Search results for: radial basis function neural network

Authors: A. Suñol, D. Vucinic, S.Vanlanduit, T. Markova, A. Aksenov, I. Moskalyov

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Feeder is one of the airships of the Multibody Advanced Airship for Transport (MAAT) system, under development within the EU FP7 project. MAAT is based on a modular concept composed of two different parts that have the possibility to join; respectively they are the so-called Cruiser and Feeder, designed on the lighter than air principle. Feeder, also named ATEN (Airship Transport Elevator Network), is the smaller one which joins the bigger one, Cruiser, also named PTAH (Photovoltaic modular Transport Airship for High altitude),envisaged to happen at 15km altitude. During the MAAT design phase, the aerodynamic studies of the both airships and their interactions are analyzed. The objective of these studies is to understand the aerodynamic behavior of all the preselected configurations, as an important element in the overall MAAT system design. The most of these configurations are only simulated by CFD, while the most feasible one is experimentally analyzed in order to validate and thrust the CFD predictions. This paper presents the numerical and experimental investigation of the Feeder “conical like" shape configuration. The experiments are focused on the aerodynamic force coefficients and the pressure distribution over the Feeder outer surface, while the numerical simulation cover also the analysis of the velocity and pressure distribution. Finally, the wind tunnel experiment is compared with its CFD model in order to validate such specific simulations with respective experiments and to better understand the difference between the wind tunnel and in-flight circumstances.

Keywords: MAAT project Feeder, CFD simulations, wind tunnel experiments, lateral wind influence.

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Authors: Ana Lambelho

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In an economic crisis such as the one that shook (and still shake) Europe, one does not question the importance of the measures that encourage the hiring and integration of young people into the labour market. In the mentioned context, enterprises tend to reduce the cost of labour and to seek flexible contracting instruments. The professional internships allow innovation and creativity at low cost, because, as they are not labour contracts, the enterprises do not have to respect the minimum standards related to wages, working time duration and so on. In Portugal, we observe a widespread existence of training contracts in which the trainee worked several hours without salary or was paid below the legally prescribed for the function and the work period. For this reason, under the tripartite agreement for a new system of regulation of labour relations, employment policies and social protection, between the Government and the social partners, in June 2008, foresaw a prohibition of professional internships unpaid and the legal regulation of the mandatory internships for access to an activity. The first Act about private internship contracts, i.e., internships without public funding was embodied in the Decree-Law N. 66/2011, of 1^st June. This work is dedicated to the study of the legal regime of the internship contract in Portugal, by analysing the problems brought by the new set of rules and especially those which remains unresolved. In fact, we can conclude that the number of situations covered by the Act is much lower than what was expected, because of the exclusion of the mandatory internship for access to a profession when the activity is developed autonomously. Since the majority of the activities can be developed both autonomously or subordinated, it is quite easy to out of the Act requirements and, so, out of the protection that it confers to the intern. In order to complete this study, we considered not only the mentioned legal Act, but also the few doctrine and jurisprudence about the theme.

Keywords: Intern, internship contact, labour law, Portugal.

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Authors: Qurbanov Huseyn Nuraddin

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Reliable food supply of the population of a country is one of the main directions of the state's economic policy. Grain growing, which is the basis of agriculture, is important in this area. In the cultivation of cereals on slopes, the application of equal amounts of mineral fertilizers to under the soil before sowing is a very important technological process. The low level of technical equipment in this area prevents producers from providing the country with the necessary quality cereals. Experience in the operation of modern technical means has shown that at present, there is a need to provide an equal amount of fertilizer to under the soil on slopes, fully meeting the agro-technical requirements. No fundamental changes have been made to the industrial machines that fertilize under the soil, and unequal application of fertilizers to under the soil on slopes has been applied. This technological process leads to the destruction of new seedlings and reduced productivity due to intolerance to frost during the winter for the plant planted in the fall. In special climatic conditions, there is an optimal fertilization rate for each agricultural product. The application of fertilizers to the soil is one of the conditions that increase their efficiency in the field. As can be seen, the development of a new technical proposal for fertilizing and plowing the slopes in equal amounts on the slopes, improving the technological and design parameters, taking into account the physical and mechanical properties of fertilizers, is very important. Taking into account the above-mentioned issues, a combined plough was developed in our laboratory. Combined plough carries out pre-sowing technological operation in the cultivation of cereals, providing a smooth equal amount of mineral fertilizers to under the soil on the slopes. Mathematical models of a smooth spreader that evenly distributes fertilizers in the field have been developed. Thus, diagrams and graphs obtained without distribution on the eight partitions of the smooth spreader are constructed under the inclined angles of the slopes. Percentage and productivity of equal distribution in the field were noted by practical and theoretical analysis.

Keywords: Combined plough, mineral fertilizer, equal sowing, fertilizer norm, grain-crops, sowing fertilizer.

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Authors: Srikanth Pandurangi, Basheer Mohammed, Nezar Al Sayegh

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In order to meet the increasing demand for housing care for Kuwaiti citizens, the government authorities in Kuwait are undertaking a series of projects in the form of new large cities, outside the current urban area. Al Mutlaa City located to the north-west of the Kuwait Metropolitan Area is one such project out of the 15 planned new cities. The city accommodates a wide variety of residential developments, employment opportunities, commercial, recreational, health care and institutional uses. This paper examines the application of comprehensive transportation demand modeling works undertaken in VISUM platform to understand the future intracity and intercity travel distribution patterns in Kuwait. The scope of models developed varied in levels of detail: strategic model update, sub-area models representing future demand of Al Mutlaa City, sub-area models built to estimate the demand in the residential neighborhoods of the city. This paper aims at offering model update framework that facilitates easy integration between sub-area models and strategic national models for unified traffic forecasts. This paper presents the transportation demand modeling results utilized in informing the planning of multi-modal transportation system for Al Mutlaa City. This paper also presents the household survey data collection efforts undertaken using GPS devices (first time in Kuwait) and notebook computer based digital survey forms for interviewing representative sample of citizens and residents. The survey results formed the basis of estimating trip generation rates and trip distribution coefficients used in the strategic base year model calibration and validation process.

