Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Privacy-Preserved Access Control For Cloud Computing, Miao Zhou, Yi Mu, Willy Susilo, Man Ho Allen Au, Jun Yan

Dr Man Ho Allen Au

The problem of access control on outsourced data to "honest but curious" cloud servers has received considerable attention, especially in scenarios involving potentially huge sets of data files, where re-encryption and re-transmission by the data owner may not be acceptable. Considering the user privacy and data security in cloud environment, in this paper, we propose a solution to achieve flexible and fine-grained access control on outsourced data files. In particular, we look at the problem of defining and assigning keys to users based on different attribute sets, and hiding access policies as well as users information to the third-party cloud …

Promoting: Programs For And Challenges Of The Knowledge-Based Small Business, Joan Imukuka, Bhishna Bajracharya, Linda Too, Greg Hearn

Bhishna Bajracharya

ExtractSmall businesses have long been recognized for their contributions to innovation, job creation and the overall health of most economies (Audretsch, 2004; North et al., 2001; Tilley and Tonge, 2003). Government policies in most countries, therefore, often include support measures and infrastructure to help nurture small businesses, particularly in relation to their innovation-related needs (North et al., 2001). Most recently, there has been growing interest in fostering the emergence of new and innovative small businesses, especially in the high-technology and knowledge-intensive sectors (Bridge et al., 2009). The ’high technology’ and ’knowledge-intensive sectors’ are those sectors of the economy that have …

Subunit Exchange Of Polydisperse Proteins: Mass Spectrometry Reveals Consequences Of Αa-Crystallin Truncation, J. Andrew Aquilina, Justin Benesch, Lin Lin Ding, Orna Yaron, Joseph Horwitz, Carol Robinson

J. A. Aquilina

The small heat shock protein, α-crystallin, plays a key role in maintaining lens transparency by chaperoning structurally compromised proteins. This is of particular importance in the human lens, where proteins are exposed to post-translational modifications over the life-time of an individual. Here, we examine the structural and functional consequences of one particular modification of αA-crystallin involving the truncation of 5 C-terminal residues (αA1–168). Using novel mass spectrometry approaches and established biophysical techniques, we show that αA1–168 forms oligomeric assemblies with a lower average molecular mass than wild-type αA-crystallin (αAWT). Also apparent from the mass spectra of both αAWT and αA1–168 …

3-Hydroxykynurenine Oxidizes Alpha-Crystallin: Potential Role In Cataractogenesis, Roger Truscott, Andrew Aquilina, Peter Hains, Anastasia Korlimbinis

J. A. Aquilina

No abstract provided.

Truncation, Cross-Linking And Interaction Of Crystallins And Intermediate Filament Proteins In The Aging Human Lens, Roger Truscott, Jason Mcarthur, Andrew Aquilina, Shi-Ping (Jim) Su

J. A. Aquilina

The optical properties of the lens are dependent upon the integrity of proteins within the fiber cells. During aging, crystallins, the major intra-cellular structural proteins of the lens, aggregate and become water-insoluble. Modifications to crystallins and the lens intermediate filaments have been implicated in this phenomenon. In this study, we examined changes to, and interactions between, human lens crystallins and intermediate filament proteins in lenses from a variety of age groups (0-86 years). Among the lens-specific intermediate filament proteins, filensin was extensively cleaved in all postnatal lenses, with truncated products of various sizes being found in both the lens cortical …

Chemical Cross-Linking Of The Chloroplast Localized Small Heat-Shock Protein, Hsp21, And The Model Substrate Citrate Synthase, Emma Ahrman, W Lambert, Andrew Aquilina, C V Robinson, Cs Emanuelsson

J. A. Aquilina

The molecular mechanism whereby the small heat-shock protein (sHsp) chaperones interact with and prevent aggregation of other proteins is not fully understood. We have characterized the sHsp-substrate protein interaction at normal and increased temperatures utilizing a model substrate protein, citrate synthase (CS), widely used in chaperone assays, and a dodecameric plant sHsp, Hsp21, by chemical cross-linking with 3,3'-Dithiobis[sulfosuccinimidylpropionate] (DTSSP) and mass spectrometric peptide mapping. In the absence of CS, the cross-linker captured Hsp21 in dodecameric form, even at increased temperature (47 degrees C). In the presence of equimolar amounts of CS, no Hsp21 dodecamer was captured, indicating a substrate-induced Hsp21 …

Effects Of Glycosylation On The Structure And Function Of The Extracellular Chaperone Clusterin, Elise Stewart, Andrew Aquilina, Simon B Easterbrook-Smith, D Murphy-Durland, C Jacobsen, S Moestrup, Mark Wilson

