with a random setup time and vacation period

The single server queue with vacation has been extended to include several types of extensions and generalisations, to which attention has been paid by several researchers (e.g. see Doshi, B. T., Single server queues with vacations — a servey. Queueing Systems, 1986, 1, 29–66; Takagi, H., Queueing Analysis: A Foundation of Performance evaluation, Vol. 1, Vacation and Priority systems, Part. 1. North Holland, Amsterdam, 1991; Medhi, J., Extensions and generalizations of the classical single server queueing system with Poisson input. J. Ass. Sci. Soc., 1994, 36, 35–41, etc.). The interest in such types of queues have been further enhanced in resent years because of their theoretical structures as well as their application in many real life situations such as computer, telecommunication, airline scheduling as well as production/inventory systems. This paper concerns the model building of such a production/inventory system, where machine undergoes extra operation (such as machine repair, preventive maintenance, gearing up machinery, etc.) before the processing of raw material is to be started. To be realistic, we also assume that raw materials arrive in batch. This production system can be formulated as an M^x/M/1 queues with a setup time. Further, from the utility point of view of idle time this model can also be formulated as a case of multiple vacation model, where vacation begins at the end of each busy period. Besides, the production/inventory systems, such a model is generally fitted to airline scheduling problems also. In this paper an attempt has been made to study the steady state behavior of such an M^x/M/1 queueing system with a view to provide some system performance measures, which lead to remarkable simplification when solving other similar types of queueing models.This paper deals with the steady state behaviour of a single server batch arrival Poisson queue with a random setup time and a vacation period. The service of the first customer in each busy period is preceded by a random setup period, on completion of which service starts. As soon as the system becomes empty the server goes on vacation for a random length of time. On return from vacation, if he finds customer(s) waiting, the server starts servicing the first customer in the queue. Otherwise it takes another vacation and so on. We study the steady state behaviour of the queue size distribution at random (stationary) point of time as well as at departure point of time and try to show that departure point queue size distribution can be decomposed into three independent random variables, one of which is the queue size of the standard M^x/M/1 queue. The interpretation of the other two random variables will also be provided. Further, we derive analytically explicit expressions for the system state (number of customers in the system) probabilities and provide their appropriate interpretations. Also, we derive some system performance measures. Finally, we develop a procedure to find mean waiting time of an arbitrary customer.     

KSpaceNavigator as a tool for computer-assisted sample tilting in high-resolution imaging, tomography and defect analysis

This article describes a novel software tool, the KSpaceNavigator, which combines sample stage and crystallographic coordinates in a control sphere. It also provides simulated kinematic diffraction spot patterns, Kikuchi line patterns and a unit cell view in real time, thus allowing intuitive and transparent navigation in reciprocal space. By the overlay of experimental data with the simulations and some interactive alignment algorithms, zone axis orientations of the sample can be accessed quickly and with great ease. The software can be configured to work with any double-tilt or tilt–rotation stage and overcomes nonlinearities in existing goniometers by lookup tables. A subroutine for matching the polyhedral shape of a nanoparticle assists with 3D analysis and modeling. The new possibilities are demonstrated with the case of a faceted BaTiO₃ nanoparticle, which is tilted into three low-index zone axes using the piezo-controlled TEAM stage, and with a multiply twinned tetrahedral Ge precipitate in Al, which is tilted into four equivalent zone axes using a conventional double-tilt stage. Applications to other experimental scenarios are also outlined.