Search results for: Average Mean Distance function

Authors: G. Zahedi, H. Yaghoobi

Abstract:

Modeling of a heterogeneous industrial fixed bed reactor for selective dehydrogenation of heavy paraffin with Pt-Sn- Al2O3 catalyst has been the subject of current study. By applying mass balance, momentum balance for appropriate element of reactor and using pressure drop, rate and deactivation equations, a detailed model of the reactor has been obtained. Mass balance equations have been written for five different components. In order to estimate reactor production by the passage of time, the reactor model which is a set of partial differential equations, ordinary differential equations and algebraic equations has been solved numerically. Paraffins, olefins, dienes, aromatics and hydrogen mole percent as a function of time and reactor radius have been found by numerical solution of the model. Results of model have been compared with industrial reactor data at different operation times. The comparison successfully confirms validity of proposed model.

Keywords: Dehydrogenation, fixed bed reactor, modeling, linear alkyl benzene.

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Authors: José M. Merigó, Pilar López-Jurado, M.Carmen Gracia, Montserrat Casanovas

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We present a method for the selection of students in interdisciplinary studies based on the hybrid averaging operator. We assume that the available information given in the problem is uncertain so it is necessary to use interval numbers. Therefore, we suggest a new type of hybrid aggregation called uncertain induced generalized hybrid averaging (UIGHA) operator. It is an aggregation operator that considers the weighted average (WA) and the ordered weighted averaging (OWA) operator in the same formulation. Therefore, we are able to consider the degree of optimism of the decision maker and grades of importance in the same approach. By using interval numbers, we are able to represent the information considering the best and worst possible results so the decision maker gets a more complete view of the decision problem. We develop an illustrative example of the proposed scheme in the selection of students in interdisciplinary studies. We see that with the use of the UIGHA operator we get a more complete representation of the selection problem. Then, the decision maker is able to consider a wide range of alternatives depending on his interests. We also show other potential applications that could be used by using the UIGHA operator in educational problems about selection of different types of resources such as students, professors, etc.

Keywords: Decision making, Selection of students, Uncertainty, Aggregation operators.

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Authors: M. Polanský

Abstract:

This paper introduces a new method called ARPDC (Advanced Robust Parallel Distributed Compensation) for automatic control of nonlinear systems. This method improves a quality of robust control by interpolating of robust and optimal controller. The weight of each controller is determined by an original criteria function for model validity and disturbance appreciation. ARPDC method is based on nonlinear Takagi-Sugeno (T-S) fuzzy systems and Parallel Distributed Compensation (PDC) control scheme. The relaxed stability conditions of ARPDC control of nominal system have been derived. The advantages of presented method are demonstrated on the inverse pendulum benchmark problem. From comparison between three different controllers (robust, optimal and ARPDC) follows, that ARPDC control is almost optimal with the robustness close to the robust controller. The results indicate that ARPDC algorithm can be a good alternative not only for a robust control, but in some cases also to an adaptive control of nonlinear systems.

Keywords: Robust control, optimal control, Takagi–Sugeno (TS) fuzzy models, linear matrix inequality (LMI), observer, Advanced Robust Parallel Distributed Compensation (ARPDC).

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Authors: S. Mohajer, R. M. Taha, M. Adel

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Developing our knowledge of when pineapple roots grow can lead to improved water, fertilizer applications, and more precise culture management. This paper presents current understanding of morphological traits in pineapple roots, highlighting studies using incubation periods and various solid MS media treated with different sucrose concentrations and pH, which directly assess in vitro environmental factors. Rooting parameters had different optimal sucrose concentrations and incubation periods. All shoots failed to root in medium supplemented with sucrose at 5 g/L and no roots formed within the first 45 days in medium enriched with sucrose at 10 g/L. After 75 days, all shoots rooted in medium enriched with 10 and 20 g/L sucrose. Moreover, MS medium supplied with 20 g/L sucrose resulted in the longest and the highest number of roots with 27.3 mm and 4.7, respectively. Root function, such as capacity for P and N uptake, declined rapidly with root length. As a result, the longer the incubation period, the better the rooting responses would be.

