Search results for: Applied industrial engineering

Authors: Talal S. Abdullah, Shahin Mehraban, Geraint Lodwig, Nicholas P. Lavery

Abstract:

The defining property of Interstitial Free (IF) steels is formability, comprehensively measured using the Lankford coefficient (r-value) on uniaxial tensile test data. The contributing factors supporting this feature are grain size, orientation, and elemental additions. The processes that effectively modulate these factors are the casting procedure, hot rolling, and heat treatment. An existing methodology is well-practised in the steel industry; however, large-scale production and experimentation consume significant proportions of time, money, and material. Introducing small-scale rapid alloy prototyping (RAP) as an alternative process would considerably reduce the drawbacks relative to standard practices. The aim is to finetune the existing fundamental procedures implemented in the industrial plant to adapt to the RAP route. IF material is remelted in the 80-gram coil induction melting (CIM) glovebox. To birth small grains, maximum deformation must be induced onto the cast material during the hot rolling process. The rolled strip must then satisfy the polycrystalline behaviour of the bulk material by displaying a resemblance in microstructure, hardness, and formability to that of the literature and actual plant steel. A successful outcome of this work is that small-scale RAP can achieve target compositions with similar microstructures and statistically consistent mechanical properties which complements and accelerates the development of novel steel grades.

Keywords: Interstitial free, miniaturized tensile specimen, plastic anisotropy, rapid alloy prototyping.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 103

Authors: P. Kumar, D. Eisenhauer, M. M. K. Yousef, Q. Shi, A. S. G. Khalil, M. R. Saber, C. Becker, T. Pullerits, K. J. Karki

Abstract:

In impedance spectroscopy (IS) the response of a photo-active device is analysed as a function of ac bias. It is widely applied in a broad class of material systems and devices. It gives access to fundamental mechanisms of operation of solar cells. We have implemented a method of IS where we modulate the light instead of the bias. This scheme allows us to analyze not only carrier dynamics but also impedance of device locally. Here, using this scheme, we have measured the frequency-dependent photocurrent response of the thin-film planar and nano-textured Si solar cells using this method. Photocurrent response is measured in range of 50 Hz to 50 kHz. Bode and Nyquist plots are used to determine characteristic lifetime of both the cells. Interestingly, the carrier lifetime of both planar and nano-textured solar cells depend on back and front contact positions. This is due to either heterogeneity of device or contacts are not optimized. The estimated average lifetime is found to be shorter for the nano-textured cell, which could be due to the influence of the textured interface on the carrier relaxation dynamics.

Keywords: Carrier lifetime, Impedance, nano-textured, and photocurrent.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1009

Authors: S. O. Adeosun, E. I. Akpan, S. A. Balogun, O. O. Taiwo

Abstract:

A model to predict the plastic zone size for material under plane stress condition has been developed and verified experimentally. The developed model is a function of crack size, crack angle and material property (dislocation density). Simulation and validation results show that the model developed show good agreement with experimental results. Samples of low carbon steel (0.035%C) with included surface crack angles of 45o, 50o, 60o, 70o and 90o and crack depths of 2mm and 4mm were subjected to low strain rate between 0.48 x 10-3 s-1 – 2.38 x 10-3 s-1. The mechanical properties studied were ductility, tensile strength, modulus of elasticity, yield strength, yield strain, stress at fracture and fracture toughness. The experimental study shows that strain rate has no appreciable effect on the size of plastic zone while crack depth and crack angle plays an imperative role in determining the size of the plastic zone of mild steel materials.

Keywords: Applied stress, crack angle, crack size, material property, plastic zone size, strain rate.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1592

Authors: Hrachuhi Galstyan, Lucian Sfîcă, Pavel Ichim

Abstract:

The purpose of this study is to analyze the temporal and spatial variability of thermal conditions in the Republic of Armenia. The paper describes annual fluctuations in air temperature. Research has been focused on case study region of Armenia and surrounding areas, where long–term measurements and observations of weather conditions have been performed within the National Meteorological Service of Armenia and its surrounding areas. The study contains yearly air temperature data recorded between 1961- 2012. Mann-Kendal test and the autocorrelation function were applied to detect the change trend of annual mean temperature, as well as other parametric and non-parametric tests searching to find the presence of some breaks in the long term evolution of temperature. The analysis of all records reveals a tendency mostly towards warmer years, with increased temperatures especially in valleys and inner basins. The maximum temperature increase is up to 1,5°C. Negative results have not been observed in Armenia. The patterns of temperature change have been observed since the 1990’s over much of the Armenian territory. The climate in Armenia was influenced by global change in the last 2 decades, as results from the methods employed within the study.

