Technological Achievements and Economic Development

Tariq Mahmood Ali 과학기술정책연구원 2017 STI Policy Review Vol.8 No.1

Although technological progress is considered a key element for economic growth and development of a country, strong empirical evidence in this regard is not available yet. Therefore, to establish the empirical link between technology progress and economic development, it is advisable to carry out a time series analysis. In this regard, the Technology Achievement Index (TAI) of 100 top economies has been developed to examine the position of countries’ technological progress for the 21 years spanning 1995 to 2015. Countries have been ranked on their TAI which is based on four pillars; technology creation, diffusion of older innovations, diffusion of recent innovations, and development of human skills. As well, this current study re-calculates the Humane Development Index (HDI) of 100 top economies for the 21 years from 1995 to 2015. Ranking of countries’ HDI values reflects three dimensions: A long lifespan (life expectancy index), knowledge (Education Index) and a decent standard of living (Gross National Income Index, or GNI). The Standard Deviation (SD) technique has been used to investigate the technological gap between individual countries and groups of countries or regions. For a more meaningful assessment, technological gaps from the maximum achievement value (i.e., one of the countries under study) are presented as well. To investigate the impact of technological progress on economic development, this study introduces a model in which the HDI is used as the dependent variable and the TAI and Gross Capital Formation (GCF) are used as independent variables. The HDI, TAI and GCF are used in this model as proxy variables for economic development, technological progress and capital respectively. Econometric techniques have been used to show the impact of technological progress on economic development. The results show that long-term associations exist between technology progress and economic development; the impact of technology progress on economic development is 13.2% while the impact is 4.3% higher in eight selected East South Asian countries, at 13.5%, than in eight selected highly developed countries (9.2%).

Image focus volume regularization for shape from focus through 3D weighted least squares

Ali, Usman,Pruks, Vitalii,Mahmood, Muhammad Tariq Elsevier science 2019 Information sciences Vol.489 No.-

<P><B>Abstract</B></P> <P>In shape from focus (SFF) methods, the accuracy of the depth map highly depends on the quality of image focus volume. Generally, a linear filtering or averaging using a 2D mask is applied on each slice of the focus volume to filter out the noisy focus measures. This approach may not provide optimal results due to the inherent problems associated with linear filtering. In this paper, the image focus volume is regularized by applying 3D weighted least squares (3D-WLS) approach that enhances the volume to better reconstruct the 3D shape. The weights for the regularization have been computed from the image sequence, and here image sequence acts like a structural prior and guidance volume. Such kind of guided filtering of focus volume has not been carried out earlier. 3D-WLS optimization problem has been solved in an efficient separable manner, such that the solution has been approximated by solving a sequence of 1D linear sub-problems. Sequentially for each dimension, a tridiagonal matrix is used to solve the three-point inhomogeneous Laplacian matrix. Experiments conducted on real and synthetic image sequences demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.</P>

CORRELATION BASED GUIDED DEPTH FILTERING IN SHAPE FROM FOCUS

Usman Ali,Muhammad Tariq Mahmood 한국통신학회 2020 한국통신학회 학술대회논문집 Vol.2020 No.8

In the literature, shape-from-focus (SFF) techniques do not consider any guidance information for depth enhancement. As a result, reconstructed depth map might not accurately contain the structures of the scene. In this letter, we suggest to apply guided image filtering for the enhancement of depth map in SFF. For this, a novel guidance map for SFF has been crafted that is based on the correlation among the image sequence and focus volume along the optical axis. When this guidance map is incorporated for the guided filtering of depth map, a remarkable improvement has been achieved in the quality of reconstructed depth maps.

Improving defocus blur measures using robust regularization

Usman Ali,Muhammad Tariq Mahmood 한국통신학회 2022 ICT Express Vol.8 No.3

This paper presents a robust regularization scheme for the enhancement of initial blur map in single image blur detection. The proposed technique considers the structural differences between guidance and initial blur map. Specifically, we propose to improve the initial blur map by optimizing a nonconvex energy function that jointly leverages structural information from guidance and blur map. Nonconvex problem is solved by majorize-minimize algorithm and an improved blur map is obtained that is adequately smooth and has better edge-preserving properties. Ultimately, this results into high-quality blur segmentation.

A Study of Aerosol Properties over Lahore (Pakistan) by Using AERONET Data

Muhammad Ali,Salman Tariq,Khalid Mahmood,Asim Daud,Adila Batool,Zia-ul-Haq 한국기상학회 2014 Asia-Pacific Journal of Atmospheric Sciences Vol.50 No.2

It is well established that aerosols affect the climate in avariety of ways. In order to understand these effects, we require aninsight into the properties of aerosols. In this paper we present a studyof aerosol properties such as aerosol optical depth (AOD), singlescattering albedo (SSA) and aerosol radiative forcing (ARF) overmega city of Lahore (Pakistan). The data from Aerosol Robotic Network(AERONET) have been used for the period December 2009 toOctober 2011. The seasonal average values of AOD, asymmetryparameter (ASY) and volume size distribution in coarse mode wereobserved to be highest in summer. On the other hand, the averagevalues of Angstrom exponent (AE) and imaginary part of refractiveindex (RI) were found to be maximum in winter. The average valueof real part of RI was found to be higher in spring than in all otherseasons. The SSA exhibited an increasing trend with wavelength inthe range 440 nm - 1020 nm in spring, summer and fall indicating thedominance of coarse particles (usually dust). However, a decreasingtrend was found in winter in the range 675 nm - 1020 nm pointingtowards the dominance of biomass and urban/industrial aerosols. Asfar as aerosol radiative forcing (ARF) is concerned, we have foundthat during the spring season ARF was lowest at the surface of Earthand highest at top of the atmosphere (TOA). This indicates that theatmosphere was warmer in spring than in all the remaining seasons.

