Search results for: local minima problem

Authors: Mehaiguene Madjid, Touhari Fadhila, Meddi Mohamed

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The Cheliff basin offers a good hydrological example for the possibility of studying the problem which elucidated in the future, because of the unclearity in several aspects and hydraulic installation. Thus, our study of the Cheliff basin is divided into two principal parts: The spatial evaluation of the precipitation: also, the understanding of the modes of the reconstitution of the resource in water supposes a good knowledge of the structuring of the precipitation fields in the studied space. In the goal of a good knowledge of revitalizes them in water and their management integrated one judged necessary to establish a precipitation card of the Cheliff basin for a good understanding of the evolution of the resource in water in the basin and that goes will serve as basis for all study of hydraulic planning in the Cheliff basin. Then, the establishment of the precipitation card of the Cheliff basin answered a direct need of setting to the disposition of the researchers for the region and a document of reference that will be completed therefore and actualized. The hydrological study, based on the statistical hydrometric data processing will lead us to specify the hydrological terms of the assessment hydrological and to clarify the fundamental aspects of the annual flow, seasonal, extreme and thus of their variability and resources surface water.

Keywords: Hydrological assessment, surface water resources, Cheliff, Algeria.

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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: Mansi Jhamb, R. K. Sharma, A. K. Gupta

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In the current scenario, with the increasing integration densities, most system-on-chip designs are partitioned into multiple clock domains. In this paper, an asynchronous FIFO (First-in First-out pipeline) design is employed as a data transfer interface between two independent clock domains. Since the clocks on the either sides of the FIFO run at a different speed, the task to ensure the correct data transmission through this FIFO is manually performed. Firstly an existing asynchronous FIFO design is discussed and simulated. Gate-level simulation results depicted the flaw in existing design. In order to solve this problem, a novel modified asynchronous FIFO design is proposed. The results obtained from proposed design are in perfect accordance with theoretical expectations. The proposed asynchronous FIFO design outperforms the existing design in terms of accuracy and speed. In order to evaluate the performance of the FIFO designs presented in this paper, the circuits were implemented in 0.24µ TSMC CMOS technology and simulated at 2.5V using HSpice (© Avant! Corporation). The layout design of the proposed FIFO is also presented.

Keywords: Asynchronous, Clock, CMOS, C-element, FIFO, Globally Asynchronous Locally Synchronous (GALS), HSpice.

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Authors: Dewan Md. Farid, Nguyen Huu Hoa, Jerome Darmont, Nouria Harbi, Mohammad Zahidur Rahman

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In this paper, we present a new learning algorithm for anomaly based network intrusion detection using improved self adaptive naïve Bayesian tree (NBTree), which induces a hybrid of decision tree and naïve Bayesian classifier. The proposed approach scales up the balance detections for different attack types and keeps the false positives at acceptable level in intrusion detection. In complex and dynamic large intrusion detection dataset, the detection accuracy of naïve Bayesian classifier does not scale up as well as decision tree. It has been successfully tested in other problem domains that naïve Bayesian tree improves the classification rates in large dataset. In naïve Bayesian tree nodes contain and split as regular decision-trees, but the leaves contain naïve Bayesian classifiers. The experimental results on KDD99 benchmark network intrusion detection dataset demonstrate that this new approach scales up the detection rates for different attack types and reduces false positives in network intrusion detection.

Keywords: Detection rates, false positives, network intrusiondetection, naïve Bayesian tree.

