Search results for: Volume reduction factor.
Commenced in January 2007
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Edition: International
Paper Count: 33017

Search results for: Volume reduction factor.

32357 Negative Pressure Waves in Hydraulic Systems

Authors: Fuad H. Veliev

Abstract:

Negative pressure phenomenon appears in many thermodynamic, geophysical and biophysical processes in the Nature and technological systems. For more than 100 years of the laboratory researches beginning from F. M. Donny’s tests, the great values of negative pressure have been achieved. But this phenomenon has not been practically applied, being only a nice lab toy due to the special demands for the purity and homogeneity of the liquids for its appearance. The possibility of creation of direct wave of negative pressure in real heterogeneous liquid systems was confirmed experimentally under the certain kinetic and hydraulic conditions. The negative pressure can be considered as the factor of both useful and destroying energies. The new approach to generation of the negative pressure waves in impure, unclean fluids has allowed the creation of principally new energy saving technologies and installations to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of different production processes. It was proved that the negative pressure is one of the main factors causing hard troubles in some technological and natural processes. Received results emphasize the necessity to take into account the role of the negative pressure as an energy factor in evaluation of many transient thermohydrodynamic processes in the Nature and production systems.

Keywords: Liquid systems, negative pressure, temperature, wave, metastable state.

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32356 Factorial Structure and Psychometric Validation of Ecotourism Experiential Value Construct: Insights from Taman Negara National Park, Malaysia

Authors: Rosidah Musa, Rezian-na Muhammad Kassim

Abstract:

The purpose of this research is to disentangle and validate the underlying factorial-structure of Ecotourism Experiential Value (EEV) measurement scale and subsequently investigate its psychometric properties. The analysis was based on a sample of 225 eco-tourists, collected at the vicinity of Taman Negara National Park (TNNP) via interviewer-administered questionnaire. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was performed to determine the factorial structure of EEV. Subsequently, to confirm and validate the factorial structure and assess the psychometric properties of EEV, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was executed. In addition, to establish the nomological validity of EEV a structural model was developed to examine the effect of EEV on Total Eco-tourist Experience Quality (TEEQ). It is unveiled that EEV is a secondorder six-factorial structure construct and it scale has adequately met the psychometric criteria, thus could permit interpretation of results confidently. The findings have important implications for future research directions and management of ecotourism destination.

Keywords: ecotourism, experiential value, experience quality, national park,

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32355 Evaluation of Negative Air Ions in Bioaerosol Removal: Indoor Concentration of Airborne Bacterial and Fungal in Residential Building in Qom City, Iran

Authors: Z. Asadgol, A. Nadali, H. Arfaeinia, M. Khalifeh Gholi, R. Fateh, M. Fahiminia

Abstract:

The present investigation was conducted to detect the type and concentrations of bacterial and fungal bioaerosols in one room (bedroom) of each selected residential building located in different regions of Qom during February 2015 (n=9) to July 2016 (n=11). Moreover, we evaluated the efficiency of negative air ions (NAIs) in bioaerosol reduction in indoor air in residential buildings. In the first step, the mean concentrations of bacterial and fungal in nine sampling sites evaluated in winter were 744 and 579 colony forming units (CFU)/m3, while these values were 1628.6 and 231 CFU/m3 in the 11 sampling sites evaluated in summer, respectively. The most predominant genera between bacterial and fungal in all sampling sites were detected as Micrococcus spp. and Staphylococcus spp. and also, Aspergillus spp. and Penicillium spp., respectively. The 95% and 45% of sampling sites have bacterial and fungal concentrations over the recommended levels, respectively. In the removal step, we achieved a reduction with a range of 38% to 93% for bacterial genera and 25% to 100% for fungal genera by using NAIs. The results suggested that NAI is a highly effective, simple and efficient technique in reducing the bacterial and fungal concentration in the indoor air of residential buildings.

Keywords: Bacterial, fungal, negative air ions, indoor air, Iran.

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32354 Industrial Compressor Anti-Surge Computer Control

Authors: Ventzas Dimitrios, Petropoulos George

Abstract:

The paper presents a compressor anti-surge control system, that results in maximizing compressor throughput with pressure standard deviation reduction, increased safety margin between design point and surge limit line and avoiding possible machine surge. Alternative control strategies are presented.

Keywords: Anti-surge, control, compressor, PID control, safety, fault tolerance, start-up, ESD.

