Search results for: financial performance.

Authors: Victoriano Valencia García, Luis Usero Aragonés, Eugenio J. Fernández Vicente

Abstract:

Nowadays, the successful implementation of ICTs is vital for almost any kind of organization. Good governance and ICT management are essential for delivering value, managing technological risks, managing resources and performance measurement. In addition, outsourcing is a strategic IT service solution which complements IT services provided internally in organizations. This paper proposes the measurement tools of a new holistic maturity model based on standards ISO/IEC 20000 and ISO/IEC 38500, and the frameworks and best practices of ITIL and COBIT, with a specific focus on IT outsourcing. These measurement tools allow independent validation and practical application in the field of higher education, using a questionnaire, metrics tables, and continuous improvement plan tables as part of the measurement process. Guidelines and standards are proposed in the model for facilitating adaptation to universities and achieving excellence in the outsourcing of IT services.

Keywords: IT Governance, IT Management, IT Services, Maturity Model, Measurement Tools, Outsourcing.

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Authors: K. Kasiri, M. J. Dehghani

Abstract:

In this paper we propose a blind algorithm for peakto- average power ratio (PAPR) reduction in OFDM systems, based on selected mapping (SLM) algorithm as a distortionless method. The main drawback of the conventional SLM technique is the need for transmission of several side information bits, for each data block, which results in loss in data rate transmission. In the proposed method some special number of carriers in the OFDM frame is reserved to be rotated with one of the possible phases according to the number of phase sequence blocks in SLM algorithm. Reserving some limited number of carriers wont effect the reduction in PAPR of OFDM signal. Simulation results show using ML criteria at the receiver will lead to the same system-performance as the conventional SLM algorithm, while there is no need to send any side information to the receiver.

Keywords: Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing(OFDM), Peak-to-Average Power Ratio (PAPR), Selected Mapping(SLM), Blind SLM (BSLM).

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Authors: M. Othman, N. Bhuiyan, G. J. Gouw

Abstract:

In today-s global and competitive market, manufacturing companies are working hard towards improving their production system performance. Most companies develop production systems that can help in cost reduction. Manufacturing systems consist of different elements including production methods, machines, processes, control and information systems. Human issues are an important part of manufacturing systems, yet most companies do not pay sufficient attention to them. In this paper, a workforce planning (WP) model is presented. A non-linear programming model is developed in order to minimize the hiring, firing, training and overtime costs. The purpose is to determine the number of workers for each worker type, the number of workers trained, and the number of overtime hours. Moreover, a decision support system (DSS) based on the proposed model is introduced using the Excel-Lingo software interfacing feature. This model will help to improve the interaction between the workers, managers and the technical systems in manufacturing.

Keywords: Decision Support System, Human Factors, Manufacturing System, Workforce Planning.

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Authors: Osamah A. Alsayegh, Fatma A. Fairouz

Abstract:

This paper compares planning results of the electricity and water generation inventory up to year 2030 in the State of Kuwait. Currently, the generation inventory consists of oil and gas fired technologies only. The planning study considers two main cases. The first case, Reference case, examines a generation inventory based on oil and gas fired generation technologies only. The second case examines the inclusion of renewables as part of the generation inventory under two scenarios. In the first scenario, Ref-RE, renewable build-out is based on optimum economic performance of overall generation system. Result shows that the optimum installed renewable capacity with electric energy generation of 11% . In the second scenario, Ref-RE20, the renewable capacity build-out is forced to provide 20% of electric energy by 2030. The respective energy systems costs of Reference, Ref-RE and Ref-RE20 case scenarios reach US dollar 24, 10 and 14 billion annually in 2030.

Keywords: Generation inventory, solar, planning, TIMES, wind.

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Authors: In-Chul Jung, Young S. Kwon

Abstract:

Knowing about the customer behavior in a grocery has been a long-standing issue in the retailing industry. The advent of RFID has made it easier to collect moving data for an individual shopper's behavior. Most of the previous studies used the traditional statistical clustering technique to find the major characteristics of customer behavior, especially shopping path. However, in using the clustering technique, due to various spatial constraints in the store, standard clustering methods are not feasible because moving data such as the shopping path should be adjusted in advance of the analysis, which is time-consuming and causes data distortion. To alleviate this problem, we propose a new approach to spatial pattern clustering based on the longest common subsequence. Experimental results using real data obtained from a grocery confirm the good performance of the proposed method in finding the hot spot, dead spot and major path patterns of customer movements.

