Search results for: Cost effective

Authors: N. Tahouni, M. Gholami, M. H. Panjeshahi

Abstract:

Gas flaring is one of the most GHG emitting sources in the oil and gas industries. It is also a major way for wasting such an energy that could be better utilized and even generates revenue. Minimize flaring is an effective approach for reducing GHG emissions and also conserving energy in flaring systems. Integrating waste and flared gases into the fuel gas networks (FGN) of refineries is an efficient tool. A fuel gas network collects fuel gases from various source streams and mixes them in an optimal manner, and supplies them to different fuel sinks such as furnaces, boilers, turbines, etc. In this article we use fuel gas network model proposed by Hasan et al. as a base model and modify some of its features and add constraints on emission pollution by gas flaring to reduce GHG emissions as possible. Results for a refinery case study showed that integration of flare gas stream with waste and natural gas streams to construct an optimal FGN can significantly reduce total annualized cost and flaring emissions.

Keywords: Flaring, Fuel gas network, GHG emissions.

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Authors: E. M. Hassan, A. L. Kalamkarov

Abstract:

Two micromechanical models for 3D smart composite with embedded periodic or nearly periodic network of generally orthotropic reinforcements and actuators are developed and applied to cubic structures with unidirectional orientation of constituents. Analytical formulas for the effective piezothermoelastic coefficients are derived using the Asymptotic Homogenization Method (AHM). Finite Element Analysis (FEA) is subsequently developed and used to examine the aforementioned periodic 3D network reinforced smart structures. The deformation responses from the FE simulations are used to extract effective coefficients. The results from both techniques are compared. This work considers piezoelectric materials that respond linearly to changes in electric field, electric displacement, mechanical stress and strain and thermal effects. This combination of electric fields and thermo-mechanical response in smart composite structures is characterized by piezoelectric and thermal expansion coefficients. The problem is represented by unitcell and the models are developed using the AHM and the FEA to determine the effective piezoelectric and thermal expansion coefficients. Each unit cell contains a number of orthotropic inclusions in the form of structural reinforcements and actuators. Using matrix representation of the coupled response of the unit cell, the effective piezoelectric and thermal expansion coefficients are calculated and compared with results of the asymptotic homogenization method. A very good agreement is shown between these two approaches.

Keywords: Asymptotic Homogenization Method, Effective Piezothermoelastic Coefficients, Finite Element Analysis, 3D Smart Network Composite Structures.

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Authors: H. Shayeghi, M. Mahdavi, H. Haddadian

Abstract:

Transmission network expansion planning (TNEP) is an important component of power system planning that its task is to minimize the network construction and operational cost while satisfying the demand increasing, imposed technical and economic conditions. Up till now, various methods have been presented to solve the static transmission network expansion planning (STNEP) problem. But in all of these methods, the lines adequacy rate has not been studied after the planning horizon, i.e. when the expanded network misses its adequacy and needs to be expanded again. In this paper, in order to take transmission lines condition after expansion in to account from the line loading view point, the adequacy of transmission network is considered for solution of STNEP problem. To obtain optimal network arrangement, a decimal codification genetic algorithm (DCGA) is being used for minimizing the network construction and operational cost. The effectiveness of the proposed idea is tested on the Garver's six-bus network. The results evaluation reveals that the annual worth of network adequacy has a considerable effect on the network arrangement. In addition, the obtained network, based on the DCGA, has lower investment cost and higher adequacy rate. Thus, the network satisfies the requirements of delivering electric power more safely and reliably to load centers.

Keywords: STNEP Problem, Network Adequacy, DCGA.

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Authors: Kyoung Hoon Kim

Abstract:

Turbine blade cooling is considered as the most effective way of maintaining high operating temperature making use of the available materials, and turbine systems with wet compression have a potential for future power generation because of high efficiency and high specific power with a relatively low cost. In this paper performance analysis of wet-compression gas turbine cycle with turbine blade cooling is carried out. The wet compression process is analytically modeled based on non-equilibrium droplet evaporation. Special attention is paid for the effects of pressure ratio and water injection ratio on the important system variables such as ratio of coolant fluid flow, fuel consumption, thermal efficiency and specific power. Parametric studies show that wet compression leads to insignificant improvement in thermal efficiency but significant enhancement of specific power in gas turbine systems with turbine blade cooling.