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Authors: Jih-Rue Pan, Feng-Chuan Pan

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Today-s healthcare industries had become more patient-centric than profession-centric, from which the issues of quality of healthcare and the patient safety are the major concerns in the modern healthcare facilities. An unplanned extubation (UE) may be detrimental to the patient-s life, and thus is one of the major indexes of patient safety and healthcare quality. A high UE rate not only defeated the healthcare quality as well as the patient safety policy but also the nurses- morality, and job satisfaction. The UE problem in a psychiatric hospital is unique and may be a tough challenge for the healthcare professionals for the patients were mostly lacking communication capabilities. We reported with this essay a particular project that was organized to reduce the UE rate from the current 2.3% to a lower and satisfactory level in the long-term care units of a psychiatric hospital. The project was conducted between March 1st, 2011 and August 31st, 2011. Based on the error information gathered from varied units of the hospital, the team analyzed the root causes with possible solutions proposed to the meetings. Four solutions were then concluded with consensus and launched to the units in question. The UE rate was now reduced to a level of 0.17%. Experience from this project, the procedure and the tools adopted would be good reference to other hospitals.

Keywords: Unplanned extubation, patient safety, error information

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Authors: András Horkai, Attila Talamon, Viktória Sugár

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There is an urgent need nowadays to reduce energy demand and the current level of greenhouse gas emission and use renewable energy sources increase in energy efficiency. On the other hand, the European Union (EU) countries are largely dependent on energy imports and are vulnerable to disruption in energy supply, which may, in turn, threaten the functioning of their current economic structure. Residential buildings represent a significant part of the energy consumption of the building stock. Only a small part of the building stock is exchanged every year, thus it is essential to increase the energy efficiency of the existing buildings. Present paper focuses on the buildings built with industrialized technology only, and their opportunities in the boundaries of nearly zero-energy regulation. Current paper shows the emergence of panel construction method, and past and present of the ‘panel’ problem in Hungary with a short outlook to Europe. The study shows as well as the possibilities for meeting the nearly zero and cost optimized requirements for residential buildings by analyzing the renovation scenarios of an existing residential typology.

Keywords: Budapest, energy consumption, industrialized technology, nearly zero-energy buildings.

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Authors: Hyun-Woo Cho

Abstract:

Real-time or in-line process monitoring frameworks are designed to give early warnings for a fault along with meaningful identification of its assignable causes. In artificial intelligence and machine learning fields of pattern recognition various promising approaches have been proposed such as kernel-based nonlinear machine learning techniques. This work presents a kernel-based empirical monitoring scheme for batch type production processes with small sample size problem of partially unbalanced data. Measurement data of normal operations are easy to collect whilst special events or faults data are difficult to collect. In such situations, noise filtering techniques can be helpful in enhancing process monitoring performance. Furthermore, preprocessing of raw process data is used to get rid of unwanted variation of data. The performance of the monitoring scheme was demonstrated using three-dimensional batch data. The results showed that the monitoring performance was improved significantly in terms of detection success rate of process fault.

Keywords: Process Monitoring, kernel methods, multivariate filtering, data-driven techniques, quality improvement.

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Authors: Mahdi Mazinani, S. D. Qanadli, Rahil Hosseini, Tim Ellis, Jamshid Dehmeshki

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Segmentation and quantification of stenosis is an important task in assessing coronary artery disease. One of the main challenges is measuring the real diameter of curved vessels. Moreover, uncertainty in segmentation of different tissues in the narrow vessel is an important issue that affects accuracy. This paper proposes an algorithm to extract coronary arteries and measure the degree of stenosis. Markovian fuzzy clustering method is applied to model uncertainty arises from partial volume effect problem. The algorithm employs: segmentation, centreline extraction, estimation of orthogonal plane to centreline, measurement of the degree of stenosis. To evaluate the accuracy and reproducibility, the approach has been applied to a vascular phantom and the results are compared with real diameter. The results of 10 patient datasets have been visually judged by a qualified radiologist. The results reveal the superiority of the proposed method compared to the Conventional thresholding Method (CTM) on both datasets.