Keywords: customer path, shopping behavior, exploratoryanalysis, LCS, RFID

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Authors: G Lakshmi Narayana Rao, S Sampath, K Rajagopal

Abstract:

Transesterified vegetable oils (biodiesel) are promising alternative fuel for diesel engines. Used vegetable oils are disposed from restaurants in large quantities. But higher viscosity restricts their direct use in diesel engines. In this study, used cooking oil was dehydrated and then transesterified using an alkaline catalyst. The combustion, performance and emission characteristics of Used Cooking oil Methyl Ester (UCME) and its blends with diesel oil are analysed in a direct injection C.I. engine. The fuel properties and the combustion characteristics of UCME are found to be similar to those of diesel. A minor decrease in thermal efficiency with significant improvement in reduction of particulates, carbon monoxide and unburnt hydrocarbons is observed compared to diesel. The use of transesterified used cooking oil and its blends as fuel for diesel engines will reduce dependence on fossil fuels and also decrease considerably the environmental pollution.

Keywords: Combustion characteristics, diesel engine, emission characteristics, used cooking oil.

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Authors: Su Jeong Lee, Tae Il Lee, Jung Han Kim, Chul-Hong Kim, Gee Sung Chae, Jae-Min Myoung

Abstract:

The contact resistance between source/drain electrodes and semiconductor layer is an important parameter affecting electron transporting performance in the thin film transistor (TFT). In this work, we introduced a transparent and the solution prossable single-walled carbon nanotube (SWCNT)/Al-doped ZnO nano particle (AZO NP) bilayer electrodes showing low contact resistance with indium-oxide (In2O3) sol gel thin film. By inserting low work function AZO NPs into the interface between the SWCNTs and the In2O3 which has a high energy barrier, we could obtain an electrical Ohmic contact between them. Finally, with the SWCNT-AZO NP bilayer electrodes, we successfully fabricated a TFT showing a field effect mobility of 5.38 cm2/V·s at 250°C.

Keywords: Single-walled carbon nanotube (SWCNT), Al-doped ZnO (AZO) nanoparticle, contact resistance, Thin-film transistor (TFT).

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Authors: C.-C. Tsao, S.-W. Nien, W.-H. Chen , Y.-C. Shih

Abstract:

Indoor air distribution has great impact on people-s thermal sensation. Therefore, how to remove the indoor excess heat becomes an important issue to create a thermally comfortable indoor environment. To expel the extra indoor heat effectively, this paper used a dynamic CFD approach to study the effect of an air-supply guide vane swinging periodically on the indoor air distribution within a model room. The numerical results revealed that the indoor heat transfer performance caused by the swing guide vane had close relation with the number of vortices developing under the inlet cold jet. At larger swing amplitude, two smaller vortices continued to shed outward under the cold jet and remove the indoor heat load more effectively. As a result, it can be found that the average Nusselt number on the floor increased with the increase of the swing amplitude of the guide vane.

Keywords: Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), dynamic mesh, heat transfer, indoor air distribution, thermal comfort.

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Authors: J. P. Makwana, A. K. Joshi, Rajesh N. Patel, Darshil Patel

Abstract:

Recently, fluidized bed gasification becomes an attractive technology for power generation due to its higher efficiency. The main objective pursued in this work is to investigate the producer gas production potential from sized biomass (sawdust and pigeon pea) by applying the air gasification technique. The size of the biomass selected for the study was in the range of 0.40-0.84 mm. An experimental study was conducted using a fluidized bed gasifier with 210 mm diameter and 1600 mm height. During the experiments, the fuel properties and the effects of operating parameters such as gasification temperatures 700 to 900 °C, equivalence ratio 0.16 to 0.46 were studied. It was concluded that substantial amounts of producer gas (up to 1110 kcal/m3) could be produced utilizing biomass such as sawdust and pigeon pea by applying this fluidization technique. For both samples, the rise of temperature till 900 °C and equivalence ratio of 0.4 favored further gasification reactions and resulted into producer gas with calorific value 1110 kcal/m3.