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32353 Model Reduction of Linear Systems by Conventional and Evolutionary Techniques

Authors: S. Panda, S. K. Tomar, R. Prasad, C. Ardil

Abstract:

Reduction of Single Input Single Output (SISO) continuous systems into Reduced Order Model (ROM), using a conventional and an evolutionary technique is presented in this paper. In the conventional technique, the mixed advantages of Mihailov stability criterion and continued fraction expansions (CFE) technique is employed where the reduced denominator polynomial is derived using Mihailov stability criterion and the numerator is obtained by matching the quotients of the Cauer second form of Continued fraction expansions. In the evolutionary technique method Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) is employed to reduce the higher order model. PSO method is based on the minimization of the Integral Squared Error (ISE) between the transient responses of original higher order model and the reduced order model pertaining to a unit step input. Both the methods are illustrated through numerical example.

Keywords: Reduced Order Modeling, Stability, Continued Fraction Expansions, Mihailov Stability Criterion, Particle Swarm Optimization, Integral Squared Error.

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32352 Seismic Assessment of Old Existing RC Buildings with Masonry Infill in Madinah as per ASCE

Authors: Tarek M. Alguhane, Ayman H. Khalil, M. N. Fayed, Ayman M. Ismail

Abstract:

An existing RC building in Madinah is seismically evaluated with and without infill wall. Four model systems have been considered i.e. model I (no infill), model IIA (strut infill-update from field test), model IIB (strut infill- ASCE/SEI 41) and model IIC (strut infill-Soft storey- ASCE/SEI 41). Three dimensional pushover analyses have been carried out using SAP2000 software incorporating inelastic material behavior for concrete, steel and infill walls. Infill wall has been modeled as equivalent strut according to suggested equation matching field test measurements and to the ASCE/SEI 41 equation. The effect of building modeling on the performance point as well as capacity and demand spectra due to EQ design spectrum function in Madinah area has been investigated. The response modification factor (R) for the 5 story RC building is evaluated from capacity and demand spectra (ATC-40) for the studied models. The results are summarized and discussed.

Keywords: Infill wall, Pushover Analysis, Response Modification Factor, Seismic Assessment.

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32351 A Study on the Iterative Scheme for Stratified Shields Gamma Ray Buildup FactorsUsing Layer-Splitting Technique in Double-Layer Shields

Authors: Sari F. Alkhatib, Chang Je Park, Gyuhong Roh

Abstract:

Theiterative scheme which is used to treat buildup factors for stratified shields is being investigated here using the layer-splitting technique.A simple suggested formalism for the scheme based on the Kalos’ formula is introduced, based on which the implementation of the testing technique is carried out.

The second layer in a double-layer shield was split into two equivalent layers and the scheme (with the suggested formalism) was implemented on the new “three-layer” shieldconfiguration.The results of such manipulation on water-lead and water-iron shields combinations are presented here for 1MeV photons.

It was found that splitting the second layer introduces some deviation on the overall buildup factor value. This expected deviation appeared to be higher in the case of low Z layer followed by high Z. However, the overall performance of the iterative scheme showed a great consistency and strong coherence even with the introduced changes. The introduced layer-splitting testing technique shows the capability to be implemented in test the iterative scheme with a wide range of formalisms.

Keywords: Buildup Factor, Iterative Scheme, Stratified Shields

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32350 Innovative Activity of Virtual Firm

Authors: Veronika Gruberová

Abstract:

The strengthening of competitive advantage combined with the transformation of business strategy is necessary for the company to succeed in the time of market changes. And in this sense the innovation activities of the firm are exactly significanting. Virtual firms are a specific form of enterprise in which we can't suppose all regularities obtaining in other forms. The aim of the paper is to evaluate factors influencing the innovation activity of virtual firm with the determination of their importance and influences on the basis of selected metrics.