Keywords: Environmental factors, in vitro rooting, pineapple, tissue culture.

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Authors: Mak Kaboudan

Abstract:

A multi-agent system is developed here to predict monthly details of the upcoming peak of the 24th solar magnetic cycle. While studies typically predict the timing and magnitude of cycle peaks using annual data, this one utilizes the unsmoothed monthly sunspot number instead. Monthly numbers display more pronounced fluctuations during periods of strong solar magnetic activity than the annual sunspot numbers. Because strong magnetic activities may cause significant economic damages, predicting monthly variations should provide different and perhaps helpful information for decision-making purposes. The multi-agent system developed here operates in two stages. In the first, it produces twelve predictions of the monthly numbers. In the second, it uses those predictions to deliver a final forecast. Acting as expert agents, genetic programming and neural networks produce the twelve fits and forecasts as well as the final forecast. According to the results obtained, the next peak is predicted to be 156 and is expected to occur in October 2011- with an average of 136 for that year.

Keywords: Computational techniques, discrete wavelet transformations, solar cycle prediction, sunspot numbers.

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Authors: K. Mahmoud, T. Shalahmetova, Sh. Deraz

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The objective of the present study was to examine the dose-response relationships between antioxidant parameters and liver contaminant levels of Kazakhstan light crude oil (KLCO) in albino rats. The animals were repeatedly exposed, by intraperitoneal injection, to low dosages (0.5–1.5 ml/kg) of KLCO. Rats exposed to these doses levels did not show any apparent symptoms of intoxication. Serum aminotransferases increased significantly (p<0.05) while after 8-d recovered to control level. hepatic superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity significantly increased after 1 and 3-d except with 0.5 ml while with increased exposure time it deceased insignificantly after 5-d and significantly after 8-d. Dose and time-dependent increases were observed in the levels of hepatic glutathione-S-transeferase (GST) and conjugated diene (CD) while malondialdehyde (MDA) was evolved after 8 with the dose of 1.5 ml. the data obtained indicate impaired liver function in the rats intoxicated with KLCO as manifested by elevated liver enzymes.

Keywords: Crude oil; superoxide dismutase, glutathione-Stranseferase, malondialdehyde, conjugated diene, aminotransferases.

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Authors: Reza Sedaghati

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Given the increasing energy demand in the world as well as limited fossil energy fuel resources, it is necessary to use renewable energy resources more than ever. Developing a hybrid energy system is suggested to overcome the intermittence of renewable energy resources such as sun and wind, in which the excess electrical energy can be converted and stored. While these resources store the energy, they can provide a more reliable system that is really suitable for off-grid applications. In hybrid systems, a methodology for optimal sizing of power generation systems components is of great importance in terms of economic aspects and efficiency. In this study, a hybrid energy system is designed to supply an off-grid sample load pattern with the aim of supplying necessary energy and minimizing the total production cost throughout the system life as well as increasing the reliability. For this purpose, the optimal size and the cost function of these resources is determined and minimized using evolutionary algorithms and system efficiency is studied with real-time load and meteorological information of Kazerun, a city in southern Iran under different conditions.

Keywords: Hybrid energy system, intelligent method, optimal size, minimal.

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Authors: Sudeshna Bhattacharya, Pratyush Pandey, Pradeep Kumar K

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We propose a decoy-pulse protocol for frequency-coded implementation of B92 quantum key distribution protocol. A direct extension of decoy-pulse method to frequency-coding scheme results in security loss as an eavesdropper can distinguish between signal and decoy pulses by measuring the carrier photon number without affecting other statistics. We overcome this problem by optimizing the ratio of carrier photon number of decoy-to-signal pulse to be as close to unity as possible. In our method the switching between signal and decoy pulses is achieved by changing the amplitude of RF signal as opposed to modulating the intensity of optical signal thus reducing system cost. We find an improvement by a factor of 100 approximately in the key generation rate using decoy-state protocol. We also study the effect of source fluctuation on key rate. Our simulation results show a key generation rate of 1.5×10-4/pulse for link lengths up to 70km. Finally, we discuss the optimum value of average photon number of signal pulse for a given key rate while also optimizing the carrier ratio.

