Search results for: Neural Processing Element.

Authors: Farzaneh Akhavan Mahdavi, Siti Anom Ahmad, Mohd Hamiruce Marhaban, Mohammad-R. Akbarzadeh-T

Abstract:

Electromyography (EMG) signal processing has been investigated remarkably regarding various applications such as in rehabilitation systems. Specifically, wavelet transform has served as a powerful technique to scrutinize EMG signals since wavelet transform is consistent with the nature of EMG as a non-stationary signal. In this paper, the efficiency of wavelet transform in surface EMG feature extraction is investigated from four levels of wavelet decomposition and a comparative study between different mother wavelets had been done. To recognize the best function and level of wavelet analysis, two evaluation criteria, scatter plot and RES index are recruited. Hereupon, four wavelet families, namely, Daubechies, Coiflets, Symlets and Biorthogonal are studied in wavelet decomposition stage. Consequently, the results show that only features from first and second level of wavelet decomposition yields good performance and some functions of various wavelet families can lead to an improvement in separability class of different hand movements.

Keywords: Electromyography signal, feature extraction, wavelettransform, means absolute value.

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Authors: Somayeh Sadeghi, Hamid A. Jalab, Sajjad Dadkhah

Abstract:

Due to availability of powerful image processing software and improvement of human computer knowledge, it becomes easy to tamper images. Manipulation of digital images in different fields like court of law and medical imaging create a serious problem nowadays. Copy-move forgery is one of the most common types of forgery which copies some part of the image and pastes it to another part of the same image to cover an important scene. In this paper, a copy-move forgery detection method proposed based on Fourier transform to detect forgeries. Firstly, image is divided to same size blocks and Fourier transform is performed on each block. Similarity in the Fourier transform between different blocks provides an indication of the copy-move operation. The experimental results prove that the proposed method works on reasonable time and works well for gray scale and colour images. Computational complexity reduced by using Fourier transform in this method.

Keywords: Copy-Move forgery, Digital Forensics, Image Forgery.

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Authors: Violina R. Angelova, Mariana N. Perifanova-Nemska, Galina P. Uzunova, Elitsa N. Kolentsova

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Comparative research has been conducted to allow us to determine the accumulation of heavy metals (Pb, Zn and Cd) in the vegetative and reproductive organs of safflower, and to identify the possibility of its growth on soils contaminated by heavy metals and efficacy for phytoremediation. The experiment was performed on an agricultural field contaminated by the Non-Ferrous-Metal Works (MFMW) near Plovdiv, Bulgaria. The experimental plots were situated at different distances (0.1, 0.5, 2.0, and 15 km) from the source of pollution. The contents of heavy metals in plant materials (roots, stems, leaves, seeds) were determined. The quality of safflower oils (heavy metals and fatty acid composition) was also determined. The quantitative measurements were carried out with inductively-coupled plasma (ICP). Safflower is a plant that is tolerant to heavy metals and can be referred to the hyperaccumulators of lead and cadmium and the accumulators of zinc. The plant can be successfully used in the phytoremediation of heavy metal contaminated soils. The processing of safflower seeds into oil and the use of the obtained oil will greatly reduce the cost of phytoremediation.

Keywords: Heavy metals, phytoremediation, polluted soils, safflower.

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Authors: Somayeh Komeylian

Abstract:

The antenna arrays for the entire 3D spherical coverage have been developed for their potential use in variety of applications such as radars and body-worn devices of the body area networks. In this study, we have rigorously revamped the hybrid antenna array using the optimum geometry of bowtie elements for achieving a significant improvement in the angular discrimination capability as well as in separating two adjacent targets. In this scenario, we have analogously investigated the effectiveness of increasing the virtual array length in fostering and enhancing the directivity and angular resolution in the 10 GHz frequency. The simulation results have extensively verified that the proposed antenna array represents a drastic enhancement in terms of size, directivity, side lobe level (SLL) and, especially resolution compared with the other available geometries. We have also verified that the maximum directivities of the proposed hybrid antenna array represent the robustness to the all  variations, which is accompanied by the uniform 3D scanning characteristic.

Keywords: Bowtie antenna, hybrid antenna array, array signal processing, body area networks.