Keywords: Innovation, virtual firm, factor

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32349 Study of Temperature Changes in Fars Province

Authors: A. Gandomkar, R. Dehghani

Abstract:

Climate change is a phenomenon has been based on the available evidence from a very long time ago and now its existence is very probable. The speed and nature of climate parameters changes at the middle of twentieth century has been different and its quickness more than the before and its trend changed to some extent comparing to the past. Climate change issue now regarded as not only one of the most common scientific topic but also a social political one, is not a new issue. Climate change is a complicated atmospheric oceanic phenomenon on a global scale and long-term. Precipitation pattern change, fast decrease of snowcovered resources and its rapid melting, increased evaporation, the occurrence of destroying floods, water shortage crisis, severe reduction at the rate of harvesting agricultural products and, so on are all the significant of climate change. To cope with this phenomenon, its consequences and events in which public instruction is the most important but it may be climate that no significant cant and effective action has been done so far. The present article is included a part of one surrey about climate change in Fars. The study area having annually mean temperature 14 and precipitation 320 mm .23 stations inside the basin with a common 37 year statistical period have been applied to the meteorology data (1974-2010). Man-kendal and change factor methods are two statistical methods, applying them, the trend of changes and the annual mean average temperature and the annual minimum mean temperature were studied by using them. Based on time series for each parameter, the annual mean average temperature and the mean of annual maximum temperature have a rising trend so that this trend is clearer to the mean of annual maximum temperature.

Keywords: Climate change, Coefficient Variation, Fars province, Man-Kendal method.

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32348 Interference Reduction Technique in Multistage Multiuser Detector for DS-CDMA System

Authors: Lokesh Tharani, R.P.Yadav

Abstract:

This paper presents the results related to the interference reduction technique in multistage multiuser detector for asynchronous DS-CDMA system. To meet the real-time requirements for asynchronous multiuser detection, a bit streaming, cascade architecture is used. An asynchronous multiuser detection involves block-based computations and matrix inversions. The paper covers iterative-based suboptimal schemes that have been studied to decrease the computational complexity, eliminate the need for matrix inversions, decreases the execution time, reduces the memory requirements and uses joint estimation and detection process that gives better performance than the independent parameter estimation method. The stages of the iteration use cascaded and bits processed in a streaming fashion. The simulation has been carried out for asynchronous DS-CDMA system by varying one parameter, i.e., number of users. The simulation result exhibits that system gives optimum bit error rate (BER) at 3rd stage for 15-users.

Keywords: Multi-user detection (MUD), multiple accessinterference (MAI), near-far effect, decision feedback detector, successive interference cancellation detector (SIC) and parallelinterference cancellation (PIC) detector.

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32347 Feature Point Reduction for Video Stabilization

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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32346 Factors That Affect the Effectiveness of Enterprise Architecture Implementation Methodology

Authors: Babak Darvish Rouhani, Mohd Naz’ri Mahrin, Fatemeh Nikpay, Pourya Nikfard, Maryam Khanian Najafabadi

Abstract:

Enterprise Architecture (EA) is a strategy that is employed by enterprises in order to align their business and Information Technology (IT). EA is managed, developed, and maintained through Enterprise Architecture Implementation Methodology (EAIM). Effectiveness of EA implementation is the degree in which EA helps to achieve the collective goals of the organization. This paper analyzes the results of a survey that aims to explore the factors that affect the effectiveness of EAIM and specifically the relationship between factors and effectiveness of the output and functionality of EA project. The exploratory factor analysis highlights a specific set of five factors: alignment, adaptiveness, support, binding, and innovation. The regression analysis shows that there is a statistically significant and positive relationship between each of the five factors and the effectiveness of EAIM. Consistent with theory and practice, the most prominent factor for developing an effective EAIM is innovation. The findings contribute to the measuring the effectiveness of EA implementation project by providing an indication of the measurement implementation approaches which is used by the Enterprise Architects, and developing an effective EAIM.

Keywords: Enterprise Architecture, Enterprise Architecture Implementation Methodology, EA, Effectiveness, Factors, Implementation Methodology.

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32345 Radical Technological Innovation–Comparison of a Critical Success Factors Framework with Existing Literature

Authors: Florian Wohlfeil, Orestis Terzidis, Louisa Hellmann

Abstract:

Radical technological innovations enable companies to reach strong market positions and are thus desirable. On the other hand, the innovation process is related to significant costs and risks. Hence, the knowledge of the factors that influence success is crucial for technology driven companies. Taking a previously developed framework of Critical Success Factors for radical technological innovations as a reference model, we conducted a structured and focused literature review of eleven standard books within the field of technology and innovation management. With this approach we aim to evaluate, expand, and clarify the set of Critical Success Factors detailed in this framework. Overall, the set of factors and their allocation to the main categories of the framework could be confirmed. However, the factor organizational home is not emphasized and discussed in most of the reviewed literature. On the other hand, an additional factor that has not been part of the framework is described to be important – strategy fit. Furthermore, the factors strategic alliances and platform strategy appear in the literature but in a different context compared to the reference model.