Keywords: B92, decoy-pulse, frequency-coding, quantum key distribution.

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Authors: Bokyung Sung, Kwanghyo Koo, Jungsoo Kim, Myung-Bum Jung, Jinman Kwon, Ilju Ko

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In this paper, we propose effective system for digital music retrieval. We divided proposed system into Client and Server. Client part consists of pre-processing and Content-based feature extraction stages. In pre-processing stage, we minimized Time code Gap that is occurred among same music contents. As content-based feature, first-order differentiated MFCC were used. These presented approximately envelop of music feature sequences. Server part included Music Server and Music Matching stage. Extracted features from 1,000 digital music files were stored in Music Server. In Music Matching stage, we found retrieval result through similarity measure by DTW. In experiment, we used 450 queries. These were made by mixing different compression standards and sound qualities from 50 digital music files. Retrieval accurate indicated 97% and retrieval time was average 15ms in every single query. Out experiment proved that proposed system is effective in retrieve digital music and robust at various user environments of web.

Keywords: Music Retrieval, Content-based, Music Feature and Digital Music.

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Authors: Lucie Novakova, Petr Homola, Vaclav Kafka

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Asymmetric incremental sheet forming (AISF) could significantly reduce costs incurred by the fabrication of complex industrial components with a minimal environmental impact. The AISF experiments were carried out on commercially pure titanium (Ti-Gr2), Timetal (15-3-3-3) alloy, and Ti-6Al-4V (Ti-Gr5) alloy. A special testing geometry was used to characterize the titanium alloys properties from the point of view of the forming zone and titanium structure effect. The structure and properties of the materials were assessed by means of metallographic analyses and microhardness measurements.The highest differences in the parameters assessed as a function of the sampling zone were observed in the case of alpha-phase Ti-Gr2at the expense of the most substantial sheet thinning occurrence. A springback causes a smaller stored deformation in Timetal (β alloy) resulting in less pronounced microstructure refinement and microhardness increase. Ti-6Al-4V alloy exhibited early failure due to its poor formability at ambient temperature.

 

Keywords: Incremental forming, metallography, hardness, titanium alloys.

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Authors: Zhankun Wang, Timothy Makubuya

Abstract:

The efficiency of public sports service of prefecture-level cities in Zhejiang from 2008 to 2012 was evaluated by applying the DEA method, then its influencing factors were also analyzed through Tobit model. Upon analysis, the results revealed the following; (i) the change in average efficiency of public sports service in Zhejiang present a smooth uptrend and at a relatively high level from 2008 to 2012 (ii) generally, the productivity of public sports service in Zhejiang improved from 2008 to 2012, the productivity efficiency varied greatly in different years, and the regional difference of production efficiency increased. (iii) The correlations for urbanization rate, aging rate, per capita GDP and the population density were significantly positive with the public sports service efficiency in Zhejiang, of which the most significant was the aging rate. However, the population density and per capita GDP had less impact on the efficiency of public sports service in Zhejiang. In addition, whether the efficiency of public sports services in different areas in Zhejiang reciprocates to overall benefits in public wellbeing in both rural and urban settings is still arguable.

Keywords: DEA Model, public sports service, efficiency, Tobit model, Malmquist productivity index, Zhejiang.

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Authors: K. L. Mak, P. Peng

Abstract:

This paper investigates the problem of automated defect detection for textile fabrics and proposes a new optimal filter design method to solve this problem. Gabor Wavelet Network (GWN) is chosen as the major technique to extract the texture features from textile fabrics. Based on the features extracted, an optimal Gabor filter can be designed. In view of this optimal filter, a new semi-supervised defect detection scheme is proposed, which consists of one real-valued Gabor filter and one smoothing filter. The performance of the scheme is evaluated by using an offline test database with 78 homogeneous textile images. The test results exhibit accurate defect detection with low false alarm, thus showing the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed scheme. To evaluate the detection scheme comprehensively, a prototyped detection system is developed to conduct a real time test. The experiment results obtained confirm the efficiency and effectiveness of the proposed detection scheme.