Keywords: Air temperature, long-term variability, trend, climate change.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2187

Authors: Omid A. Zargar

Abstract:

Vibration analysis of most critical equipment is considered as one of the most challenging activities in preventive maintenance. Utilities are heart of the process in big industrial plants like petrochemical zones. Vibration analysis methods and condition monitoring systems of these kinds of equipments are developed too much in recent years. On the other hand, there are too much operation factors like inlet and outlet pressures and temperatures that should be monitored. In this paper, some of the most effective concepts and techniques related to gas turbine vibration analysis are discussed. In addition, a gas turbine SIEMENS 162MW - V94.2 vibration case history related to Iran power industry in Fars province is explained. Vibration monitoring system and machinery technical specification are introduced. Besides, absolute and relative vibration trends, turbine and compressor orbits, Fast Fourier transform (FFT) in absolute vibrations, vibration modal analysis, turbine and compressor start up and shut down conditions, bode diagrams for relative vibrations, Nyquist diagrams and waterfall or three-dimensional FFT diagrams in startup and trip conditions are discussed with relative graphs. Furthermore, Split Resonance in gas turbines is discussed in details. Moreover, some updated vibration monitoring system, blade manufacturing technique and modern damping mechanism are discussed in this paper.

Keywords: Gas turbine, turbine compressor, vibration data collector, utility, condition monitoring, non-contact probe, Relative Vibration, Absolute Vibration, Split Resonance, Time Wave Form (TWF), Fast Fourier transform (FFT).

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 3642

Authors: Tong Liu, Xuan Xu, Xiaodi Wang

Abstract:

Computational techniques derived from digital image processing are playing a significant role in the security and digital copyrights of multimedia and visual arts. This technology has the effect within the domain of computers. This research presents discrete M-band wavelet transform (MWT) and cosine transform (DCT) based watermarking algorithm by incorporating the principal component analysis (PCA). The proposed algorithm is expected to achieve higher perceptual transparency. Specifically, the developed watermarking scheme can successfully resist common signal processing, such as geometric distortions, and Gaussian noise. In addition, the proposed algorithm can be parameterized, thus resulting in more security. To meet these requirements, the image is transformed by a combination of MWT & DCT. In order to improve the security further, we randomize the watermark image to create three code books. During the watermark embedding, PCA is applied to the coefficients in approximation sub-band. Finally, first few component bands represent an excellent domain for inserting the watermark.

Keywords: discrete M-band wavelet transform , discrete M-band wavelet transform, randomized watermark, principal component analysis

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1988

Authors: Rakesh Kumar, Fatima Electricwala

Abstract:

One of the major thrusts of the Bus Rapid Transit System is to reduce the commuter’s dependency on private vehicles and increase the shares of public transport to make urban transportation system environmentally sustainable. In this study, commuter mode choice analysis is performed that examines behavioral responses to the proposed Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS) in Surat, with estimation of the probable shift from private mode to public mode. Further, evaluation of the BRTS scenarios, using Surat’s transportation ecological footprint was done. A multi-modal simulation model was developed in Biogeme environment to explicitly consider private users behaviors and non-linear environmental impact. The data of the different factors (variables) and its impact that might cause modal shift of private mode users to proposed BRTS were collected through home-interview survey using revealed and stated preference approach. A multi modal logit model of mode-choice was then calibrated using the collected data and validated using proposed sample. From this study, a set of perception factors, with reliable and predictable data base, to explain the variation in modal shift behaviour and their impact on Surat’s ecological environment has been identified. A case study of the proposed BRTS connecting the Surat Industrial Hub to the coastal area is provided to illustrate the approach.