Keywords: Critical success factors, radical technological innovation, TOMP framework, innovation process.

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32344 Seismic Control of Tall Building Using a New Optimum Controller Based on GA

Authors: A. Shayeghi, H. Eimani Kalasar, H. Shayeghi

Abstract:

This paper emphasizes on the application of genetic algorithm (GA) to optimize the parameters of the TMD for achieving the best results in the reduction of the building response under earthquake excitations. The Integral of the Time multiplied Absolute value of the Error (ITAE) based on relative displacement of all floors in the building is taken as a performance index of the optimization criterion. The problem of robustly TMD controller design is formatted as an optimization problem based on the ITAE performance index to be solved using GA that has a story ability to find the most optimistic results. An 11–story realistic building, located in the city of Rasht, Iran is considered as a test system to demonstrate effectiveness of the proposed GA based TMD (GATMD) controller without specifying which mode should be controlled. The results of the proposed GATMD controller are compared with the uncontrolled structure through timedomain simulation and some performance indices. The results analysis reveals that the designed GA based TMD controller has an excellent capability in reduction of the seismically excited example building and the ITAE performance, that is so for remains as unknown, can be introduced a new criteria - method for structural dynamic design.

Keywords: Tuned Mass Damper, Genetic Algorithm, TallBuildings, Structural Dynamics.

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32343 Electron Density Discrepancy Analysis of Energy Metabolism Coenzymes

Authors: Alan Luo, Hunter N. B. Moseley

Abstract:

Many macromolecular structure entries in the Protein Data Bank (PDB) have a range of regional (localized) quality issues, be it derived from X-ray crystallography, Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, or other experimental approaches. However, most PDB entries are judged by global quality metrics like R-factor, R-free, and resolution for X-ray crystallography or backbone phi-psi distribution statistics and average restraint violations for NMR. Regional quality is often ignored when PDB entries are re-used for a variety of structurally based analyses. The binding of ligands, especially ligands involved in energy metabolism, is of particular interest in many structurally focused protein studies. Using a regional quality metric that provides chemically interpretable information from electron density maps, a significant number of outliers in regional structural quality was detected across X-ray crystallographic PDB entries for proteins bound to biochemically critical ligands. In this study, a series of analyses was performed to evaluate both specific and general potential factors that could promote these outliers. In particular, these potential factors were the minimum distance to a metal ion, the minimum distance to a crystal contact, and the isotropic atomic b-factor. To evaluate these potential factors, Fisher’s exact tests were performed, using regional quality criteria of outlier (top 1%, 2.5%, 5%, or 10%) versus non-outlier compared to a potential factor metric above versus below a certain outlier cutoff. The results revealed a consistent general effect from region-specific normalized b-factors but no specific effect from metal ion contact distances and only a very weak effect from crystal contact distance as compared to the b-factor results. These findings indicate that no single specific potential factor explains a majority of the outlier ligand-bound regions, implying that human error is likely as important as these other factors. Thus, all factors, including human error, should be considered when regions of low structural quality are detected. Also, the downstream re-use of protein structures for studying ligand-bound conformations should screen the regional quality of the binding sites. Doing so prevents misinterpretation due to the presence of structural uncertainty or flaws in regions of interest.

Keywords: Biomacromolecular structure, coenzyme, electron density discrepancy analysis, X-ray crystallography.

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32342 A Smart-Visio Microphone for Audio-Visual Speech Recognition “Vmike“

Authors: Y. Ni, K. Sebri

Abstract:

The practical implementation of audio-video coupled speech recognition systems is mainly limited by the hardware complexity to integrate two radically different information capturing devices with good temporal synchronisation. In this paper, we propose a solution based on a smart CMOS image sensor in order to simplify the hardware integration difficulties. By using on-chip image processing, this smart sensor can calculate in real time the X/Y projections of the captured image. This on-chip projection reduces considerably the volume of the output data. This data-volume reduction permits a transmission of the condensed visual information via the same audio channel by using a stereophonic input available on most of the standard computation devices such as PC, PDA and mobile phones. A prototype called VMIKE (Visio-Microphone) has been designed and realised by using standard 0.35um CMOS technology. A preliminary experiment gives encouraged results. Its efficiency will be further investigated in a large variety of applications such as biometrics, speech recognition in noisy environments, and vocal control for military or disabled persons, etc.

