Search results for: local cluster detection.

Authors: Atiqul Islam, Shamim Akhter, Tumnun E. Mursalin

Abstract:

Least Development Countries (LDC) like Bangladesh, whose 25% revenue earning is achieved from Textile export, requires producing less defective textile for minimizing production cost and time. Inspection processes done on these industries are mostly manual and time consuming. To reduce error on identifying fabric defects requires more automotive and accurate inspection process. Considering this lacking, this research implements a Textile Defect Recognizer which uses computer vision methodology with the combination of multi-layer neural networks to identify four classifications of textile defects. The recognizer, suitable for LDC countries, identifies the fabric defects within economical cost and produces less error prone inspection system in real time. In order to generate input set for the neural network, primarily the recognizer captures digital fabric images by image acquisition device and converts the RGB images into binary images by restoration process and local threshold techniques. Later, the output of the processed image, the area of the faulty portion, the number of objects of the image and the sharp factor of the image, are feed backed as an input layer to the neural network which uses back propagation algorithm to compute the weighted factors and generates the desired classifications of defects as an output.

Keywords: Computer vision, image acquisition device, machine vision, multi-layer neural networks.

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Authors: Saule Mussabekova

Abstract:

Recent advances in genetics have allowed increasing acutely the capacities of the formation of reliable evidence in conducting forensic examinations. Thus, traces of biological origin are important sources of information about a crime. Currently, around the world, sexual offenses have increased, and among them are those in which the criminals use various detergents to remove traces of their crime. A feature of modern synthetic detergents is the presence of biological additives - enzymes. Enzymes purposefully destroy stains of biological origin. To study the nature and extent of the impact of modern washing powders on saliva stains on the physical evidence, specially prepared test specimens of different types of tissues to which saliva was applied have been examined. Materials and Methods: Washing machines of famous manufacturers of household appliances have been used with different production characteristics and advertised brands of washing powder for test washing. Over 3,500 experimental samples were tested. After washing, the traces of saliva were identified using modern research methods of forensic medicine. Results: The influence was tested and the dependence of the use of different washing programs, types of washing machines and washing powders in the process of establishing saliva trace and identify of the stains on the physical evidence while washing was revealed. The results of experimental and practical expert studies have shown that in most cases it is not possible to draw the conclusions in the identification of saliva traces on physical evidence after washing. This is a consequence of the effect of biological additives and other additional factors on traces of saliva during washing. Conclusions: On the basis of the results of the study, the feasibility of saliva traces of the stains on physical evidence after washing is established. The use of modern molecular genetic methods makes it possible to partially solve the problems arising in the study of unlaundered evidence. Additional study of physical evidence after washing facilitates detection and investigation of sexual offenses against women and children.

Keywords: Saliva research, modern synthetic detergents, laundry detergents, forensic medicine.

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Authors: T. C. Machaba, S. M. Mahlo

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The current study investigates the antifungal properties of crude plant extracts from selected medicinal plant species. Eight plant species used by the traditional healers and local people to treat fungal infections were selected for further phytochemical analysis and biological assay. The selected plant species were extracted with solvent of various polarities such as acetone, methanol, ethanol, hexane, dichloromethane, ethyl acetate and water. Leaf, roots and bark extracts of Maerua juncea Pax, Albuca seineri (Engl & K. Krause) J.C Manning & Goldblatt, Senna italica Mill., Elephantorrhiza elephantina (Burch.) Skeels, Indigofera circinata Benth., Schinus molle L., Asparagus buchananii Bak., were screened for antifungal activity against three animal fungal pathogens (Candida albicans, Aspergillus fumigatus and Cryptococcus neoformans). All plant extracts were active against the tested microorganisms. Acetone, dichloromethane, hexane and ethanol extracts of Senna italica and Elephantorrhiza elephantine had excellent activity against Candida albicans and A. fumigatus with the lowest MIC value of 0.02 mg/ml. Bioautography assay was used to determine the number of antifungal compounds presence in the plant extracts. No active compounds were observed in plant extracts of Indigofera circinnata, Schinus molle and Pentarrhinum insipidum with good antifungal activity against C. albicans and A. fumigatus indicating possible synergism between separated metabolites.

Keywords: Antifungal activity, minimum inhibitory concentration, bioautography.

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Authors: Javid Iqbal, Zhu Shifan

Abstract:

The development in the construction of unconventional ships and the implementation of lightweight materials have shown a large impulse towards finite element (FE) method, making it a general tool for ship design. This paper briefly presents the modeling and analysis techniques of ship structures using FE method for complex boundary conditions which are difficult to analyze by existing Ship Classification Societies rules. During operation, all ships experience complex loading conditions. These loads are general categories into thermal loads, linear static, dynamic and non-linear loads. General strength of the ship structure is analyzed using static FE analysis. FE method is also suitable to consider the local loads generated by ballast tanks and cargo in addition to hydrostatic and hydrodynamic loads. Vibration analysis of a ship structure and its components can be performed using FE method which helps in obtaining the dynamic stability of the ship. FE method has developed better techniques for calculation of natural frequencies and different mode shapes of ship structure to avoid resonance both globally and locally. There is a lot of development towards the ideal design in ship industry over the past few years for solving complex engineering problems by employing the data stored in the FE model. This paper provides an overview of ship modeling methodology for FE analysis and its general application. Historical background, the basic concept of FE, advantages, and disadvantages of FE analysis are also reported along with examples related to hull strength and structural components.

Keywords: Dynamic analysis, finite element methods, ship structure, vibration analysis.

