Evidential Fusion for Gender Profiling

Gender profiling is a fundamental task that helps CCTV systems to
provide better service for intelligent surveillance. Since subjects being detected
by CCTVs are not always cooperative, a few profiling algorithms are proposed
to deal with situations when faces of subjects are not available, among which
the most common approach is to analyze subjects’ body shape information. In
addition, there are some drawbacks for normal profiling algorithms considered
in real applications. First, the profiling result is always uncertain. Second, for a
time-lasting gender profiling algorithm, the result is not stable. The degree of
certainty usually varies, sometimes even to the extent that a male is classified
as a female, and vice versa. These facets are studied in a recent paper [16] using
Dempster-Shafer theory. In particular, Denoeux’s cautious rule is applied for
fusion mass functions through time lines. However, this paper points out that if
severe mis-classification is happened at the beginning of the time line, the result
of applying Denoeux’s rule could be disastrous. To remedy this weakness,
in this paper, we propose two generalizations to the DS approach proposed in
[16] that incorporates time-window and time-attenuation, respectively, in applying
Denoeux’s rule along with time lines, for which the DS approach is a special
case. Experiments show that these two generalizations do provide better results
than their predecessor when mis-classifications happen.

Rapid, simple method for determining the porosity of mesoporous TiO2 films using a quartz crystal microbalance (QCM)

Two different mesoporous films of TiO2 were coated onto a QCM disc and fired at 450o C for 30 min. The first film was derived from a sol-gel paste that was popular in the early days of dye-sensitised solar cell, i.e. dssc, research, a TiO2(sg) film. The other was a commercial colloidal paste used to make examples of the current dssc cell; a TiO2(ds) film. A QCM was used to determine the mass of the TiO2 film deposited on each disc and the increase in the mass of the film when immersed in water/glycerol solutions with wt% values spanning the range 0-70%. The results of this work reveal that with both TiO2 mesoporous films the solution fills the film's pores and acts as a rigid mass, thereby allowing the porosity of each film to be calculated as: 59.1% and 71.6% for the TiO2(sg) and TiO2(ds) films, respectively. These results, coupled with surface area data, allowed the pore radii of the two films to be calculated as: 9.6 and 17.8 nm, respectively. This method is then simplified further, to just a few frequency measurements in water and only air to reveal the same porosity values. The value of the latter ‘one point’ method for making porosity measurements is discussed briefly.