Keywords: Audio-Visual Speech recognition, CMOS Smartsensor, On-Chip image processing.

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32341 The Role of Planning and Memory in the Navigational Ability

Authors: Greeshma Sharma, Sushil Chandra, Vijander Singh, Alok Prakash Mittal

Abstract:

Navigational ability requires spatial representation, planning, and memory. It covers three interdependent domains, i.e. cognitive and perceptual factors, neural information processing, and variability in brain microstructure. Many attempts have been made to see the role of spatial representation in the navigational ability, and the individual differences have been identified in the neural substrate. But, there is also a need to address the influence of planning, memory on navigational ability. The present study aims to evaluate relations of aforementioned factors in the navigational ability. Total 30 participants volunteered in the study of a virtual shopping complex and subsequently were classified into good and bad navigators based on their performances. The result showed that planning ability was the most correlated factor for the navigational ability and also the discriminating factor between the good and bad navigators. There was also found the correlations between spatial memory recall and navigational ability. However, non-verbal episodic memory and spatial memory recall were also found to be correlated with the learning variable. This study attempts to identify differences between people with more and less navigational ability on the basis of planning and memory.

Keywords: Memory, planning navigational ability, virtual reality.

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32340 The Effect of Blockage Factor on Savonius Hydrokinetic Turbine Performance

Authors: Thochi Seb Rengma, Mahendra Kumar Gupta, P. M. V. Subbarao

Abstract:

Hydrokinetic turbines can be used to produce power in inaccessible villages located near rivers. The hydrokinetic turbine uses the kinetic energy of the water and maybe put it directly into the natural flow of water without dams. For off-grid power production, the Savonius-type vertical axis turbine is the easiest to design and manufacture. This proposal uses three-dimensional Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations to measure the considerable interaction and complexity of turbine blades. Savonius hydrokinetic turbine (SHKT) performance is affected by a blockage in the river, canals, and waterways. Putting a large object in a water channel causes water obstruction and raises local free stream velocity. The blockage correction factor or velocity increment measures the impact of velocity on the performance. SHKT performance is evaluated by comparing power coefficient (Cp) with tip-speed ratio (TSR) at various blockage ratios. The maximum Cp was obtained at a TSR of 1.1 with a blockage ratio of 45%, whereas TSR of 0.8 yielded the highest Cp without blockage. The greatest Cp of 0.29 was obtained with a 45% blockage ratio compared to a Cp max of 0.18 without a blockage.

Keywords: Savonius hydrokinetic turbine, blockage ratio, vertical axis turbine, power coefficient.

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32339 Investigation of Electrical, Thermal and Structural Properties on Polyacrylonitrile Nano-Fiber

Authors: N. Demirsoy, N. Uçar, A. Önen, N. Kızıldağ, Ö. F. Vurur, O. Eren, İ. Karacan

Abstract:

Polymer composite nano-fibers including (1, 3 wt %) silver nano-particles have been produced by electrospinning method. Polyacrylonitrile/N,N-dimethylformamide (PAN/DMF) solution have been prepared and the amount of silver nitrate have been adjusted to PAN weight. Silver nano-particles were obtained from reduction of silver ions into silver nano-particles by chemical reduction by hydrazine hydroxide (N2H5OH). The different amount of silver salt was loaded into polymer matrix to obtain polyacrylonitrile composite nano-fiber containing silver nano-particles. The effect of the amount of silver nano-particles on the properties of composite nano-fiber web was investigated. Electrical conductivity, mechanical properties, thermal properties were examined by Microtest LCR Meter 6370 (0.01 mΩ-100 MΩ), Tensile tester, Differential scanning calorimeter DSC (Q10) and SEM respectively. Also antimicrobial efficiency test (ASTM E2149-10) was done against to Staphylococcus aureus bacteria. It has been seen that breaking strength, conductivity, antimicrobial effect, enthalpy during cyclization increase by use of silver nano-particles while the diameter of nano-fiber decreases.

Keywords: Composite polyacrylonitrile nano-fiber, electrical conductivity, electrospinning, mechanical and thermal properties, silver nano-particles.