Keywords: Water injection, wet compression, gas turbine, turbine blade cooling.

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Authors: James D. Clark, Bernard H. Stark

Abstract:

The paper presents a modelling methodology for small scale multi-source renewable energy systems. Using historical site-specific weather data, the relationships of cost, availability and energy form are visualised as a function of the sizing of photovoltaic arrays, wind turbines, and battery capacity. The specific dependency of each site on its own particular weather patterns show that unique solutions exist for each site. It is shown that in certain cases the capital component cost can be halved if the desired theoretical demand availability is reduced from 100% to 99%.

Keywords: Energy Analysis, Forecasting, Distributed powergeneration.

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Authors: Hazim Abdulsada

Abstract:

The inspection of underneath vehicle system has been given significant attention by governments after the threat of terrorism become more prevalent. New technologies such as mobile robots and computer vision are led to have more secure environment. This paper proposed that a mobile robot like Aria robot can be used to search and inspect the bombs under parking a lot vehicle. This robot is using fuzzy logic and subsumption algorithms to control the robot that movies underneath the vehicle. An OpenCV library and laser Hokuyo are added to Aria robot to complete the experiment for under vehicle inspection. This experiment was conducted at the indoor environment to demonstrate the efficiency of our methods to search objects and control the robot movements under vehicle. We got excellent results not only by controlling the robot movement but also inspecting object by the robot camera at same time. This success allowed us to know the requirement to construct a new cost effective robot with more functionality.

Keywords: Fuzzy logic, Mobile robots, OpenCV, Subsumption, Under vehicle inspection.

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Authors: F. Arıkan, Z. Karakus

Abstract:

Cancer is a widespread disease in the world and is the third reason of deaths among the chronic diseases. Educating patients and caregivers has a vital role for empowering them in managing disease and treatment's symptoms. Informing of the patients about their disease and treatment process decreases patient's distress and decisional conflicts, improves wellbeing of them, increase success of the treatment and survival. In this era, technological education methods are used for patients that have different chronic disease. Many studies indicated that especially web based patient education such as chronic obstructive lung disease; heart failure is more effective than printed materials. Web based education provide easiness to patients while they are reaching health services. It also has more advantages because of it decreases health cost and requirement of staff. It is thought that web based education may be beneficial method for cancer patient's empowerment in coping with the disease's symptoms. The aim of the study is evaluate the effectiveness of web based education for cancer patients' clinical outcomes.

Keywords: Cancer Patients, E-Learning, Nursing, Web Based Education.

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

Abstract:

This paper describes an efficient; low-cost; high-availability; induction motor (IM) drive system with intelligent supervisory control for water distribution networks including storage tank. To increase the operational efficiency and reduce cost, the IM drive system includes main pumping unit and an auxiliary voltage source inverter (VSI) fed unit. The main unit comprises smart star/delta starter, regenerative fluid clutch, switched VAR compensator, and hysteresis liquid-level controller. Three-state energy saving mode (ESM) is defined at no-load and a logic algorithm is developed for best energetic cost reduction. To reduce voltage sag, the supervisory controller operates the switched VAR compensator upon motor starting. To provide smart star/delta starter at low cost, a method based on current sensing is developed for interlocking, malfunction detection, and life–cycles counting and used to synthesize an improved fuzzy logic (FL) based availability assessment scheme. Furthermore, a recurrent neural network (RNN) full state estimator is proposed to provide sensor fault-tolerant algorithm for the feedback control. The auxiliary unit is working at low flow rates and improves the system efficiency and flexibility for distributed generation during islanding mode. Compared with doubly-fed IM, the proposed one ensures 30% working throughput under main motor/pump fault conditions, higher efficiency, and marginal cost difference. This is critically important in case of water networks. Theoretical analysis, computer simulations, cost study, as well as efficiency evaluation, using timely cascaded energy-conservative systems, are performed on IM experimental setup to demonstrate the validity and effectiveness of the proposed drive and control.