Keywords: 3D coronary artery tree extraction, segmentation, quantification, fuzzy clustering, and Markov random field

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Authors: M. Rodionov, N. Sharapova, Z. Dedovets

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The article describes methods of preparation of future teachers that includes the entire diversity of traditional and computer-oriented methodological approaches. The authors reveal how, in the specific educational environment, a teacher can choose the most effective combination of educational technologies based on the nature of the learning task. The key conditions that determine such a choice are that the methodological approach corresponds to the specificity of the problem being solved and that it is also responsive to the individual characteristics of the students. The article refers to the training of students in the proper use of mathematical electronic tools for educational purposes. The preparation of future mathematics teachers should be a step-by-step process, building on specific examples. At the first stage, students optimally solve problems aided by electronic means of teaching. At the second stage, the main emphasis is on modeling lessons. At the third stage, students develop and implement strategies in the study of one of the topics within a school mathematics curriculum. The article also recommended the implementation of this strategy in preparation of future teachers and stated the possible benefits.

Keywords: Computer-oriented approach, traditional approach, future teachers, mathematics, lesson, students, education.

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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: Nader Ghareeb, R¨udiger Schmidt

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Minimizing the weight in flexible structures means reducing material and costs as well. However, these structures could become prone to vibrations. Attenuating these vibrations has become a pivotal engineering problem that shifted the focus of many research endeavors. One technique to do that is to design and implement an active control system. This system is mainly composed of a vibrating structure, a sensor to perceive the vibrations, an actuator to counteract the influence of disturbances, and finally a controller to generate the appropriate control signals. In this work, two different techniques are explored to create two different mathematical models of an active control system. The first model is a finite element model with a reduced number of nodes and it is called a super-element. The second model is in the form of state-space representation, i.e. a set of partial differential equations. The damping coefficients are calculated and incorporated into both models. The effectiveness of these models is demonstrated when the system is excited by its first natural frequency and an active control strategy is developed and implemented to attenuate the resulting vibrations. Results from both modeling techniques are presented and compared.

Keywords: Finite element analysis, super-element, state-space model.

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

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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: Abbas Ali Mahmood Karwi

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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

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Authors: M. Al-Jepoori, D. Bennett

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Teaching Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) as part of a Computing-related university degree is a very difficult task; the road to ensuring that students are actually learning object oriented concepts is unclear, as students often find it difficult to understand the concept of objects and their behavior. This problem is especially obvious in advanced programming modules where Design Pattern and advanced programming features such as Multi-threading and animated GUI are introduced. Looking at the students’ performance at their final year on a university course, it was obvious that the level of students’ understanding of OOP varies to a high degree from one student to another. Students who aim at the production of Games do very well in the advanced programming module. However, the students’ assessment results of the last few years were relatively low; for example, in 2016-2017, the first quartile of marks were as low as 24.5 and the third quartile was 63.5. It is obvious that many students were not confident or competent enough in their programming skills. In this paper, the reasons behind poor performance in Advanced OOP modules are investigated, and a suggested practice for teaching OOP based on a complex case study is described and evaluated.

Keywords: Complex programming case study, design pattern, learning advanced programming, object oriented programming.

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Authors: Hyunjin Rho, Bongjin Shin, Okbok Lee, Yu-Hyun Choi, Jiyoung Lee, Jaerang Rho

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The increasing usage of antibiotics in the animal farming industry is an emerging worldwide problem contributing to the development of antibiotic resistance. The purpose of this work was to investigate the prevalence and antibiotic resistance profile of bacterial isolates collected from aquatic environments and meats in a peri-urban community in Daejeon, Korea. In an antibacterial susceptibility test, the bacterial isolates showed a high incidence of resistance (~ 26.04 %) to cefazolin, tetracycline, gentamycin, norfloxacin, erythromycin and vancomycin. The results from a test for multiple antibiotic resistance indicated that the isolates were displaying an approximately 5-fold increase in the incidence of multiple antibiotic resistance to combinations of two different antibiotics compared to combinations of three or more antibiotics. Most of the isolates showed multi-antibiotic resistance, and the resistance patterns were similar among the sampling groups. Sequencing data analysis of 16S rRNA showed that most of the resistant isolates appeared to be dominated by the classes Betaproteobacteria and Gammaproteobacteria in the phylum Proteobacteria.