Keywords: GPS based household surveys, transportation infrastructure, origin-destination trip matrices, traffic forecasts, transportation demand modeling, travel behavior patterns.

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Authors: Ebrahim Panah, Muhammad Yasir Babar

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Thanks to the development of online technology and social networks, people are able to communicate as well as learn. WhatsApp is a popular social network which is growingly gaining popularity. This app can be used for communication as well as education. It can be used for instructor-learner, learner-learner, and learner-content interactions; however, very little knowledge is available on these potentials of WhatsApp. The current study was undertaken to investigate university students’ perceptions of WhatsApp used as a tool for instructor-learner dialogue, learner-content dialogue, and learner-learner dialogue. The study adopted a survey approach and distributed the questionnaire developed by Google Forms to 54 (11 males and 43 females) university students. The obtained data were analyzed using SPSS version 20. The result of data analysis indicates that students have positive attitudes towards WhatsApp as a tool for Instructor-Learner Dialogue: it easy to reach the lecturer (4.07), the instructor gives me valuable feedback on my assignment (4.02), the instructor is supportive during course discussion and offers continuous support with the class (4.00). Learner-Content Dialogue: WhatsApp allows me to academically engage with lecturers anytime, anywhere (4.00), it helps to send graphics such as pictures or charts directly to the students (3.98), it also provides out of class, extra learning materials and homework (3.96), and Learner-Learner Dialogue: WhatsApp is a good tool for sharing knowledge with others (4.09), WhatsApp allows me to academically engage with peers anytime, anywhere (4.07), and we can interact with others through the use of group discussion (4.02). It was also found that there are significant positive correlations between students’ perceptions of Instructor-Learner Dialogue (ILD), Learner-Content Dialogue (LCD), Learner-Learner Dialogue (LLD) and WhatsApp Application in classroom. The findings of the study have implications for lectures, policy makers and curriculum developers.

Keywords: Instructor-learner dialogue, learners-contents dialogue, learner-learner dialogue, WhatsApp.

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Authors: Ricardo Mestre

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The soundscape stands out as an agglomeration of sounds available in the world, associated with different contexts and origins, being a theme studied by various areas of knowledge, seeking to guide their benefits and their consequences, contributing to the welfare of society and other ecosystems. With the objective for a greater recognition of sound reality, through the selection and differentiation of sounds, the soundscape studies focus on the contribution for a better tuning of the world and to the balance and well-being of humanity. Sound environment, produced and created in various ways, can provide various sources of information, contributing to the orientation of the human being, alerting and manipulating him during his daily journey, like small notifications received on a cell phone or other device with these features. In this way, it becomes possible to give sound its due importance in relation to the processes of individual representation, in manners of social, professional and emotional life. Ensuring an individual representation means providing the human being with new tools for the long process of reflection by recognizing his environment, the sounds that represent him, and his perspective on his respective function in it. In order to provide more information about the importance of the sound environment inherent to the individual reality, one introduces the term sound instance, in order to refer to the whole sound field existing in the individual's life, which is divided into four distinct subfields, but essential to the process of individual representation, called sound matrix, sound cycles, sound traces and sound interference. Alongside volunteers we were able to create six representations of sound instances, based on the individual perception of his/her life, focusing on the present, past and future. With this investigation it was possible to determine that sound instance has a tool for self-recognition, considering the statements of opinion about the experience from the volunteers, reflecting about the three time lines, based on memories, thoughts and wishes.

Keywords: Sound instance, soundscape, sound art, self-recognition.

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Authors: Vikram Jeganathan, A. V. Sai Balasubramanian, N. Ravi Shankar, S. Subbaraman, R. Rengaraj

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Heating systems are a necessity for regions which brace extreme cold weather throughout the year. To maintain a comfortable temperature inside a given place, heating systems making use of- Hydronic boilers- are used. The principle of a single pipe system serves as a base for their working. It is mandatory for these heating systems to control the room temperature, thus maintaining a warm environment. In this paper, the concept of regulation of the room temperature over a wide range is established by using an Adaptive Fuzzy Controller (AFC). This fuzzy controller automatically detects the changes in the outside temperatures and correspondingly maintains the inside temperature to a palatial value. Two separate AFC's are put to use to carry out this function: one to determine the quantity of heat needed to reach the prospective temperature required and to set the desired temperature; the other to control the position of the valve, which is directly proportional to the error between the present room temperature and the user desired temperature. The fuzzy logic controls the position of the valve as per the requirement of the heat. The amount by which the valve opens or closes is controlled by 5 knob positions, which vary from minimum to maximum, thereby regulating the amount of heat flowing through the valve. For the given test system data, different de-fuzzifier methods have been implemented and the results are compared. In order to validate the effectiveness of the proposed approach, a fuzzy controller has been designed by obtaining a test data from a real time system. The simulations are performed in MATLAB and are verified with standard system data. The proposed approach can be implemented for real time applications.