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Authors: Fatima U. Maigari, Musa Halilu, M. Maryam Umar, Rabiu Zainab

Abstract:

Plants as therapeutic agents are used as drug in many parts of the world. Medicinal plants are mostly used in developing countries due to culture acceptability, belief or due to lack of easy access to primary health care services. Jatropha curcas is a plant from the Euphorbiaceae family which is widely used in Northern Nigeria as an anti-diarrheal agent. This study was conducted to determine the anti-diarrheal effect of the leaf extract on castor oil induced diarrhea in albino rats. The leaves of J. curcas were collected from Balanga Local government in Gombe State, north-eastern Nigeria; due to its bioavailability. The leaves were air-dried at room temperature and ground to powder. Phytochemical screening was done and different concentrations of the extract was prepared and administered to the different categories of experimental animals. From the results, aqueous leaf extract of Jatropha curcas at doses of 200mg/Kg and 400mg/Kg was found to reduce the mean stool score as compared to control rats, however, maximum reduction was achieved with the standard drug of Loperamide (5mg/Kg). Treatment of diarrhea with 200mg/Kg of the extract did not produce any significant decrease in stool fluid content but was found to be significant in those rats that were treated with 400mg/Kg of the extract at 2hours (0.05±0.02) and 4hours (0.01±0.01). A significant reduction of diarrhea in the experimental animals signifies it to possess some anti-diarrheal activity.

Keywords: Anti-diarrhea, Diarrhea, Jatropha curcas, Loperamide.

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Authors: Nishi Bhuvandas, P. V. Timbadiya, P. L. Patel, P. D. Porey

Abstract:

Recent perceived climate variability raises concerns with unprecedented hydrological phenomena and extremes. Distribution and circulation of the waters of the Earth become increasingly difficult to determine because of additional uncertainty related to anthropogenic emissions. The world wide observed changes in the large-scale hydrological cycle have been related to an increase in the observed temperature over several decades. Although the effect of change in climate on hydrology provides a general picture of possible hydrological global change, new tools and frameworks for modelling hydrological series with nonstationary characteristics at finer scales, are required for assessing climate change impacts. Of the downscaling techniques, dynamic downscaling is usually based on the use of Regional Climate Models (RCMs), which generate finer resolution output based on atmospheric physics over a region using General Circulation Model (GCM) fields as boundary conditions. However, RCMs are not expected to capture the observed spatial precipitation extremes at a fine cell scale or at a basin scale. Statistical downscaling derives a statistical or empirical relationship between the variables simulated by the GCMs, called predictors, and station-scale hydrologic variables, called predictands. The main focus of the paper is on the need for using statistical downscaling techniques for projection of local hydrometeorological variables under climate change scenarios. The projections can be then served as a means of input source to various hydrologic models to obtain streamflow, evapotranspiration, soil moisture and other hydrological variables of interest.

Keywords: Climate Change, Downscaling, GCM, RCM.

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Authors: H.R. Balouchi

Abstract:

To evaluate genetic variation of wheat (Triticum aestivum) affected by heat and drought stress on eight Australian wheat genotypes that are parents of Doubled Haploid (HD) mapping populations at the vegetative stage, the water stress experiment was conducted at 65% field capacity in growth room. Heat stress experiment was conducted in the research field under irrigation over summer. Result show that water stress decreased dry shoot weight and RWC but increased osmolarity and means of Fv/Fm values in all varieties except for Krichauff. Krichauff and Kukri had the maximum RWC under drought stress. Trident variety was shown maximum WUE, osmolarity (610 mM/Kg), dry mater, quantum yield and Fv/Fm 0.815 under water stress condition. However, the recovery of quantum yield was apparent between 4 to 7 days after stress in all varieties. Nevertheless, increase in water stress after that lead to strong decrease in quantum yield. There was a genetic variation for leaf pigments content among varieties under heat stress. Heat stress decreased significantly the total chlorophyll content that measured by SPAD. Krichauff had maximum value of Anthocyanin content (2.978 A/g FW), chlorophyll a+b (2.001 mg/g FW) and chlorophyll a (1.502 mg/g FW). Maximum value of chlorophyll b (0.515 mg/g FW) and Carotenoids (0.234 mg/g FW) content belonged to Kukri. The quantum yield of all varieties decreased significantly, when the weather temperature increased from 28 ÔùªC to 36 ÔùªC during the 6 days. However, the recovery of quantum yield was apparent after 8th day in all varieties. The maximum decrease and recovery in quantum yield was observed in Krichauff. Drought and heat tolerant and moderately tolerant wheat genotypes were included Trident, Krichauff, Kukri and RAC875. Molineux, Berkut and Excalibur were clustered into most sensitive and moderately sensitive genotypes. Finally, the results show that there was a significantly genetic variation among the eight varieties that were studied under heat and water stress.

Keywords: Abiotic stress, genetic variation, fluorescence, wheat genotypes.

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Authors: Sujata Upgupta, Prasoon Kumar Singh

Abstract:

The expansion of large scale coal mining into forest areas is a potential hazard for the local biodiversity and wildlife. The objective of this study is to provide a picture of the threat that coal mining poses to the forests of the East Bokaro landscape. The vulnerable forest areas at risk have been assessed and the priority areas for conservation have been presented. The forested areas at risk in the current scenario have been assessed and compared with the past conditions using classification and buffer based overlay approach. Forest vulnerability has been assessed using an analytical framework based on systematic indicators and composite vulnerability index values. The results indicate that more than 4 km² of forests have been lost from 1973 to 2016. Large patches of forests have been diverted for coal mining projects. Forests in the northern part of the coal field within 1-3 km radius around the coal mines are at immediate risk. The original contiguous forests have been converted into fragmented and degraded forest patches. Most of the collieries are located within or very close to the forests thus threatening the biodiversity and hydrology of the surrounding regions. Based on the vulnerability values estimated, it was concluded that more than 90% of the forested grids in East Bokaro are highly vulnerable to mining. The forests in the sub-districts of Bermo and Chandrapura have been identified as the most vulnerable to coal mining activities. This case study would add to the capacity of the forest managers and mine managers to address the risk and vulnerability of forests at a small landscape level in order to achieve sustainable development.

