Ever heard of copyright protection in videos? Ever seen how mirrors can be cut on an industrial scale? Interested in a home system that dims the lights, shuts the blinds and switches on your TV set on the right channel automatically as you sit on your sofa?
These are just three ideas on exhibition in the University of Malta Final Year Engineering Projects Exhibition and the Information Technology Projects Exhibition which open on Wednesday and which are being held under the patronage of Education, Youth and Employment Minister Louis Galea.
Each year the Faculty of Engineering and the Board of Studies of IT open their doors to engineers, ICT specialists, industry, prospective students, parents, and to the general public to display the projects carried out by the final year students under the supervision of the academic staff of the University of Malta.
Some of the most interesting projects are being published for the first time in The Sunday Times.
The projects will be exhibited in the respective faculty laboratories, where the students have worked during the design and development of the project. Professor Ing. Paul Micallef is chairman of the B.Sc. IT (Hons) Final Year Projects Exhibition Organising Committee and Dr Ing. Carl James Debono is the chairman of the Engineering Exhibition Committee.
Dr Ing. Debono says the engineering projects cover a thrilling and wide range of engineering disciplines, ranging from computer simulations to test jig implementations. The ICT projects cover inventive applications to business software, signal processing, e-commerce and wireless networking. Visitors to the exhibition may appreciate the state-of-the-art techniques applied in various engineering and ICT fields and comprehend the amount of effort the students place in their project.
Younger students can get an insight into the stimulating worlds of engineering and ICT, and possibly be encouraged to start a career in one of these fields.
The exhibitions will be open to the public on Friday and Saturday between 5 and 8 p.m. The Final Year Engineering Projects Exhibition can also be visited on Saturday between 9 a.m. and 12.30 p.m..
For more information visit the University of Malta Website at www.eng.um.edu.mt/ exhibition2007 and www.home.um. edu.mt/bosit/exhibition2007.
Watermarking video streams
Project title: Real Time Watermarking in MPEG-2 DVB Transport
Student: Vincent Rapa, Faculty of Engineering, Communications and Computer Engineering Department.
With the evolution of digital multimedia technologies, content owners require new forms of copyright protection for digital images, audio and video, particularly since multimedia duplication does not result in the degradation of quality suffered by analog media. Based on the traditional process of watermarking and exploiting the properties of digital multimedia, watermarked multimedia protects copyright, discourages counterfeiting and attests ownership.
To this end, an invisible, robust and secure watermark is embedded into the multimedia while maintaining the quality of source data. While the mere presence of a watermark is a deterrent, it should still be impossible to destroy the embedded watermark without corrupting the source data, rendering the multimedia unusable.
The aim of this project by Mr Rapa was to present a classification of the current watermarking technologies and implement a robust video watermarking scheme as a copyright protection system for Melita Cable plc. This project can provide copyright protection and can also be used in Video-On-Demand (VOD) and Pay-Per-View (PPV) systems which are expected to be offered in Malta in the coming years.
Back to strength
Project title: Upgrading the Hounsfield tensometer
Student: Ryan Curmi, Faculty of Engineering, Department of Mechanical Engineering
Around 1963, the Department of Mechanical Engineering acquired a small yet versatile materials testing machine known as the Hounsfield Tensometer. This machine is capable of performing tensile tests and various other tests to determine several mechanical properties of engineering materials, such as material strength. The way information was acquired on the original machine was completely manual, thus leading to loss of accuracy. Through this project, the Hounsfield Tensometer was to be revived by computerising the machine, allowing it to be used like any other modern materials testing machine.
"I have always been interested in how any object works, and how things are designed and constructed," reveals Mr Curmi. "This has led me into mechanical engineering, where through my final year project I was involved in many aspects of engineering, both theoretical and hands-on."
Initially the Hounsfield Tensometer was fully refurbished as it was left unused for several years. Some simple tests were carried out using the machine to familiarise the users with the manual data recording systems available before dismantling any obsolete recording devices.