Keywords: Adaptive fuzzy controller, Hydronic heating system

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Authors: Mike Dee

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Urban public spaces are sutured with a range of surveillance and sensor technologies that claim to enable new forms of ‘data based citizen participation’, but also increase the tendency for ‘function-creep’, whereby vast amounts of data are gathered, stored and analysed in a broad application of urban surveillance. This kind of monitoring and capacity for surveillance connects with attempts by civic authorities to regulate, restrict, rebrand and reframe urban public spaces. A direct consequence of the increasingly security driven, policed, privatised and surveilled nature of public space is the exclusion or ‘unfavourable inclusion’ of those considered flawed and unwelcome in the ‘spectacular’ consumption spaces of many major urban centres. In the name of urban regeneration, programs of securitisation, ‘gentrification’ and ‘creative’ and ‘smart’ city initiatives refashion public space as sites of selective inclusion and exclusion. In this context of monitoring and control procedures, in particular, children and young people’s use of space in parks, neighbourhoods, shopping malls and streets is often viewed as a threat to the social order, requiring various forms of remedial action. This paper suggests that cities, places and spaces and those who seek to use them, can be resilient in working to maintain and extend democratic freedoms and processes enshrined in Marshall’s concept of citizenship, calling sensor and surveillance systems to account. Such accountability could better inform the implementation of public policy around the design, build and governance of public space and also understandings of urban citizenship in the sensor saturated urban environment.

Keywords: Citizenship, Public Space, Surveillance, Young People.

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Authors: Mahmood Reza Shakarami, Reza Sedaghati

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Electricity market activities and a growing demand for electricity have led to heavily stressed power systems. This requires operation of the networks closer to their stability limits. Power system operation is affected by stability related problems, leading to unpredictable system behavior. Voltage stability refers to the ability of a power system to sustain appropriate voltage levels through large and small disturbances. Steady-state voltage stability is concerned with limits on the existence of steady-state operating points for the network. FACTS devices can be utilized to increase the transmission capacity, the stability margin and dynamic behavior or serve to ensure improved power quality. Their main capabilities are reactive power compensation, voltage control and power flow control. Among the FACTS controllers, Static Var Compensator (SVC) provides fast acting dynamic reactive compensation for voltage support during contingency events. In this paper, voltage stability assessment with appropriate representations of tap-changer transformers and SVC is investigated. Integrating both of these devices is the main topic of this paper. Effect of the presence of tap-changing transformers on static VAR compensator controller parameters and ratings necessary to stabilize load voltages at certain values are highlighted. The interrelation between transformer off nominal tap ratios and the SVC controller gains and droop slopes and the SVC rating are found. P-V curves are constructed to calculate loadability margins.

Keywords: SVC, voltage stability, P-V curve, reactive power, tap changing transformer.

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Authors: Padmanabhan Balasubramanian, Ryuta Arisaka

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Factoring Boolean functions is one of the basic operations in algorithmic logic synthesis. A novel algebraic factorization heuristic for single-output combinatorial logic functions is presented in this paper and is developed based on the set theory paradigm. The impact of factoring is analyzed mainly from a low power design perspective for standard cell based digital designs in this paper. The physical implementation of a number of MCNC/IWLS combinational benchmark functions and sub-functions are compared before and after factoring, based on a simple technology mapping procedure utilizing only standard gate primitives (readily available as standard cells in a technology library) and not cells corresponding to optimized complex logic. The power results were obtained at the gate-level by means of an industry-standard power analysis tool from Synopsys, targeting a 130nm (0.13μm) UMC CMOS library, for the typical case. The wire-loads were inserted automatically and the simulations were performed with maximum input activity. The gate-level simulations demonstrate the advantage of the proposed factoring technique in comparison with other existing methods from a low power perspective, for arbitrary examples. Though the benchmarks experimentation reports mixed results, the mean savings in total power and dynamic power for the factored solution over a non-factored solution were 6.11% and 5.85% respectively. In terms of leakage power, the average savings for the factored forms was significant to the tune of 23.48%. The factored solution is expected to better its non-factored counterpart in terms of the power-delay product as it is well-known that factoring, in general, yields a delay-efficient multi-level solution.

Keywords: Factorization, Set theory, Logic function, Standardcell based design, Low power.

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Authors: Rahmi Kafadar, Levent Genc

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In present study, it was aimed to determine potential agricultural lands (PALs) in Gokceada (Imroz) Island of Canakkale province, Turkey. Seven-band Landsat 8 OLI images acquired on July 12 and August 13, 2013, and their 14-band combination image were used to identify current Land Use Land Cover (LULC) status. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was applied to three Landsat datasets in order to reduce the correlation between the bands. A total of six Original and PCA images were classified using supervised classification method to obtain the LULC maps including 6 main classes (“Forest”, “Agriculture”, “Water Surface”, “Residential Area- Bare Soil”, “Reforestation” and “Other”). Accuracy assessment was performed by checking the accuracy of 120 randomized points for each LULC maps. The best overall accuracy and Kappa statistic values (90.83%, 0.8791% respectively) were found for PCA images which were generated from 14-bands combined images called 3- B/JA. Digital Elevation Model (DEM) with 15 m spatial resolution (ASTER) was used to consider topographical characteristics. Soil properties were obtained by digitizing 1:25000 scaled soil maps of Rural Services Directorate General. Potential Agricultural Lands (PALs) were determined using Geographic information Systems (GIS). Procedure was applied considering that “Other” class of LULC map may be used for agricultural purposes in the future properties. Overlaying analysis was conducted using Slope (S), Land Use Capability Class (LUCC), Other Soil Properties (OSP) and Land Use Capability Sub-Class (SUBC) properties. A total of 901.62 ha areas within “Other” class (15798.2 ha) of LULC map were determined as PALs. These lands were ranked as “Very Suitable”, “Suitable”, “Moderate Suitable” and “Low Suitable”. It was determined that the 8.03 ha were classified as “Very Suitable” while 18.59 ha as suitable and 11.44 ha as “Moderate Suitable” for PALs. In addition, 756.56 ha were found to be “Low Suitable”. The results obtained from this preliminary study can serve as basis for further studies.