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Authors: Anton A. Bykov, Irina O. Glot, Igor N. Shardakov, Alexey P. Shestakov

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This paper presents the results of experimental and theoretical investigations of the mechanisms of crack formation in reinforced concrete beams subjected to quasi-static bending. The boundary-value problem has been formulated in the framework of brittle fracture mechanics and has been solved by using the finite-element method. Numerical simulation of the vibrations of an uncracked beam and a beam with cracks of different size serves to determine the pattern of changes in the spectrum of eigenfrequencies observed during crack evolution. Experiments were performed on the sequential quasistatic four-point bending of the beam leading to the formation of cracks in concrete. At each loading stage, the beam was subjected to an impulse load to induce vibrations. Two stages of cracking were detected. At the first stage the conservative process of deformation is realized. The second stage is an active cracking, which is marked by a sharp change in eingenfrequencies. The boundary of a transition from one stage to another is well registered. The vibration behavior was examined for the beams strengthened by carbon-fiber sheet before loading and at the intermediate stage of loading after the grouting of initial cracks. The obtained results show that the vibrodiagnostic approach is an effective tool for monitoring of cracking and for assessing the quality of measures aimed at strengthening concrete structures.

Keywords: Crack formation. experiment. mathematical modeling. reinforced concrete. vibrodiagnostics.

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Authors: Mahdi Sadeghian, Somaye Sadeghian, Reza Dinarvand

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This paper is going to discuss two issues encountered in using PLAXIS. Both issues were monitored during application of PLAXIS to estimate the excavation-induced displacement. Column Soil Mixing (CSM) was applied to stabilise the excavation. It was understood that the estimated excavation induced deformation at the top of the CSM blocks highly depends on the material type defining pavement material adjacent to the CSM blocks. Cohesive material for pavement will result in the unrealistic connection between pavement and CSM even by defining an interface element. To find the most realistic approach, the interface defined in three different manners (1) no interface elements were applied (2) a non-cohesive soil layer was defined between pavement and CSM block to represent the friction between these materials (3) built-in interface elements in PLAXIS was used to define the boundary between the pavement and the CSM block. The result showed that the option 2 would result in more realistic results. The second issue was in the modelling of the contact line between the CSM block and an inclined layer underneath. The analysis result showed that the excavation-induced deformation highly depends on how the PLAXIS user defines the contact area. It was understood that if the contact area had defined as a point in which CSM block had intersected the layer underneath the estimated lateral displacement of CSM block would be unrealistically lower than the model in which the contact area was defined as a line.

Keywords: PLAXIS, FEM, CSM, excavation-induced deformation.

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Authors: Michal Natora, Felix Franke, Klaus Obermayer

Abstract:

Linear convolutive filters are fast in calculation and in application, and thus, often used for real-time processing of continuous data streams. In the case of transient signals, a filter has not only to detect the presence of a specific waveform, but to estimate its arrival time as well. In this study, a measure is presented which indicates the performance of detectors in achieving both of these tasks simultaneously. Furthermore, a new sub-class of linear filters within the class of filters which minimize the quadratic response is proposed. The proposed filters are more flexible than the existing ones, like the adaptive matched filter or the minimum power distortionless response beamformer, and prove to be superior with respect to that measure in certain settings. Simulations of a real-time scenario confirm the advantage of these filters as well as the usefulness of the performance measure.

Keywords: Adaptive matched filter, minimum variance distortionless response, beam forming, Capon beam former, linear filters, performance measure.

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Authors: Xiantong Li, Jianzhong Li

Abstract:

Graph has become increasingly important in modeling complicated structures and schemaless data such as proteins, chemical compounds, and XML documents. Given a graph query, it is desirable to retrieve graphs quickly from a large database via graph-based indices. Different from the existing methods, our approach, called VFM (Vertex to Frequent Feature Mapping), makes use of vertices and decision features as the basic indexing feature. VFM constructs two mappings between vertices and frequent features to answer graph queries. The VFM approach not only provides an elegant solution to the graph indexing problem, but also demonstrates how database indexing and query processing can benefit from data mining, especially frequent pattern mining. The results show that the proposed method not only avoids the enumeration method of getting subgraphs of query graph, but also effectively reduces the subgraph isomorphism tests between the query graph and graphs in candidate answer set in verification stage.