Keywords: Coal mining, forest, indicators, vulnerability.

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Authors: O. S. Ebrahim, K. O. Shawky, M. A. Badr, P. K. Jain

Abstract:

This paper proposes an intelligent, supervisory, hysteresis liquid-level control with three-state energy saving mode (ESM) for induction motor (IM) in fluid transportation system (FTS) including storage tank. The IM pump drive comprises a modified star/delta switch and hydromantic coupler. Three-state ESM is defined, along with the normal running, and named analog to the computer’s ESMs as follows: Sleeping mode in which the motor runs at no load with delta stator connection, hibernate mode in which the motor runs at no load with a star connection, and motor shutdown is the third energy saver mode. Considering the motor’s thermal capacity used (TCU) and grid-compatible tariff structure, a logic flow-chart is synthesized to select the motor state at no-load for best energetic cost reduction. Fuzzy-logic (FL) based availability assessment is designed and deployed on cloud, in order to provide mobilized service for the star/delta switch and highly reliable contactors. Moreover, an artificial neural network (ANN) state estimator, based on the recurrent architecture, is constructed and learned in order to provide fault-tolerant capability for the supervisory controller. Sequential test of Wald is used for sensor fault detection. Theoretical analysis, preliminary experimental testing and computer simulations are performed to demonstrate the validity and effectiveness of the proposed control system in terms of reliability, power quality and operational cost reduction with a motivation of power factor correction.

Keywords: Artificial Neural Network, ANN, Contactor Health Assessment, Energy Saving Mode, Induction Machine, IM, Supervisory Control, Fluid Transportation, Fuzzy Logic, FL, cloud computing, pumped storage.

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Authors: Mojisola F. Oyewole, Franscisca T. Adetoro, Nkiru T. Meludu

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Moringa oleifera is a nutritious vegetable tree with varieties of potential uses, as almost every part of the Moringa oleifera tree can be used for food. This study was conducted in Oyo State, Nigeria, to find out the level of acceptability of Moringa oleifera diversified products among rural and urban dwellers. Purposive sampling was used to select two local governments’ areas. Stratified sampling technique was also used to select one community each from rural and urban areas while snowball sampling technique was used to select ten respondents each from the two communities, making a total number of forty respondents. Data were analyzed using frequencies, percentages, Chi-square, Pearson Product Moment Correlation and regression analysis. Result from the study revealed that majority of the respondents (80%) fell within the age range of 20-49 years and 55% of them were male, 55% were married, 70% of them were Christians, 80% of them had tertiary education. The result also showed that 85% were aware of the Moringa plant and (65%) of them have consumed Moringa oleifera and the perception statements on the benefits of Moringa oleifera indicated that (52.5%) of the respondents rated Moringa oleifera to be favorable, most of them had high acceptability for Moringa egusi soup, Moringa tea, Moringa pap and yam pottage with Moringa. The result of the hypotheses testing showed that there is a significant relationship between sex of the respondents and acceptability of the diversified Moringa oleifera products (x2=6.465, p = 0.011). There is also a significant relationship between family size of the respondents level of acceptability of the Moringa oleifera products (r = 0.327, p = 0.040). Based on the level of acceptability of Moringa oleifera diversified products; the plant is of great economic importance to the populace. Therefore, there should be more public awareness through the media to enlighten people on the beneficial effects of Moringa oleifera.

Keywords: Acceptability, Moringa oleifera, Diversified, Product, Dwellers.

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Authors: Haniyeh Okhovat, Mahmood Hosseini, Omid Kaveh Ahangari, Mona Zaryoun

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Shavadoon is a type of underground living space, formerly used in urban residences of Dezful and Shooshtar cities in southwestern Iran. In spite of their high efficiency in creating cool spaces for hot summers of that area, Shavadoons were abandoned, like many other components of vernacular architecture, as a result of the modernism movement. However, Shavadoons were used by the local people as shelters during the 8-year Iran-Iraq war, and although several cases of bombardment happened during those years, no case of damage was reported in those two cities. On this basis, and regarding the high seismicity of Iran, the use of Shavadoons as post-disasters shelters can be considered as a good issue for research. This paper presents the results of a thorough study conducted on these spaces and their seismic behavior. First, the architectural aspects of Shavadoon and their construction technique are presented. Then, the results of seismic evaluation of a sample Shavadoon, conducted by a series of time history analyses, using Plaxis software and a set of selected earthquakes, are briefly explained. These results show that Shavadoons have good stability against seismic excitations. This stability is mainly because of the high strength of conglomerate materials inside which the Shavadoons have been excavated. On this basis, and considering other merits of this components of vernacular architecture in southwest of Iran, it is recommended that the revival of these components is seriously reconsidered by both architects and civil engineers.

Keywords: Shavadoon, Iran high seismicity, Conglomerate, Modeling in Plaxis, vernacular sustainable architecture.