J. A. Aquilina

Clusterin is the first well characterized, constitutively secreted extracellular chaperone that binds to exposed regions of hydrophobicity on non-native proteins. It may help control the folding state of extracellular proteins by targeting them for receptor-mediated endocytosis and intracellular lysosomal degradation. A notable feature of secreted clusterin is its heavy glycosylation. Although carbohydrate comprises approximately 20−25% of the total mass of the mature molecule, its function is unknown. Results from the current study demonstrate that deglycosylation of human serum clusterin had little effect on its overall secondary structure content but produced a small increase in solvent-exposed hydrophobicity and enhanced the propensity …

Protein-Bound And Free Uv Filters In Cataract Lenses. The Concentration Of Uv Filters Is Much Lower Than In Normal Lenses, Roger Truscott, Andrew Aquilina, Anastasia Korlimbinis

J. A. Aquilina

In human cataract lenses the UV filters, 3-hydroxykynurenine glucoside (3OHKG) and kynurenine (Kyn) were found to be covalently bound to proteins and the levels in the nucleus were much higher than in the cortex. The levels of the bound UV filters in cataract nuclei were much lower than those in age-matched normal lenses. 3-Hydroxykynurenine could not be detected in cataract lenses. As with normal lenses, protein-bound 3OHKG in cataract lenses was found at the highest levels followed by Kyn. Free UV filter concentrations were also markedly reduced in cataract lenses. This feature may well contribute to the lower protein-bound levels; …

Protein-Bound Uv Filters In Normal Human Lenses: The Concentration Of Bound Uv Filters Equals That Of Free Uv Filters In The Centre Of Older Lenses, Roger Truscott, Andrew Aquilina, Anastasia Korlimbinis

J. A. Aquilina

No abstract provided.

An Integrated Education Planning Model For Strategic Decisions Using System Dynamics, Mridula Sahay, Kuldeep Kumar

Kuldeep Kumar

Extract

Education has great social significance. No country can develop without providing quality education to their country man. As it plays a major role in improving economic opportunities for people and enhancing their quality of life by building capabilities, skill levels and providing more productive employment.

This paper aims to provide an integrated model for education planning combining all the levels of education (primary and junior school level, high school level, degree and PG level, professional level) for strategic decision using system dynamics methodology for educational growth.

Role Of Teaching Ethics In Higher Education, Sanjay Mishra, Kuldeep Kumar

Kuldeep Kumar

ExtractIn view of the increasing number of frauds, scandals and other malpractices being committed in various disciplines all over the world teaching of ethical values has become important to all students especially professional students. Targeting this in view many universities in Australia and the USA have made teaching of ethics as compulsory subject at the under graduate level. India is also following this lead and awareness of teaching ethics as a subject is gaining momentum. In this paper we have outlined how ethics can be taught as a compulsory subject as well as how we can incorporate teaching of ethical …

The Impact Of Fresh Produce Specifications On The Australian Food And Nutrition System: A Case Study Of The North Queensland Banana Industry, Amy White, Danielle Gallegos, Tor Hundloe

Tor Hundloe

Objective: To use the north Queensland banana industry as a case study to examine the extent to which cosmetic standards set by retailers influence the amount of edible waste generated on-farm and the effect of this on the sustainability of the Australian food and nutrition system.Design: Waste audits were performed on-farm at a banana packing shed to quantify the amount of fruit discarded due to cosmetic imperfections. These data, together with production records provided by the Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries and interviews with growers, were used to inform a nutritional analysis, a life cycle assessment and an economic …

Fishing For Sustainability: Will Your Grandchildren Have The Option To Eat Seafood?, Tor Hundloe, Julian Morison, Kate Brooks, Andrew Sullivan

Tor Hundloe

Many of the world’s fisheries are threatened by over-exploitation or fish kills from run-off of industrial, agricultural and urban pollutants. The latter tends to be localised; however, over 50 years ago the explorer Thor Heyendall discovered the unexpected in the middle of the vast Pacific Ocean in his ’Kon Tild’ expedition -- large globules of congealed pollutants. While the pollution of our rivers, seas and oceans has only taken on dramatic dimensions since the rapid industrialisation and human population growth of the twentieth century, over-fishing has known no boundaries for much longer. However, only in recent times have the consequences …

A Pipeline For Structured Light Bathymetric Mapping, Gabrielle Inglis, Clara Smart, J. Vaughn, Chris Roman

Christopher N. Roman

This paper details a methodology for using structured light laser imaging to create high resolution bathymetric maps of the sea floor. The system includes a pair of stereo cameras and an inclined 532nm sheet laser mounted to a remotely operated vehicle (ROV). While a structured light system generally requires a single camera, a stereo vision set up is used here for in-situ calibration of the laser system geometry by triangulating points on the laser line. This allows for quick calibration at the survey site and does not require precise jigs or a controlled environment. A batch procedure to extract the …

Trading Foreign Currency Using Artificial Neural Network Strategies, Bruce Vanstone, Gavin Finnie

Bruce Vanstone

The foreign exchange (FX) markets represent an enormous opportunity for traders. These markets have huge liquidity, trade 24 hours a day (except weekends), and allow the use of leverage. This paper takes a simple FX trading strategy and shows how to substantially improve it. using a neural network methodology originally developed by Vanstone & Finnie for creating and enhancing stockmarket trading systems. This result demonstrates the important role neural networks have to play within complex and noisy environments, such as tha provided by the intraday FX markets.