Keywords: Decision Feature, Frequent Feature, Graph Dataset, Graph Query

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Authors: Prakash G L, Thejaswini M, S H Manjula, K R Venugopal, L M Patnaik

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Wireless sensor network can be applied to both abominable and military environments. A primary goal in the design of wireless sensor networks is lifetime maximization, constrained by the energy capacity of batteries. One well-known method to reduce energy consumption in such networks is data aggregation. Providing efcient data aggregation while preserving data privacy is a challenging problem in wireless sensor networks research. In this paper, we present privacy-preserving data aggregation scheme for additive aggregation functions. The Cluster-based Private Data Aggregation (CPDA)leverages clustering protocol and algebraic properties of polynomials. It has the advantage of incurring less communication overhead. The goal of our work is to bridge the gap between collaborative data collection by wireless sensor networks and data privacy. We present simulation results of our schemes and compare their performance to a typical data aggregation scheme TAG, where no data privacy protection is provided. Results show the efficacy and efficiency of our schemes.

Keywords: Aggregation, Clustering, Query Processing.

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Authors: F. Kovács, K. Kádár, G. Hosszú, Á. T. Balogh, T. Zsedrovits, N. Kersner, A. Nagy, Gy. Jeney

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The paper presents a novel screening method to indicate congenital heart diseases (CHD), which otherwise could remain undetected because of their low level. Therefore, not belonging to the high-risk population, the pregnancies are not subject to the regular fetal monitoring with ultrasound echocardiography. Based on the fact that CHD is a morphological defect of the heart causing turbulent blood flow, the turbulence appears as a murmur, which can be detected by fetal phonocardiography (fPCG). The proposed method applies measurements on the maternal abdomen and from the recorded sound signal a sophisticated processing determines the fetal heart murmur. The paper describes the problems and the additional advantages of the fPCG method including the possibility of measurements at home and its combination with the prescribed regular cardiotocographic (CTG) monitoring. The proposed screening process implemented on a telemedicine system provides an enhanced safety against hidden cardiac diseases.

Keywords: Cardiac murmurs, fetal phonocardiography, screening of CHDs, telemedicine system.

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Authors: Yasser F. Hassan, Marwa Abdeen, Mustafa Fahmy

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In recent years multi-agent systems have emerged as one of the interesting architectures facilitating distributed collaboration and distributed problem solving. Each node (agent) of the network might pursue its own agenda, exploit its environment, develop its own problem solving strategy and establish required communication strategies. Within each node of the network, one could encounter a diversity of problem-solving approaches. Quite commonly the agents can realize their processing at the level of information granules that is the most suitable from their local points of view. Information granules can come at various levels of granularity. Each agent could exploit a certain formalism of information granulation engaging a machinery of fuzzy sets, interval analysis, rough sets, just to name a few dominant technologies of granular computing. Having this in mind, arises a fundamental issue of forming effective interaction linkages between the agents so that they fully broadcast their findings and benefit from interacting with others.

Keywords: Granular computing, rough sets, agents, traffic system.

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Authors: Matko Šaric, Hrvoje Dujmic, Vladan Papic, Nikola Rožic

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Detection of player identity is challenging task in sport video content analysis. In case of soccer video player number recognition is effective and precise solution. Jersey numbers can be considered as scene text and difficulties in localization and recognition appear due to variations in orientation, size, illumination, motion etc. This paper proposed new method for player number localization and recognition. By observing hue, saturation and value for 50 different jersey examples we noticed that most often combination of low and high saturated pixels is used to separate number and jersey region. Image segmentation method based on this observation is introduced. Then, novel method for player number localization based on internal contours is proposed. False number candidates are filtered using area and aspect ratio. Before OCR processing extracted numbers are enhanced using image smoothing and rotation normalization.

Keywords: player number, soccer video, HSV color space

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Authors: N. H. Mvungi

Abstract:

Control of commutation of switched reluctance (SR) motor has been an area of interest for researchers for sometime now with mixed successes in addressing the inherent challenges. New technologies, processing schemes and methods have been adopted to make sensorless SR drive a reality. There are a number of conceptual, offline, analytical and online solutions in literature that have varying complexities and achieved equally varying degree of robustness and accuracies depending on the method used to address the challenges and the SR drive application. Magnetic coupling is one such challenge when using active probing techniques to determine rotor position of a SR motor from stator winding. This paper studies the effect of back-of-core saturation on the detected rotor position and presents results on measurement made on a 4- phase SR motor. The results shows that even for a four phase motor which is excited one phase at a time and using the electrically opposite phase for active position probing, the back-of-core saturation effects should not be ignored.