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32338 Contrast Enhancement in Digital Images Using an Adaptive Unsharp Masking Method

Authors: Z. Mortezaie, H. Hassanpour, S. Asadi Amiri

Abstract:

Captured images may suffer from Gaussian blur due to poor lens focus or camera motion. Unsharp masking is a simple and effective technique to boost the image contrast and to improve digital images suffering from Gaussian blur. The technique is based on sharpening object edges by appending the scaled high-frequency components of the image to the original. The quality of the enhanced image is highly dependent on the characteristics of both the high-frequency components and the scaling/gain factor. Since the quality of an image may not be the same throughout, we propose an adaptive unsharp masking method in this paper. In this method, the gain factor is computed, considering the gradient variations, for individual pixels of the image. Subjective and objective image quality assessments are used to compare the performance of the proposed method both with the classic and the recently developed unsharp masking methods. The experimental results show that the proposed method has a better performance in comparison to the other existing methods.

Keywords: Unsharp masking, blur image, sub-region gradient, image enhancement.

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32337 Slip Suppression Sliding Mode Control with Various Chattering Functions

Authors: Shun Horikoshi, Tohru Kawabe

Abstract:

This study presents performance analysis results of SMC (Sliding mode control) with changing the chattering functions applied to slip suppression problem of electric vehicles (EVs). In SMC, chattering phenomenon always occurs through high frequency switching of the control inputs. It is undesirable phenomenon and degrade the control performance, since it causes the oscillations of the control inputs. Several studies have been conducted on this problem by introducing some general saturation function. However, study about whether saturation function was really best and the performance analysis when using the other functions, weren’t being done so much. Therefore, in this paper, several candidate functions for SMC are selected and control performance of candidate functions is analyzed. In the analysis, evaluation function based on the trade-off between slip suppression performance and chattering reduction performance is proposed. The analyses are conducted in several numerical simulations of slip suppression problem of EVs. Then, we can see that there is no difference of employed candidate functions in chattering reduction performance. On the other hand, in slip suppression performance, the saturation function is excellent overall. So, we conclude the saturation function is most suitable for slip suppression sliding mode control.

Keywords: Sliding mode control, chattering function, electric vehicle, slip suppression, performance analysis.

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32336 Identification of Lean Implementation Hurdles in Indian Industries

Authors: Bhim Singh

Abstract:

Due to increased pressure from global competitors, manufacturing organizations are switching over to lean philosophies from traditional mass production. Lean manufacturing is a manufacturing philosophy which focuses on elimination of various types of wastes and creates maximum value for the end customers. Lean thinking aims to produce high quality products and services at the lowest possible cost with maximum customer responsiveness. Indian Industry is facing lot of problems in this transformation from traditional mass production to lean production. Through this paper an attempt has been made to identify various lean implementation hurdles in Indian industries with the help of a structured survey. Identified hurdles are grouped with the help of factor analysis and rated by calculating descriptive statistics. To show the effect of lean implementation hurdles a hypothesis “Organizations having higher level of lean implementation hurdles will have poor (negative) performance” has been postulated and tested using correlation matrix between performance parameters of the organizations and identified hurdles. The findings of the paper will be helpful to prepare road map to identify and eradicate the lean implementation hurdles.

Keywords: Factor analysis, global competition, lean implementation and lean hurdles.

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32335 Computing SAGB-Gröbner Basis of Ideals of Invariant Rings by Using Gaussian Elimination

Authors: Sajjad Rahmany, Abdolali Basiri

Abstract:

The link between Gröbner basis and linear algebra was described by Lazard [4,5] where he realized the Gr┬¿obner basis computation could be archived by applying Gaussian elimination over Macaulay-s matrix . In this paper, we indicate how same technique may be used to SAGBI- Gröbner basis computations in invariant rings.

Keywords: Gröbner basis, SAGBI- Gröbner basis, reduction, Invariant ring, permutation groups.

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32334 Optimal Capacitor Placement in a Radial Distribution System using Plant Growth Simulation Algorithm

Authors: R. Srinivasa Rao, S. V. L. Narasimham

Abstract:

This paper presents a new and efficient approach for capacitor placement in radial distribution systems that determine the optimal locations and size of capacitor with an objective of improving the voltage profile and reduction of power loss. The solution methodology has two parts: in part one the loss sensitivity factors are used to select the candidate locations for the capacitor placement and in part two a new algorithm that employs Plant growth Simulation Algorithm (PGSA) is used to estimate the optimal size of capacitors at the optimal buses determined in part one. The main advantage of the proposed method is that it does not require any external control parameters. The other advantage is that it handles the objective function and the constraints separately, avoiding the trouble to determine the barrier factors. The proposed method is applied to 9, 34, and 85-bus radial distribution systems. The solutions obtained by the proposed method are compared with other methods. The proposed method has outperformed the other methods in terms of the quality of solution.