Keywords: Digital Elevation Model (DEM), Geographic Information Systems (GIS), LANDSAT 8 OLI-TIRS, Land Use Land Cover (LULC).

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Authors: Win Win Tun, Han Su Yin, Ohn Zin Lin

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Transmission networks are an important part of an electric power system. The transmission lines not only have high power transmission capacity but also they are prone of larger magnitudes. Different types of faults occur in transmission lines such as single line to ground (L-G) fault, double line to ground (L-L-G) fault, line to line (L-L) fault and three phases (L-L-L) fault. These faults are needed to be cleared quickly in order to reduce damage caused to the system and they have high impact on the electrical power system equipment’s which are connected in transmission line. The main fault in transmission line is L-G fault. Therefore, protection relays are needed to protect transmission line. Overcurrent and earth fault relay is an important relay used to protect transmission lines, distribution feeders, transformers and bus couplers etc. Sometimes these relays can be used as main protection or backup protection. The modeling of protection relays is important to indicate the effects of network parameters and configurations on the operation of relays. Therefore, the modeling of overcurrent and earth fault relay is described in this paper. The overcurrent and earth fault relays with standard inverse definite minimum time are modeled and simulated by using MATLAB/Simulink software. The developed model was tested with L-G, L-L-G, L-L and L-L-L faults with various fault locations and fault resistance (0.001Ω). The simulation results are obtained by MATLAB software which shows the feasibility of analysis of transmission line protection with overcurrent and earth fault relay.

Keywords: Transmission line, overcurrent and earth fault relay, standard inverse definite minimum time, various faults, MATLAB Software.

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Authors: Arvind Srivastav, Tarun Kanti Bhattacharyya

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The north-eastern, Himalayan, and Eastern Ghats Belt of India comprise of earthquake-prone, remote, and hilly terrains. Earthquakes have caused enormous damages in these regions in the past. A wireless sensor network based earthquake early warning system (EEWS) is being developed to mitigate the damages caused by earthquakes. It consists of sensor nodes, distributed over the region, that perform majority voting of the output of the seismic sensors in the vicinity, and relay a message to a base station to alert the residents when an earthquake is detected. At the heart of the EEWS is a low-power two-stage seismic sensor that continuously tracks seismic events from incoming three-axis accelerometer signal at the first-stage, and, in the presence of a seismic event, triggers the second-stage P-wave detector that detects the onset of P-wave in an earthquake event. The parameters of the P-wave detector have been optimized for minimizing detection time and maximizing the accuracy of detection.Working of the sensor scheme has been verified with seven earthquakes data retrieved from IRIS. In all test cases, the scheme detected the onset of P-wave accurately. Also, it has been established that the P-wave onset detection time reduces linearly with the sampling rate. It has been verified with test data; the detection time for data sampled at 10Hz was around 2 seconds which reduced to 0.3 second for the data sampled at 100Hz.

Keywords: Earthquake early warning system, EEWS, STA/LTA, polarization, wavelet, event detector, P-wave detector.

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Authors: Mehmet Altınöz

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Organizational communication is an administrative function crucial especially for executives in the implementation of organizational and administrative functions. Executives spend a significant part of their time on communicative activities. Doing his or her daily routine, arranging meeting schedules, speaking on the telephone, reading or replying to business correspondence, or fulfilling the control functions within the organization, an executive typically engages in communication processes. Efficient communication is the principal device for the adequate implementation of administrative and organizational activities. For this purpose, management needs to specify the kind of communication system to be set up and the kind of communication devices to be used. Communication is vital for any organization. In conventional offices, communication takes place within the hierarchical pyramid called the organizational structure, and is known as formal or informal communication. Formal communication is the type that works in specified structures within the organizational rules and towards the organizational goals. Informal communication, on the other hand, is the unofficial type taking place among staff as face-to-face or telephone interaction. Communication in virtual as well as conventional offices is essential for obtaining the right information in administrative activities and decision-making. Virtual communication technologies increase the efficiency of communication especially in virtual teams. Group communication is strengthened through an inter-group central channel. Further, ease of information transmission makes it possible to reach the information at the source, allowing efficient and correct decisions. Virtual offices can present as a whole the elements of information which conventional offices produce in different environments. At present, virtual work has become a reality with its pros and cons, and will probably spread very rapidly in coming years, in line with the growth in information technologies.

Keywords: Organization, conventional office, virtual office, communication, communication model, communication functions, communication methods, vertical communication, linear communication, diagonal communication

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Authors: Jamaiah H. Yahaya, Aziz Deraman, Abdul Razak Hamdan, Yusmadi Yah Jusoh

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One of the most essential issues in software products is to maintain it relevancy to the dynamics of the user’s requirements and expectation. Many studies have been carried out in quality aspect of software products to overcome these problems. Previous software quality assessment models and metrics have been introduced with strengths and limitations. In order to enhance the assurance and buoyancy of the software products, certification models have been introduced and developed. From our previous experiences in certification exercises and case studies collaborating with several agencies in Malaysia, the requirements for user based software certification approach is identified and demanded. The emergence of social network applications, the new development approach such as agile method and other varieties of software in the market have led to the domination of users over the software. As software become more accessible to the public through internet applications, users are becoming more critical in the quality of the services provided by the software. There are several categories of users in web-based systems with different interests and perspectives. The classifications and metrics are identified through brain storming approach with includes researchers, users and experts in this area. The new paradigm in software quality assessment is the main focus in our research. This paper discusses the classifications of users in web-based software system assessment and their associated factors and metrics for quality measurement. The quality model is derived based on IEEE structure and FCM model. The developments are beneficial and valuable to overcome the constraints and improve the application of software certification model in future.