Keywords: Sensorless, SR motor, saturation effects, detection.

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Authors: Akella Amarendra Babu, Rama Devi Yellasiri, Natukula Sainath

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Where human beings can easily learn and adopt pronunciation variations, machines need training before put into use. Also humans keep minimum vocabulary and their pronunciation variations are stored in front-end of their memory for ready reference, while machines keep the entire pronunciation dictionary for ready reference. Supervised methods are used for preparation of pronunciation dictionaries which take large amounts of manual effort, cost, time and are not suitable for real time use. This paper presents an unsupervised adaptation model for building agile and dynamic pronunciation dictionaries online. These methods mimic human approach in learning the new pronunciations in real time. A new algorithm for measuring sound distances called Dynamic Phone Warping is presented and tested. Performance of the system is measured using an adaptation model and the precision metrics is found to be better than 86 percent.

Keywords: Pronunciation variations, dynamic programming, machine learning, natural language processing.

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Authors: Y. Zheng, W. Sun

Abstract:

This paper describes a new approach which can be used to interpret the experimental creep deformation data obtained from miniaturized thin plate bending specimen test to the corresponding uniaxial data based on an inversed application of the reference stress method. The geometry of the thin plate is fully defined by the span of the support, l, the width, b, and the thickness, d. Firstly, analytical solutions for the steady-state, load-line creep deformation rate of the thin plates for a Norton’s power law under plane stress (b→0) and plane strain (b→∞) conditions were obtained, from which it can be seen that the load-line deformation rate of the thin plate under plane-stress conditions is much higher than that under the plane-strain conditions. Since analytical solution is not available for the plates with random b-values, finite element (FE) analyses are used to obtain the solutions. Based on the FE results obtained for various b/l ratios and creep exponent, n, as well as the analytical solutions under plane stress and plane strain conditions, an approximate, numerical solutions for the deformation rate are obtained by curve fitting. Using these solutions, a reference stress method is utilised to establish the conversion relationships between the applied load and the equivalent uniaxial stress and between the creep deformations of thin plate and the equivalent uniaxial creep strains. Finally, the accuracy of the empirical solution was assessed by using a set of “theoretical” experimental data.

Keywords: Bending, Creep, Miniature Specimen, Thin Plate.

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Authors: Dr. N.H. Mvungi

Abstract:

The control of commutation of switched reluctance (SR) motor has nominally depended on a physical position detector. The physical rotor position sensor limits robustness and increases size and inertia of the SR drive system. The paper describes a method to overcome these limitations by using magnetization characteristics of the motor to indicate rotor and stator teeth overlap status. The method is using active current probing pulses of same magnitude that is used to simulate flux linkage in the winding being probed. A microprocessor is used for processing magnetization data to deduce rotor-stator teeth overlap status and hence rotor position. However, the back-of-core saturation and mutual coupling introduces overlap detection errors, hence that of commutation control. This paper presents the concept of the detection scheme and the effects of backof core saturation.

Keywords: Microprocessor control, rotor position, sensorless, switched reluctance.

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Authors: Kusumaphorn Sompong, Helen Lawton Smith, Barbara Igel

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This paper provides a key driver-based conceptual framework that can be used to improve a firm-s success in commercializing technology and in new product innovation resulting from collaboration with other organizations through strategic alliances. Based on a qualitative study using an interview approach, strategic alliances of entrepreneurs in the food processing industry in Thailand are explored. This paper describes factors affecting decisions to collaborate through alliances. It identifies four issues: maintaining the efficiency of the value chain for production capability, adapting to present and future competition, careful assessment of value of outcomes, and management of innovation. We consider five driving factors: resource orientation, assessment of risk, business opportunity, sharing of benefits and confidence in alliance partners. These factors will be of interest to entrepreneurs and policy makers with regard to further understanding of the direction of business strategies.

Keywords: Managing collaboration, strategic alliance, technology commercialization, innovation.