Keywords: Artificial Neural Network, ANN, Availability Assessment, Cloud Computing, Energy Saving, Induction Machine, IM, Supervisory Control, Fuzzy Logic, FL, Pumped Storage.

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Authors: Taha Landolsi, A. R. Al-Ali, Tarik Ozkul, Mohammad A. Al-Rousan

Abstract:

In this paper, we present a cost-effective wireless distributed load shedding system for non-emergency scenarios. In power transformer locations where SCADA system cannot be used, the proposed solution provides a reasonable alternative that combines the use of microcontrollers and existing GSM infrastructure to send early warning SMS messages to users advising them to proactively reduce their power consumption before system capacity is reached and systematic power shutdown takes place. A novel communication protocol and message set have been devised to handle the messaging between the transformer sites, where the microcontrollers are located and where the measurements take place, and the central processing site where the database server is hosted. Moreover, the system sends warning messages to the endusers mobile devices that are used as communication terminals. The system has been implemented and tested via different experimental results.

Keywords: Smart Grid, Load shedding, Demand SideManagement, GSM Wireless Networks, SCADA systems.

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Authors: K. Vijayalakshmi, S. Radhakrishnan

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In this paper we have proposed a novel dynamic least cost multicast routing protocol using hybrid genetic algorithm for IP networks. Our protocol finds the multicast tree with minimum cost subject to delay, degree, and bandwidth constraints. The proposed protocol has the following features: i. Heuristic local search function has been devised and embedded with normal genetic operation to increase the speed and to get the optimized tree, ii. It is efficient to handle the dynamic situation arises due to either change in the multicast group membership or node / link failure, iii. Two different crossover and mutation probabilities have been used for maintaining the diversity of solution and quick convergence. The simulation results have shown that our proposed protocol generates dynamic multicast tree with lower cost. Results have also shown that the proposed algorithm has better convergence rate, better dynamic request success rate and less execution time than other existing algorithms. Effects of degree and delay constraints have also been analyzed for the multicast tree interns of search success rate.

Keywords: Dynamic Group membership change, Hybrid Genetic Algorithm, Link / node failure, QoS Parameters.

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Authors: Shigenori Togashi, Yukako Asano

Abstract:

We developed an effective microfluidic device for photoreactions with low reflectance and good heat conductance. The performance of this microfluidic device was tested by carrying out a photoreactive synthesis of benzopinacol and acetone from benzophenone and 2-propanol. The yield reached 36% with an irradiation time of 469.2 s and was improved by more than 30% when compared to the values obtained by the batch method. Therefore, the microfluidic device was found to be effective for improving the yields of photoreactions.

Keywords: Microfluidic device, Photoreaction, Benzophenone, Black Aluminum Oxide, Detection, Yield Improvement.

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Authors: Y. Fathi, B. Karimi, S. M. J. Mirzapour Al-e-Hashem

Abstract:

Cross-docking includes receiving products supplied by a set of suppliers, unloading them from inbound trucks (ITs) at strip doors, consolidating and handling these products to stack doors based on their destinations, loading them into outbound trucks (OTs); then, delivering these products to customers. An effective assignment of the trucks to the doors would enhance the advantages of the cross-docking (e.g. reduction of the handling costs). This paper addresses the truck-to-door assignment problem in a cross-dock in which assignment of the ITs to the strip doors as well as assignment of the OTs to the stacks doors is determined so that total material handling cost in the cross-dock is minimized. Capacity constraints are applied for the ITs, OTs, strip doors, and stack doors. We develop a Quadratic Programming (QP) to formulate the problem. To solve it, the model is coded in LINGO software to specify the best assignment of the trucks to the doors.

Keywords: Cross-docking, truck-to-door assignment, supply chain, quadratic programming.

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Authors: Y.B.Gandole

Abstract:

Compaction testing methods allow at-speed detecting of errors while possessing low cost of implementation. Owing to this distinctive feature, compaction methods have been widely used for built-in testing, as well as external testing. In the latter case, the bandwidth requirements to the automated test equipment employed are relaxed which reduces the overall cost of testing. Concurrent compaction testing methods use operational signals to detect misbehavior of the device under test and do not require input test stimuli. These methods have been employed for digital systems only. In the present work, we extend the use of compaction methods for concurrent testing of analog-to-digital converters. We estimate tolerance bounds for the result of compaction and evaluate the aliasing rate.