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Authors: M. Uysal, M. Yilmaz, I. Tiryakioğlu

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Digital Terrain Model (DTM) is a digital numerical representation of the Earth's surface. DTMs have been applied to a diverse field of tasks, such as urban planning, military, glacier mapping, disaster management. In the expression of the Earth' surface as a mathematical model, an infinite number of point measurements are needed. Because of the impossibility of this case, the points at regular intervals are measured to characterize the Earth's surface and DTM of the Earth is generated. Hitherto, the classical measurement techniques and photogrammetry method have widespread use in the construction of DTM. At present, RADAR, LiDAR, and stereo satellite images are also used for the construction of DTM. In recent years, especially because of its superiorities, Airborne Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) has an increased use in DTM applications. A 3D point cloud is created with LiDAR technology by obtaining numerous point data. However recently, by the development in image mapping methods, the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) for photogrammetric data acquisition has increased DTM generation from image-based point cloud. The accuracy of the DTM depends on various factors such as data collection method, the distribution of elevation points, the point density, properties of the surface and interpolation methods. In this study, the random data reduction method is compared for DTMs generated from image based point cloud data. The original image based point cloud data set (100%) is reduced to a series of subsets by using random algorithm, representing the 75, 50, 25 and 5% of the original image based point cloud data set. Over the ANS campus of Afyon Kocatepe University as the test area, DTM constructed from the original image based point cloud data set is compared with DTMs interpolated from reduced data sets by Kriging interpolation method. The results show that the random data reduction method can be used to reduce the image based point cloud datasets to 50% density level while still maintaining the quality of DTM.

Keywords: DTM, unmanned aerial vehicle, UAV, random, Kriging.

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Authors: Domenico Chizzoniti, Monica Moscatelli, Letizia Cattani, Luca Preis

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A primary healthcare facility in developing countries should be a multifunctional space able to respond to different requirements: Flexibility, modularity, aggregation and reversibility. These basic features could be better satisfied if applied to an architectural artifact that complies with the typological, figurative and constructive aspects of the context in which it is located. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to identify a procedure that can define the figurative aspects of the architectural structure of the health prototype for the marginal areas of developing countries through a critical approach. The application context is the rural areas of the Northeast of Bahia in Brazil. The prototype should be located in the rural district of Quingoma, in the municipality of Lauro de Freitas, a particular place where there is still a cultural fusion of black and indigenous populations. Based on the historical analysis of settlement strategies and architectural structures in spaces of public interest or collective use, this paper aims to provide a procedure able to identify the categories and rules underlying typological and figurative aspects, in order to detect significant and generalizable elements, as well as materials and constructive techniques typically adopted in the rural areas of Brazil. The object of this work is therefore not only the recovery of certain constructive approaches but also the development of a procedure that integrates the requirements of the primary healthcare prototype with its surrounding economic, social, cultural, settlement and figurative conditions.

Keywords: Architectural typology, Developing countries, Local construction techniques, Primary health care.

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Authors: M. Kulkarni, R. K. Sinha, D. R. Bhaskar

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In this paper, we have compared the performance of a Turbo and Trellis coded optical code division multiple access (OCDMA) system. The comparison of the two codes has been accomplished by employing optical orthogonal codes (OOCs). The Bit Error Rate (BER) performances have been compared by varying the code weights of address codes employed by the system. We have considered the effects of optical multiple access interference (OMAI), thermal noise and avalanche photodiode (APD) detector noise. Analysis has been carried out for the system with and without double optical hard limiter (DHL). From the simulation results it is observed that a better and distinct comparison can be drawn between the performance of Trellis and Turbo coded systems, at lower code weights of optical orthogonal codes for a fixed number of users. The BER performance of the Turbo coded system is found to be better than the Trellis coded system for all code weights that have been considered for the simulation. Nevertheless, the Trellis coded OCDMA system is found to be better than the uncoded OCDMA system. Trellis coded OCDMA can be used in systems where decoding time has to be kept low, bandwidth is limited and high reliability is not a crucial factor as in local area networks. Also the system hardware is less complex in comparison to the Turbo coded system. Trellis coded OCDMA system can be used without significant modification of the existing chipsets. Turbo-coded OCDMA can however be employed in systems where high reliability is needed and bandwidth is not a limiting factor.

Keywords: avalanche photodiode, optical code division multipleaccess, optical multiple access interference, Trellis codedmodulation, Turbo code

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Authors: A. A. Aiyeloja, A.T. Oladele, O. Tumulo

Abstract:

Raphia wine is an important forest product with cultural significance besides its use as medicine and food in southern Nigeria. This work aims to evaluate the profitability of Raphia wine production and marketing in Sapele Local Government Area, Nigeria. Four communities (Sapele, Ogiede, Okuoke and Elume) were randomly selected for data collection via questionnaires among producers and marketers. A total of 50 producers and 34 marketers were randomly selected for interview. Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics, profit margin, multiple regression and rate of returns on investment (RORI). Annual average profit was highest in Okuoke (Producers – N90, 000.00, Marketers - N70, 000.00) and least in Sapele (Producers N50, 000.00, Marketers – N45, 000.00). Calculated RORI for marketers were Elume (40.0%), Okuoke (25.0%), Ogiede (33.3%) and Sapele (50.0%). Regression results showed that location has significant effects (0.000, ρ ≤ 0.05) on profit margins. Male (58.8%) and female (41.2%) invest in Raphia wine marketing, while males (100.0%) dominate production. Results showed that Raphia wine has potentials to generate household income, enhance food security and improve quality of life in rural, semi-urban and urban communities. Improved marketing channels, storage facilities and credit facilities via cooperative groups are recommended for producers and marketers by concerned agencies.