Keywords: Software certification model, user centric approach, software quality factors, metrics and measurements, web-based system.

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Authors: Sam Moshaver

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Reasonably priced and well-constructed housing must be an integral and element supporting a healthy society. The absence of housing everyone in society can afford negatively affects the people's health, education, ability to get jobs, develop their community. Without access to decent housing, economic development, integration of immigrants and inclusiveness, the society is negatively impacted. Canada has a sterling record in creating housing compared to many other nations around the globe. Canadian housing gets support from a mature and responsive mortgage network and a top-quality construction industry as well as safe and excellent quality building materials that are readily available. Yet 1.7 million Canadian households occupy substandard abodes. During the past hundred years, Canada's government has made a wide variety of attempts to provide decent residential facilities every Canadian can afford. Despite these laudable efforts, today Canada is left with housing that is inadequate for many Canadians. People who own their housing are given all kinds of privileges and perks, while people with relatively low incomes who rent their apartments or houses are discriminated against. To help solve these problems, zoning that is based on an "inclusionary" philosophy is tool developed to help provide people the affordable residences that they need. No, thirty years after its introduction, this type of zoning has been shown effective in helping build and provide Canadians with a houses or apartments they can afford to pay for. Using this form of zoning can have different results +depending on where and how it is used. After examining Canadian affordable housing and four American cases where this type of zoning was enforced in the USA, this makes various recommendations for expanding Canadians' access to housing they can afford.

Keywords: Affordable Housing, Inclusionary Zoning Low- Income Housing, Toronto Housing.

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Authors: J. Ritonja

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Available commercial applications of power system stabilizers assure optimal damping of synchronous generator’s oscillations only in a small part of operating range. Parameters of the power system stabilizer are usually tuned for the selected operating point. Extensive variations of the synchronous generator’s operation result in changed dynamic characteristics. This is the reason that the power system stabilizer tuned for the nominal operating point does not satisfy preferred damping in the overall operation area. The small-signal stability and the transient stability of the synchronous generators have represented an attractive problem for testing different concepts of the modern control theory. Of all the methods, the adaptive control has proved to be the most suitable for the design of the power system stabilizers. The adaptive control has been used in order to assure the optimal damping through the entire synchronous generator’s operating range. The use of the adaptive control is possible because the loading variations and consequently the variations of the synchronous generator’s dynamic characteristics are, in most cases, essentially slower than the adaptation mechanism. The paper shows the development and the application of the self-tuning power system stabilizer based on recursive least square identification method and linear quadratic regulator. Identification method is used to calculate the parameters of the Heffron-Phillips model of the synchronous generator. On the basis of the calculated parameters of the synchronous generator’s mathematical model, the synthesis of the linear quadratic regulator is carried-out. The identification and the synthesis are implemented on-line. In this way, the self-tuning power system stabilizer adapts to the different operating conditions. A purpose of this paper is to contribute to development of the more effective power system stabilizers, which would replace currently used linear stabilizers. The presented self-tuning power system stabilizer makes the tuning of the controller parameters easier and assures damping improvement in the complete operating range. The results of simulations and experiments show essential improvement of the synchronous generator’s damping and power system stability.

Keywords: Adaptive control, linear quadratic regulator, power system stabilizer, recursive least square identification.

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Authors: S. I. V. Sousa, F.G. Martins, M. C. Pereira, M. C. M. Alvim-Ferraz, H. Ribeiro, M. Oliveira, I. Abreu

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Exposure to ambient air pollution has been linked to a number of health outcomes, starting from modest transient changes in the respiratory tract and impaired pulmonary function, continuing to restrict activity/reduce performance and to the increase emergency rooms visits, hospital admissions or mortality. The increase of allergenic symptoms has been associated with air contaminants such as ozone, particulate matter, fungal spores and pollen. Considering the potential relevance of crossed effects of nonbiological pollutants and airborne pollens and fungal spores on allergy worsening, the aim of this work was to evaluate the influence of non-biological pollutants (O3 and PM10) and meteorological parameters on the concentrations of pollen and fungal spores using multiple linear regressions. The data considered in this study were collected in Oporto which is the second largest Portuguese city, located in the North. Daily mean of O3, PM10, pollen and fungal spore concentrations, temperature, relative humidity, precipitation, wind velocity, pollen and fungal spore concentrations, for 2003, 2004 and 2005 were considered. Results showed that the 90th percentile of the adjusted coefficient of determination, P90 (R2aj), of the multiple regressions varied from 0.613 to 0.916 for pollen and from 0.275 to 0.512 for fungal spores. O3 and PM10 showed to have some influence on the biological pollutants. Among the meteorological parameters analysed, temperature was the one that most influenced the pollen and fungal spores airborne concentrations. Relative humidity also showed to have some influence on the fungal spore dispersion. Nevertheless, the models for each pollen and fungal spore were different depending on the analysed period, which means that the correlations identified as statistically significant can not be, even so, consistent enough.

Keywords: Air pollutants, meteorological parameters, biologicalpollutants, multiple linear correlations.