Keywords: Analog-to Digital Converter, Embedded system, Concurrent Testing

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Authors: Victor Oluwaseyi Olowonisi

Abstract:

The paper aimed at presenting an overview on the concept of e-learning as it relates to higher education and how it provides opportunities for students, instructors and the government in developing the educational sector. It also touched on the benefits and challenges attached to e-learning as a new medium of reaching more students especially in the Nigerian context. The opportunities attributed to e-learning in the paper includes breaking boundaries barriers, reaching a larger number of students, provision of jobs for ICT experts, etc. In contrary, poor power supply, cost of implementation, poor computer literacy, technophobia (fear of technology), computer crime and system failure were some of the challenges of e-learning discussed in the paper. The paper proffered that the government can help the people gain more from e-learning through its financing. Also, it was stated that instructors/lecturers and students need to undergo training on computer application in order for e-learning to be more effective in developing higher education in Nigeria.

Keywords: E-Learning, education, higher education, increasing literacy.

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Authors: Juan Ignacio Arango, Andres Diaz, Giacomo Barbieri

Abstract:

In soilless culture, the definition of efficient fertigation strategies is fundamental for the growth of crops. Flexible test-benches able to independently manage groups of crops are key for investigating efficient fertigation practices through experimentation. These test-benches must be able to provide nutrient solution (NS) in a precise, uniform and repeatable way in order to effectively implement and compare different fertigation strategies. This article describes a distribution module for investigating fertigation practices able to control the fertigation dose and frequency. The proposed solution is characterized in terms of precision, uniformity and repeatability since these parameters are fundamental in the implementation of effective experiments for the investigation of fertigation practices. After a calibration process, the implemented system reaches a precision of 1mL, a uniformity of 98.5% at a total cost of 735USD.

Keywords: Precision horticulture, test-bench, fertigation strategy, automation, flexibility.

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Authors: Udeme O. Ini, Edikan E. Akpanibah

Abstract:

This paper studies the optimal investment strategies for a plan member (PM) in a defined contribution (DC) pension scheme with transaction cost, taxes on invested funds and couple risky assets (stocks) under the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck (O-U) process. The PM’s portfolio is assumed to consist of a risk-free asset and two risky assets where the two risky assets are driven by the O-U process. The Legendre transformation and dual theory is use to transform the resultant optimal control problem which is a nonlinear partial differential equation (PDE) into linear PDE and the resultant linear PDE is then solved for the explicit solutions of the optimal investment strategies for PM exhibiting constant absolute risk aversion (CARA) using change of variable technique. Furthermore, theoretical analysis is used to study the influences of some sensitive parameters on the optimal investment strategies with observations that the optimal investment strategies for the two risky assets increase with increase in the dividend and decreases with increase in tax on the invested funds, risk averse coefficient, initial fund size and the transaction cost.

Keywords: Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process, portfolio management, Legendre transforms, CARA utility.

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Authors: Habtu Alemayehu, G. Radhakrishnamacharya

Abstract:

An analytical solution for dispersion of a solute in the peristaltic motion of a couple stress fluid in the presence of magnetic field with both homogeneous and heterogeneous chemical reactions is presented. The average effective dispersion coefficient has been found using Taylor-s limiting condition and long wavelength approximation. The effects of various relevant parameters on the average effective coefficient of dispersion have been studied. The average effective dispersion coefficient tends to decrease with magnetic field parameter, homogeneous chemical reaction rate parameter and amplitude ratio but tends to increase with heterogeneous chemical reaction rate parameter.

Keywords: Dispersion, Peristalsis, Couple stress fluid, Chemicalreaction, Magnetic field.