Keywords: BRTS, Private Modes, Mode choice models, Ecological footprint.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 3342

Authors: Emel Kızılkaya Aydogan, Mihrimah Ozmen, Yılmaz Delice

Abstract:

In recent days, there is a change and the ongoing development of the telecommunications sector in the global market. In this sector, churn analysis techniques are commonly used for analysing why some customers terminate their service subscriptions prematurely. In addition, customer churn is utmost significant in this sector since it causes to important business loss. Many companies make various researches in order to prevent losses while increasing customer loyalty. Although a large quantity of accumulated data is available in this sector, their usefulness is limited by data quality and relevance. In this paper, a cost-sensitive feature selection framework is developed aiming to obtain the feature reducts to predict customer churn. The framework is a cost based optional pre-processing stage to remove redundant features for churn management. In addition, this cost-based feature selection algorithm is applied in a telecommunication company in Turkey and the results obtained with this algorithm.

Keywords: Churn prediction, data mining, decision-theoretic rough set, feature selection.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1744

Authors: Wei Lei, Hui Chen, Lin Lu

Abstract:

Microscopic emission and fuel consumption models have been widely recognized as an effective method to quantify real traffic emission and energy consumption when they are applied with microscopic traffic simulation models. This paper presents a framework for developing the Microscopic Emission (HC, CO, NOx, and CO2) and Fuel consumption (MEF) models for light-duty vehicles. The variable of composite acceleration is introduced into the MEF model with the purpose of capturing the effects of historical accelerations interacting with current speed on emission and fuel consumption. The MEF model is calibrated by multivariate least-squares method for two types of light-duty vehicle using on-board data collected in Beijing, China by a Portable Emission Measurement System (PEMS). The instantaneous validation results shows the MEF model performs better with lower Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE) compared to other two models. Moreover, the aggregate validation results tells the MEF model produces reasonable estimations compared to actual measurements with prediction errors within 12%, 10%, 19%, and 9% for HC, CO, NOx emissions and fuel consumption, respectively.

Keywords: Emission, Fuel consumption, Light-duty vehicle, Microscopic, Modeling.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1976

Authors: M. Hakan Arslan, I. Hakkı Erkan

Abstract:

Overstrength factor is an important parameter of load reduction factor. In this research, the overstrength factor (Ω) of reinforced concrete (RC) buildings and the parameters of Ω in TEC-2016 draft version have been explored. For this aim, 48 RC buildings have been modeled according to the current seismic code TEC-2007 and Turkish Building Code-500-2000 criteria. After modelling step, nonlinear static pushover analyses have been applied to these buildings by using TEC-2007 Section 7. After the nonlinear pushover analyses, capacity curves (lateral load-lateral top displacement curves) have been plotted for 48 RC buildings. Using capacity curves, overstrength factors (Ω) have been derived for each building. The obtained overstrength factor (Ω) values have been compared with TEC-2016 values for related building types, and the results have been interpreted. According to the obtained values from the study, overstrength factor (Ω) given in TEC-2016 draft code is found quite suitable.

Keywords: Reinforced concrete buildings, overstrength factor, earthquake, static pushover analysis.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2001

Authors: Ping He

Abstract:

This paper addresses the problem of the partial state feedback stabilization of a class of nonlinear systems. In order to stabilization this class systems, the especial place of this paper is to reverse designing the state feedback control law from the method of judging system stability with the center manifold theory. First of all, the center manifold theory is applied to discuss the stabilization sufficient condition and design the stabilizing state control laws for a class of nonlinear. Secondly, the problem of partial stabilization for a class of plane nonlinear system is discuss using the lyapunov second method and the center manifold theory. Thirdly, we investigate specially the problem of the stabilization for a class of homogenous plane nonlinear systems, a class of nonlinear with dual-zero eigenvalues and a class of nonlinear with zero-center using the method of lyapunov function with homogenous derivative, specifically. At the end of this paper, some examples and simulation results are given show that the approach of this paper to this class of nonlinear system is effective and convenient.