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Authors: Mohsen Soori, Fooad Karimi Ghaleh Jough

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The integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques in the optimization of steel moment frame structures represents a transformative approach to enhance the design, analysis, and performance of these critical engineering systems. The review encompasses a wide spectrum of AI methods, including machine learning algorithms, evolutionary algorithms, neural networks, and optimization techniques, applied to address various challenges in the field. The synthesis of research findings highlights the interdisciplinary nature of AI applications in structural engineering, emphasizing the synergy between domain expertise and advanced computational methodologies. This synthesis aims to serve as a valuable resource for researchers, practitioners, and policymakers seeking a comprehensive understanding of the state-of-the-art in AI-driven optimization for steel moment frame structures. The paper commences with an overview of the fundamental principles governing steel moment frame structures and identifies the key optimization objectives, such as efficiency of structures. Subsequently, it delves into the application of AI in the conceptual design phase, where algorithms aid in generating innovative structural configurations and optimizing material utilization. The review also explores the use of AI for real-time structural health monitoring and predictive maintenance, contributing to the long-term sustainability and reliability of steel moment frame structures. Furthermore, the paper investigates how AI-driven algorithms facilitate the calibration of structural models, enabling accurate prediction of dynamic responses and seismic performance. Thus, by reviewing and analyzing the recent achievements in applications artificial intelligent in optimization of steel moment frame structures, the process of designing, analysis, and performance of the structures can be analyzed and modified.

Keywords: Artificial Intelligent, optimization process, steel moment frame, structural engineering.

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Authors: G. M. Mir, Moinuddin, N. A. Shah

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In the age of global communications, heterogeneous networks are seen to be the best choice of strategy to ensure continuous and uninterruptible services. This will allow mobile terminal to stay in connection even they are migrating into different segment coverage through the handoff process. With the increase of teletraffic demands in mobile cellular system, hierarchical cellular systems have been adopted extensively for more efficient channel utilization and better QoS (Quality of Service). This paper presents a bidirectional call overflow scheme between two layers of microcells and macrocells, where handoffs are decided by the velocity of mobile making the call. To ensure that handoff calls are given higher priorities, it is assumed that guard channels are assigned in both macrocells and microcells. A hysteresis value introduced in mobile velocity is used to allow mobile roam in the same cell if its velocity changes back within the set threshold values. By doing this the number of handoffs is reduced thereby reducing the processing overhead and enhancing the quality of service to the end user.

Keywords: Hierarchical cellular systems, hysteresis, overflow, threshold.

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Authors: Nandini N., Srikanta Murthy K., G. Hemantha Kumar

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This paper includes two novel techniques for skew estimation of binary document images. These algorithms are based on connected component analysis and Hough transform. Both these methods focus on reducing the amount of input data provided to Hough transform. In the first method, referred as word centroid approach, the centroids of selected words are used for skew detection. In the second method, referred as dilate & thin approach, the selected characters are blocked and dilated to get word blocks and later thinning is applied. The final image fed to Hough transform has the thinned coordinates of word blocks in the image. The methods have been successful in reducing the computational complexity of Hough transform based skew estimation algorithms. Promising experimental results are also provided to prove the effectiveness of the proposed methods.

Keywords: Dilation, Document processing, Hough transform, Optical Character Recognition, Skew estimation, and Thinning.

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Authors: Irshad Ahmad, Abdul Muhamin Naeem, Muhammad Islam

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Information on weed distribution within the field is necessary to implement spatially variable herbicide application. Since hand labor is costly, an automated weed control system could be feasible. This paper deals with the development of an algorithm for real time specific weed recognition system based on Histogram Analysis of an image that is used for the weed classification. This algorithm is specifically developed to classify images into broad and narrow class for real-time selective herbicide application. The developed system has been tested on weeds in the lab, which have shown that the system to be very effectiveness in weed identification. Further the results show a very reliable performance on images of weeds taken under varying field conditions. The analysis of the results shows over 95 percent classification accuracy over 140 sample images (broad and narrow) with 70 samples from each category of weeds.

Keywords: Image Processing, real-time recognition, Weeddetection.

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Authors: H. Ahmad, S. Kermanshahani, A. Simonet, M. Simonet

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The data exchanged on the Web are of different nature from those treated by the classical database management systems; these data are called semi-structured data since they do not have a regular and static structure like data found in a relational database; their schema is dynamic and may contain missing data or types. Therefore, the needs for developing further techniques and algorithms to exploit and integrate such data, and extract relevant information for the user have been raised. In this paper we present the system OSIX (Osiris based System for Integration of XML Sources). This system has a Data Warehouse model designed for the integration of semi-structured data and more precisely for the integration of XML documents. The architecture of OSIX relies on the Osiris system, a DL-based model designed for the representation and management of databases and knowledge bases. Osiris is a viewbased data model whose indexing system supports semantic query optimization. We show that the problem of query processing on a XML source is optimized by the indexing approach proposed by Osiris.