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Authors: Theerawat Songyot, Tham Manjing, Bunyarit Uyyanonvara, Chanjira Sinthanayothin

Abstract:

Corner detection and optical flow are common techniques for feature-based video stabilization. However, these algorithms are computationally expensive and should be performed at a reasonable rate. This paper presents an algorithm for discarding irrelevant feature points and maintaining them for future use so as to improve the computational cost. The algorithm starts by initializing a maintained set. The feature points in the maintained set are examined against its accuracy for modeling. Corner detection is required only when the feature points are insufficiently accurate for future modeling. Then, optical flows are computed from the maintained feature points toward the consecutive frame. After that, a motion model is estimated based on the simplified affine motion model and least square method, with outliers belonging to moving objects presented. Studentized residuals are used to eliminate such outliers. The model estimation and elimination processes repeat until no more outliers are identified. Finally, the entire algorithm repeats along the video sequence with the points remaining from the previous iteration used as the maintained set. As a practical application, an efficient video stabilization can be achieved by exploiting the computed motion models. Our study shows that the number of times corner detection needs to perform is greatly reduced, thus significantly improving the computational cost. Moreover, optical flow vectors are computed for only the maintained feature points, not for outliers, thus also reducing the computational cost. In addition, the feature points after reduction can sufficiently be used for background objects tracking as demonstrated in the simple video stabilizer based on our proposed algorithm.

Keywords: background object tracking, feature point reduction, low cost tracking, video stabilization.

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Authors: Omar Salah, Ahmed A. Ramadan, Salvatore Sessa, Ahmed A. Abo-Ismail

Abstract:

Walking and sit to stand are activities carried out by all the people many times during the day, but physical disabilities due to age and diseases create needs of assistive devices to help elderly people during their daily life. This study aims to study the different types and mechanisms of the assistive devices. We will analyze the limitations and the challenges faced by the researchers in this field. We will introduce the Assistive Device developed at the Egypt-Japan University of Science and Technology, named E-JUST Assistive Device (EJAD). EJAD will be a low cost intelligent assistive device to help elders in walking and sit-to-stand activities.

Keywords: Active walker, Assistive robotics, Standing Assistance, Walking Assistance

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Authors: Sun Lim, Il-Kyun Jung

Abstract:

This paper describes a newly designed decentralized nonlinear control strategy to control a robot manipulator. Based on the concept of the nonlinear state feedback theory and decentralized concept is developed to improve the drawbacks in previous works concerned with complicate intelligent control and low cost effective sensor. The control methodology is derived in the sense of Lyapunov theorem so that the stability of the control system is guaranteed. The decentralized algorithm does not require other joint angle and velocity information. Individual Joint controller is implemented using a digital processor with nearly actuator to make it possible to achieve good dynamics and modular. Computer simulation result has been conducted to validate the effectiveness of the proposed control scheme under the occurrence of possible uncertainties and different reference trajectories. The merit of the proposed control system is indicated in comparison with a classical control system.

Keywords: Robot manipulator control, nonlinear controller, Lyapunov based stability, Interconnection compensation.

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Authors: Maricar G. Misola, Bryan B. Navarro

Abstract:

Facility Layout Problem (FLP) is one of the essential problems of several types of manufacturing and service sector. It is an optimization problem on which the main objective is to obtain the efficient locations, arrangement and order of the facilities. In the literature, there are numerous facility layout problem research presented and have used meta-heuristic approaches to achieve optimal facility layout design. This paper presented genetic algorithm to solve facility layout problem; to minimize total cost function. The performance of the proposed approach was verified and compared using problems in the literature.

Keywords: Facility Layout Problem, Genetic Algorithm, Material Handling Cost, Meta-heuristic Approach.

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Authors: S. Hamid Mirmohammadi, Shahrazad Tamjidzad

Abstract:

This paper is concerned with the single-item continuous review inventory system in which demand is stochastic and discrete. The budget consumed for purchasing the ordered items is not restricted but it incurs extra cost when exceeding specific value. The unit purchasing price depends on the quantity ordered under the all-units discounts cost structure. In many actual systems, the budget as a resource which is occupied by the purchased items is limited and the system is able to confront the resource shortage by charging more costs. Thus, considering the resource shortage costs as a part of system costs, especially when the amount of resource occupied by the purchased item is influenced by quantity discounts, is well motivated by practical concerns. In this paper, an optimization problem is formulated for finding the optimal (r, Q) policy, when the system is influenced by the budget limitation and a discount pricing simultaneously. Properties of the cost function are investigated and then an algorithm based on a one-dimensional search procedure is proposed for finding an optimal (r, Q) policy which minimizes the expected system costs.