Keywords: Sized biomass, fluidized bed gasifier, equivalence ratio, temperature profile, gas composition.

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Authors: Mladen Dragičević, Mirjana Pejić Bach, Vanja Šimičević

Abstract:

The purpose of this paper is to develop models that would enable predicting student success. These models could improve allocation of students among colleges and optimize the newly introduced model of government subsidies for higher education. For the purpose of collecting data, an anonymous survey was carried out in the last year of undergraduate degree student population using random sampling method. Decision trees were created of which two have been chosen that were most successful in predicting student success based on two criteria: Grade Point Average (GPA) and time that a student needs to finish the undergraduate program (time-to-degree). Decision trees have been shown as a good method of classification student success and they could be even more improved by increasing survey sample and developing specialized decision trees for each type of college. These types of methods have a big potential for use in decision support systems.

Keywords: Data mining, knowledge discovery in databases, prediction models, student success.

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Authors: Maria Jokela, Matti Kutila, Jukka Laitinen, Florian Ahlers, Nicolas Hautière, TobiasSchendzielorz

Abstract:

It has been shown that in most accidents the driver is responsible due to being distracted or misjudging the situation. In order to solve such problems research has been dedicated to developing driver assistance systems that are able to monitor the traffic situation around the vehicle. This paper presents methods for recognizing several circumstances on a road. The methods use both the in-vehicle warning systems and the roadside infrastructure. Preliminary evaluation results for fog and ice-on-road detection are presented. The ice detection results are based on data recorded in a test track dedicated to tyre friction testing. The achieved results anticipate that ice detection could work at a performance of 70% detection with the right setup, which is a good foundation for implementation. However, the full benefit of the presented cooperative system is achieved by fusing the outputs of multiple data sources, which is the key point of discussion behind this publication.

Keywords: Smart roads, traffic monitoring, traffic scenedetection.

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Authors: S. F. Wong, S. S. Dol

Abstract:

Automotive designers have been trying to use dimples to reduce drag in vehicles. In this work, a car model has been applied with dimple surface with a parameter called dimple ratio DR, the ratio between the depths of the half dimple over the print diameter of the dimple, has been introduced and numerically simulated via k-ε turbulence model to study the aerodynamics performance with the increasing depth of the dimples The Ahmed body car model with 25 degree slant angle is simulated with the DR of 0.05, 0.2, 0.3 0.4 and 0.5 at Reynolds number of 176387 based on the frontal area of the car model. The geometry of dimple changes the kinematics and dynamics of flow. Complex interaction between the turbulent fluctuating flow and the mean flow escalates the turbulence quantities. The maximum level of turbulent kinetic energy occurs at DR = 0.4. It can be concluded that the dimples have generated extra turbulence energy at the surface and as a result, the application of dimples manages to reduce the drag coefficient of the car model compared to the model with smooth surface.

Keywords: Aerodynamics, Boundary Layer, Dimple, Drag, Kinetic Energy, Turbulence.

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Authors: Yao-Hong Tsai

Abstract:

This paper presents a weighted approach to unconstrained iris recognition. In nowadays, commercial systems are usually characterized by strong acquisition constraints based on the subject’s cooperation. However, it is not always achievable for real scenarios in our daily life. Researchers have been focused on reducing these constraints and maintaining the performance of the system by new techniques at the same time. With large variation in the environment, there are two main improvements to develop the proposed iris recognition system. For solving extremely uneven lighting condition, statistic based illumination normalization is first used on eye region to increase the accuracy of iris feature. The detection of the iris image is based on Adaboost algorithm. Secondly, the weighted approach is designed by Gaussian functions according to the distance to the center of the iris. Furthermore, local binary pattern (LBP) histogram is then applied to texture classification with the weight. Experiment showed that the proposed system provided users a more flexible and feasible way to interact with the verification system through iris recognition.

