Search results for: Product development process.
Commenced in January 2007
Frequency: Monthly
Edition: International
Paper Count: 9266

Search results for: Product development process.

2276 Morphing Human Faces: Automatic Control Points Selection and Color Transition

Authors: Stephen Karungaru, Minoru Fukumi, Norio Akamatsu

Abstract:

In this paper, we propose a morphing method by which face color images can be freely transformed. The main focus of this work is the transformation of one face image to another. This method is fully automatic in that it can morph two face images by automatically detecting all the control points necessary to perform the morph. A face detection neural network, edge detection and medium filters are employed to detect the face position and features. Five control points, for both the source and target images, are then extracted based on the facial features. Triangulation method is then used to match and warp the source image to the target image using the control points. Finally color interpolation is done using a color Gaussian model that calculates the color for each particular frame depending on the number of frames used. A real coded Genetic algorithm is used in both the image warping and color blending steps to assist in step size decisions and speed up the morphing. This method results in ''very smooth'' morphs and is fast to process.

Keywords: color transition, genetic algorithms morphing, warping

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2275 Development of Vibration Sensor with Wide Frequency Range Based on Condenser Microphone -Estimation System for Flow Rate in Water Pipes-

Authors: Hironori Kakuta, Kajiro Watanabe, Yosuke Kurihara

Abstract:

Water leakage is a serious problem in the maintenance of a waterworks facility. Monitoring the water flow rate is one way to locate leakage. However, conventional flowmeters such as the wet-type flowmeter and the clamp-on type ultrasonic flowmeter require additional construction for their installation and are therefore quite expensive. This paper proposes a novel estimation system for the flow rate in a water pipeline, which employs a vibration sensor. This assembly can be attached to any water pipeline without the need for additional high-cost construction. The vibration sensor is designed based on a condenser microphone. This sensor detects vibration caused by water flowing through a pipeline. It is possible to estimate the water flow rate by measuring the amplitude of the output signal from the vibration sensor. We confirmed the validity of the proposed sensing system experimentally.

Keywords: Condenser microphone, Flow rate estimation, Piping vibration, Water pipe.

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2274 Using Machine Learning Techniques for Autism Spectrum Disorder Analysis and Detection in Children

Authors: Norah Alshahrani, Abdulaziz Almaleh

Abstract:

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a condition related to issues with brain development that affects how a person recognises and communicates with others which results in difficulties with interaction and communication socially and it is constantly growing. Early recognition of ASD allows children to lead safe and healthy lives and helps doctors with accurate diagnoses and management of conditions. Therefore, it is crucial to develop a method that will achieve good results and with high accuracy for the measurement of ASD in children. In this paper, ASD datasets of toddlers and children have been analyzed. We employed the following machine learning techniques to attempt to explore ASD: Random Forest (RF), Decision Tree (DT), Na¨ıve Bayes (NB) and Support Vector Machine (SVM). Then feature selection was used to provide fewer attributes from ASD datasets while preserving model performance. As a result, we found that the best result has been provided by SVM, achieving 0.98% in the toddler dataset and 0.99% in the children dataset.

Keywords: Autism Spectrum Disorder, ASD, Machine Learning, ML, Feature Selection, Support Vector Machine, SVM.

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2273 Design of a Dual Polarized Resonator Antenna for Mobile Communication System

Authors: N. Fhafhiem, P. Krachodnok, R. Wongsan

Abstract:

This paper proposes the development and design of double layer metamaterials based on electromagnetic band gap (EBG) rods as a superstrate of a resonator antenna to enhance required antenna characteristics for the mobile base station. The metallic rod type metamaterial can partially reflect wave of a primary radiator. The antenna was designed and analyzed by a simulation result from CST Microwave Studio and designed technique could be confirmed by a measurement results from prototype antenna that agree with simulation results. The results indicate that the antenna can also generate a dual polarization by using a 45˚ oriented curved strip dipole located at the center of the reflector plane with double layer superstrate. It can be used to simplify the feed system of an antenna. The proposed antenna has a bandwidth covering the frequency range of 1920 – 2200 MHz, the gain of the antenna increases up to 14.06 dBi. In addition, an interesting sectoral 60˚ pattern is presented in horizontal plane.