Keywords: (r, Q) policy, Stochastic demand, backorders, limited resource, quantity discounts.

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Authors: Marina Kapsali, John S. Anagnostopoulos

Abstract:

On the basis of comparative analysis of alternative “development scenarios” for electricity generation, the main objective of the present study is to investigate the techno-economic viability of high wind energy (WE) use at the local (island) level. An integrated theoretical model is developed based on first principles assuming two main possible scenarios for covering future electrification needs of a medium–sized Greek island, i.e. Lesbos. The first scenario (S1), assumes that the island will keep using oil products as the main source for electricity generation. The second scenario (S2) involves the interconnection of the island with the mainland grid to satisfy part of the electricity demand, while remarkable WE penetration is also achieved. The economic feasibility of the above solutions is investigated in terms of determining their Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) for the time-period 2020-2045, including also a sensitivity analysis on the worst/reference/best Cases. According to the results obtained, interconnection of Lesbos Island with the mainland grid (S2) presents considerable economic interest in comparison to autonomous development (S1) with WE having a prominent role to this effect.

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

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Authors: B. Jabbari, N. Tahouni, M. H. Panjeshahi

Abstract:

In this study the integration of an absorption heat pump (AHP) with the concentration section of an industrial pulp and paper process is investigated using pinch technology. The optimum design of the proposed water-lithium bromide AHP is then achieved by minimizing the total annual cost. A comprehensive optimization is carried out by relaxation of all stream pressure drops as well as heat exchanger areas involving in AHP structure. It is shown that by applying genetic algorithm optimizer, the total annual cost of the proposed AHP is decreased by 18% compared to one resulted from simulation.

Keywords: Absorption Heat Pump, Genetic Algorithm, Kraft Industry, Pinch Technology

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Authors: Oi Mean Foong, Tan Jung Low, Satrio Wibowo

Abstract:

Hand gesture is one of the typical methods used in sign language for non-verbal communication. It is most commonly used by people who have hearing or speech problems to communicate among themselves or with normal people. Various sign language systems have been developed by manufacturers around the globe but they are neither flexible nor cost-effective for the end users. This paper presents a system prototype that is able to automatically recognize sign language to help normal people to communicate more effectively with the hearing or speech impaired people. The Sign to Voice system prototype, S2V, was developed using Feed Forward Neural Network for two-sequence signs detection. Different sets of universal hand gestures were captured from video camera and utilized to train the neural network for classification purpose. The experimental results have shown that neural network has achieved satisfactory result for sign-to-voice translation.

Keywords: Hand gesture detection, neural network, signlanguage, sequence detection.

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Authors: Hafizullah A. Hashim, Aniza. A

Abstract:

The Spiral development model has been used successfully in many commercial systems and in a good number of defense systems. This is due to the fact that cost-effective incremental commitment of funds, via an analogy of the spiral model to stud poker and also can be used to develop hardware or integrate software, hardware, and systems. To support adaptive, semantic collaboration between domain experts and knowledge engineers, a new knowledge engineering process, called Spiral_OWL is proposed. This model is based on the idea of iterative refinement, annotation and structuring of knowledge base. The Spiral_OWL model is generated base on spiral model and knowledge engineering methodology. A central paradigm for Spiral_OWL model is the concentration on risk-driven determination of knowledge engineering process. The collaboration aspect comes into play during knowledge acquisition and knowledge validation phase. Design rationales for the Spiral_OWL model are to be easy-to-implement, well-organized, and iterative development cycle as an expanding spiral.

Keywords: Domain Expert, Knowledge Base, Ontology, Software Process.