Keywords: Antibiotics, Antibiotic resistance, Antimicrobial resistance, Multi-resistance

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Authors: Bahare Fatemi, Seyed Mehran Kazemi, Nazanin Mehrasa

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Sudoku is a logic-based combinatorial puzzle game which people in different ages enjoy playing it. The challenging and addictive nature of this game has made it a ubiquitous game. Most magazines, newspapers, puzzle books, etc. publish lots of Sudoku puzzles every day. These puzzles often come in different levels of difficulty so that all people, from beginner to expert, can play the game and enjoy it. Generating puzzles with different levels of difficulty is a major concern of Sudoku designers. There are several works in the literature which propose ways of generating puzzles having a desirable level of difficulty. In this paper, we propose a method based on constraint satisfaction problems to evaluate the difficulty of the Sudoku puzzles. Then we propose a hill climbing method to generate puzzles with different levels of difficulty. Whereas other methods are usually capable of generating puzzles with only few number of difficulty levels, our method can be used to generate puzzles with arbitrary number of different difficulty levels. We test our method by generating puzzles with different levels of difficulty and having a group of 15 people solve all the puzzles and recording the time they spend for each puzzle.

Keywords: Constraint satisfaction problem, generating Sudoku puzzles, hill climbing.

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Authors: Alia Alghosoun, Michael Herty, Mohammed Seaid

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We present a new class of numerical techniques to solve shallow water flows over dry areas including run-up. Many recent investigations on wave run-up in coastal areas are based on the well-known shallow water equations. Numerical simulations have also performed to understand the effects of several factors on tsunami wave impact and run-up in the presence of coastal areas. In all these simulations the shallow water equations are solved in entire domain including dry areas and special treatments are used for numerical solution of singularities at these dry regions. In the present study we propose a new method to deal with these difficulties by reformulating the shallow water equations into a new system to be solved only in the wetted domain. The system is obtained by a change in the coordinates leading to a set of equations in a moving domain for which the wet/dry interface is the reconstructed using the wave speed. To solve the new system we present a finite volume method of Lax-Friedrich type along with a modified method of characteristics. The method is well-balanced and accurately resolves dam-break problems over dry areas.

Keywords: Run-up waves, Shallow water equations, finite volume method, wet/dry interface, dam-break problem.

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Authors: Jagadish H. Pujar, Pallavi S. Gurjal, Shambhavi D. S, Kiran S. Kunnur

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Medical image segmentation based on image smoothing followed by edge detection assumes a great degree of importance in the field of Image Processing. In this regard, this paper proposes a novel algorithm for medical image segmentation based on vigorous smoothening by identifying the type of noise and edge diction ideology which seems to be a boom in medical image diagnosis. The main objective of this algorithm is to consider a particular medical image as input and make the preprocessing to remove the noise content by employing suitable filter after identifying the type of noise and finally carrying out edge detection for image segmentation. The algorithm consists of three parts. First, identifying the type of noise present in the medical image as additive, multiplicative or impulsive by analysis of local histograms and denoising it by employing Median, Gaussian or Frost filter. Second, edge detection of the filtered medical image is carried out using Canny edge detection technique. And third part is about the segmentation of edge detected medical image by the method of Normalized Cut Eigen Vectors. The method is validated through experiments on real images. The proposed algorithm has been simulated on MATLAB platform. The results obtained by the simulation shows that the proposed algorithm is very effective which can deal with low quality or marginal vague images which has high spatial redundancy, low contrast and biggish noise, and has a potential of certain practical use of medical image diagnosis.

Keywords: Image Segmentation, Image smoothing, Edge Detection, Impulsive noise, Gaussian noise, Median filter, Canny edge, Eigen values, Eigen vector.