Keywords: Authentication, iris recognition, Adaboost, local binary pattern.

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Authors: Muhammad Afzal, Cao Yihua, Zhao Ming

Abstract:

The present work describes a computational study of aerodynamic characteristics of GLC305 airfoil clean and with 16.7 min ice shape (rime 212) and 22.5 min ice shape (glaze 944).The performance of turbulence models SA, Kε, Kω Std, and Kω SST model are observed against experimental flow fields at different Mach numbers 0.12, 0.21, 0.28 in a range of Reynolds numbers 3x106, 6x106, and 10.5x106 on clean and iced aircraft airfoil GLC305. Numerical predictions include lift, drag and pitching moment coefficients at different Mach numbers and at different angle of attacks were done. Accuracy of solutions with respect to the effects of turbulence models, variation of Mach number, initial conditions, grid resolution and grid spacing near the wall made the study much sensitive. Navier Stokes equation based computational technique is used. Results are very close to the experimental results. It has seen that SA and SST models are more efficient than Kε and Kω standard in under study problem.

Keywords: Aerodynamics, Airfoil GLC305, Iced Airfoil, Turbulence Model

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Authors: T. Niknam, M. Nayeripour, B.Bahmani Firouzi

Abstract:

Clustering techniques have received attention in many areas including engineering, medicine, biology and data mining. The purpose of clustering is to group together data points, which are close to one another. The K-means algorithm is one of the most widely used techniques for clustering. However, K-means has two shortcomings: dependency on the initial state and convergence to local optima and global solutions of large problems cannot found with reasonable amount of computation effort. In order to overcome local optima problem lots of studies done in clustering. This paper is presented an efficient hybrid evolutionary optimization algorithm based on combining Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) and Ant Colony Optimization (ACO), called PSO-ACO, for optimally clustering N object into K clusters. The new PSO-ACO algorithm is tested on several data sets, and its performance is compared with those of ACO, PSO and K-means clustering. The simulation results show that the proposed evolutionary optimization algorithm is robust and suitable for handing data clustering.

Keywords: Ant Colony Optimization (ACO), Data clustering, Hybrid evolutionary optimization algorithm, K-means clustering, Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO).

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Authors: Han Xiao, Xiaoyan Zhu

Abstract:

Margin-Based Principle has been proposed for a long time, it has been proved that this principle could reduce the structural risk and improve the performance in both theoretical and practical aspects. Meanwhile, feed-forward neural network is a traditional classifier, which is very hot at present with a deeper architecture. However, the training algorithm of feed-forward neural network is developed and generated from Widrow-Hoff Principle that means to minimize the squared error. In this paper, we propose a new training algorithm for feed-forward neural networks based on Margin-Based Principle, which could effectively promote the accuracy and generalization ability of neural network classifiers with less labelled samples and flexible network. We have conducted experiments on four UCI open datasets and achieved good results as expected. In conclusion, our model could handle more sparse labelled and more high-dimension dataset in a high accuracy while modification from old ANN method to our method is easy and almost free of work.

Keywords: Max-Margin Principle, Feed-Forward Neural Network, Classifier.

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Authors: Jean-Alain Grunchec, Jules Hernández-Sánchez, Sara Knott

Abstract:

Some meta-schedulers query the information system of individual supercomputers in order to submit jobs to the least busy supercomputer on a computational Grid. However, this information can become outdated by the time a job starts due to changes in scheduling priorities. The MSR scheme is based on Multiple Simultaneous Requests and can take advantage of opportunities resulting from these priorities changes. This paper presents the SWARM meta-scheduler, which can speed up the execution of large sets of tasks by minimizing the job queuing time through the submission of multiple requests. Performance tests have shown that this new meta-scheduler is faster than an implementation of the MSR scheme and the gLite meta-scheduler. SWARM has been used through the GridQTL project beta-testing portal during the past year. Statistics are provided for this usage and demonstrate its capacity to achieve reliably a substantial reduction of the execution time in production conditions.

Keywords: Grid computing, multiple simultaneous requests, fault tolerance, GridQTL.

