Assessing the occupational risk of dust particles in the Kenyan tanning industry using rapid image processing and microscopy techniques

The purpose of this study was to investigate the occupational hazards within the tanning industry caused by contaminated dust. A qualitative assessment of the risk of human exposure to dust was made throughout a commercial Kenyan tannery. Using this information, high-risk points in the processing line were identified and dust sampling regimes developed. An optical set-up using microscopy and digital imaging techniques was used to determine dust particle numbers and size distributions. The results showed that chemical handling was the most hazardous (12 mg m(-3)). A Monte Carlo method was used to estimate the concentration of the dust in the air throughout the tannery during an 8 h working day. This showed that the high-risk area of the tannery was associated with mean concentrations of dust greater than the UK Statutory Instrument 2002 No. 2677. stipulated limits (exceeding 10 mg m(-3) (Inhalable dust limits) and 4 mg m(-3) (Respirable dust limits). This therefore has implications in terms of provision of personal protective equipment (PPE) to the tannery workers for the mitigation of occupational risk.

BIT-LEVEL SYSTOLIC ARRAYS FOR SIGNAL AND IMAGE PROCESSING.

This paper describes the design and the architecture of a bit-level systolic array processor. The bit-level systolic array described is directly applicable to a wide range of image processing operations where high performance and throughput are essential. The architecture is illustrated by describing the operation of the correlator and convolver chips which are being developed. The advantage of the system is also discussed.

VLSI architectures for digital image coding

A number of high-performance VLSI architectures for real-time image coding applications are described. In particular, attention is focused on circuits for computing the 2-D DCT (discrete cosine transform) and for 2-D vector quantization. The former circuits are based on Winograd algorithms and comprise a number of bit-level systolic arrays with a bit-serial, word-parallel input. The latter circuits exhibit a similar data organization and consist of a number of inner product array circuits. Both circuits are highly regular and allow extremely high data rates to be achieved through extensive use of parallelism.

Architectural synthesis of an image processing algorithm using IRIS

Details are presented of the IRIS synthesis system for high-performance digital signal processing. This tool allows non-specialists to automatically derive VLSI circuit architectures from high-level, algorithmic representations, and provides a quick route to silicon implementation. The applicability of the system is demonstrated using the design example of a one-dimensional Discrete Cosine Transform circuit.

Programmable image processing chip

A new high performance, programmable image processing chip targeted at video and HDTV applications is described. This was initially developed for image small object recognition but has much broader functional application including 1D and 2D FIR filtering as well as neural network computation. The core of the circuit is made up of an array of twenty one multiplication-accumulation cells based on systolic architecture. Devices can be cascaded to increase the order of the filter both vertically and horizontally. The chip has been fabricated in a 0.6 µ, low power CMOS technology and operates on 10 bit input data at over 54 Megasamples per second. The introduction gives some background to the chip design and highlights that there are few other comparable devices. Section 2 gives a brief introduction to small object detection. The chip architecture and the chip design will be described in detail in the later sections.

‘Facing the Fact: Word and Image in Muriel Rukeyser’s “Worlds Alongside”’

This essay explores an example of a little-known, yet highly significant part of Rukeyser’s early oeuvre: the magazine photo-narrative. Profoundly engaged with the documentary expression of the 1930s, Rukeyser utilised the genre’s methods, aesthetics and images to create a hybrid text reporting the realities of the Depression in lyrical, imaginative terms. The result is a conflation of what Rukeyser understood to constitute poetry, and therefore life: the document and the unverifiable fact, presented in an innovative format that is shaped by Rukeyser’s ethical poetics of connection to construct lessons in creative exchange and being in the world.