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Authors: Lady Marianne E. Polinga, Candy C. Mercado, Camilo A. Polinga

Abstract:

This study was an investigation on the suitability of Lahar/HDPE composite as a primary material for low-cost smallscale biogas digesters. While sources of raw materials for biogas are abundant in the Philippines, cost of the technology has made the widespread utilization of this resource an indefinite proposition. Aside from capital economics, another problem arises with space requirements of current digester designs. These problems may be simultaneously addressed by fabricating digesters on a smaller, household scale to reach a wider market, and to use materials that may accommodate optimization of overall design and fabrication cost without sacrificing operational efficiency. This study involved actual fabrication of the Lahar/HDPE composite at varying composition and geometry, subsequent mechanical and thermal characterization, and implementation of Statistical Analysis to find intrinsic relationships between variables. From the results, Lahar/HDPE composite was found to be feasible for use as digester material from both mechanical and economic standpoints. 

Keywords: Biogas digester, Composite, High density polyethylene, Lahar.

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Authors: Seema Chopra, R. Mitra, Vijay Kumar

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In this paper, a neural network tuned fuzzy controller is proposed for controlling Multi-Input Multi-Output (MIMO) systems. For the convenience of analysis, the structure of MIMO fuzzy controller is divided into single input single-output (SISO) controllers for controlling each degree of freedom. Secondly, according to the characteristics of the system-s dynamics coupling, an appropriate coupling fuzzy controller is incorporated to improve the performance. The simulation analysis on a two-level mass–spring MIMO vibration system is carried out and results show the effectiveness of the proposed fuzzy controller. The performance though improved, the computational time and memory used is comparatively higher, because it has four fuzzy reasoning blocks and number may increase in case of other MIMO system. Then a fuzzy neural network is designed from a set of input-output training data to reduce the computing burden during implementation. This control strategy can not only simplify the implementation problem of fuzzy control, but also reduce computational time and consume less memory.

Keywords: Fuzzy Control, Neural Network, MIMO System, Optimization of Membership functions.

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Authors: Haitam Emhemad, Brian Agnew, David Greenwood

Abstract:

Amongst the many priorities facing Libya following the 2011 uprising is the provision of a transport infrastructure that will meet the nation’s needs and not undermine its prospects for economic prosperity as with many developing economies non-technical issues such as management, planning and financing are the major barriers to the efficient and effective provision of transport infrastructure. This is particularly true in the case of the effective incorporation of sustainability criteria, and the research upon which this paper is based involves the examination of alternative ways of approaching this problem. It is probably fair to say that criteria that relate to sustainability have not, historically, featured strongly in Libya’s approach to the development of its transport infrastructure. However, the current reappraisal of how best to redevelop the country’s transport infrastructure that has been afforded by recent events may offer the opportunity to alter this. The research examines recent case studies from a number of countries to explore ways in which sustainability has been included as a criterion for planning and procurement decisions. There will also be an in-depth investigation into the Libyan planning and legislative context to examine the feasibility of the introduction of such sustainability criteria into the process of planning and procurement of Libya’s transport infrastructure.

Keywords: Libya Reconstruction, Sustainability criteria, Transport Infrastructure.

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Authors: Javier Barrachina, Piedad Garrido, Manuel Fogue, Julio A. Sanguesa, Francisco J. Martinez

Abstract:

It is very common to observe, especially in Computer Science studies that students have difficulties to correctly understand how some mechanisms based on Artificial Intelligence work. In addition, the scope and limitations of most of these mechanisms are usually presented by professors only in a theoretical way, which does not help students to understand them adequately. In this work, we focus on the problems found when teaching Evolutionary Algorithms (EAs), which imitate the principles of natural evolution, as a method to solve parameter optimization problems. Although this kind of algorithms can be very powerful to solve relatively complex problems, students often have difficulties to understand how they work, and how to apply them to solve problems in real cases. In this paper, we present two interactive graphical applications which have been specially designed with the aim of making Evolutionary Algorithms easy to be understood by students. Specifically, we present: (i) TSPS, an application able to solve the ”Traveling Salesman Problem”, and (ii) FotEvol, an application able to reconstruct a given image by using Evolution Strategies. The main objective is that students learn how these techniques can be implemented, and the great possibilities they offer.

Keywords: Education, evolutionary algorithms, evolution strategies, interactive learning applications.