Keywords: Distribution systems, Capacitor placement, loss reduction, Loss sensitivity factors, PGSA.

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32333 Process and Supply-Chain Optimization for Testing and Verification of Formation Tester/Pressure-While- Drilling Tools

Authors: Vivek V, Hafeez Syed, Darren W Terrell, Harit Naik, Halliburton

Abstract:

Applying a rigorous process to optimize the elements of a supply-chain network resulted in reduction of the waiting time for a service provider and customer. Different sources of downtime of hydraulic pressure controller/calibrator (HPC) were causing interruptions in the operations. The process examined all the issues to drive greater efficiencies. The issues included inherent design issues with HPC pump, contamination of the HPC with impurities, and the lead time required for annual calibration in the USA. HPC is used for mandatory testing/verification of formation tester/pressure measurement/logging-while drilling tools by oilfield service providers, including Halliburton. After market study andanalysis, it was concluded that the current HPC model is best suited in the oilfield industry. To use theexisting HPC model effectively, design andcontamination issues were addressed through design and process improvements. An optimum network is proposed after comparing different supply-chain models for calibration lead-time reduction.

Keywords: Hydraulic Pressure Controller/Calibrator, M/LWD, Pressure, FTWD

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32332 Estimation of Vertical Handover Probability in an Integrated UMTS and WLAN Networks

Authors: Diganta Kumar Pathak, Manashjyoti Bhuyan, Vaskar Deka

Abstract:

Vertical Handover(VHO) among different communication technologies ensuring uninterruption and service continuity is one of the most important performance parameter in Heterogenous networks environment. In an integrated Universal Mobile Telecommunicatin System(UMTS) and Wireless Local Area Network(WLAN), WLAN is given an inherent priority over UMTS because of its high data rates with low cost. Therefore mobile users want to be associated with WLAN maximum of the time while roaming, to enjoy best possible services with low cost. That encourages reduction of number of VHO. In this work the reduction of number of VHO with respect to varying number of WLAN Access Points(APs) in an integrated UMTS and WLAN network is investigated through simulation to provide best possible cost effective service to the users. The simulation has been carried out for an area (7800 × 9006)m2 where COST-231 Hata model and 3GPP (TR 101 112 V 3.1.0) specified models are used for WLAN and UMTS path loss models respectively. The handover decision is triggered based on the received signal level as compared to the fade margin. Fade margin gives a probabilistic measure of the reliability of the communication link. A relationship between number of WLAN APs and the number of VHO is also established in this work.

Keywords: VHO, UMTS, WLAN, MT, AP, BS.

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32331 Normalizing Flow to Augmented Posterior: Conditional Density Estimation with Interpretable Dimension Reduction for High Dimensional Data

Authors: Cheng Zeng, George Michailidis, Hitoshi Iyatomi, Leo L Duan

Abstract:

The conditional density characterizes the distribution of a response variable y given other predictor x, and plays a key role in many statistical tasks, including classification and outlier detection. Although there has been abundant work on the problem of Conditional Density Estimation (CDE) for a low-dimensional response in the presence of a high-dimensional predictor, little work has been done for a high-dimensional response such as images. The promising performance of normalizing flow (NF) neural networks in unconditional density estimation acts a motivating starting point. In this work, we extend NF neural networks when external x is present. Specifically, they use the NF to parameterize a one-to-one transform between a high-dimensional y and a latent z that comprises two components [zP , zN]. The zP component is a low-dimensional subvector obtained from the posterior distribution of an elementary predictive model for x, such as logistic/linear regression. The zN component is a high-dimensional independent Gaussian vector, which explains the variations in y not or less related to x. Unlike existing CDE methods, the proposed approach, coined Augmented Posterior CDE (AP-CDE), only requires a simple modification on the common normalizing flow framework, while significantly improving the interpretation of the latent component, since zP represents a supervised dimension reduction. In image analytics applications, AP-CDE shows good separation of x-related variations due to factors such as lighting condition and subject id, from the other random variations. Further, the experiments show that an unconditional NF neural network, based on an unsupervised model of z, such as Gaussian mixture, fails to generate interpretable results.