Keywords: Raphia wine, Profit margin, RORI, Livelihood, Nigeria.

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Authors: Hussain Syed Asad, Richard Kwok Kit Yuen, Gongsheng Huang

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Real-time optimization has been considered an effective approach for improving energy efficient operation of heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems. In model-based real-time optimization, model mismatches cannot be avoided. When model mismatches are significant, the performance of the real-time optimization will be impaired and hence the expected energy saving will be reduced. In this paper, the model mismatches for chiller plant on real-time optimization are considered. In the real-time optimization of the chiller plant, simplified semi-physical or grey box model of chiller is always used, which should be identified using available operation data. To overcome the model mismatches associated with the chiller model, hybrid Genetic Algorithms (HGAs) method is used for online real-time training of the chiller model. HGAs combines Genetic Algorithms (GAs) method (for global search) and traditional optimization method (i.e. faster and more efficient for local search) to avoid conventional hit and trial process of GAs. The identification of model parameters is synthesized as an optimization problem; and the objective function is the Least Square Error between the output from the model and the actual output from the chiller plant. A case study is used to illustrate the implementation of the proposed method. It has been shown that the proposed approach is able to provide reliability in decision making, enhance the robustness of the real-time optimization strategy and improve on energy performance.

Keywords: Energy performance, hybrid adaptive modeling, hybrid genetic algorithms, real-time optimization, heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning.

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Authors: Marina Kapsali, John S. Anagnostopoulos

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Greek islands’ interconnection (IC) with larger power systems, such as the mainland grid, is a crucial issue that has attracted a lot of interest; however, the recent economic recession that the country undergoes together with the highly capital intensive nature of this kind of projects have stalled or sifted the development of many of those on a more long-term basis. On the other hand, most of Greek islands are still heavily dependent on the lengthy and costly supply chain of oil imports whilst the majority of them exhibit excellent potential for wind energy (WE) applications. In this respect, the main purpose of the present work is to investigate −through a parametric study which varies both in wind farm (WF) and submarine IC capacities− the impact of large-scale WE development on the IC of the third in size island of Greece (Lesbos) with the mainland system. The energy and economic performance of the system is simulated over a 25-year evaluation period assuming two possible scenarios, i.e. S(a): without the contribution of the local Thermal Power Plant (TPP) and S(b): the TPP is maintained to ensure electrification of the island. The economic feasibility of the two options is investigated in terms of determining their Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) including also a sensitivity analysis on the worst/reference/best Cases. According to the results, Lesbos island IC presents considerable economic interest for covering part of island’s future electrification needs with WE having a vital role in this challenging venture.

Keywords: Electricity generation cost, levelized cost of energy, mainland grid, wind energy rejection.

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Authors: Arash Taheri, Meysam Mohammadi-Amin, Seyed Hossein Moosavy

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Medical applications are among the most impactful areas of microrobotics. The ultimate goal of medical microrobots is to reach currently inaccessible areas of the human body and carry out a host of complex operations such as minimally invasive surgery (MIS), highly localized drug delivery, and screening for diseases at their very early stages. Miniature, safe and efficient propulsion systems hold the key to maturing this technology but they pose significant challenges. A new type of propulsion developed recently, uses multi-flagella architecture inspired by the motility mechanism of prokaryotic microorganisms. There is a lack of efficient methods for designing this type of propulsion system. The goal of this paper is to overcome the lack and this way, a numerical strategy is proposed to design multi-flagella propulsion systems. The strategy is based on the implementation of the regularized stokeslet and rotlet theory, RFT theory and new approach of “local corrected velocity". The effects of shape parameters and angular velocities of each flagellum on overall flow field and on the robot net forces and moments are considered. Then a multi-layer perceptron artificial neural network is designed and employed to adjust the angular velocities of the motors for propulsion control. The proposed method applied successfully on a sample configuration and useful demonstrative results is obtained.

Keywords: Artificial Neural Network, Biomimetic Microrobots, Flagellar Propulsion, Swimming Robots.

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Authors: Rui Qiu, Giles Hardy, Dong Qu, Robert Trengove, Manjree Agarwal, YongLin Ren

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Phytophthora cinnamomi (P. c) is a plant pathogenic oomycete that is capable of damaging plants in commercial production systems and natural ecosystems worldwide. The most common methods for the detection and diagnosis of P. c infection are expensive, elaborate and time consuming. This study was carried out to examine whether species specific and life cycle specific volatile organic compounds (VOCs) can be absorbed by solid-phase microextraction fibers and detected by gas chromatography that are produced by P. c and another oomycete Pythium dissotocum. A headspace solid-phase microextraction (HS-SPME) together with gas chromatography (GC) method was developed and optimized for the identification of the VOCs released by P. c. The optimized parameters included type of fiber, exposure time, desorption temperature and desorption time. Optimization was achieved with the analytes of P. c+V8A and V8A alone. To perform the HS-SPME, six types of fiber were assayed and compared: 7μm Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), 100μm Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), 50/30μm Divinylbenzene/CarboxenTM/Polydimethylsiloxane DVB/CAR/PDMS), 65μm Polydimethylsiloxane/Divinylbenzene (PDMS/DVB), 85μm Polyacrylate (PA) fibre and 85μm CarboxenTM/ Polydimethylsiloxane (Carboxen™/PDMS). In a comparison of the efficacy of the fibers, the bipolar fiber DVB/CAR/PDMS had a higher extraction efficiency than the other fibers. An exposure time of 16h with DVB/CAR/PDMS fiber in the sample headspace was enough to reach the maximum extraction efficiency. A desorption time of 3min in the GC injector with the desorption temperature of 250°C was enough for the fiber to desorb the compounds of interest. The chromatograms and morphology study confirmed that the VOCs from P. c+V8A had distinct differences from V8A alone, as did different life cycle stages of P. c and different taxa such as Pythium dissotocum. The study proved that P. c has species and life cycle specific VOCs, which in turn demonstrated the feasibility of this method as means of

Keywords: Gas chromatography, headspace solid-phase microextraction, optimization, volatile compounds.