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Authors: Boontita Suchyukorn, Raweewan Auepanwiriyakul

Abstract:

A Data Warehouses is a repository of information integrated from source data. Information stored in data warehouse is the form of materialized in order to provide the better performance for answering the queries. Deciding which appropriated views to be materialized is one of important problem. In order to achieve this requirement, the constructing search space close to optimal is a necessary task. It will provide effective result for selecting view to be materialized. In this paper we have proposed an approach to reoptimize Multiple View Processing Plan (MVPP) by using global common subexpressions. The merged queries which have query processing cost not close to optimal would be rewritten. The experiment shows that our approach can help to improve the total query processing cost of MVPP and sum of query processing cost and materialized view maintenance cost is reduced as well after views are selected to be materialized.

Keywords: Data Warehouse, materialized views, query rewriting, common subexpressions.

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Authors: J.Dinesh Peter

Abstract:

This paper describes a new method for affine parameter estimation between image sequences. Usually, the parameter estimation techniques can be done by least squares in a quadratic way. However, this technique can be sensitive to the presence of outliers. Therefore, parameter estimation techniques for various image processing applications are robust enough to withstand the influence of outliers. Progressively, some robust estimation functions demanding non-quadratic and perhaps non-convex potentials adopted from statistics literature have been used for solving these. Addressing the optimization of the error function in a factual framework for finding a global optimal solution, the minimization can begin with the convex estimator at the coarser level and gradually introduce nonconvexity i.e., from soft to hard redescending non-convex estimators when the iteration reaches finer level of multiresolution pyramid. Comparison has been made to find the performance of the results of proposed method with the results found individually using two different estimators.

Keywords: Image Processing, Affine parameter estimation, Outliers, Robust Statistics, Robust M-estimators

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Authors: A. Lawanna, J. Daengdej

Abstract:

Case-Based Reasoning (CBR) is one of machine learning algorithms for problem solving and learning that caught a lot of attention over the last few years. In general, CBR is composed of four main phases: retrieve the most similar case or cases, reuse the case to solve the problem, revise or adapt the proposed solution, and retain the learned cases before returning them to the case base for learning purpose. Unfortunately, in many cases, this retain process causes the uncontrolled case base growth. The problem affects competence and performance of CBR systems. This paper proposes competence-based maintenance method based on deletion policy strategy for CBR. There are three main steps in this method. Step 1, formulate problems. Step 2, determine coverage and reachability set based on coverage value. Step 3, reduce case base size. The results obtained show that this proposed method performs better than the existing methods currently discussed in literature.

Keywords: Case-Based Reasoning, Case Base Maintenance, Coverage, Reachability.

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Authors: Cheng-Lung Huang, Cheng-Wei Lin

Abstract:

This study proposes a new recommender system based on the collaborative folksonomy. The purpose of the proposed system is to recommend Internet resources (such as books, articles, documents, pictures, audio and video) to users. The proposed method includes four steps: creating the user profile based on the tags, grouping the similar users into clusters using an agglomerative hierarchical clustering, finding similar resources based on the user-s past collections by using content-based filtering, and recommending similar items to the target user. This study examines the system-s performance for the dataset collected from “del.icio.us," which is a famous social bookmarking website. Experimental results show that the proposed tag-based collaborative and content-based filtering hybridized recommender system is promising and effectiveness in the folksonomy-based bookmarking website.

Keywords: Collaborative recommendation, Folksonomy, Social tagging

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Authors: M. Azadbakht, B. Azadbakht, R. Janzade Galogah, A. Kiapei, H. Jafari

Abstract:

In this research, performance of rotavator with horizontal rotary axis and vertical rotary axis has been evaluated and compared. The mean weight diameter (MWD), cross-sectional area disturbed and cone index of soil investigated. Factorial experiments based on a randomized complete block with 18 treatments, three different velocities 2.2, 3.5, 6.1 km/h; three different depth of 5, 10, 15cm and with two rotary plows horizontal axis and vertical axis with three replications were used. Result showed that maximum MWD in 6.1 km/h and 15cm of depth were 55.6 and 52.5mm for horizontal axis rotavator, respectively. The minimum MWD in 2.2 km/h and 5cm of depth for vertical axis rotavator were 34.9 and 35.1mm, respectively. The values of cone index 1861.1 and 2339.5 kPa for vertical axis rotavator and horizontal axis rotavator were obtained, respectively, also the values of cross-sectional area disturbed 687 and 497.2cm² for vertical axis rotavator and horizontal axis rotavator were obtained, respectively.