Keywords: Data integration, semi-structured data, views, XML.

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Authors: Yousry El-Gamal, Khalid El-Gazzar, Magdy Saeb

Abstract:

The development of distributed systems has been affected by the need to accommodate an increasing degree of flexibility, adaptability, and autonomy. The Mobile Agent technology is emerging as an alternative to build a smart generation of highly distributed systems. In this work, we investigate the performance aspect of agent-based technologies for information retrieval. We present a comparative performance evaluation model of Mobile Agents versus Remote Method Invocation by means of an analytical approach. We demonstrate the effectiveness of mobile agents for dynamic code deployment and remote data processing by reducing total latency and at the same time producing minimum network traffic. We argue that exploiting agent-based technologies significantly enhances the performance of distributed systems in the domain of information retrieval.

Keywords: Mobile Agent, performance evaluation, RMI, information retrieval, distributed systems, database.

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Authors: K. Okubo, Y. Kurihara, T. Kaburagi, K. Watanabe

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Many of the ever-growing elderly population require exercise, such as running, for health management. One important element of a runner’s training is the choice of shoes for exercise; shoes are important because they provide the interface between the feet and road. When we purchase shoes, we may instinctively choose a pair after trying on many different pairs of shoes. Selecting the shoes instinctively may work, but it does not guarantee a suitable fit for running activities. Therefore, if we could select suitable shoes for each runner from the viewpoint of brain activities, it would be helpful for validating shoe selection. In this paper, we describe how brain activities show different characteristics during particular task, corresponding to different properties of shoes. Using five subjects, we performed a verification experiment, applying weight, softness, and flexibility as shoe properties. In order to affect the shoe property’s differences to the brain, subjects run for 10 min. Before and after running, subjects conducted a paced auditory serial addition task (PASAT) as the particular task; and the subjects’ brain activities during the PASAT are evaluated based on oxyhemoglobin and deoxyhemoglobin relative concentration changes, measured by near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS). When the brain works actively, oxihemoglobin and deoxyhemoglobin concentration drastically changes; therefore, we calculate the maximum values of concentration changes. In order to normalize relative concentration changes after running, the maximum value are divided by before running maximum value as evaluation parameters. The classification of the groups of shoes is expressed on a self-organizing map (SOM). As a result, deoxyhemoglobin can make clusters for two of the three types of shoes.

Keywords: Brain activities, NIRS, PASAT, running shoes.

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Authors: Daniela I. Borissova, Ivan C. Mustakerov

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The paper addresses a problem of optimal staffing in open shop environment. The problem is to determine the optimal number of operators serving a given number of machines to fulfill the number of independent operations while minimizing staff idle. Using a Gantt chart presentation of the problem it is modeled as twodimensional cutting stock problem. A mixed-integer programming model is used to get minimal job processing time (makespan) for fixed number of machines' operators. An algorithm for optimal openshop staffing is developed based on iterative solving of the formulated optimization task. The execution of the developed algorithm provides optimal number of machines' operators in the sense of minimum staff idle and optimal makespan for that number of operators. The proposed algorithm is tested numerically for a real life staffing problem. The testing results show the practical applicability for similar open shop staffing problems.

Keywords: Integer programming, open shop problem, optimal staffing.

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Authors: Mohamed I. Mahmoud, Moawad I. M. Dessouky, Salah Deyab, Fatma H. Elfouly

Abstract:

Recently, the Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) technology offers the potential of designing high performance systems at low cost. The discrete wavelet transform has gained the reputation of being a very effective signal analysis tool for many practical applications. However, due to its computation-intensive nature, current implementation of the transform falls short of meeting real-time processing requirements of most application. The objectives of this paper are implement the Haar and Daubechies wavelets using FPGA technology. In addition, the comparison between the Haar and Daubechies wavelets is investigated. The Bit Error Rat (BER) between the input audio signal and the reconstructed output signal for each wavelet is calculated. It is seen that the BER using Daubechies wavelet techniques is less than Haar wavelet. The design procedure has been explained and designed using the stat-of-art Electronic Design Automation (EDA) tools for system design on FPGA. Simulation, synthesis and implementation on the FPGA target technology has been carried out.