Mobile Technology Use In Medical Education, Rattiporn Luanrattana, Khin Than Win, John Fulcher, Donald Iverson

Don C. Iverson

This study was undertaken to determine the PDA functionalities for a problem-based learning (PBL) medical curriculum at the Graduate School of Medicine (GSM), the University of Wollongong (UOW). The study determines the factors/aspects of incorporating PDAs, and the attitudes of stakeholders regarding the use of PDAs in such a PBL-based medical curriculum. In-depth interviews were designed and conducted with medical faculty, the medical education technology team and honorary medical academics. Four major PDA functionalities were identified, these being: clinical-log, reference, communication, and general functions. Two major aspects for the incorporation of PDAs into the PBL-medical curriculum at the UOW were …

Domination And Independence On The Triangular Honeycomb Chessboard, Joe Demaio

Joe DeMaio

Index Factorised Image Adaptive Vector Quantisation, Jamshid Shanbehzadeh, Philip Ogunbona

Professor Philip Ogunbona

No abstract provided.

Face To Face Communications In Multiplayer Online Games: A Real-Time System, Ce Zhan, Wanqing Li, Farzad Safaei, Philip Ogunbona

Professor Philip Ogunbona

Multiplayer online games (MOG) bring HCI into a new era of human-human interactions in computer world. Although current MOG provide more interactivity and social interaction in the virtual world, natural facial expression as a key factor in emulating face to face communications has been neglected by game designers. In this work, we propose a real-time automatic system to recognize players’ facial expressions, so that the recognition results can be used to drive the MOG’s “facial expression engine” instead of “text commands”. Our major contributions are the evaluation, improvement and efficient implementation of existing algorithms to build a real-time system that …

Human Detection With Contour-Based Local Motion Binary Patterns, Duc Thanh Nguyen, Philip Ogunbona, Wanqing Li

Professor Philip Ogunbona

This paper presents a human detection method using contour- based local motion features. The local motion is encoded using a variant of the popular Local Binary Pattern (LBP) called Non-Redundant Local Binary Pattern (NRLBP) descriptor computed on the difference image of two consecutive frames. In addition, the local motion features are extracted along the human's boundary contour. Localising features on the contours has the advantage of utilizing a precise human shape description. A motivation of the proposed method is that most of informative movements are performed on boundary contours of the body parts, e.g. legs of pedestrians. Evaluation of the …

A Secure And Flexible Authentication System For Digital Images, Takeyuki Uehara, Reihaneh Safavi-Naini, Philip Ogunbona

Professor Philip Ogunbona

Authentication of image data is a challenging task. Unlike data authentication systems that detect a single bit change in the data, image authentication systems must remain tolerant to changes resulting from acceptable image processing or compression algorithms while detecting malicious tampering with the image. Tolerance to the changes due to lossy compression systems is particularly important because in the majority of cases images are stored and transmitted in compressed form, and so it is important for verification to succeed if the compression is within the allowable range. In this paper we consider an image authentication system that generates an authentication …

Performance Enhancement For Fuzzy Adaptive Resonance Theory (Art) Neural Networks, Golshah Naghdy, Jiazhao Wang, Philip Ogunbona

Professor Philip Ogunbona

A modified fuzzy adaptive resonance theory neural network (ART) is used as a classifier for a texture recognition system. The system consists of a wavelet based low level feature detector and a high level ART classifier. The performance improvement is measured in terms of identification accuracy and computational burden.

Index Compressed Tree-Structured Vector Quantisation, Jamshid Shanbehzadeh, Philip Ogunbona

Professor Philip Ogunbona

This paper introduces a novel coding scheme based on Tree-Structured Vector Quantisation (TSVQ) scheme for image compression. The genealogical relationship among the indices of the neighbouring blocks generated from vector quantisation is exploited to improve the coding performance of TSVQ. The proposed coding scheme provides about 3.5 dB improvement over the basic TSVQ scheme and outperforms VQ schemes with memory and JPEG coding standard at low bit-rates. In addition its performance is comparable with address VQ but with much less complexity.