Keywords: Metamaterial, electromagnetic band gap, dual polarization, resonator antenna.

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2272 Towards a Web 2.0 Based Practical Works Management System at a Public University: Case of Sultan Moulay Slimane University

Authors: Khalid Ghoulam, Belaid Bouikhalene, Zakaria Harmouch, Hicham Mouncif

Abstract:

The goal of engineering education is to prepare students to cope with problems of real devices and systems. Usually there are not enough devices or time for conducting experiments in a real lab. Other factors that prevent the use of lab devices directly by students are inaccessible or dangerous phenomena, or polluting chemical reactions. The technology brings additional strategies of learning and teaching, there are two types of online labs, virtual and remote labs RL. We present an example of a successful development and deployment of a remote lab in the field of engineering education, integrated in the Moodle platform, using very low-coast, high documented devices and free software. The remote lab is user friendly for both teachers and students. Our web 2.0 based user interface would attract and motivate students, as well as solving the problem of larger classes and expensive lab devices.

Keywords: Remote lab, online learning, Moodle, Arduino, SMSU, lab experimentation, engineering education, online engineering education.

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2271 Development of Underactuated Robot Hand Using Cross Section Deformation Spring

Authors: Naoki Saito, Daisuke Kon, Toshiyuki Sato

Abstract:

This paper describes an underactuated robot hand operated by low-power actuators. It can grasp objects of various shapes using easy operations. This hand is suitable for use as a lightweight prosthetic hand that can grasp various objects using few input channels. To realize operations using a low-power actuator, a cross section deformation spring is proposed. The design procedure of the underactuated robot finger is proposed to realize an adaptive grasping movement. The validity of this mechanism and design procedure are confirmed through an object grasping experiment. Results demonstrate the effectiveness of across section deformation spring in reducing the actuator power. Moreover, adaptive grasping movement is realized by an easy operation.

Keywords: Robot hand, Underactuated mechanism, Cross section deformation spring, Prosthetic hand.

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2270 Irrigation Water Quality Evaluation in Jiaokou Irrigation District, Guanzhong Basin

Authors: Qiying Zhang, Panpan Xu, Hui Qian

Abstract:

Groundwater is an important water resource in the world, especially in arid and semi-arid regions. In the present study, 141 groundwater samples were collected and analyzed for various physicochemical parameters to assess the irrigation water quality using six indicators (sodium percentage (Na%), sodium adsorption ratio (SAR), magnesium hazard (MH), residual sodium carbonate (RSC), permeability index (PI), and potential salinity (PS)). The results show that the patterns for the average cation and anion concentrations were in decreasing orders of Na > Mg2 > Ca2 > Kand SO42 > HCO3 > Cl > NO3 > CO32 > F, respectively. The values of Na%, MH, and PS show that most of the groundwater samples are not suitable for irrigation. The same conclusion is drawn from the USSL and Wilcox diagrams. PS values indicate that Cland SO42have a great influence on irrigation water in Jiaokou Irrigation District. RSC and PI values indicate that more than half of groundwater samples are suitable for irrigation. The finding is beneficial for the policymakers for future water management schemes to achieve a sustainable development goal.

Keywords: Irrigation water quality evaluation, groundwater chemistry, Jiaokou Irrigation District, Guanzhong Basin.