Keywords: Defect detection, Filtering, Gabor function, Gaborwavelet networks, Textile fabrics.

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Authors: J. Menčík

Abstract:

Actual load, material characteristics and other quantities often differ from the design values. This can cause worse function, shorter life or failure of a civil engineering structure, a machine, vehicle or another appliance. The paper shows main causes of the uncertainties and deviations and presents a systematic approach and efficient tools for their elimination or mitigation of consequences. Emphasis is put on the design stage, which is most important for reliability ensuring. Principles of robust design and important tools are explained, including FMEA, sensitivity analysis and probabilistic simulation methods. The lifetime prediction of long-life objects can be improved by long-term monitoring of the load response and damage accumulation in operation. The condition evaluation of engineering structures, such as bridges, is often based on visual inspection and verbal description. Here, methods based on fuzzy logic can reduce the subjective influences.

Keywords: Design, fuzzy methods, Monte Carlo, reliability, robust design, sensitivity analysis, simulation, uncertainties.

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Authors: M. B. Limooei, Hadi Ebrahimifar, Sh. Hosseini

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Protective coatings that resist oxide scale growth and decrease chromium evaporation are necessary to make stainless steel interconnect materials for long-term durable operation of solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs). In this study a layer of cobalt was electroplated on the surface of AISI 441 ferritic stainless steel which is used in solid oxide fuel cells for interconnect applications. The oxidation behavior of coated substrates was studied as a function of time at operating conditions of SOFCs. Cyclic oxidation has been also tested at 800ºC for 100 cycles. Cobalt coating during isothermal oxidation caused to the oxide growth resistance by limiting the outward diffusion of Cr cation and the inward diffusion of oxygen anion. Results of cyclic oxidation exhibited that coated substrates demonstrate an excellent resistance against the spallation and cracking.

Keywords: Oxidation resistance, full cell, Cobalt coating, ferritic stainless steel.

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Authors: Harish Kumar Ponnappan, Joseph C. Chen

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The main objective of this research is to optimize the surface roughness of a milling operation on AISI 1018 steel using live tooling on a HAAS ST-20 lathe. In this study, Taguchi analysis is used to optimize the milling process by investigating the effect of different machining parameters on surface roughness. The L₉ orthogonal array is designed with four controllable factors with three different levels each and an uncontrollable factor, resulting in 18 experimental runs. The optimal parameters determined from Taguchi analysis were feed rate – 76.2 mm/min, spindle speed 1150 rpm, depth of cut – 0.762 mm and 2-flute TiN coated high-speed steel as tool material. The process capability Cp and process capability index Cpk values were improved from 0.62 and -0.44 to 1.39 and 1.24 respectively. The average surface roughness values from the confirmation runs were 1.30 µ, decreasing the defect rate from 87.72% to 0.01%. The purpose of this study is to efficiently utilize the Taguchi design to optimize the surface roughness in a milling operation using live tooling.

Keywords: Live tooling, surface roughness, Taguchi analysis, Computer Numerical Control (CNC) milling operation, CNC turning operation.

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Authors: Yasser M. Moustafa, Rania E. Morsi, Mohammed Fathy

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Multiwall carbon nanotubes, prepared by chemical vapor deposition, have an average diameter of 60-100 nm as shown by High Resolution Transmittance Electron Microscope, HR-TEM. The Multiwall carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) were further characterized using X-ray Diffraction and Raman Spectroscopy. Mercury uptake capacity of MWCNTs was studied using batch adsorption method at different concentration ranges up to 150 ppm. Mercury concentration (before and after the treatment) was measured using cold vapor atomic absorption spectroscopy. The effect of time, concentration, pH and adsorbent dose were studied. MWCNT were found to perform complete absorption in the sub-ppm concentrations (parts per billion levels) while for high concentrations, the adsorption efficiency was 92% at the optimum conditions; 0.1 g of the adsorbent at 150 ppm mercury (II) solution. The adsorption of mercury on MWCNTs was found to follow the Freundlich adsorption isotherm and the pseudo-second order kinetic model.