Keywords: Partial stabilization, Nonlinear critical systems, Centermanifold theory, Lyapunov function, System reduction.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1737

Authors: Abbas Ali Mahmood Karwi

Abstract:

Accurate timing alignment and stability is important to maximize the true counts and minimize the random counts in positron emission tomography So signals output from detectors must be centering with the two isotopes to pre-operation and fed signals into four units of pulse-processing units, each unit can accept up to eight inputs. The dual source computed tomography consist two units on the left for 15 detector signals of Cs-137 isotope and two units on the right are for 15 detectors signals of Co-60 isotope. The gamma spectrum consisting of either single or multiple photo peaks. This allows for the use of energy discrimination electronic hardware associated with the data acquisition system to acquire photon counts data with a specific energy, even if poor energy resolution detectors are used. This also helps to avoid counting of the Compton scatter counts especially if a single discrete gamma photo peak is emitted by the source as in the case of Cs-137. In this study the polyenergetic version of the alternating minimization algorithm is applied to the dual energy gamma computed tomography problem.

Keywords: Alignment, Spectrum, Laser, Detectors, Image

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1591

Authors: Jehad Al Dallal

Abstract:

An application framework provides a reusable design and implementation for a family of software systems. If the framework contains defects, the defects will be passed on to the applications developed from the framework. Framework defects are hard to discover at the time the framework is instantiated. Therefore, it is important to remove all defects before instantiating the framework. In this paper, two measures for the adequacy of an object-oriented system-based testing technique are introduced. The measures assess the usefulness and uniqueness of the testing technique. The two measures are applied to experimentally compare the adequacy of two testing techniques introduced to test objectoriented frameworks at the system level. The two considered testing techniques are the New Framework Test Approach and Testing Frameworks Through Hooks (TFTH). The techniques are also compared analytically in terms of their coverage power of objectoriented aspects. The comparison study results show that the TFTH technique is better than the New Framework Test Approach in terms of usefulness degree, uniqueness degree, and coverage power.

Keywords: Object-oriented framework, object-oriented framework testing, test case generation, testing adequacy.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1409

Authors: Mukesh Kumar Awasth, Mohammad Tamsir

Abstract:

The effect of porous medium on the capillary instability of a cylindrical interface in the presence of axial electric field has been investigated using viscous potential flow theory. In viscous potential flow, the viscous term in Navier-Stokes equation vanishes as vorticity is zero but viscosity is not zero. Viscosity enters through normal stress balance in the viscous potential flow theory and tangential stresses are not considered. A dispersion relation that accounts for the growth of axisymmetric waves is derived and stability is discussed theoretically as well as numerically. Stability criterion is given by critical value of applied electric field as well as critical wave number. Various graphs have been drawn to show the effect of various physical parameters such as electric field, viscosity ratio, permittivity ratio on the stability of the system. It has been observed that the axial electric field and porous medium both have stabilizing effect on the stability of the system.

Keywords: Capillary instability, Viscous potential flow, Porous media, Axial electric field.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2052

Authors: Nagasamy Venkatesh Dhandapani

Abstract:

The objective of the present study was to develop sustained release oral matrix tablets of anti epileptic drug levetiracetam. The sustained release matrix tablets of levetiracetam were prepared using hydrophilic matrix hydroxypropyl methylcellulose (HPMC) as a release retarding polymer by wet granulation method. Prior to compression, FTIR studies were performed to understand the compatibility between the drug and excipients. The study revealed that there was no chemical interaction between drug and excipients used in the study. The tablets were characterized by physical and chemical parameters and results were found in acceptable limits. In vitro release study was carried out for the tablets using 0.1 N HCl for 2 hours and in phosphate buffer pH 7.4 for remaining time up to 12 hours. The effect of polymer concentration was studied. Different dissolution models were applied to drug release data in order to evaluate release mechanisms and kinetics. The drug release data fit well to zero order kinetics. Drug release mechanism was found as a complex mixture of diffusion, swelling and erosion.

