A Study for Visual Realism of Designed Pictures on Computer Screens by Investigation and Brain-Wave Analyses.

In this article, the visual realism of designed pictures on computer screens is studied by investigation and brain-wave analyses. The practical electroencephalogram (EEG) measurement is always time-varying and fluctuating so that conventional statistical techniques are not adequate for analyses. This study proposes a new scheme based on "fingerprinting" to analyze the EEG. Fingerprinting is a technique of probabilistic pattern recognition used in electrical engineering, very like the identification of human fingerprinting in a criminal investigation. The goal of this study was to assess whether subjective preference for pictures could be manifested physiologically by EEG fingerprinting analyses. The most important advantage of the fingerprinting technique is that it does not require accurate measurement. Instead, it uses probabilistic classification. Participants' preference for pictures can be assessed using fingerprinting analyses of physiological EEG measurements.

Implications of biomass pretreatment to cost and carbon emissions: case study of rice straw and Pennisetum in Taiwan.

The purpose of this study was to explore the impact of feedstock collection and torrefaction pretreatment on the efficiency of a biomass co-firing system. Considering the transformation of existing municipal solid waste incinerators, several scenarios in which biomass supply chains depend on centralised pretreatment and transportation alternatives are presented. The cost, net energy output, and greenhouse gas effects of these scenarios were analysed using a spreadsheet model. Based on the Taoyuan County case in Taiwan, the mitigation costs of carbon emissions for rice straw and Pennisetum are 77.0 $/Mg CO(2) and 63.8 $/Mg CO(2), respectively. Results indicate that transporting feedstock from its source to the pretreatment and co-firing stations contributes the most to logistical costs for both straw and Pennisetum, regardless of whether torrefaction was adopted. Nonetheless, torrefaction requires more demonstrated cases at various scales to obtain the technical and economic data required for further analysis.