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Authors: C. Ardil

Abstract:

Intuitionistic fuzzy sets (IFS), Pythagorean fuzzy sets (PyFS), Picture fuzzy sets (PFS), q-rung orthopair fuzzy sets (q-ROF), Spherical fuzzy sets (SFS), T-spherical FS, and Neutrosophic sets (NS) are reviewed as multidimensional extensions of fuzzy sets in order to more explicitly and informatively describe the opinions of decision-making experts under uncertainty. To handle operations with standard fuzzy sets (SFS), the necessary operators; weighted arithmetic mean (WAM), weighted geometric mean (WGM), and Minkowski distance function are defined. The algorithm of the proposed proximity measure method (PMM) is provided with a multiple criteria group decision making method (MCDM) for use in a standard fuzzy set environment. To demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed method, the problem of selecting the best drone for an Air Force procurement request is used. The proximity measure method (PMM) based multidimensional standard fuzzy sets (SFS) is introduced to demonstrate its use with an issue involving unmanned combat aircraft selection.

Keywords: standard fuzzy sets (SFS), unmanned combat aircraft selection, multiple criteria decision making (MCDM), proximity measure method (PMM).

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Authors: Marina Kapsali, John S. Anagnostopoulos

Abstract:

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: E.Darzi

Abstract:

In this study, a reformer model simulation to use refinery (Farashband refinery, Iran) waste natural gas. In the petroleum and allied sectors where natural gas is being encountered (in form of associated gas) without prior preparation for its positive use, its combustion (which takes place in flares, an equipment through which they are being disposed) has become a great problem because of its associated environmental problems in form of gaseous emission. The proposed model is used to product syngas from waste natural gas. A detailed steady model described by a set of ordinary differential and algebraic equations was developed to predict the behavior of the overall process. The proposed steady reactor model was validated against process data of a reformer synthesis plant recorded and a good agreement was achieved. H2/CO ratio has important effect on Fischer- Tropsch synthesis reactor product and we try to achieve this parameter with best designing reformer reactor. We study different kind of reformer reactors and then select auto thermal reforming process of natural gas in a fixed bed reformer that adjustment H2/CO ratio with CO2 and H2O injection. Finally a strategy was proposed for prevention of extra natural gas to atmosphere.

Keywords: Fischer-Tropsch, injection, reformer, syngas, waste natural gas.

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Authors: Deepak Chhabra, Gian Bhushan, Pankaj Chandna

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The present work deals with the optimal placement of piezoelectric actuators on a thin plate using Modified Control Matrix and Singular Value Decomposition (MCSVD) approach. The problem has been formulated using the finite element method using ten piezoelectric actuators on simply supported plate to suppress first six modes. The sizes of ten actuators are combined to outline one actuator by adding the ten columns of control matrix to form a column matrix. The singular value of column control matrix is considered as the fitness function and optimal positions of the actuators are obtained by maximizing it with GA. Vibration suppression has been studied for simply supported plate with piezoelectric patches in optimal positions using Linear Quadratic regulator) scheme. It is observed that MCSVD approach has given the position of patches adjacent to each-other, symmetric to the centre axis and given greater vibration suppression than other previously published results on SVD. 

Keywords: Closed loop Average dB gain, Genetic Algorithm (GA), LQR Controller, MCSVD, Optimal positions, Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) Approaches.

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Authors: H. N. Mehmanparast, J.M. Mac-Thiong., Y. Petit

Abstract:

Transpedicular screw fixation in spinal fractures, degenerative changes, or deformities is a well-established procedure. However, important rate of fixation failure due to screw bending, loosening, or pullout are still reported particularly in weak bone stock in osteoporosis. To overcome the problem, mechanism of failure has to be fully investigated in vitro. Post-mortem human subjects are less accessible and animal cadavers comprise limitations due to different geometry and mechanical properties. Therefore, the development of a synthetic model mimicking the realistic human vertebra is highly demanded. A bone surrogate, composed of Polyurethane (PU) foam analogous to cancellous bone porous structure, was tested for 3 different densities in this study. The mechanical properties were investigated under uniaxial compression test by minimizing the end artifacts on specimens. The results indicated that PU foam of 0.32 g.cm-3 density has comparable mechanical properties to human cancellous bone in terms of young-s modulus and yield strength. Therefore, the obtained information can be considered as primary step for developing a realistic cancellous bone of human vertebral body. Further evaluations are also recommended for other density groups.