Keywords: Levetiracetam, sustained-release, hydrophilic matrix tablet, HPMC grade K 100 MCR, wet granulation, zero order release kinetics.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1588

Authors: Shanxiong Chen, Xu Han, Xiaolong Wang, Hui Ma

Abstract:

Yi is an ethnic group mainly living in mainland China, with its own spoken and written language systems, after development of thousands of years. Ancient Yi is one of the six ancient languages in the world, which keeps a record of the history of the Yi people and offers documents valuable for research into human civilization. Recognition of the characters in ancient Yi helps to transform the documents into an electronic form, making their storage and spreading convenient. Due to historical and regional limitations, research on recognition of ancient characters is still inadequate. Thus, deep learning technology was applied to the recognition of such characters. Five models were developed on the basis of the four-layer convolutional neural network (CNN). Alpha-Beta divergence was taken as a penalty term to re-encode output neurons of the five models. Two fully connected layers fulfilled the compression of the features. Finally, at the softmax layer, the orthographic features of ancient Yi characters were re-evaluated, their probability distributions were obtained, and characters with features of the highest probability were recognized. Tests conducted show that the method has achieved higher precision compared with the traditional CNN model for handwriting recognition of the ancient Yi.

Keywords: Recognition, CNN, convolutional neural network, Yi character, divergence.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 714

Authors: Manjie Li, Xiangju Cheng, Yongcan Chen

Abstract:

With rapid development of industrialization and urbanization, water environmental deterioration is widespread in majority of urban rivers, which seriously affects city image and life satisfaction of residents. As an emergency measure to improve water quality, clean water diversion is introduced for water environmental management. Lubao River and Southwest River, two urban rivers in typical plain tidal river network, are identified as technically and economically feasible for the application of clean water diversion. One-dimensional hydrodynamic-water quality model is developed to simulate temporal and spatial variations of water level and water quality, with satisfactory accuracy. The mathematical model after calibration is applied to investigate hydrodynamic and water quality variations in rivers as well as determine the optimum operation scheme of water diversion. Assessment system is developed for evaluation of positive and negative effects of water diversion, demonstrating the effectiveness of clean water diversion and the necessity of pollution reduction.

Keywords: Assessment system, clean water diversion, hydrodynamic-water quality model, tidal river network, urban rivers, water environment improvement.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 757

Authors: R. Walha, F. Drira, H. El-Abed, A. M. Alimi

Abstract:

The Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) applied to Arabic language is a challenging task. This is mainly related to the language specificities which make the researchers facing multiple difficulties such as the insufficient linguistic resources and the very limited number of available transcribed Arabic speech corpora. In this paper, we are interested in the development of a HMM-based ASR system for Standard Arabic (SA) language. Our fundamental research goal is to select the most appropriate acoustic parameters describing each audio frame, acoustic models and speech recognition unit. To achieve this purpose, we analyze the effect of varying frame windowing (size and period), acoustic parameter number resulting from features extraction methods traditionally used in ASR, speech recognition unit, Gaussian number per HMM state and number of embedded re-estimations of the Baum-Welch Algorithm. To evaluate the proposed ASR system, a multi-speaker SA connected-digits corpus is collected, transcribed and used throughout all experiments. A further evaluation is conducted on a speaker-independent continue SA speech corpus. The phonemes recognition rate is 94.02% which is relatively high when comparing it with another ASR system evaluated on the same corpus.

Keywords: ASR, HMM, acoustical analysis, acoustic modeling, Standard Arabic language

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1758

Authors: Mun Yee Chan, Sin Ming Goh, Lisa Gaik Ai Ong

Abstract:

Approximately 10,000 different types of dyes and pigments are being used in various industrial applications yearly, which include the textile and printing industries. However, these dyes are difficult to degrade naturally once they enter the aquatic system. Their high persistency in natural environment poses a potential health hazard to all form of life. Hence, there is a need for alternative dye removal strategy in the environment via bioremediation. In this study, fungi laccase is investigated via commercial agar dyes plates and submerged fermentation to explore the application of fungi laccase in textile dye wastewater treatment. Two locally isolated basidiomycetes were screened for laccase activity using media added with commercial dyes such as 2, 2-azino-bis (3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid (ABTS), guaiacol and Remazol Brillant Blue R (RBBR). Isolate TBB3 (1.70±0.06) and EL2 (1.78±0.08) gave the highest results for ABTS plates with the appearance of greenish halo on around the isolates. Submerged fermentation performed on Isolate TBB3 with the productivity 3.9067 U/ml/day, whereas the laccase activity for Isolate EL2 was much lower (0.2097 U/ml/day). As isolate TBB3 showed higher laccase production, it was subjected to molecular characterization by DNA isolation, PCR amplification and sequencing of ITS region of nuclear ribosomal DNA. After being compared with other sequences in National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI database), isolate TBB3 is probably from species Trametes hirsutei. Further research work can be performed on this isolate by upscale the production of laccase in order to meet the demands of the requirement for higher enzyme titer for the bioremediation of textile dyes.