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2269 Eosinophils and Platelets: Players of the Game in Morbid Obese Boys with Metabolic Syndrome

Authors: Orkide Donma, Mustafa M. Donma

Abstract:

Childhood obesity, which may lead to increased risk for heart diseases in children as well as adults, is one of the most important health problems throughout the world. Prevalences of morbid obesity and metabolic syndrome (MetS) are being increased during childhood age group. MetS is a cluster of metabolic and vascular abnormalities including hypercoagulability and an increased risk of cardiovascular diseases (CVDs). There are also some relations between some components of MetS and leukocytes. The aim of this study is to investigate complete blood cell count parameters that differ between morbidly obese boys and girls with MetS diagnosis. A total of 117 morbid obese children with MetS consulted to Department of Pediatrics in Faculty of Medicine Hospital at Namik Kemal University were included into the scope of the study. The study population was classified based upon their genders (60 girls and 57 boys). Their heights and weights were measured and body mass index (BMI) values were calculated. WHO BMI-for age and sex percentiles were used. The values above 99 percentile were defined as morbid obesity. Anthropometric measurements were performed. Waist-to-hip and head-to-neck ratios as well as homeostatic model assessment of insulin resistance (HOMA-IR) were calculated. Components of MetS (central obesity, glucose intolerance, high blood pressure, high triacylglycerol levels, low levels of high density lipoprotein cholesterol) were determined. Hematological variables were measured. Statistical analyses were performed using SPSS. The degree for statistical significance was p ≤ 0.05. There was no statistically significant difference between the ages (11.2±2.6 years vs 11.2±3.0 years) and BMIs (28.6±5.2 kg/m2 vs 29.3±5.2 kg/m2) of boys and girls (p ≥ 0.05), respectively. Significantly increased waist-to-hip ratios were obtained for boys (0.94±0.08 vs 0.91±0.06; p=0.023). Significantly elevated values of hemoglobin (13.55±0.98 vs 13.06±0.82; p=0.004), mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentration (33.79±0.91 vs 33.21±1.14; p=0.003), eosinophils (0.300±0.253 vs 0.196±0.197; p=0.014), and platelet (347.1±81.7 vs 319.0±65.9; p=0.042) were detected for boys. There was no statistically significant difference between the groups in terms of neutrophil/lymphocyte ratios as well as HOMA-IR values (p ≥ 0.05). Statistically significant gender-based differences were found for hemoglobin as well as mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentration and hence, separate reference intervals for two genders should be considered for these parameters. Eosinophils may contribute to the development of thrombus in acute coronary syndrome. Eosinophils are also known to make an important contribution to mechanisms related to thrombosis pathogenesis in acute myocardial infarction. Increased platelet activity is observed in patients with MetS and these individuals are more susceptible to CVDs. In our study, elevated platelets described as dominant contributors to hypercoagulability and elevated eosinophil counts suggested to be related to the development of CVDs observed in boys may be the early indicators of the future cardiometabolic complications in this gender.

Keywords: Children, complete blood count, gender, metabolic syndrome.

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2268 Personalised Mobile Picture Puzzle

Authors: Saipunidzam Mahamad, Eliza Mazmee Mazlan, Rozana Kasbon, Khairul Shafee Kalid, NurSyazwani Rusdi

Abstract:

Mobile Picture Puzzle is a mobile game application where the player use existing images stored in the mobile phone to create a puzzle to be played. This traditional picture puzzle is not so challenging once the player is familiar with the game. The objective of the developed mobile game application is to have a similar mobile game application that can provide the player with more challenging gaming experience. The developed mobile game application is also a mobile picture puzzle game application to create a puzzle to be played but instead of just using existing images that are stored, the personalised capability allows the player to use the built-in camera phone to capture an image and use the newly captured image to create the puzzle. The development of the mobile game application uses Symbian Operating System (OS), Mobile Media API (Application Programming Interface), Record Management System (RMS) storage and TiledLayer class from Game API.

Keywords: Picture Puzzle, Pervasive gaming, J2ME.