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Authors: Lukas Horny, Rudolf Zitny, Hynek Chlup, Tomas Adamek, Michal Sara

Abstract:

An inflation–extension test with human vena cava inferior was performed with the aim to fit a material model. The vein was modeled as a thick–walled tube loaded by internal pressure and axial force. The material was assumed to be an incompressible hyperelastic fiber reinforced continuum. Fibers are supposed to be arranged in two families of anti–symmetric helices. Considered anisotropy corresponds to local orthotropy. Used strain energy density function was based on a concept of limiting strain extensibility. The pressurization was comprised by four pre–cycles under physiological venous loading (0 – 4kPa) and four cycles under nonphysiological loading (0 – 21kPa). Each overloading cycle was performed with different value of axial weight. Overloading data were used in regression analysis to fit material model. Considered model did not fit experimental data so good. Especially predictions of axial force failed. It was hypothesized that due to nonphysiological values of loading pressure and different values of axial weight the material was not preconditioned enough and some damage occurred inside the wall. A limiting fiber extensibility parameter Jm was assumed to be in relation to supposed damage. Each of overloading cycles was fitted separately with different values of Jm. Other parameters were held the same. This approach turned out to be successful. Variable value of Jm can describe changes in the axial force – axial stretch response and satisfy pressure – radius dependence simultaneously.

Keywords: Constitutive model, damage, fiber reinforcedcomposite, limiting fiber extensibility, preconditioning, vena cavainferior.

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Authors: Efua Ehiaguina, Haruna Moda

Abstract:

Interest in the development of appropriate safety culture in the oil and gas industry has taken centre stage among stakeholders in the industry. Human behaviour has been identified as a major contributor to occupational accidents, where abnormal activities associated with safety management are taken as normal behaviour. Poor safety culture is one of the major factors that influence employee’s safety behaviour at work, which may consequently result in injuries and accidents and strengthening such a culture can improve workers safety performance. Nigeria oil and gas industry has contributed to the growth and development of the country in diverse ways. However, in terms of safety and health of workers, this industry is a dangerous place to work as workers are often exposed to occupational safety and health hazard. To ascertain the impact of employees’ safety and how it impacts health and safety compliance within the local industry, online safety culture survey targeting frontline workers within the industry was administered covering major subjects that include; perception of management commitment and style of leadership; safety communication method and its resultant impact on employees’ behaviour; employee safety commitment and training needs. The preliminary result revealed that 54% of the participants feel that there is a lack of motivation from the management to work safely. In addition, 55% of participants revealed that employers place more emphasis on work delivery over employee’s safety on the installation. It is expected that the study outcome will provide measures aimed at strengthening and sustaining safety culture in the Nigerian oil and gas industry.

Keywords: Oil and gas safety, safety behaviour, safety culture, safety compliance.

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Authors: T. Delval, C. Sauvage, Q. Jullien, R. Viano, T. Diallo, B. Collignan, G. Picinbono

Abstract:

In the context of the international spread of COVID-19, the Centre Scientifique et Technique du Bâtiment (CSTB) has led a joint research with the French government authorities Hauts-de-Seine department, to analyse the risk in school spaces according to their configuration, ventilation system and spatial segmentation strategy. This paper describes the main results of this joint research. A multidisciplinary team involving experts in indoor air quality/ventilation, pedestrian movements and IT domains was established to develop a COVID risk analysis tool based on Building Information Model. The work started with specific analysis on two pilot schools in order to provide for the local administration specifications to minimize the spread of the virus. Different recommendations were published to optimize/validate the use of ventilation systems and the strategy of student occupancy and student flow segmentation within the building. This COVID expertise has been digitized in order to manage a quick risk analysis on the entire building that could be used by the public administration through an easy user interface implemented in a free BIM Management software. One of the most interesting results is to enable a dynamic comparison of different ventilation system scenarios and space occupation strategy inside the BIM model. This concurrent engineering approach provides users with the optimal solution according to both ventilation and pedestrian flow expertise.

Keywords: BIM, knowledge management, system expert, risk management, indoor ventilation, pedestrian movement, integrated design.

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Authors: Matthew D. Baffa

Abstract:

Infrared thermography is a non-destructive test method used to estimate surface temperatures based on the amount of electromagnetic energy radiated by building envelope components. These surface temperatures are indicators of various qualitative building envelope deficiencies such as locations and extent of heat loss, thermal bridging, damaged or missing thermal insulation, air leakage, and moisture presence in roof, floor, and wall assemblies. Although infrared thermography is commonly used for qualitative deficiency detection in buildings, this study assesses its use as a quantitative method to estimate the overall thermal conductance value (U-value) of the exterior above-grade walls of a study home. The overall U-value of exterior above-grade walls in a home provides useful insight into the energy consumption and thermal comfort of a home. Three methodologies from the literature were employed to estimate the overall U-value by equating conductive heat loss through the exterior above-grade walls to the sum of convective and radiant heat losses of the walls. Outdoor infrared thermography field measurements of the exterior above-grade wall surface and reflective temperatures and emissivity values for various components of the exterior above-grade wall assemblies were carried out during winter months at the study home using a basic thermal imager device. The overall U-values estimated from each methodology from the literature using the recorded field measurements were compared to the nominal exterior above-grade wall overall U-value calculated from materials and dimensions detailed in architectural drawings of the study home. The nominal overall U-value was validated through calendarization and weather normalization of utility bills for the study home as well as various estimated heat loss quantities from a HOT2000 computer model of the study home and other methods. Under ideal environmental conditions, the estimated overall U-values deviated from the nominal overall U-value between ±2% to ±33%. This study suggests infrared thermography can estimate the overall U-value of exterior above-grade walls in low-rise residential homes with a fair amount of accuracy.