Keywords: Bioremediation, dyes, fermentation, laccase.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2162

Authors: B. Lorestani, M. Cheraghi, N. Yousefi

Abstract:

A research project dealing with the phytoremediation of a soil polluted by some heavy metals is currently running. The case study is represented by a mining area in Hamedan province in the central west part of Iran. The potential of phytoextraction and phytostabilization of plants was evaluated considering the concentration of heavy metals in the plant tissues and also the bioconcentration factor (BCF) and the translocation factor (TF). Also the several established criteria were applied to define hyperaccumulator plants in the studied area. Results showed that none of the collected plant species were suitable for phytoextraction of Cu, Zn, Fe and Mn, but among the plants, Euphorbia macroclada was the most efficient in phytostabilization of Cu and Fe, while, Ziziphora clinopodioides, Cousinia sp. and Chenopodium botrys were the most suitable for phytostabilization of Zn and Chondrila juncea and Stipa barbata had the potential for phytostabilization of Mn. Using the most common criterion, Euphorbia macroclada and Verbascum speciosum were Fe hyperaccumulator plants. Present study showed that native plant species growing on contaminated sites may have the potential for phytoremediation.

Keywords: Bioconcentration factor, Heavy metals, Hyperaccumulator, Phytoremediation, Translocation factor

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 3916

Authors: R. Karbalaei, A. Ghaffari, R. Kazemi, S. H. Tabatabaei

Abstract:

An integrated vehicle dynamics control system is developed in this paper by a combination of active front steering (AFS) and direct yaw-moment control (DYC) based on fuzzy logic control. The control system has a hierarchical structure consisting of two layers. A fuzzy logic controller is used in the upper layer (yaw rate controller) to keep the yaw rate in its desired value. The yaw rate error and its rate of change are applied to the upper controlling layer as inputs, where the direct yaw moment control signal and the steering angle correction of the front wheels are the outputs. In the lower layer (fuzzy integrator), a fuzzy logic controller is designed based on the working region of the lateral tire forces. Depending on the directions of the lateral forces at the front wheels, a switching function is activated to adjust the scaling factor of the fuzzy logic controller. Using a nonlinear seven degrees of freedom vehicle model, the simulation results illustrate considerable improvements which are achieved in vehicle handling through the integrated AFS/DYC control system in comparison with the individual AFS or DYC controllers.

Keywords: Intelligent strategy, integrated control, fuzzy logic, AFS/DYC.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2294

Authors: Chie Urawa

Abstract:

Cautionary statements or disclaimers in corporate annual reports need to be carefully designed because clear cautionary statements may protect a company in the case of legal disputes and may undermine positive impressions. This study compares the language of cautionary statements using two corpora, Sony’s cautionary statement corpus (S-corpus) and Panasonic’s cautionary statement corpus (P-corpus), illustrating the differences and similarities in relation to the use of meaningful cautionary statements and critically analyzing why practitioners use the way. The findings describe the distinct differences between the two companies in the presentation of the risk factors and the way how they make the statements. The word ability is used more for legal protection in S-corpus whereas the word possibility is used more to convey a better impression in P-corpus. The main similarities are identified in the use of lexical words and pronouns, and almost the same wordings for eight years. The findings show how they make the statements unique to the company in the presentation of risk factors, and the characteristics of specific genre of professional communication. Important implications of this study are that more comprehensive approach can be applied in other contexts, and be used by companies to reflect upon their cautionary statements.

Keywords: Cautionary statements, corporate annual reports, corpus, risk factors.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 836

Authors: Mohamed Watfa, William Daher, Hisham Al Azar

Abstract:

The main idea behind in network aggregation is that, rather than sending individual data items from sensors to sinks, multiple data items are aggregated as they are forwarded by the sensor network. Existing sensor network data aggregation techniques assume that the nodes are preprogrammed and send data to a central sink for offline querying and analysis. This approach faces two major drawbacks. First, the system behavior is preprogrammed and cannot be modified on the fly. Second, the increased energy wastage due to the communication overhead will result in decreasing the overall system lifetime. Thus, energy conservation is of prime consideration in sensor network protocols in order to maximize the network-s operational lifetime. In this paper, we give an energy efficient approach to query processing by implementing new optimization techniques applied to in-network aggregation. We first discuss earlier approaches in sensors data management and highlight their disadvantages. We then present our approach “Energy Efficient Indexed Aggregation" (EEIA) and evaluate it through several simulations to prove its efficiency, competence and effectiveness.