Keywords: Cold Vapor Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy, Hydride System, Mercury Removing, Multi Wall Carbon Nanotubes.

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Authors: Hong Ding, Fatiha Benslimane, Isra Marei, Chris R. Triggle

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Hyperglycaemia is a key factor that contributes to the development of diabetes-related microvascular disease and a major risk factor for endothelial dysfunction. In the current study, we have explored glucose-induced abnormal intracellular calcium (Ca2+ i) homeostasis in mouse microvessel endothelial cells (MMECs) in high glucose (HG) (40mmol/L) versus control (low glucose, LG) (11 mmol/L). We demonstrated that the exposure of MMECs to HG for 3 days did not change basal Ca2+ i, however, there was a significant increase of acetylcholine-induced Ca2+ entry. Western blots illustrated that exposure to HG also increased STIM1 (Stromal Interaction Molecule 1), but not Orai1 (the pore forming subunit), protein expression levels. Although the link between HG-induced changes in STIM1 expression, enhanced Ca2+ entry and endothelial dysfunction requires further study, the current data are suggestive that targeting these pathways may reduce the impact of HG on endothelial function.

Keywords: store-operated calcium entry, hyperglycaemia, STIM1, endothelial dysfunction

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Authors: S. Figueiredo, M. Alves Martins, C. Silva, C. Simões

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This study integrates a larger research empirical project that examines second language (SL) learners’ profiles and valid procedures to perform complete and diagnostic assessment in schools. 102 learners of Portuguese as a SL aged 7 and 17 years speakers of distinct home languages were assessed in several linguistic tasks. In this article, we focused on writing performance in the specific task of narrative essay composition. The written outputs were measured using the score in six components adapted from an English SL assessment context (Alberta Education): linguistic vocabulary, grammar, syntax, strategy, socio-linguistic, and discourse. The writing processes and strategies in Portuguese language used by different immigrant students were analysed to determine features and diversity of deficits on authentic texts performed by SL writers. Differentiated performance was based on the diversity of the following variables: grades, previous schooling, home language, instruction in first language, and exposure to Portuguese as Second Language. Indo-Aryan languages speakers showed low writing scores compared to their peers and the type of language and respective cognitive mapping (such as Mandarin and Arabic) was the predictor, not linguistic distance. Home language instruction should also be prominently considered in further research to understand specificities of cognitive academic profile in a Romance languages learning context. Additionally, this study also examined the teachers’ representations that will be here addressed to understand educational implications of second language teaching in psychological distress of different minorities in schools of specific host countries.

Keywords: Second language, writing assessment, home language, immigrant students, Portuguese language.

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Authors: Haoyu Ma, Bin Hu, Mike Jackson, Jingzhi Yan, Wen Zhao

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In this paper we propose a new classification method for automatic sleep scoring using an artificial neural network based decision tree. It attempts to treat sleep scoring progress as a series of two-class problems and solves them with a decision tree made up of a group of neural network classifiers, each of which uses a special feature set and is aimed at only one specific sleep stage in order to maximize the classification effect. A single electroencephalogram (EEG) signal is used for our analysis rather than depending on multiple biological signals, which makes greatly simplifies the data acquisition process. Experimental results demonstrate that the average epoch by epoch agreement between the visual and the proposed method in separating 30s wakefulness+S1, REM, S2 and SWS epochs was 88.83%. This study shows that the proposed method performed well in all the four stages, and can effectively limit error propagation at the same time. It could, therefore, be an efficient method for automatic sleep scoring. Additionally, since it requires only a small volume of data it could be suited to pervasive applications.