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Authors: A. Abdulkadir, Y. M. Bello, A. A. Okhimamhe, H. Ibrahim, M. B. Matazu, L. S. Barau

Abstract:

The increasing volume of solid waste generated, collected and disposed daily complicate adequate management of solid waste by relevant agency like Niger State Environmental Protection Agency (NISEPA). In addition, the impacts of solid waste on the natural environment and human livelihood require identification of cost-effective ways for sustainable municipal waste management in Nigeria. These signal the need for identifying environment-friendly initiative and local solution to address the problem of municipal solid waste. A research field was secured at Pago, Minna, Niger State which is located in the guinea savanna belt of Nigeria, within longitude 60 361 4311 - 4511 and latitude 90 291 37.6111 - .6211 N. Poultry droppings, decomposed household waste manure and NPK treatments were used. The experimental field was divided into three replications and four (4) treatments on each replication making a total of twelve (12) plots. The treatments were allotted using Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) and Data collected was analyzed using SPSS software and RCBD. The result depicts variation in plant height and number of leaves at 50% flowering; Poultry dropping records the highest height while the number of leaves for waste manure competes fairly well with NPK treatment. Similarly, the varying treatments significantly increase vegetable yield, as the control (non-treatment) records the least yield for the three vegetable samples. Adoption of this organic manure for cultivation does not only enhance environment quality and attainment of food security but will contribute to local economic development, poverty alleviation as well as social inclusion.

Keywords: Environmental issues, food security, NISEPA, solid waste.

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Authors: Minsoo Lee, Yun-mi Kim, Yoon-kyung Lee

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XML data consists of a very flexible tree-structure which makes it difficult to support the storing and retrieving of XML data. The node numbering scheme is one of the most popular approaches to store XML in relational databases. Together with the node numbering storage scheme, structural joins can be used to efficiently process the hierarchical relationships in XML. However, in order to process a tree-structured XPath query containing several hierarchical relationships and conditional sentences on XML data, many structural joins need to be carried out, which results in a high query execution cost. This paper introduces mechanisms to reduce the XPath queries including branch nodes into a much more efficient form with less numbers of structural joins. A two step approach is proposed. The first step merges duplicate nodes in the tree-structured query and the second step divides the query into sub-queries, shortens the paths and then merges the sub-queries back together. The proposed approach can highly contribute to the efficient execution of XML queries. Experimental results show that the proposed scheme can reduce the query execution cost by up to an order of magnitude of the original execution cost.

Keywords: XML, Xpath, tree-structured query, query reduction.

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Authors: Mohammadreza Razzazi, Maryam Bayat

Abstract:

Selection of the best possible set of suppliers has a significant impact on the overall profitability and success of any business. For this reason, it is usually necessary to optimize all business processes and to make use of cost-effective alternatives for additional savings. This paper proposes a new efficient context-aware supplier selection model that takes into account possible changes of the environment while significantly reducing selection costs. The proposed model is based on data clustering techniques while inspiring certain principles of online algorithms for an optimally selection of suppliers. Unlike common selection models which re-run the selection algorithm from the scratch-line for any decision-making sub-period on the whole environment, our model considers the changes only and superimposes it to the previously defined best set of suppliers to obtain a new best set of suppliers. Therefore, any recomputation of unchanged elements of the environment is avoided and selection costs are consequently reduced significantly. A numerical evaluation confirms applicability of this model and proves that it is a more optimal solution compared with common static selection models in this field.

Keywords: Supplier Selection, Context-Awareness, OnlineAlgorithms, Data Clustering.

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Authors: Monika Jain, Shikhar Puri, Shivali Unishree

Abstract:

This paper presents the ‘Eye Ball Motion Controlled Wheelchair using IR Sensors’ for the elderly and differently abled people. In this eye tracking based technology, three Proximity Infrared (IR) sensor modules are mounted on an eye frame to trace the movement of the iris. Since, IR sensors detect only white objects; a unique sequence of digital bits is generated corresponding to each eye movement. These signals are then processed via a micro controller IC (PIC18F452) to control the motors of the wheelchair. The potential and efficiency of previously developed rehabilitation systems that use head motion, chin control, sip-n-puff control, voice recognition, and EEG signals variedly have also been explored in detail. They were found to be inconvenient as they served either limited usability or non-affordability. After multiple regression analyses, the proposed design was developed as a cost-effective, flexible and stream-lined alternative for people who have trouble adopting conventional assistive technologies.

Keywords: Eye tracking technology, Intelligent wheelchair, IR module, rehabilitation technology.

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