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Authors: Nerguè Kassahan Kone, Souleymane Oumtanaga

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The third generation (3G) of cellular system adopted the spread spectrum as solution for the transmission of the data in the physical layer. Contrary to systems IS-95 or CDMAOne (systems with spread spectrum of the preceding generation), the new standard, called Universal Mobil Telecommunications System (UMTS), uses long codes in the down link. The system is conceived for the vocal communication and the transmission of the data. In particular, the down link is very important, because of the asymmetrical request of the data, i.e., more remote loading towards the mobiles than towards the basic station. Moreover, the UMTS uses for the down link an orthogonal spreading out with a variable factor of spreading out (OVSF for Orthogonal Variable Spreading Factor). This characteristic makes it possible to increase the flow of data of one or more users by reducing their factor of spreading out without changing the factor of spreading out of other users. In the current standard of the UMTS, two techniques to increase the performances of the down link were proposed, the diversity of sending antenna and the codes space-time. These two techniques fight only fainding. The receiver proposed for the mobil station is the RAKE, but one can imagine a receiver more sophisticated, able to reduce the interference between users and the impact of the coloured noise and interferences to narrow band. In this context, where the users have long codes synchronized with variable factor of spreading out and ignorance by the mobile of the other active codes/users, the use of the sequences of code pseudo-noises different lengths is presented in the form of one of the most appropriate solutions.

Keywords: DS-CDMA, multiple access interference, ratio Signal / interference + Noise.

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Authors: K. Beheshti Maal, R. Shafiee

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Vinegar is a precious food additive and complement as well as effective preservative against food spoilage. Recently traditional vinegar production has been improved using various natural substrates and fruits such as grape, palm, cherry, coconut, date, sugarcane, rice and balsam. These neoclassical fermentations resulted in several vinegar types with different tastes, fragrances and nutritional values because of applying various acetic acid bacteria as starters. Acetic acid bacteria include genera Acetobacter, Gluconacetobacter and Gluconobacter according to latest edition of Bergy-s Manual of Systematic Bacteriology that classifies genera on the basis of their 16s RNA differences. Acetobacter spp as the main vinegar starters belong to family Acetobacteraceae that are gram negative obligate aerobes, chemoorganotrophic bacilli that are oxidase negative and oxidize ethanol to acetic acid. In this research we isolated and identified a native Acetobacter strain with high acetic acid productivity and tolerance against high ethanol concentrations from Iranian peach as a summer delicious fruit that is very susceptible to food spoilage and decay. We used selective and specific laboratorial culture media such as Standard GYC, Frateur and Carr medium. Also we used a new industrial culture medium and a miniature fermentor with a new aeration system innovated by Pars Yeema Biotechnologists Co., Isfahan Science and Technology Town (ISTT), Isfahan, Iran. The isolated strain was successfully cultivated in modified Carr media with 2.5% and 5% ethanol simultaneously in high temperatures, 34 - 40º C after 96 hours of incubation period. We showed that the increase of ethanol concentration resulted in rising of strain sensitivity to high temperature. In conclusion we isolated and characterized a new Acetobacter strain from Iranian peach that could be considered as a potential strain for production of a new vinegar type, peach vinegar, with a delicious taste and advantageous nutritional value in food biotechnology and industrial microbiology.

Keywords: Acetobacter, Acetic Acid Bacteria, Vinegar, Peach, Food Biotechnology, Industrial Microbiology, Fermentation

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Authors: M. Alqhatani, S. Bajwa, S. Setunge

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Metropolitan areas have suffered from traffic problems, which have steadily increased in many monocentric cities. Urban expansion, population growth, and road network development have resulted in a structural shift toward urban sprawl, increasing commuters’ dependence on private modes of transport. This paper aims to model the influence of socioeconomic and land-use factors on mode choice using a multinomial and nested logit model. Land-use patterns—such as residential, commercial, retail, educational and employment related—affect the choice of mode and destination in the short and medium term. Socioeconomic factors—such as age, gender, income, household size, and house type—also affect choice, while residential location is affected in the long term. Riyadh in Saudi Arabia and Melbourne in Australia were chosen as case studies. Riyadh is a car-dependent city with limited public transport, whereas Melbourne has good public transport but an increase in car dependence. Aggregate level land-use data and disaggregate level individual, household, and journey-to-work data are used to determine the effects of land use and socioeconomic factors on mode choice. The model results determined that urban sprawl is the main factor that affects mode choice, income, and house type.

Keywords: Socioeconomic, land use, mode choice, multinomial logit and nested logit.

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Authors: Richa Grover, Rahul Grover, V. Balaji Rao, Kavish Kejriwal

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Selection of suppliers is a crucial problem in the supply chain management. On top of that, sustainable supplier selection is the biggest challenge for the organizations. Environment protection and social problems have been of concern to society in recent years, and the traditional supplier selection does not consider about this factor; therefore, this research work focuses on introducing sustainable criteria into the structure of supplier selection criteria. Sustainable Supply Chain Management (SSCM) is the management and administration of material, information, and money flows, as well as coordination among business along the supply chain. All three dimensions - economic, environmental, and social - of sustainable development needs to be taken care of. Purpose of this research is to maximize supply chain profitability, maximize social wellbeing of supply chain and minimize environmental impacts. Problem statement is selection of suppliers in a sustainable supply chain network by ranking the suppliers against sustainable criteria identified. The aim of this research is twofold: To find out what are the sustainable parameters that can be applied to the supply chain, and to determine how these parameters can effectively be used in supplier selection. Multicriteria decision making tools will be used to rank both criteria and suppliers. AHP Analysis will be used to find out ratings for the criteria identified. It is a technique used for efficient decision making. TOPSIS will be used to find out rating for suppliers and then ranking them. TOPSIS is a MCDM problem solving method which is based on the principle that the chosen option should have the maximum distance from the negative ideal solution (NIS) and the minimum distance from the ideal solution.