Keywords: Daubechies wavelet, discrete wavelet transform, Haar wavelet, Xilinx FPGA.

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Authors: Chee Siong Teh, Chee Peng Lim

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This paper proposes a novel architecture for developing decision support systems. Unlike conventional decision support systems, the proposed architecture endeavors to reveal the decision-making process such that humans' subjectivity can be incorporated into a computerized system and, at the same time, to preserve the capability of the computerized system in processing information objectively. A number of techniques used in developing the decision support system are elaborated to make the decisionmarking process transparent. These include procedures for high dimensional data visualization, pattern classification, prediction, and evolutionary computational search. An artificial data set is first employed to compare the proposed approach with other methods. A simulated handwritten data set and a real data set on liver disease diagnosis are then employed to evaluate the efficacy of the proposed approach. The results are analyzed and discussed. The potentials of the proposed architecture as a useful decision support system are demonstrated.

Keywords: Interactive evolutionary computation, multivariate data projection, pattern classification, topographic map.

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Authors: Constantia Achilleos, Diofantos G. Hadjimitsis

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Road industry has challenged the prospect of ecoconstruction. Pavements may fit within the framework of sustainable development. Hence, research implements assessments of conventional pavements impacts on environment in use of life cycle approach. To meet global, and often national, targets on pollution control, newly introduced pavement designs are under study. This is the case of Cyprus demonstration, which occurred within EcoLanes project work. This alternative pavement differs on concrete layer reinforced with tire recycling product. Processing of post-consumer tires produces steel fibers improving strength capacity against cracking. Thus maintenance works are relevantly limited in comparison to flexible pavement. This enables to be more ecofriendly, referenced to current study outputs. More specific, proposed concrete pavement life cycle processes emits 15 % less air pollutants and consumes 28 % less embodied energy than those of the asphalt pavement. In addition there is also a reduction on costs by 0.06 %.

Keywords: Environmental impact assessment, life cycle, tirerecycling, transportation pavement.

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Authors: R. Ziaie Moayed, M. Nazari

Abstract:

This paper tries to study the effect of geosynthetic inclusion on the improvement of the load-settlement characters of two layered soil. In addition, the effect of geogrid and geotextile in reduction of the required thickness of subbase layer in unpaved roads is studied. Considering the vast application of bearing ratio tests in road construction projects, this test is used in present investigation. Bearing ratio tests were performed on two layered soil including a granular soil layer at the top (as the subbase layer) and a weak clayey soil placed at the bottom (as the subgrade layer). These tests were performed for different conditions including unreinforced and reinforced by geogrid and geotextile and three thicknesses for top layer soil (subbase layer). In the reinforced condition the reinforcing element was placed on the interface of the top granular layer and the beneath clayey layer to study the separation effect of geosynthetics. In all tests the soils (both granular and clayey soil layers) were compacted according to optimum water content. At the end, the diagrams were plotted and were compared with each other. Furthermore, a comparison between geogrids and geotextiles behaviors on two layer soil is done in this paper. The results show an increase in compression strength of reinforced specimen in comparison with unreinforced soil sample. The effect of geosynthetic inclusion reduces by increasing the subbase thickness. In addition it was found that geogrids have more desirable behavior rather than geotextiles due to interlocking with the subbase layer aggregates.

Keywords: Bearing ratio, Subgrade, Subbase, Sand layer thickness, Geosynthetic.

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Authors: Chia-Feng Lu, Yuh-Jen Wang, Yu-Te Wu, Sui-Hing Yan

Abstract:

This study aimed at investigating whether the functional brain networks constructed using the initial EEG (obtained when patients first visited hospital) can be correlated with the progression of cognitive decline calculated as the changes of mini-mental state examination (MMSE) scores between the latest and initial examinations. We integrated the time–frequency cross mutual information (TFCMI) method to estimate the EEG functional connectivity between cortical regions, and the network analysis based on graph theory to investigate the organization of functional networks in aMCI. Our finding suggested that higher integrated functional network with sufficient connection strengths, dense connection between local regions, and high network efficiency in processing information at the initial stage may result in a better prognosis of the subsequent cognitive functions for aMCI. In conclusion, the functional connectivity can be a useful biomarker to assist in prediction of cognitive declines in aMCI.

Keywords: Cognitive decline, functional connectivity, MCI, MMSE.

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