Keywords: Emissivity, heat loss, infrared thermography, thermal conductance.

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Authors: Ahmed Badawi, J. Michael Johnson, Mohamed Mahfouz

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This paper proposes new enhancement models to the methods of nonlinear anisotropic diffusion to greatly reduce speckle and preserve image features in medical ultrasound images. By incorporating local physical characteristics of the image, in this case scatterer density, in addition to the gradient, into existing tensorbased image diffusion methods, we were able to greatly improve the performance of the existing filtering methods, namely edge enhancing (EE) and coherence enhancing (CE) diffusion. The new enhancement methods were tested using various ultrasound images, including phantom and some clinical images, to determine the amount of speckle reduction, edge, and coherence enhancements. Scatterer density weighted nonlinear anisotropic diffusion (SDWNAD) for ultrasound images consistently outperformed its traditional tensor-based counterparts that use gradient only to weight the diffusivity function. SDWNAD is shown to greatly reduce speckle noise while preserving image features as edges, orientation coherence, and scatterer density. SDWNAD superior performances over nonlinear coherent diffusion (NCD), speckle reducing anisotropic diffusion (SRAD), adaptive weighted median filter (AWMF), wavelet shrinkage (WS), and wavelet shrinkage with contrast enhancement (WSCE), make these methods ideal preprocessing steps for automatic segmentation in ultrasound imaging.

Keywords: Nonlinear anisotropic diffusion, ultrasound imaging, speckle reduction, scatterer density estimation, edge based enhancement, coherence enhancement.

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Authors: Manal Mhada, BrahimEzzahiri, Ouafae Benlhabib

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Seventy-nine accessions, including two local wild species (Chenopodium album and C. murale) and several cultivated quinoa lines developed through recurrent selection in Morocco were screened for their resistance against Peronospora farinose, the causal agent of downy mildew disease. The method of artificial inoculation on detached healthy leaves taken from the middle stage of the plant was used. Screened accessions showed different levels of quantitative resistance to downy mildew as they were scored through the calculation of their area under disease progress curve and their two resistance components, the incubation period and the latent period. Significant differences were found between accessions regarding the three criteria (Incubation Period, Latent Period and Area Under Diseases Progress Curve). Accessions M2a and S938/1 were ranked resistant as they showed the longest Incubation Period (7 days) and Latent Period (12 days) and the lowest area under diseases progress curve (4). Therefore, M24 is the most susceptible accession as it has presented the highest area under diseases progress curve (34.5) and the shortest Incubation Period (1 day) and Latent Period (3 days). In parallel to this evaluation approach, the accession resistance was confirmed under the field conditions through natural infection by using the tree-leaf method. The high correlation found between detached leaf inoculation method and field screening under natural infection allows us to use this laboratory technique with sureness in further selection works.

Keywords: Detached leaf inoculation, Downy mildew, Field screening, Quinoa.

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Authors: Sheetal Sharma

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Runoff,decreasing water levels and recharge in urban areas have been a complex issue now a days pointing defective urban design and increasing demography as cause. Very less has been discussed or analysed for water sensitive Urban Master Plans or local area plans. Land use planning deals with land transformation from natural areas into developed ones, which lead to changes in natural environment. Elaborated knowledge of relationship between the existing patterns of land use-land cover and recharge with respect to prevailing soil below is less as compared to speed of development. The parameters of incompatibility between urban functions and the functions of the natural environment are becoming various. Changes in land patterns due to built up, pavements, roads and similar land cover affects surface water flow seriously. It also changes permeability and absorption characteristics of the soil. Urban planners need to know natural processes along with modern means and best technologies available,as there is a huge gap between basic knowledge of natural processes and its requirement for balanced development planning leading to minimum impact on water recharge. The present paper analyzes the variations in land use land cover and their impacts on surface flows and sub-surface recharge in study area. The methodology adopted was to analyse the changes in land use and land cover using GIS and Civil 3d auto cad. The variations were used in  computer modeling using Storm-water Management Model to find out the runoff for various soil groups and resulting recharge observing water levels in POW data for last 40 years of the study area. Results were anlayzed again to find best correlations for sustainable recharge in urban areas.

Keywords: Geology, runoff, urban planning, land use-land cover.