Keywords: Sustainable supply chain management, supplier selection, MCDM tools, AHP analysis, TOPSIS method.

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Authors: Jean Berger, Nassirou Lo, Martin Noel

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Perfectly suited for natural or man-made emergency and disaster management situations such as flood, earthquakes, tornadoes, or tsunami, multi-target search path planning for a team of rescue agents is known to be computationally hard, and most techniques developed so far come short to successfully estimate optimality gap. A novel mixed-integer linear programming (MIP) formulation is proposed to optimally solve the multi-target multi-agent discrete search and rescue (SAR) path planning problem. Aimed at maximizing cumulative probability of successful target detection, it captures anticipated feedback information associated with possible observation outcomes resulting from projected path execution, while modeling agent discrete actions over all possible moving directions. Problem modeling further takes advantage of network representation to encompass decision variables, expedite compact constraint specification, and lead to substantial problem-solving speed-up. The proposed MIP approach uses CPLEX optimization machinery, efficiently computing near-optimal solutions for practical size problems, while giving a robust upper bound obtained from Lagrangean integrality constraint relaxation. Should eventually a target be positively detected during plan execution, a new problem instance would simply be reformulated from the current state, and then solved over the next decision cycle. A computational experiment shows the feasibility and the value of the proposed approach.

Keywords: Search path planning, search and rescue, multi-agent, mixed-integer linear programming, optimization.

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Authors: Nikolay P. Brayanov, Anna V. Stoynova

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Model-based development approach is gaining more support and acceptance. Its higher abstraction level brings simplification of systems’ description that allows domain experts to do their best without particular knowledge in programming. The different levels of simulation support the rapid prototyping, verifying and validating the product even before it exists physically. Nowadays model-based approach is beneficial for modelling of complex embedded systems as well as a generation of code for many different hardware platforms. Moreover, it is possible to be applied in safety-relevant industries like automotive, which brings extra automation of the expensive device certification process and especially in the software qualification. Using it, some companies report about cost savings and quality improvements, but there are others claiming no major changes or even about cost increases. This publication demonstrates the level of maturity and autonomy of model-based approach for code generation. It is based on a real live automotive seat heater (ASH) module, developed using The Mathworks, Inc. tools. The model, created with Simulink, Stateflow and Matlab is used for automatic generation of C code with Embedded Coder. To prove the maturity of the process, Code generation advisor is used for automatic configuration. All additional configuration parameters are set to auto, when applicable, leaving the generation process to function autonomously. As a result of the investigation, the publication compares the quality of generated embedded code and a manually developed one. The measurements show that generally, the code generated by automatic approach is not worse than the manual one. A deeper analysis of the technical parameters enumerates the disadvantages, part of them identified as topics for our future work.

Keywords: Embedded code generation, embedded C code quality, embedded systems, model-based development.

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Authors: Razib M. Othman, Safaai Deris, Rosli M. Illias

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Annotation of a protein sequence is pivotal for the understanding of its function. Accuracy of manual annotation provided by curators is still questionable by having lesser evidence strength and yet a hard task and time consuming. A number of computational methods including tools have been developed to tackle this challenging task. However, they require high-cost hardware, are difficult to be setup by the bioscientists, or depend on time intensive and blind sequence similarity search like Basic Local Alignment Search Tool. This paper introduces a new method of assigning highly correlated Gene Ontology terms of annotated protein sequences to partially annotated or newly discovered protein sequences. This method is fully based on Gene Ontology data and annotations. Two problems had been identified to achieve this method. The first problem relates to splitting the single monolithic Gene Ontology RDF/XML file into a set of smaller files that can be easy to assess and process. Thus, these files can be enriched with protein sequences and Inferred from Electronic Annotation evidence associations. The second problem involves searching for a set of semantically similar Gene Ontology terms to a given query. The details of macro and micro problems involved and their solutions including objective of this study are described. This paper also describes the protein sequence annotation and the Gene Ontology. The methodology of this study and Gene Ontology based protein sequence annotation tool namely extended UTMGO is presented. Furthermore, its basic version which is a Gene Ontology browser that is based on semantic similarity search is also introduced.

Keywords: automatic clustering, bioinformatics tool, gene ontology, protein sequence annotation, semantic similarity search

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Authors: Salma El Hajjami, Jamal Malki, Alain Bouju, Mohammed Berrada

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With the expansion of machine learning and data mining in the context of Big Data analytics, the common problem that affects data is class imbalance. It refers to an imbalanced distribution of instances belonging to each class. This problem is present in many real world applications such as fraud detection, network intrusion detection, medical diagnostics, etc. In these cases, data instances labeled negatively are significantly more numerous than the instances labeled positively. When this difference is too large, the learning system may face difficulty when tackling this problem, since it is initially designed to work in relatively balanced class distribution scenarios. Another important problem, which usually accompanies these imbalanced data, is the overlapping instances between the two classes. It is commonly referred to as noise or overlapping data. In this article, we propose an approach called: One Side Behavioral Noise Reduction (OSBNR). This approach presents a way to deal with the problem of class imbalance in the presence of a high noise level. OSBNR is based on two steps. Firstly, a cluster analysis is applied to groups similar instances from the minority class into several behavior clusters. Secondly, we select and eliminate the instances of the majority class, considered as behavioral noise, which overlap with behavior clusters of the minority class. The results of experiments carried out on a representative public dataset confirm that the proposed approach is efficient for the treatment of class imbalances in the presence of noise.