Keywords: Horizontal rotary axis, vertical rotary axis, rotavator, MWD, cone index, cross-sectional area.

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Authors: I. Bolis, S. N. Morioka, L. I. Sznelwar

Abstract:

The growing importance of sustainability in corporate policies represents a great opportunity for workers to gain more consideration, with great benefits to their well being. Sustainable work is believed to be one which improves the organization-s performance and fosters professional development as well as workers- health. In a multiple case study based on document research, information was sought about work activities and their sustainability or corporate social responsibility (CSR) policies, as disseminated by corporations. All the companies devoted attention to work activities and delivered a good amount of information about them. Nevertheless, the information presented was generic; all the actions developed were top-down and there was no information about the impact of changes aimed at sustainability on the workers- activities. It was found that the companies seemed to be at an early stage. In the future, they need to show more commitment through concrete goals: they must be aware that workers contribute directly to the corporations- sustainability. This would allow room for Ergonomics and Work Psychodynamics to be incorporated and to be useful for both companies and society, so as to promote and ensure work sustainability.

Keywords: Sustainability, ergonomics, work psychodynamics, multinational companies.

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Authors: Huda Algharib, Amal Algharib, Hanan Algharib, Ali Mohammad Alqudah

Abstract:

Image registration is an important topic for many imaging systems and computer vision applications. The standard image registration techniques such as Mutual information/ Normalized mutual information -based methods have a limited performance because they do not consider the spatial information or the relationships between the neighbouring pixels or voxels. In addition, the amount of image noise may significantly affect the registration accuracy. Therefore, this paper proposes an efficient method that explicitly considers the relationships between the adjacent pixels, where the gradient information of the reference and scene images is extracted first, and then the cosine similarity of the extracted gradient information is computed and used to improve the accuracy of the standard normalized mutual information measure. Our experimental results on different data types (i.e. CT, MRI and thermal images) show that the proposed method outperforms a number of image registration techniques in terms of the accuracy.

Keywords: Image registration, mutual information, image gradients, Image transformations.

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Authors: S. Zouari, H. Daoud, M. Loulou, P. Loumeau, N. Masmoudi

Abstract:

A wideband 2-1-1 cascaded ΣΔ modulator with a single-bit quantizer in the two first stages and a 4-bit quantizer in the final stage is developed. To reduce sensitivity of digital-to-analog converter (DAC) nonlinearities in the feedback of the last stage, dynamic element matching (DEM) is introduced. This paper presents two modelling approaches: The first is MATLAB description and the second is VHDL-AMS modelling of the proposed architecture and exposes some high-level-simulation results allowing a behavioural study. The detail of both ideal and non-ideal behaviour modelling are presented. Then, the study of the effect of building blocks nonidealities is presented; especially the influences of nonlinearity, finite operational amplifier gain, amplifier slew rate limitation and capacitor mismatch. A VHDL-AMS description presents a good solution to predict system-s performances and can provide sensitivity curves giving the impact of nonidealities on the system performance.

Keywords: behavioural study, DAC nonlinearity, DEM, ΣΔ modulator, VHDL-AMS modelling.

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Authors: T. Sanches, K. Bousson

Abstract:

As part of the development of a 4D autopilot system for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), i.e. a time-dependent robust trajectory generation and control algorithm, this work addresses the problem of optimal path control based on the flight sensors data output that may be unreliable due to noise on data acquisition and/or transmission under certain circumstances. Although several filtering methods, such as the Kalman-Bucy filter or the Linear Quadratic Gaussian/Loop Transfer Recover Control (LQG/LTR), are available, the utter complexity of the control system, together with the robustness and reliability required of such a system on a UAV for airworthiness certifiable autonomous flight, required the development of a proper robust filter for a nonlinear system, as a way of further mitigate errors propagation to the control system and improve its ,performance. As such, a nonlinear algorithm based upon the LQG/LTR, is validated through computational simulation testing, is proposed on this paper.