Keywords: Conditional density estimation, image generation, normalizing flow, supervised dimension reduction.

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32330 Why Do Pakistani Customers Patronize Islamic Banks- An Empirical Analysis

Authors: Farjana Mumu, Jia Guozho

Abstract:

Throughout the world, the Islamic way of banking and financing is increasing. The same trend is also visible in Pakistan, where the Islamic banking sector is increasing in size and volume each year. The question immediately arises as why the Pakistanis patronize the Islamic banking system? This study was carried out to find whether following the Islamic rules in finance is the main factor for such selection or whether other factors such as customer service, location, banking hour, physical facilities of the bank etc also have importance. The study was carried by distributing questionnaire and 200 responses were collected from the clients of Islamic banks. The result showed that the service quality and other factors are as important as following the Islamic rules for finance to retain old ustomers and catch new customers. The result is important and Islamic banks can take actions accordingly to look after both the factors

Keywords: Customers' perception, customer satisfaction, customer service, Islamic banking

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32329 Association between Serum Concentrations of Anabolic Hormones and their Binding Proteins in Response to Graded Exercise in Male Athletes

Authors: A. Żebrowska, A. Kochańska-Dziurowicz, A. Stanjek-Cichoracka

Abstract:

We investigated the response of testosterone (T), growth hormone (GH), cortisol (C), steroid hormone binding globulin (SHBG), insulin-like growth factor (IGF-1), insulin-like growth factor binding protein-3 (IGFBP-3), and some anaboliccatabolic indexes, i.e.: T/C, T/SHBG, and IGF-1/IGFBP-3 to maximal exercise in endurance-trained athletes (TREN) and untrained subjects (CG). The baseline concentration of IGF-1 was higher in athletes (TREN) when compared to the CG (p<0.05). The GH concentration and GH/IGF-1 ratio increased after exercise in all subjects compared to respective values at rest. The resting IGF- 1/IGFBP-3 ratio was significantly higher in athletes. The maximal exercise test induced an increase in post-exercise T/SHGB ratio in athletes compared to CG (p<0.05). These results indicate that elevation of baseline serum IGF-1/IGFBP-3 and T/SHGB ratio after exercise might suggest that free fractions of these hormones may act as a potent stimulant of muscle hypertrophy in trained endurance athletes.

Keywords: anabolic hormones, endurance training, exercise, growth factors

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32328 Quality of Bali Beef and Broiler after Immersion in Liquid Smoke on Different Concentrations and Storage Times

Authors: E. Abustam, M. Yusuf, H. M. Ali, M. I. Said, F. N. Yuliati

Abstract:

The aim of this study was to improve the durability and quality of Bali beef (M. Longissimus dorsi) and broiler carcass through the addition of liquid smoke as a natural preservative. This study was using Longissimus dorsi muscle from male Bali beef aged 3 years, broiler breast and thigh aged 40 days. Three types of meat were marinated in liquid smoke with concentrations of 0, 5, and 10% for 30 minutes at the level of 20% of the sample weight (w/w). The samples were storage at 2-5°C for 1 month. This study designed as a factorial experiment 3 x 3 x 4 based on a completely randomized design with 5 replications; the first factor was meat type (beef, chicken breast and chicken thigh); the 2nd factor was liquid smoke concentrations (0, 5, and 10%), and the 3rd factor was storage duration (1, 2, 3, and 4 weeks). Parameters measured were TBA value, total bacterial colonies, water holding capacity (WHC), shear force value both before and after cooking (80°C – 15min.), and cooking loss. The results showed that the type of meat produced WHC, shear force value, cooking loss and TBA differed between the three types of meat. Higher concentration of liquid smoke, the WHC, shear force value, TBA, and total bacterial colonies were decreased; at a concentration of 10% of liquid smoke, the total bacterial colonies decreased by 57.3% from untreated with liquid smoke. Longer storage, the total bacterial colonies and WHC were increased, while the shear force value and cooking loss were decreased. It can be concluded that a 10% concentration of liquid smoke was able to maintain fat oxidation and bacterial growth in Bali beef and chicken breast and thigh.

Keywords: Bali beef, chicken meat, liquid smoke, meat quality.

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