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2267 Numerical Simulation of the Turbulent Flow over a Three-Dimensional Flat Roof

Authors: M. Raciti Castelli, A. Castelli, E. Benini

Abstract:

The flow field over a flat roof model building has been numerically investigated in order to determine threedimensional CFD guidelines for the calculation of the turbulent flow over a structure immersed in an atmospheric boundary layer. To this purpose, a complete validation campaign has been performed through a systematic comparison of numerical simulations with wind tunnel experimental data. Wind tunnel measurements and numerical predictions have been compared for five different vertical positions, respectively from the upstream leading edge to the downstream bottom edge of the analyzed model. Flow field characteristics in the neighborhood of the building model have been numerically investigated, allowing a quantification of the capabilities of the CFD code to predict the flow separation and the extension of the recirculation regions. The proposed calculations have allowed the development of a preliminary procedure to be used as guidance in selecting the appropriate grid configuration and corresponding turbulence model for the prediction of the flow field over a three-dimensional roof architecture dominated by flow separation.

Keywords: CFD, roof, building, wind

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2266 A Proposal on the Educational Transactional Analysis as a Dialogical Vision of Culture: Conceptual Signposts and Practical Tools for Educators

Authors: Marina Sartor Hoffer

Abstract:

The multicultural composition of today's societies poses new challenges to educational contexts. Schools are therefore called first to develop dialogic aptitudes and communicative skills adapted to the complex reality of post-modern societies. It is indispensable for educators and for young people to learn theoretical and practical tools during their scholastic path, in order to allow the knowledge of themselves and of the others with the aim of recognizing the value of the others regardless of their culture. Dialogic Skills help to understand and manage individual differences by allowing the solution of problems and preventing conflicts. The Educational Sector of Eric Berne’s Transactional Analysis offers a range of methods and techniques for this purpose. Educational Transactional Analysis is firmly anchored in the Personalist Philosophy and deserves to be promoted as a theoretical frame suitable to face the challenges of contemporary education. The goal of this paper is therefore to outline some conceptual and methodological signposts for the education to dialogue by drawing concepts and methodologies from educational transactional analysis.

Keywords: Dialogic process, education to dialogue, educational transactional analysis, personalism, the good of the relationship.

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2265 Promoting Biofuels in India: Assessing Land Use Shifts Using Econometric Acreage Response Models

Authors: Y. Bhatt, N. Ghosh, N. Tiwari

Abstract:

Acreage response function are modeled taking account of expected harvest prices, weather related variables and other non-price variables allowing for partial adjustment possibility. At the outset, based on the literature on price expectation formation, we explored suitable formulations for estimating the farmer’s expected prices. Assuming that farmers form expectations rationally, the prices of food and biofuel crops are modeled using time-series methods for possible ARCH/GARCH effects to account for volatility. The prices projected on the basis of the models are then inserted to proxy for the expected prices in the acreage response functions. Food crop acreages in different growing states are found sensitive to their prices relative to those of one or more of the biofuel crops considered. The required percentage improvement in food crop yields is worked to offset the acreage loss.

Keywords: Acreage response function, biofuel, food security, sustainable development.

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2264 Effect of Rotating Electrode

Authors: S. Gnapowski, H. Akiyama, S. Hamid R. Hosseini, C. Yamabe

Abstract:

A gold coated copper rotating electrode was used to eliminate surface oxidation effect. This study examined the effect of electrode rotation on the ozone generation process and showed that an ozonizer with an electrode rotating system might be a possible way to increase ozone-synthesis efficiency. Two new phenomena appeared during experiments with the rotating electrode. First was that ozone concentration increased to about two times higher than that of the case with no rotation. Second, input power and discharge area were found to increase with the rotation speed. Both ozone concentration and ozone production efficiency improved in the case of rotating electrode compared to the case with a non-rotating electrode. One possible reason for this was the increase in discharge length of micro-discharges during electrode rotation. The rotating electrode decreased onset voltage, while reactor capacitance increased with rotation. Use of a rotating-type electrode allowed earlier observation of the ozone zero phenomena compared with a non-rotating electrode because, during rotation, the entire electrode surface was functional, allowing nitrogen on the electrode surface to be evenly consumed. Nitrogen demand increased with increasing rotation s

Keywords: Rotating electrode, input power, onset voltage, discharge canal.