Keywords: Autonomous flight, LQG/LTR, nonlinear state estimator, robust flight control and stability.

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Authors: Wojciech P. Gajewski

Abstract:

The problem of spam has been seriously troubling the Internet community during the last few years and currently reached an alarming scale. Observations made at CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research located in Geneva, Switzerland) show that spam mails can constitute up to 75% of daily SMTP traffic. A naïve Bayesian classifier based on a Bag Of Words representation of an email is widely used to stop this unwanted flood as it combines good performance with simplicity of the training and classification processes. However, facing the constantly changing patterns of spam, it is necessary to assure online adaptability of the classifier. This work proposes combining such a classifier with another NBC (naïve Bayesian classifier) based on pairs of adjacent words. Only the latter will be retrained with examples of spam reported by users. Tests are performed on considerable sets of mails both from public spam archives and CERN mailboxes. They suggest that this architecture can increase spam recall without affecting the classifier precision as it happens when only the NBC based on single words is retrained.

Keywords: Text classification, naïve Bayesian classification, spam, email.

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Authors: Kalyan Kumar Mandal, Damodar Maity

Abstract:

The degradation of concrete due to various hygrochemo- mechanical actions is inevitable for the structures particularly built to store water. Therefore, it is essential to determine the material properties of dam-like structures due to ageing to predict the behavior of such structures after a certain age. The degraded material properties are calculated by introducing isotropic degradation index. The predicted material properties are used to study the behavior of aged dam at different ages. The dam is modeled by finite elements and displacement and is considered as an unknown variable. The parametric study reveals that the displacement is quite larger for comparatively lower design life of the structure because the degradation of elastic properties depends on the design life of the dam. The stresses in dam cam be unexpectedly large at any age with in the design life. The outcomes of the present study indicate the importance of the consideration ageing effect of concrete exposed to water for the safe design of dam throughout its life time.

Keywords: Hygro-chemo-mechanical, isotropic degradation, finite element method, Koyna earthquake.

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Authors: Mustafa Hasan Omar

Abstract:

The destruction effect of hydrocarbon solutions on concrete besides its high permeability have led researchers to try to improve the performance of concrete exposed to these solutions, hence improving the durability and usability of oil concrete structures. Recently, polymer concrete is considered one of the most important types of concrete, and its behavior after exposure to oil products is still unknown. In the present work, an experimental study has been carried out, in which the prepared epoxy polymer concrete immersed in different types of hydrocarbon exposure solutions (gasoline, kerosene, and gas oil) for 120 days and compared with the reference concrete left in the air. The results for outdoor specimens indicate that the mechanical properties are increased after 120 days, but the specimens that were immersed in gasoline, kerosene, and gas oil for the same period show a reduction in compressive strength by -21%, -27% and -23%, whereas in splitting tensile strength by -19%, -24% and -20%, respectively. The reductions in ultrasonic pulse velocity for cubic specimens are -17%, -22% and -19% and in cylindrical specimens are -20%, -25% and -22%, respectively.

Keywords: Epoxy resin, hydrocarbon solutions, mechanical properties, polymer concrete, ultrasonic pulse velocity.

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Authors: Qing Lyu, Hang Zhu

Abstract:

Various flows in the network require to go through different types of middlebox. The improper placement of network middlebox and path assignment for flows could greatly increase the network latency and also decrease the performance of network. Minimizing the total end to end latency of all the ows requires to assign path for the incoming flows. In this paper, the flow path assignment problem in regard to the placement of various kinds of middlebox is studied. The flow path assignment problem is formulated to a linear programming problem, which is very time consuming. On the other hand, a naive greedy algorithm is studied. Which is very fast but causes much more latency than the linear programming algorithm. At last, the paper presents a heuristic algorithm named FPA, which takes bottleneck link information and estimated bandwidth occupancy into consideration, and achieves near optimal latency in much less time. Evaluation results validate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.

Keywords: Latency, Fast path assignment, Bottleneck link.

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