IMAGE FOCUS VOLUME REGULARIZATION THROUGH 3D WEIGHTED LEAST SQUARES IN SHAPE FROM FOCUS

Usman Ali,Muhammad Tariq Mahmood 한국통신학회 2019 한국통신학회 학술대회논문집 Vol.2019 No.6

In shape from focus (SFF) methods, the quality of image focus volume highly affects the accuracy of reconstructed depth map. Traditionally, linear filtering in 2D is applied on the image focus volume to filter out the noisy focus values. However, while trying to rectify the noisy focus measurements, this technique also modifies the accurate focus measurements. Therefore, in this paper, we propose to enhance the image focus volume by applying 3-dimensional weighted least squares (3D-WLS) based regularization scheme. Further, we suggest to compute weights from the image sequence, and thus image sequence acts like a structural prior and guidance volume. The solution of 3D-WLS optimization problem has been approximated by solving a sequence of 1D linear sub-problems. Experimental results of synthetic and real image sequences demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.

FUZZY INTERIOR $\Gamma$-IDEALS IN ORDERED $\Gamma$-SEMIGROUPS

Khan, Asghar,Mahmood, Tariq,Ali, M. Irfan The Korean Society for Computational and Applied M 2010 Journal of applied mathematics & informatics Vol.28 No.5

In this paper we define fuzzy interior $\Gamma$-ideals in ordered $\Gamma$-semigroups. We prove that in regular(resp. intra-regular) ordered $\Gamma$-semigroups the concepts of fuzzy interior $\Gamma$-ideals and fuzzy $\Gamma$-ideals coincide. We prove that an ordered $\Gamma$-semigroup is fuzzy simple if and only if every fuzzy interior $\Gamma$-ideal is a constant function. We characterize intra-regular ordered $\Gamma$-semigroups in terms of interior (resp. fuzzy interior) $\Gamma$-ideals.

FUZZY INTERIOR Г-IDEALS IN ORDERED Г-SEMIGROUPS

Asghar Khan,Tariq Mahmood,M. Irfan Ali 한국전산응용수학회 2010 Journal of applied mathematics & informatics Vol.28 No.5

In this paper we de¯ne fuzzy interior Г-ideals in ordered Г-semigroups. We prove that in regular(resp. intra-regular) ordered Г-semigroups the concepts of fuzzy interior Г-ideals and fuzzy Г-ideals coincide. We prove that an ordered Г-semigroup is fuzzy simple if and only if every fuzzy interior Г-ideal is a constant function. We characterize intraregular ordered Г-semigroups in terms of interior (resp. fuzzy interior)Г-ideals.

Carbamoyl Phosphate Synthase Subunit CgCPS1 Is Necessary for Virulence and to Regulate Stress Tolerance in Colletotrichum gloeosporioides

Aamar Mushtaq,Muhammad Tariq,Maqsood Ahmed,Zongshan Zhou,Imran Ali,Raja Tahir Mahmood 한국식물병리학회 2021 Plant Pathology Journal Vol.37 No.3

Glomerella leaf spot (GLS) is a severe infectious dis- ease of apple whose infective area is growing gradually and thus poses a huge economic threat to the world. Different species of Colletotrichum including Colleto- trichum gloeosporioides are responsible for GLS. For efficient GLS control, it is important to understand the mechanism by which the cruciferous crops and C. gloeosporioides interact. Arginine is among one of the several types of amino acids, which plays crucial role in biochemical and physiological functions of fungi. The arginine biosynthesis pathway involved in virulence among plant pathogenic fungi is poorly understood. In this study, CgCPS1 gene encoding carbamoyl phos- phate synthase involved in arginine biosynthesis has been identified and inactivated experimentally. To as- sess the effects of CgCPS1, we knocked out CgCPS1 in C. gloeosporioides and evaluated its effects on virulence and stress tolerance. The results showed that deletion of CgCPS1 resulted in loss of pathogenicity. The Δcgcps1 mutants showed slow growth rate, defects in appres- sorium formation and failed to develop lesions on apple leaves and fruits leading to loss of virulence while complementation strain (CgCPS1-C) fully restored its pathogenicity. Furthermore, mutant strains showed extreme sensitivity to high osmotic stress displaying that CgCPS1 plays a vital role in stress response. These findings suggest that CgCPS1 is major factor that me- diates pathogenicity in C. gloeosporioides by encoding carbamoyl phosphate that is involved in arginine bio- synthesis and conferring virulence in C. gloeosporioides.

Fall detection through acoustic Local Ternary Patterns

Adnan, Syed M.,Irtaza, Aun,Aziz, Sumair,Ullah, M. Obaid,Javed, Ali,Mahmood, Muhammad Tariq Elsevier 2018 Applied acoustics Vol.140 No.-

<P><B>Abstract</B></P> <P>In this paper, we propose a framework that detects falls by using acoustic Local Ternary Patterns (acoustic-LTPs) by analyzing environmental sounds. The proposed method suppresses silence zones in sound signals and distinguishes overlapping sounds. Acoustic features are extracted from the Separated source components by using the proposed acoustic-LTPs. Subsequently, fall events are detected through a support vector machine (SVM) based classifier. The performance of the proposed descriptor is evaluated against state-of-the-art methods that are applied on well-known sound databases. A comparative analysis demonstrates that the proposed descriptor is more powerful and reliable in terms of fall detection than other methods, and it also performs well in a multi-class environment. Moreover, the proposed descriptor possesses a rotation invariant property, and therefore, it demonstrates significant resistance against the rotated sound signals.</P>