Keywords: Machine learning, Imbalanced data, Data mining, Big data.

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Authors: M. Magrini, D. Moroni, G. Palazzese, G. Pieri, D. Azzarelli, A. Spada, L. Fanucci, O. Salvetti

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Railway crossings are complex entities whose optimal management cannot be addressed unless with the help of an intelligent transportation system integrating information both on train and vehicular flows. In this paper, we propose an integrated system named SIMPLE (Railway Safety and Infrastructure for Mobility applied at level crossings) that, while providing unparalleled safety in railway level crossings, collects data on rail and road traffic and provides value-added services to citizens and commuters. Such services include for example alerts, via variable message signs to drivers and suggestions for alternative routes, towards a more sustainable, eco-friendly and efficient urban mobility. To achieve these goals, SIMPLE is organized as a System of Systems (SoS), with a modular architecture whose components range from specially-designed radar sensors for obstacle detection to smart ETSI M2M-compliant camera networks for urban traffic monitoring. Computational unit for performing forecast according to adaptive models of train and vehicular traffic are also included. The proposed system has been tested and validated during an extensive trial held in the mid-sized Italian town of Montecatini, a paradigmatic case where the rail network is inextricably linked with the fabric of the city. Results of the tests are reported and discussed.

Keywords: Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS), railway, railroad crossing, smart camera networks, radar obstacle detection, real-time traffic optimization, IoT, ETSI M2M, transport safety.

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Authors: Mohammed A. Alolfe, Abou-Bakr M. Youssef, Yasser M. Kadah

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The proper design of RF pulses in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has a direct impact on the quality of acquired images, and is needed for many applications. Several techniques have been proposed to obtain the RF pulse envelope given the desired slice profile. Unfortunately, these techniques do not take into account the limitations of practical implementation such as limited amplitude resolution. Moreover, implementing constraints for special RF pulses on most techniques is not possible. In this work, we propose to develop an approach for designing optimal RF pulses under theoretically any constraints. The new technique will pose the RF pulse design problem as a combinatorial optimization problem and uses efficient techniques from this area such as genetic algorithms (GA) to solve this problem. In particular, an objective function will be proposed as the norm of the difference between the desired profile and the one obtained from solving the Bloch equations for the current RF pulse design values. The proposed approach will be verified using analytical solution based RF simulations and compared to previous methods such as Shinnar-Le Roux (SLR) method, and analysis, selected, and tested the options and parameters that control the Genetic Algorithm (GA) can significantly affect its performance to get the best improved results and compared to previous works in this field. The results show a significant improvement over conventional design techniques, select the best options and parameters for GA to get most improvement over the previous works, and suggest the practicality of using of the new technique for most important applications as slice selection for large flip angles, in the area of unconventional spatial encoding, and another clinical use.

Keywords: Selective excitation, magnetic resonance imaging, combinatorial optimization, pulse design.

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Authors: D. Krishnaveni, M. Geetha Priya

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Application of reversible logic in integrated circuits results in the improved optimization of power consumption. This technology can be put into use in a variety of low power applications such as quantum computing, optical computing, nano-technology, and Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) Very Large Scale Integrated (VLSI) design etc. Logic gates are the basic building blocks in the design of any logic network and thus integrated circuits. In this paper, reversible Dual Key Gate (DKG) and Dual key Gate Pair (DKGP) gates that work singly as full adder/full subtractor are used to realize the basic building blocks of logic circuits. Reversible full adder/subtractor and parallel adder/ subtractor are designed using other reversible gates available in the literature and compared with that of DKG & DKGP gates. Efficient performance of reversible logic circuits relies on the optimization of the key parameters viz number of constant inputs, garbage outputs and number of reversible gates. The full adder/subtractor and parallel adder/subtractor design with reversible DKGP and DKG gates results in least number of constant inputs, garbage outputs, and number of reversible gates compared to the other designs. Thus, this paper provides a threshold to build more complex arithmetic systems using these reversible logic gates, leading to the enhanced performance of computing systems.

Keywords: Low power CMOS, quantum computing, reversible logic gates, full adder, full subtractor, parallel adder/subtractor, basic gates, universal gates.

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Authors: Y. Z. Wu, Z. Dong, S. K. You

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Global approximation using metamodel for complex mathematical function or computer model over a large variable domain is often needed in sensibility analysis, computer simulation, optimal control, and global design optimization of complex, multiphysics systems. To overcome the limitations of the existing response surface (RS), surrogate or metamodel modeling methods for complex models over large variable domain, a new adaptive and regressive RS modeling method using quadratic functions and local area model improvement schemes is introduced. The method applies an iterative and Latin hypercube sampling based RS update process, divides the entire domain of design variables into multiple cells, identifies rougher cells with large modeling error, and further divides these cells along the roughest dimension direction. A small number of additional sampling points from the original, expensive model are added over the small and isolated rough cells to improve the RS model locally until the model accuracy criteria are satisfied. The method then combines local RS cells to regenerate the global RS model with satisfactory accuracy. An effective RS cells sorting algorithm is also introduced to improve the efficiency of model evaluation. Benchmark tests are presented and use of the new metamodeling method to replace complex hybrid electrical vehicle powertrain performance model in vehicle design optimization and optimal control are discussed.

Keywords: Global approximation, polynomial response surface, domain decomposition, domain combination, multiphysics modeling, hybrid powertrain optimization

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