Keywords: Sleep, Sleep stage, Automatic sleep scoring, Electroencephalography, Decision tree, Artificial neural network

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Authors: A. Chaouachi, R.M. Kamel, R. Ichikawa, H. Hayashi, K. Nagasaka

Abstract:

This paper presents the applicability of artificial neural networks for 24 hour ahead solar power generation forecasting of a 20 kW photovoltaic system, the developed forecasting is suitable for a reliable Microgrid energy management. In total four neural networks were proposed, namely: multi-layred perceptron, radial basis function, recurrent and a neural network ensemble consisting in ensemble of bagged networks. Forecasting reliability of the proposed neural networks was carried out in terms forecasting error performance basing on statistical and graphical methods. The experimental results showed that all the proposed networks achieved an acceptable forecasting accuracy. In term of comparison the neural network ensemble gives the highest precision forecasting comparing to the conventional networks. In fact, each network of the ensemble over-fits to some extent and leads to a diversity which enhances the noise tolerance and the forecasting generalization performance comparing to the conventional networks.

Keywords: Neural network ensemble, Solar power generation, 24 hour forecasting, Comparative study

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Authors: Abdulhassan Abd. K, Sattar Al-Jabair, Khalid Sultan

Abstract:

We have measured the pressure drop and convective heat transfer coefficient of water – based AL(25nm),AL2O3(30nm) and CuO(50nm) Nanofluids flowing through a uniform heated circular tube in the fully developed laminar flow regime. The experimental results show that the data for Nanofluids friction factor show a good agreement with analytical prediction from the Darcy's equation for single-phase flow. After reducing the experimental results to the form of Reynolds, Rayleigh and Nusselt numbers. The results show the local Nusselt number and temperature have distribution with the non-dimensional axial distance from the tube entry. Study decided that thenNanofluid as Newtonian fluids through the design of the linear relationship between shear stress and the rate of stress has been the study of three chains of the Nanofluid with different concentrations and where the AL, AL2O3 and CuO – water ranging from (0.25 - 2.5 vol %). In addition to measuring the four properties of the Nanofluid in practice so as to ensure the validity of equations of properties developed by the researchers in this area and these properties is viscosity, specific heat, and density and found that the difference does not exceed 3.5% for the experimental equations between them and the practical. The study also demonstrated that the amount of the increase in heat transfer coefficient for three types of Nano fluid is AL, AL2O3, and CuO – Water and these ratios are respectively (45%, 32%, 25%) with insulation and without insulation (36%, 23%, 19%), and the statement of any of the cases the best increase in heat transfer has been proven that using insulation is better than not using it. I have been using three types of Nano particles and one metallic Nanoparticle and two oxide Nanoparticle and a statement, whichever gives the best increase in heat transfer.

Keywords: Newtonian, NUR factor, Brownian motion

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Authors: Zakari Yaou, Lirong Cui

Abstract:

In a product development process, understanding the functional behavior of the system, the role of components in achieving functions and failure modes if components/subsystem fails its required function will help develop appropriate design validation and verification program for reliability assessment. The integration of these three issues will help design and reliability engineers in identifying weak spots in design and planning future actions and testing program. This case study demonstrate the advantage of unascertained theory described in the subjective cognition uncertainty, and then applies blind number (BN) theory in describing the uncertainty of the mechanical system failure process and the same time used the same theory in bringing out another mechanical reliability system model. The practical calculations shows the BN Model embodied the characters of simply, small account of calculation but betterforecasting capability, which had the value of macroscopic discussion to some extent.

Keywords: Mechanical structure Design, time-dependent stochastic process, unascertained information, blind number theory.

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Authors: Chin S. Y., Radzi, S. N. R., Maharon, I. H., Shafawi, M. A.