Keywords: Sensor Networks, Data Base, Data Fusion, Aggregation, Indexing, Energy Efficiency

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1770

Authors: Panikos Heracleous

Abstract:

In this study, the use of silicon NAM (Non-Audible Murmur) microphone in automatic speech recognition is presented. NAM microphones are special acoustic sensors, which are attached behind the talker-s ear and can capture not only normal (audible) speech, but also very quietly uttered speech (non-audible murmur). As a result, NAM microphones can be applied in automatic speech recognition systems when privacy is desired in human-machine communication. Moreover, NAM microphones show robustness against noise and they might be used in special systems (speech recognition, speech conversion etc.) for sound-impaired people. Using a small amount of training data and adaptation approaches, 93.9% word accuracy was achieved for a 20k Japanese vocabulary dictation task. Non-audible murmur recognition in noisy environments is also investigated. In this study, further analysis of the NAM speech has been made using distance measures between hidden Markov model (HMM) pairs. It has been shown the reduced spectral space of NAM speech using a metric distance, however the location of the different phonemes of NAM are similar to the location of the phonemes of normal speech, and the NAM sounds are well discriminated. Promising results in using nonlinear features are also introduced, especially under noisy conditions.

Keywords: Speech recognition, unvoiced speech, nonlinear features, HMM distance measures

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1628

Authors: Hakan Işık, Esra Saraçoğlu

Abstract:

In this study, a comparison of two control methods, Proportional Control (PC) and Fuzzy Logic Control (FLC), which have been used to develop an ideal thermoelectric renal hypothermia system in order to use in renal surgery, has been carried out. Since the most important issues in long-lasting parenchymatous renal surgery are to provide an operation medium free of blood and to prevent renal dysfunction in the postoperative period, control of the temperature has become very important in renal surgery. The final product is seriously affected from the changes in temperature, therefore, it is necessary to reach some desired temperature points quickly and avoid large overshoot. PIC16F877 microcontroller has been used as controller for both of these two methods. Each control method can simply ensure extra renal hypothermia in the targeted way. But investigation of advantages and disadvantages of every control method to each other is aimed and carried out by the experimental implementations. Shortly, investigation of the most appropriate method to use for development of system and that can be applied to people safely in the future, has been performed. In this sense, experimental results show that fuzzy logic control gives out more reliable responses and efficient performance.

Keywords: renal hypothermia, renal cooling, temperature control, proportional control fuzzy logic control

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1430

Authors: M. H. M. Zin, N. L. N. Ibrahim, M. F. M. Zain, M. Jamil

Abstract:

Located within the tropical belt region, there are certain rules which should implemented in creating a passive sustainable housing design in Malaysia. Traditional Malay house possess a strong character with certain special spaces to create a sustainable house which suit to the tropical climate in Malaysia. One of the special space known as verandah or serambi gantung, create various advantages in solving various issues. However, this special space is not extremely being applied currently which produce major issues in term of social and environmental aspects. Hence, this phenomena create a negative impact to the occupant while Malaysia already has a best housing design previously. Therefore, this paper aims to explore both of the main issues mentioned above and reveal the advantages of implementing verandah into passive sustainable housing design in Malaysia. A systematic literature review is the main methodology in this research to identify the various advantages about verandah.. The study reveals that verandah is the best solution in term of social and environmental issues and should be implemented in current housing design in Malaysia.

Keywords: Tropical climate, traditional Malay house, verandah, passive sustainable housing design

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 4609

Authors: Njiri J. G., Ikua B. W., Nyakoe G. N.