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Authors: Seyed-Yaser Nabavi-Chashmi, Davood Asadi, Karim Ahmadi, Eren Demir

Abstract:

The landing phase of a UAV is very critical as there are many uncertainties in this phase, which can easily entail a hard landing or even a crash. In this paper, the estimation of relative distance and velocity to the ground, as one of the most important processes during the landing phase, is studied. Using accurate measurement sensors as an alternative approach can be very expensive for sensors like LIDAR, or with a limited operational range, for sensors like ultrasonic sensors. Additionally, absolute positioning systems like GPS or IMU cannot provide distance to the ground independently. The focus of this paper is to determine whether we can measure the relative distance and velocity of UAV and ground in the landing phase using just low-resolution images taken by a monocular camera. The Lucas-Konda feature detection technique is employed to extract the most suitable feature in a series of images taken during the UAV landing. Two different approaches based on Extended Kalman Filters (EKF) have been proposed, and their performance in estimation of the relative distance and velocity are compared. The first approach uses the kinematics of the UAV as the process and the calculated optical flow as the measurement. On the other hand, the second approach uses the feature’s projection on the camera plane (pixel position) as the measurement while employing both the kinematics of the UAV and the dynamics of variation of projected point as the process to estimate both relative distance and relative velocity. To verify the results, a sequence of low-quality images taken by a camera that is moving on a specifically developed testbed has been used to compare the performance of the proposed algorithm. The case studies show that the quality of images results in considerable noise, which reduces the performance of the first approach. On the other hand, using the projected feature position is much less sensitive to the noise and estimates the distance and velocity with relatively high accuracy. This approach also can be used to predict the future projected feature position, which can drastically decrease the computational workload, as an important criterion for real-time applications.

Keywords: Automatic landing, multirotor, nonlinear control, parameters estimation, optical flow.

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Authors: Salam Saudagar, Ankit Kamboj, Niraj Mohan, Satgounda Patil, Nilesh Powar

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Task Assignment and Scheduling is a challenging Operations Research problem when there is a limited number of resources and comparatively higher number of tasks. The Cost Management team at Cummins needs to assign tasks based on a deadline and must prioritize some of the tasks as per business requirements. Moreover, there is a constraint on the resources that assignment of tasks should be done based on an individual skill level, that may vary for different tasks. Another constraint is for scheduling the tasks that should be evenly distributed in terms of number of working hours, which adds further complexity to this problem. The proposed greedy approach to solve assignment and scheduling problem first assigns the task based on management priority and then by the closest deadline. This is followed by an iterative selection of an available resource with the least allocated total working hours for a task, i.e. finding the local optimal choice for each task with the goal of determining the global optimum. The greedy approach task allocation is compared with a variant of Hungarian Algorithm, and it is observed that the proposed approach gives an equal allocation of working hours among the resources. The comparative study of the proposed approach is also done with manual task allocation and it is noted that the visibility of the task timeline has increased from 2 months to 6 months. An interactive dashboard app is created for the greedy assignment and scheduling approach and the tasks with more than 2 months horizon that were waiting in a queue without a delivery date initially are now analyzed effectively by the business with expected timelines for completion.

Keywords: Assignment, deadline, greedy approach, hungarian algorithm, operations research, scheduling.

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Authors: Satyanadh Gundimada, Vijayan K Asari

Abstract:

A novel feature selection strategy to improve the recognition accuracy on the faces that are affected due to nonuniform illumination, partial occlusions and varying expressions is proposed in this paper. This technique is applicable especially in scenarios where the possibility of obtaining a reliable intra-class probability distribution is minimal due to fewer numbers of training samples. Phase congruency features in an image are defined as the points where the Fourier components of that image are maximally inphase. These features are invariant to brightness and contrast of the image under consideration. This property allows to achieve the goal of lighting invariant face recognition. Phase congruency maps of the training samples are generated and a novel modular feature selection strategy is implemented. Smaller sub regions from a predefined neighborhood within the phase congruency images of the training samples are merged to obtain a large set of features. These features are arranged in the order of increasing distance between the sub regions involved in merging. The assumption behind the proposed implementation of the region merging and arrangement strategy is that, local dependencies among the pixels are more important than global dependencies. The obtained feature sets are then arranged in the decreasing order of discriminating capability using a criterion function, which is the ratio of the between class variance to the within class variance of the sample set, in the PCA domain. The results indicate high improvement in the classification performance compared to baseline algorithms.

Keywords: Discriminant analysis, intra-class probability distribution, principal component analysis, phase congruency.

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Authors: Goksen Arik, Mihriban Korukluoglu

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Lactic acid bacteria (LAB) and some yeast species are common microorganisms found in dairy products and most of them are responsible for the fermentation of foods. Such cultures are isolated and used as a starter culture in the food industry because of providing standardisation of the final product during the food processing. Choice of starter culture is the most important step for the production of fermented food. Isolated LAB and yeast cultures which have the ability to create a biofilm layer can be preferred as a starter in the food industry. The biofilm formation could be beneficial to extend the period of usage time of microorganisms as a starter. On the other hand, it is an undesirable property in pathogens, since biofilm structure allows a microorganism become more resistant to stress conditions such as antibiotic presence. It is thought that the resistance mechanism could be turned into an advantage by promoting the effective microorganisms which are used in the food industry as starter culture and also which have potential to stimulate the gastrointestinal system. Development of the biofilm layer is observed in some LAB and yeast strains. The resistance could make LAB and yeast strains dominant microflora in the human gastrointestinal system; thus, competition against pathogen microorganisms can be provided more easily. Based on this circumstance, in the study, 10 LAB and 10 yeast strains were isolated from various dairy products, such as cheese, yoghurt, kefir, and cream. Samples were obtained from farmer markets and bazaars in Bursa, Turkey. As a part of this research, all isolated strains were identified and their ability of biofilm formation was detected with two different methods and compared with each other. The first goal of this research was to determine whether isolates have the potential for biofilm production, and the second was to compare the validity of two different methods, which are known as “Tube method” and “96-well plate-based method”. This study may offer an insight into developing a point of view about biofilm formation and its beneficial properties in LAB and yeast cultures used as a starter in the food industry.

Keywords: Biofilm, dairy products, lactic acid bacteria, yeast.

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