Several image mosaicing algorithms claiming to advance the state of the art have been proposed so far. Though sometimes improvements can be recognised without quantitative evidences, the importance of a principled methodology to compare different algorithms is essential as this discipline evolves. Which is the best? What means the best? How to ascertain the supremacy? To answer such questions, ...

The present study investigated the significance of mobile learning (m-learning) of English vocabulary items through a traditional contrasted with a blended method of content representation. To achieve the goals, sixty semi-illiterate adults were evaluated for their knowledge of the English alphabet and then randomly placed in two groups: traditional (G1) and the blended group (G2). Next, they w...

The art of cryptography is considered to be born along with the art of writing. As civilizations evolved, human beings got organized in tribes, groups, and kingdoms. This led to the emergence of ideas such as power, battles, supremacy, and politics. These ideas further fueled the natural need of people to communicate secretly with selective recipient which in turn ensured the continuous evoluti...

The "law and finance theory" predicts that the common law system provides the best basis for financial development and economic growth, followed by Scandinavian and German origin civil law and finally French origin civil law. Referring to a number of sceptical views, this paper argues that the theory faces an identification problem, since the majority of common law countries have a market-based...

Mining for coal and its utilization have various impacts on the surrounding environment. Huge volumes of waste materials which are by-products of both the underground and open cast coal mining, pose one of the major environmental hazards in addition to air pollution caused by coal burning in power plants in the Czech Republic. Some of these risks could be reduced when having accurate and compre...

The Clean Coal Technology Demonstration Program (CCTDP) is a government and industry co-funded effort to demonstrate a new generation of innovative coal utilization processes in a series of facilities built across the country. These projects are carried out on a commercial scale to prove technical feasibility and provide information for future applications. The goal of the CCTDP is to furnish t...

In this study, an extraction method and environmental scanning electron microscopy (SEM) are employed to reveal the changes in the occurrence mode of fluorine in a coal-fired power plant in Inner Mongolia, China. The different occurrence states of fluorine during coal combustion and emission show that fluorine in coal mainly assumes insoluble inorganic mineral forms. The results illustrate that...