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2263 On-line Handwritten Character Recognition: An Implementation of Counterpropagation Neural Net

Authors: Muhammad Faisal Zafar, Dzulkifli Mohamad, Razib M. Othman

Abstract:

On-line handwritten scripts are usually dealt with pen tip traces from pen-down to pen-up positions. Time evaluation of the pen coordinates is also considered along with trajectory information. However, the data obtained needs a lot of preprocessing including filtering, smoothing, slant removing and size normalization before recognition process. Instead of doing such lengthy preprocessing, this paper presents a simple approach to extract the useful character information. This work evaluates the use of the counter- propagation neural network (CPN) and presents feature extraction mechanism in full detail to work with on-line handwriting recognition. The obtained recognition rates were 60% to 94% using the CPN for different sets of character samples. This paper also describes a performance study in which a recognition mechanism with multiple thresholds is evaluated for counter-propagation architecture. The results indicate that the application of multiple thresholds has significant effect on recognition mechanism. The method is applicable for off-line character recognition as well. The technique is tested for upper-case English alphabets for a number of different styles from different peoples.

Keywords: On-line character recognition, character digitization, counter-propagation neural networks, extreme coordinates.

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2262 Development of a Fiber based Interferometric Sensor for Non-contact Displacement Measurement

Authors: S. Pullteap

Abstract:

In this paper, a fiber based Fabry-Perot interferometer is proposed and demonstrated for a non-contact displacement measurement. A piece of micro-prism which attached to the mechanical vibrator is served as the target reflector. Interference signal is generated from the superposition between the sensing beam and the reference beam within the sensing arm of the fiber sensor. This signal is then converted to the displacement value by using a developed program written in visual Cµ programming with a resolution of λ/8. A classical function generator is operated for controlling the vibrator. By fixing an excitation frequency of 100 Hz and varying the excitation amplitude range of 0.1 – 3 Volts, the output displacements measured by the fiber sensor are obtained from 1.55 μm to 30.225 μm. A reference displacement sensor with a sensitivity of ~0.4 μm is also employed for comparing the displacement errors between both sensors. We found that over the entire displacement range, a maximum and average measurement error are obtained of 0.977% and 0.44% respectively.

Keywords: Non-contact displacement measurement, extrinsicfiber based Fabry-Perot interferometer, interference signal, zerocrossingfringe counting technique.

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2261 The Visual Inspection of Surgical Tasks Using Machine Vision: Applications to Robotic Surgery

Authors: M. Ovinis, D. Kerr, K. Bouazza-Marouf, M. Vloeberghs

Abstract:

In this paper, the feasibility of using machine vision to assess task completion in a surgical intervention is investigated, with the aim of incorporating vision based inspection in robotic surgery systems. The visually rich operative field presents a good environment for the development of automated visual inspection techniques in these systems, for a more comprehensive approach when performing a surgical task. As a proof of concept, machine vision techniques were used to distinguish the two possible outcomes i.e. satisfactory or unsatisfactory, of three primary surgical tasks involved in creating a burr hole in the skull, namely incision, retraction, and drilling. Encouraging results were obtained for the three tasks under consideration, which has been demonstrated by experiments on cadaveric pig heads. These findings are suggestive for the potential use of machine vision to validate successful task completion in robotic surgery systems. Finally, the potential of using machine vision in the operating theatre, and the challenges that must be addressed, are identified and discussed.

Keywords: Machine vision, robotic surgery, visual inspection.

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2260 Evolution of Fashion Design in the Era of High-Tech Culture

Authors: Galina Mihaleva, C. Koh

Abstract:

Fashion, like many other design fields, undergoes numerous evolutions throughout the ages. This paper aims to recognize and evaluate the significance of advance technology in fashion design and examine how it changes the role of modern fashion designers by modifying the creation process. It also touches on how modern culture is involved in such developments and how it affects fashion design in terms of conceptualizing and fabrication. The methodology used is through surveying the various examples of technological applications to fashion design and drawing parallels between what was achievable then and what is achievable now. By comparing case studies, existing fashion design examples and crafting method experimentations; we then spot patterns in which to predict the direction of future developments in the field. A breakdown on the elements of technology in fashion design helps us understand the driving force behind such a trend. The results from explorations in the paper have shown that there is an observed pattern of a distinct increase in interest and progress in the field of fashion technology, which leads to the birth of hybrid crafting methods. In conclusion, it is shown that as fashion technology continues to evolve, their role in clothing crafting becomes more prominent and grows far beyond the humble sewing machine.