Computer's warning on appendicitis
Project title: Computer-assisted diagnosis of acute appendicitis
Student: Amanda Abela, Faculty of Engineering, Department of Electronic Systems Engineering
According to the literature, experienced clinicians accurately diagnose acute appendicitis approximately 75-80 per cent of the time. A medical expert system designed to assist the physician to diagnose appendicitis may improve this rate.
The objective of this project was to investigate the performance of various intelligent algorithms in suitably diagnosing appendicitis based on various signs and symptoms. One method used by physicians to diagnose appendicitis is based on the Alvarado score which is obtained by combining various signs and symptoms, such as anorexia and nausea. The intelligent classifiers which were designed and studied in this work were provided with either this Alvarado score or its component signs and symptoms. Data on 63 appendicitis cases were collected of which 32 had been diagnosed with acute appendicitis and 31 with non-specific abdominal pain.
In conclusion, these results show that intelligent classifiers have the potential to detect appendicitis and possibly assist physicians in the diagnosis. Further work will be concerned with a more detailed analysis of these results, seeking new methods to improve the diagnosis performance, and the development of controlled clinical trials.
A virtual touch
Project title: Using computers to convey force sensations in virtual reality
Student: Andrew Zammit Mangion, Faculty of Engineering, Department of Electrical Power and Control Engineering
The sensory systems in the human hand and arm are a fundamental component in a person's capability to be aware of his surrounding environment. Many times taken for granted, the sense of touch is essential for performing even simple tasks, such as holding a pen. Moreover, it can be vital to the success of a complex operation such as surgery.
The word "haptics" finds its roots in the Greek word haptesthai which means to touch. The term today refers to a widespread area of research on how bodily movement and tactile sensations can be manipulated to augment the environmental awareness of the operator handling a mechanical device.
One application of a haptic device is to increase the realism in virtual reality. Surgery training, aircraft and automobile simulators are just a few places where one can expect to find one of these devices.
Two prototypes were built on which haptics could be demonstrated - a joystick operating in one axis and a robotic arm operating in two dimensions, both driven by DC motors. Selected virtual environments consisting of soft and stiff objects, each with their own mechanical impedance properties were created and felt by the user manipulating the device.
Mr Zammit Mangion has been chosen to attend the CERN Summer Student Programme with two other Maltese university students, Luana Micallef and André Xuereb. CERN is the European Organisation for Nuclear Research, the world's largest particle physics centre and the birthplace of the World Wide Web.
Mind your language
Project title: Structured Test Definition Language
Student: Neville Grech, Faculty of Science, Department of Computer Science and AI
Software testing is an expanding field in software development. Nowadays estimates suggest that 50 per cent of the resources are spent on software testing. The domain of software testing is still heavily under development and this project addresses some of the current issues in software testing.
STDL (Structured test description language) is a domain-specific language, written to aid software companies in testing their systems. This project comes with "batteries included", that is, it can be used in an existing development environment "as is".
STDL can be used on a variety of platforms (including Windows) and with a variety of languages (including C+.NET).
STDL was thoroughly tested in an industrial environment at Uniblue Systems Ltd. It aided improving the quality of one of the current projects.
Productivity gains in terms of software testing of about 300 per cent have been recorded when compared to existing software testing systems. Also, a number of defects have been spotted that would otherwise make it into production.
"I will certainly not abandon further development on this project," is Mr Grech's promise. "I might open STDL to the community so that I contribute back to open source software. I plan on further improving my skills while working in the industry and at the same time contributing to other open source projects. I believe that we should be more aware of this cooperative approach to the software industry."
Real testing of virtual machines
Project title: Load Performance Testing in Virtual Environment
Student: Tracy Sillato, Faculty of Science, Informatics Stream
Managers base the future of their companies on several IT applications because they trust their functionality. In order to provide such a confirmation, testing must be made. Load performance testing is done by creating a load, for example a large number of virtual users accessing a Web application or a mass of queries on a database, in order to assess whether the application can actually continue working properly during such cases.
"The data analysis regarding 'Load Performance Testing in a Virtual Environment' is not only a very fresh subject but also very challenging," Ms Sillato told The Sunday Times. "During my B.Sc. IT course I always had testing and quality assurance on my favourite topics list."