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A kinetic model for propane dehydrogenation in an industrial moving bed reactor is developed based on the reported reaction scheme. The kinetic parameters and activity constant are fine tuned with several sets of balanced plant data. Plant data at different operating conditions is applied to validate the model and the results show a good agreement between the model predictions and plant observations in terms of the amount of main product, propylene produced. The simulation analysis of key variables such as inlet temperature of each reactor (Tinrx) and hydrogen to total hydrocarbon ratio (H2/THC) affecting process performance is performed to identify the operating condition to maximize the production of propylene. Within the range of operating conditions applied in the present studies, the operating condition to maximize the propylene production at the same weighted average inlet temperature (WAIT) is ΔTinrx1= -2, ΔTinrx2= +1, ΔTinrx3= +1 , ΔTinrx4= +2 and ΔH2/THC= -0.02. Under this condition, the surplus propylene produced is 7.07 tons/day as compared with base case.

Keywords: kinetic model, dehydrogenation, simulation, modeling, propane

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Authors: Adilson Elias Xavier, Otto Corrêa Rotunno Filho, Paulo Canedo de Magalhães

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This paper addresses the issue of automatic parameter estimation in conceptual rainfall-runoff (CRR) models. Due to threshold structures commonly occurring in CRR models, the associated mathematical optimization problems have the significant characteristic of being strongly non-differentiable. In order to face this enormous task, the resolution method proposed adopts a smoothing strategy using a special C∞ differentiable class function. The final estimation solution is obtained by solving a sequence of differentiable subproblems which gradually approach the original conceptual problem. The use of this technique, called Hyperbolic Smoothing Method (HSM), makes possible the application of the most powerful minimization algorithms, and also allows for the main difficulties presented by the original CRR problem to be overcome. A set of computational experiments is presented for the purpose of illustrating both the reliability and the efficiency of the proposed approach.

Keywords: Rainfall-runoff models, optimization procedure, automatic parameter calibration, hyperbolic smoothing method.

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Authors: Myung-Won Lee, Keun-Chang Kwak

Abstract:

This paper is concerned with knowledge representation and extraction of fuzzy if-then rules using Interval Type-2 Context-based Fuzzy C-Means clustering (IT2-CFCM) with the aid of fuzzy granulation. This proposed clustering algorithm is based on information granulation in the form of IT2 based Fuzzy C-Means (IT2-FCM) clustering and estimates the cluster centers by preserving the homogeneity between the clustered patterns from the IT2 contexts produced in the output space. Furthermore, we can obtain the automatic knowledge representation in the design of Radial Basis Function Networks (RBFN), Linguistic Model (LM), and Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Networks (ANFN) from the numerical input-output data pairs. We shall focus on a design of ANFN in this paper. The experimental results on an estimation problem of energy performance reveal that the proposed method showed a good knowledge representation and performance in comparison with the previous works.

Keywords: IT2-FCM, IT2-CFCM, context-based fuzzy clustering, adaptive neuro-fuzzy network, knowledge representation.

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Authors: Tossaporn Jindarat, Siriporn Jongpatiwut, Somchai Osuwan, Suchada Butnark

Abstract:

Deoxygenation of beef fat for the production of hydrogenated biodiesel is investigated in a high pressure continuous flow fixed bed reactor over palladium-supported mesoporous titania catalyst synthesized via a combined single-step sol-gel process with surfactant-assisted templating method (SATM). The catalyst possessed a mesoporous charactheristic with high surface area and narrow pore size distribution. The main products of all Pd/TiO2 catalysts are n-heptadecane (n-C17) and n-pentadecane (n-C15) resulting from decarbonylation reaction. Pd/TiO2 catalyst synthesized via a combined single-step sol-gel process with SATM (SSSG) gave higher activity and selectivity to the desired products when compared to IWI/SG-TiO2 and IWI/P25-TiO2, respectively. SSSG catalyst gave the average conversion up to 80-90 % and 80 % for the selectivity in diesel range hydrocarbons. This result may cause by the higher surface area and the ability in dispersion of palladium ion in mesoporous of TiO2 during sol-gel process.