Texture Analysis Using Gabor Wavelets, Golshah Naghdy, Jianli Wang, Philip Ogunbona

Professor Philip Ogunbona

Receptive field profiles of simple cells in the visual cortex have been shown to resemble even- symmetric or odd-symmetric Gabor filters. Computational models employed in the analysis of textures have been motivated by two-dimensional Gabor functions arranged in a multi-channel architecture. More recently wavelets have emerged as a powerful tool for non-stationary signal analysis capable of encoding scale-space information efficiently. A multi-resolution implementation in the form of a dyadic decomposition of the signal of interest has been popularized by many researchers. In this paper, Gabor wavelet configured in a 'rosette' fashion is used as a multi-channel filter-bank feature extractor for …

Coding Gain And Spatial Localisation Properties Of Discrete Wavelet Transform Filters For Image Coding, J Andrew, P Ogunbona, F Paoloni

Professor Philip Ogunbona

The authors consider coding gain and spatial localisation properties of DWT filters for still image compression. Using a JPEG type quantisation and encoding method several images are compressed using a DWT implemented using various two-band subband filter sets. It is concluded that a relatively high coding gain (relative to a highly correlated source) is necessary, but not sufficient, for good image coding performance. Further, it is observed that low spatial width filters are desirable, particularly in regard to reduced ringing distortion. In terms of the tradeoff between coding gain and spatial localisation, and in terms of actual coding performance, it …

Semi-Supervised Maximum A Posteriori Probability Segmentation Of Brain Tissues From Dual-Echo Magnetic Resonance Scans Using Incomplete Training Data, Wanqing Li, P Ogunbona, C Desilva, Y Attikiouzel

Professor Philip Ogunbona

This study presents a stochastic framework in which incomplete training data are used to boost the accuracy of segmentation and to optimise segmentation when images under consideration are corrupted by inhomogeneities. The authors propose a semi-supervised maximum a posteriori probability (ssMAP) segmentation method that is able to utilise any amount of training data that are usually insufficient for supervised segmentation. The ssMAP unifies supervised and unsupervised segmentation and takes the two as its special cases. To deal with inhomogeneities, the authors propose to incorporate a bias field into the ssMAP and present an algorithm (referred to as ssMAPe) for simultaneous …

Visual Information Processing And Content Management: An Overview, Philip Ogunbona

Professor Philip Ogunbona

Visual information processing and the management of visual content has become a significant part of contemporary economy. The visual information processing pipeline is divided into several modules including, (i) capture and enhancement, (ii) efficient representation for storage and transmission, (iii) processing for efficient and secure distribution, and, (iv) representation for efficient archiving and retrieval. Advances in semiconductor technology and optimum signal processing models and algorithms, provide tools to improve each module of the processing pipeline. Insight from other areas of study including psychology augments and informs the models being developed to understand and design efficient visual content management systems. The …

Index Compressed Image Adaptive Vector Quantisation, Jamshid Shanbehzadeh, Philip Ogunbona

Professor Philip Ogunbona

This paper introduces an improved image adaptive vector quantisation technique - index compressed image adaptive vector quantisation (IC-IAVQ). Despite its advantage over the universal codebook VQ, basic image adaptive VQ (IAVQ) is still suboptimum; it neglects the correlation among block indices in the encoded image. The new technique, IC-IAVQ, overcomes this suboptimality through a pre-processing and lossless compression of block indices. Simulation results using several images show that IC-IAVQ outperforms IAVQ and entropy coded IAVQ, especially at low bit-rates by about 2dB on average.

Human Motion Simulation And Action Corpus, Gang Zheng, Wanqing Li, Philip Ogunbona, Liju Dong, Igor Kharitonenko

Professor Philip Ogunbona

Acquisition of large scale good quality training samples is becoming a major issue in machine learning based human motion analysis. This paper presents a method to simulate continuous gross human body motion with the intention to establish a human motion corpus for learning and recognition. The simulation is achieved by a temporal-spatialtemporal decomposition of human motion into actions, joint actions and actionlets based on the human kinematic model. The actionlet models the primitive moving phase of a joint and represents the muscle movement governed by kinesiological principles. Joint actions and body actions are constructed from actionlets through constrained concatenation and …

Smoke Detection In Videos Using Non-Redundant Local Binary Pattern-Based Features, Hongda Tian, Wanqing Li, Philip Ogunbona, Duc Thanh Nguyen, Ce Zhan

Professor Philip Ogunbona

This paper presents a novel and low complexity method for real-time video-based smoke detection. As a local texture operator, Non-Redundant Local Binary Pattern (NRLBP) is more discriminative and robust to illumination changes in comparison with original Local Binary Pattern (LBP), thus is employed to encode the appearance information of smoke. Non-Redundant Local Motion Binary Pattern (NRLMBP), which is computed on the difference image of consecutive frames, is introduced to capture the motion information of smoke. Experimental results show that NRLBP outperforms the original LBP in the smoke detection task. Furthermore, the combination of NRLBP and NRLMBP, which can be considered …