Keywords: Cancellous bone, Pedicle screw, Polyurethane foam, Synthetic bone

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Authors: Frank Emmert Streib

Abstract:

The classification of the protein structure is commonly not performed for the whole protein but for structural domains, i.e., compact functional units preserved during evolution. Hence, a first step to a protein structure classification is the separation of the protein into its domains. We approach the problem of protein domain identification by proposing a novel graph theoretical algorithm. We represent the protein structure as an undirected, unweighted and unlabeled graph which nodes correspond the secondary structure elements of the protein. This graph is call the protein graph. The domains are then identified as partitions of the graph corresponding to vertices sets obtained by the maximization of an objective function, which mutually maximizes the cycle distributions found in the partitions of the graph. Our algorithm does not utilize any other kind of information besides the cycle-distribution to find the partitions. If a partition is found, the algorithm is iteratively applied to each of the resulting subgraphs. As stop criterion, we calculate numerically a significance level which indicates the stability of the predicted partition against a random rewiring of the protein graph. Hence, our algorithm terminates automatically its iterative application. We present results for one and two domain proteins and compare our results with the manually assigned domains by the SCOP database and differences are discussed.

Keywords: Graph partitioning, unweighted graph, protein domains.

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Authors: Anamika Jain, A. S. Thoke, R. N. Patel

Abstract:

This paper addresses the problems encountered by conventional distance relays when protecting double-circuit transmission lines. The problems arise principally as a result of the mutual coupling between the two circuits under different fault conditions; this mutual coupling is highly nonlinear in nature. An adaptive protection scheme is proposed for such lines based on application of artificial neural network (ANN). ANN has the ability to classify the nonlinear relationship between measured signals by identifying different patterns of the associated signals. One of the key points of the present work is that only current signals measured at local end have been used to detect and classify the faults in the double circuit transmission line with double end infeed. The adaptive protection scheme is tested under a specific fault type, but varying fault location, fault resistance, fault inception angle and with remote end infeed. An improved performance is experienced once the neural network is trained adequately, which performs precisely when faced with different system parameters and conditions. The entire test results clearly show that the fault is detected and classified within a quarter cycle; thus the proposed adaptive protection technique is well suited for double circuit transmission line fault detection & classification. Results of performance studies show that the proposed neural network-based module can improve the performance of conventional fault selection algorithms.

Keywords: Double circuit transmission line, Fault detection and classification, High impedance fault and Artificial Neural Network.

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Authors: Kai-Long Hsiao

Abstract:

A conjugate heat transfer for steady two-dimensional mixed convection with magnetic hydrodynamic (MHD) flow of an incompressible quiescent fluid over an unsteady thermal forming stretching sheet has been studied. A parameter, M, which is used to represent the dominance of the magnetic effect has been presented in governing equations. The similar transformation and an implicit finite-difference method have been used to analyze the present problem. The numerical solutions of the flow velocity distributions, temperature profiles, the wall unknown values of f''(0) and '(θ (0) for calculating the heat transfer of the similar boundary-layer flow are carried out as functions of the unsteadiness parameter (S), the Prandtl number (Pr), the space-dependent parameter (A) and temperature-dependent parameter (B) for heat source/sink and the magnetic parameter (M). The effects of these parameters have also discussed. At the results, it will produce greater heat transfer effect with a larger Pr and M, S, A, B will reduce heat transfer effects. At last, conjugate heat transfer for the free convection with a larger G has a good heat transfer effect better than a smaller G=0.

Keywords: Finite-difference method, Conjugate heat transfer, Unsteady Stretching Sheet, MHD, Mixed convection.

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