Keywords: Beef fat, Deoxygenation, Hydrogenated biodiesel, Pd/TiO2

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Authors: Nichole Haag, Kimberly Velk, Tyler McCune, Chun Wu

Abstract:

Methicillin/multiple-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) are infectious bacteria that are resistant to common antibiotics. A previous in silico study in our group has identified a hypothetical protein SAV1226 as one of the potential drug targets. In this study, we reported the bioinformatics characterization, as well as cloning, expression, purification and kinetic assays of hypothetical protein SAV1226 from methicillin/vancomycin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus Mu50 strain. MALDI-TOF/MS analysis revealed a low degree of structural similarity with known proteins. Kinetic assays demonstrated that hypothetical protein SAV1226 is neither a domain of an ATP dependent dihydroxyacetone kinase nor of a phosphotransferase system (PTS) dihydroxyacetone kinase, suggesting that the function of hypothetical protein SAV1226 might be misannotated on public databases such as UniProt and InterProScan 5.

Keywords: Dihydroxyacetone kinase, essential genes, Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, drug target.

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Authors: F.Ebrahimi, A.Rastgo

Abstract:

Analytical investigation of the free vibration behavior of circular functionally graded (FG) plates integrated with two uniformly distributed actuator layers made of piezoelectric (PZT4) material on the top and bottom surfaces of the circular FG plate based on the classical plate theory (CPT) is presented in this paper. The material properties of the functionally graded substrate plate are assumed to be graded in the thickness direction according to the power-law distribution in terms of the volume fractions of the constituents and the distribution of electric potential field along the thickness direction of piezoelectric layers is simulated by a quadratic function. The differential equations of motion are solved analytically for clamped edge boundary condition of the plate. The detailed mathematical derivations are presented and Numerical investigations are performed for FG plates with two surface-bonded piezoelectric layers. Emphasis is placed on investigating the effect of varying the gradient index of FG plate on the free vibration characteristics of the structure. The results are verified by those obtained from threedimensional finite element analyses.

Keywords: Circular plate, CPT, Functionally graded, Piezoelectric.

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Authors: K. Thulasimani, K. G. Srinivasagan

Abstract:

Driver fatigue is an important factor in the increasing number of road accidents. Dynamic template matching method was proposed to address the problem of real-time driver fatigue detection system based on eye-tracking. An effective vision based approach was used to analyze the driver’s eye state to detect fatigue. The driver fatigue system consists of Face detection, Eye detection, Eye tracking, and Fatigue detection. Initially frames are captured from a color video in a car dashboard and transformed from RGB into YCbCr color space to detect the driver’s face. Canny edge operator was used to estimating the eye region and the locations of eyes are extracted. The extracted eyes were considered as a template matching for eye tracking. Edge Map Overlapping (EMO) and Edge Pixel Count (EPC) matching function were used for eye tracking which is used to improve the matching accuracy. The pixel of eyeball was tracked from the eye regions which are used to determine the fatigue state of the driver.

Keywords: Driver fatigue detection, Driving safety, Eye tracking, Intelligent transportation system, Template matching.

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Authors: H. Bouaziz, N. Soudania, M. Essafia, I. Ben Amara, A. Hakim, K. Jamoussi, Km. Zeghal, N. Zeghal

Abstract:

In this investigation, we have evaluated the effects of arsenic trioxide on hepatic function in pregnant and lactating Swiss albino mice and their suckling pups. Experiments were carried out on female mice given 175 ppm As2O3 in their drinking water from the 14th day of pregnancy until day 14 after delivery. Our results showed a significant decrease in plasma levels of total protein and albumin, cholesterol and triglyceride in As2O3 treated mice and their pups. The hyperbilirubinemia and the increased plasma total alkaline phosphatase activity suggested the presence of cholestasis. Transaminase activities as well as lactate deshydrogenase activity in plasma, known as biomarkers of hepatocellular injury, were elevated indicating hepatic cells’ damage after treatment with As2O3. Exposure to arsenic led to an increase of liver thiobarbituric acid reactive substances level along with a concomitant decrease in the activities of superoxide dismutase, catalase and glutathione peroxidase and in glutathione.

Keywords: Antioxidant status, arsenic trioxide, hepatotoxicity, mice, oxidative stress.

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