Lately a new type of technology is rising in popularity: virtualisation. This is a technique used to create a running machine or more with their own operating system on the actual physical machine. This is useful to have an efficient share of resources, among other benefits.
The functionality of a virtual machine (VM) is quite similar to that of a physical machine, however one asks whether load performance testing on a VM actually gives the same result as when performed on a real environment. The analysis revealed that the virtualisation software affected the results, whether it was Virtual PC or VM Ware when measuring the various different metrics - these being memory, processor, disk and also the response time during the transactions.
In top gear
Project title: Testing of Austempered Ductile Iron Gears
Student: Chris Zammit, Faculty of Engineering, Department of Metallurgy and Materials Engineering
High power gears are traditionally manufactured from low carbon steel which is then carburised and heat treated. This offers a tough core and hard wear resistant case with improved fatigue properties.
This process however requires high temperature and energy consumption and is thus associated with problems of high cost and distortion during heat treatment.
For the requirements of the dissertation, a number of cast iron gears were machined and treated differently to vary the microstructure and as a consequence vary the mechanical properties. A set of steel gears, identical to those already being used in industry, were also produced for comparative reasons.
Gears were tested in a back-to-back manner on a testing rig built specifically for this thesis. The rig is able to subject the ADI (austempered ductile iron) gears to similar contact pressures and the high revs any automobile gear wheel is subject to.
The rig constructed features the concept of mechanical power circulation, in which the torque given to load the gears is circulated in a closed loop such that the motor driving the rig has to compensate only for frictional loses and others but not to counteract the torque loading the gears.
A SmartHome@Malta
Project title: Intrusion Detection and Localisation in Wireless ad hoc networks
Student: Etienne Sammut, Faculty of Science, Computer Systems Engineering Stream
The project is related to the emerging field of wireless ad hoc networks. These types of networks are different from the traditional infrastructural networks used at homes and work places. Ad hoc networks are commonly found in environments where persons wish to quickly share information and data acquisition operations. Some typical environments are battlefields, emergency rescues and mobile conferencing.
In ad hoc networks, there exists no central authority which takes care of routing data packets to the destination node, thus each node in the network has to be equipped with routing facilities to propagate packets to the destination node. This makes them more prone to attacks.
The task included designing a malicious attack, designing an intrusion system, and testing the system. The results achieved were comparable to results found in literature.
"One of the areas that I am interested in is setting up smart home systems," reveals Mr Sammut. "Having achieved good results in the localisation process, the next step is to integrate the localisation process in a smart home system, which would use the current location of the person either to turn off the lights or to turn on the TV, etc. Thus when one arrives home after a busy day at work, he/she just sits down on the sofa while lights are dimmed, blinds shut, and TV or radio turned on, on his/her favourite channel, automatically."
Mirror mirror on the... err... conveyor belt!
Project title: Design of a Universal Mirror Cutting Disassembly System
Student: Cathryn Xuereb, Faculty of Engineering, Department of Manufacturing Engineering
"I have always been interested in automation, manufacturing and industrial design. Consequently I selected an industry-based design project as my final year thesis," reveals Ms Xuereb.
Her industrial design project, sponsored by Toly Products Malta (Ltd), focused mainly on the mirror releasing system.
Within the mirror department, round mirrors are scribed onto rectangular mirror strips. These round mirrors are then manually separated from the surrounding excess edges. The aim of this project was to automate this process for different sized mirrors.
Two prototypes were built and tested while the remaining concepts for the other subsystems, such as input loading, grooving and output storage, were simulated using computer programs.
The first releasing concept consisted of a Pneumatic Press System. This separated the unwanted edges from the round mirrors by the application of a sudden downward force through the action of a pneumatically actuated press. The second concept comprised of an Inclined Conveyor Belt System.
The Pneumatic Press System was the most successful with respect to the quality of the released mirrors as it resulted in a defect-free solution. The Inclined Conveyor Belt System was superior with respect to releasing rate and overall was a simpler design. It did however create small defects around the circumference of the mirrors.