Abstract:

Optimization of cutting parameters important in precision machining in regards to efficiency and surface integrity of the machined part. Usually productivity and precision in machining is limited by the forces emanating from the cutting process. Due to the inherent varying nature of the workpiece in terms of geometry and material composition, the peak cutting forces vary from point to point during machining process. In order to increase productivity without compromising on machining accuracy, it is important to control these cutting forces. In this paper a fuzzy logic control algorithm is developed that can be applied in the control of peak cutting forces in milling of spherical surfaces using ball end mills. The controller can adaptively vary the feedrate to maintain allowable cutting force on the tool. This control algorithm is implemented in a computer numerical control (CNC) machine. It has been demonstrated that the controller can provide stable machining and improve the performance of the CNC milling process by varying feedrate.

Keywords: Ball-end mill, feedrate, fuzzy logic controller, machining optimization, spherical surface.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2459

Authors: Beatriz dos Anjos Furtado, Marina Barreiros Lamim, Camila Avozani Zago, Julianne Alvim Milward-de-Azevedo, Luís Cláudio Meirelles de Medeiros

Abstract:

The intense process of economic acceleration, expansion of industrial activities and capitalism, combined with population growth, while promoting the development, bring environmental consequences and dynamics of locations. It can be seen that society is seeking to break with old paradigms of capitalist society, seeking to reconcile growth with sustainable development, with a change of mentality of the stakeholders of the production process (shareholders, employees, suppliers, customers, governments, and neighbors, groups citizens and the public in general). In this context, this research aims to map the stakeholders interested in environmental management in industries located in the city of Três Rios/RJ. The city of Três Rios is located in South-Central region of the state of Rio de Janeiro - Brazil. Methodological resources used refer to descriptive and field research, whose nature is qualitative and quantitative. It is also of multicases studies in the study area, and the data collection occurred by means of semi-structured questionnaires and interviews with employees related to the environmental area of the industries located in Três Rios and registered at the Federation of Industries the State of Rio de Janeiro - FIRJAN in the version of 2013 and active in federal revenue. Through this research it observed, among other things, the stakeholders involved in the environmental management process of “Três Rios” industry respondents, and those responding to the demands of environmental management.

Keywords: Environmental management, environmental practices, industry, stakeholders.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1443

Authors: Sergey I. Shtork, Aleksey P. Vinokurov, Sergey V. Alekseenko

Abstract:

The paper reports on the results of experimental and numerical study of nonstationary swirling flow in an isothermal model of vortex burner. It has been identified that main source of the instability is related to a precessing vortex core (PVC) phenomenon. The PVC induced flow pulsation characteristics such as precession frequency and its variation as a function of flowrate and swirl number have been explored making use of acoustic probes. Additionally pressure transducers were used to measure the pressure drops on the working chamber and across the vortex flow. The experiments have been included also the mean velocity measurements making use of a laser-Doppler anemometry. The features of instantaneous flowfield generated by the PVC were analyzed employing a commercial CFD code (Star-CCM+) based on Detached Eddy Simulation (DES) approach. Validity of the numerical code has been checked by comparison calculated flowfield data with the obtained experimental results. It has been confirmed particularly that the CFD code applied correctly reproduces the flow features.

Keywords: Acoustic probes, detached eddy simulation (DES), laser-Doppler anemometry (LDA), precessing vortex core (PVC).

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2245

Authors: Eva Nedeliakova, Jaroslav Masek, Juraj Camaj

Abstract:

This article describes the results of research focused on quality of railway freight transport services. Improvement of these services has a crucial importance in customer considering on the future use of railway transport. Processes filling the customer demands and output quality assessment were defined as a part of the research. In this contribution is introduced the map of quality planning and the algorithm of applied methodology. It characterizes a model which takes into account characters of transportation with linking a perception services quality in ordinary and extraordinary operation. Despite the fact that rail freight transport has its solid position in the transport market, lots of carriers worldwide have been experiencing a stagnation for a couple of years. Therefore, specific results of the research have a significant importance and belong to numerous initiatives aimed to develop and support railway transport not only by creating a single railway area or reducing noise but also by promoting railway services. This contribution is focused also on the application of dynamic quality models which represent an innovative method of evaluation quality services. Through this conception, time factor, expected, and perceived quality in each moment of the transportation process can be taken into account.

Keywords: Quality, railway, transport, service.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1675