Keywords: Fashion design, functional aesthetics, smart textiles, 3D printing.

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2259 Categorizing Search Result Records Using Word Sense Disambiguation

Authors: R. Babisaraswathi, N. Shanthi, S. S. Kiruthika

Abstract:

Web search engines are designed to retrieve and extract the information in the web databases and to return dynamic web pages. The Semantic Web is an extension of the current web in which it includes semantic content in web pages. The main goal of semantic web is to promote the quality of the current web by changing its contents into machine understandable form. Therefore, the milestone of semantic web is to have semantic level information in the web. Nowadays, people use different keyword- based search engines to find the relevant information they need from the web. But many of the words are polysemous. When these words are used to query a search engine, it displays the Search Result Records (SRRs) with different meanings. The SRRs with similar meanings are grouped together based on Word Sense Disambiguation (WSD). In addition to that semantic annotation is also performed to improve the efficiency of search result records. Semantic Annotation is the process of adding the semantic metadata to web resources. Thus the grouped SRRs are annotated and generate a summary which describes the information in SRRs. But the automatic semantic annotation is a significant challenge in the semantic web. Here ontology and knowledge based representation are used to annotate the web pages.

Keywords: Ontology, Semantic Web, WordNet, Word Sense Disambiguation.

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2258 Removal of Heavy Metals from Water in the Presence of Organic Wastes: Fruit Peels

Authors: Berk Kılıç, Derin Dalgıç, Ela Mia Sevilla Levi, Ömer Aydın

Abstract:

In this experiment our goal was to remove heavy metals from water. Generally, removing toxic heavy elements: Cu+2, Cr+6 and Fe+3, ions from their aqueous solutions has been determined with different kinds of plants’ peels. However, this study focuses on banana, peach, orange, and potato peels. The first step of the experiment was to wash the peels with distilled water and then dry the peels in an oven for 80 h at 80 °C. The peels were washed with NaOH and dried again at 80 °C for 2 days. Once the peels were washed and dried, 0.4 grams were weighed and added to a 200 mL sample of 0.1% heavy metal solution by mass. The mixing process was done via a magnetic stirrer. A sample of each was taken at 15-minute intervals and the level of absorbance change of the solutions was detected using a UV-Vis Spectrophotometer. Among the used waste products, orange showed the best results, followed by banana peel as the most efficient for our purposes. Moreover, the amount of fruit peel, pH values of the initial heavy metal solution, and initial concentration of heavy metal solutions were investigated to determine the effectiveness of fruit peels for absorbency.

Keywords: Absorbance, heavy metal, removal of heavy metals, fruit peels.

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2257 Shadow Imaging Study of Z-Pinch Dynamic Hohlraum

Authors: Chen Faxin, Feng Jinghua, Yang Jianlun, Li Linbo, Zhou Lin

Abstract:

In order to obtaining the dynamic evolution image of Tungsten array for foam padding, and to research the form of interaction between Tungsten plasma and foam column, a shadow imaging system of four-frame ultraviolet probe laser (266nm)has been designed on 1MA pulse power device. The time resolution of the system is 2.5ns, and static space resolution is superior to 70μm. The radial shadowgraphy image reveals the whole process from the melting and expansion of solid wire to the interaction of the precursor plasma and the foam, from the pinch to rebound inflation. The image shows the continuous interaction of Tungsten plasma and foam in a form of “Raining" within a time of about 50ns, the plasma shell structure has not been found in the whole period of pinch. The quantitative analysis indicates the minimum pinching speed of the foam column is 1.0×106cm/s, and maximum pinching speed is 6.0×106cm/s, and the axial stagnation diameter is approx 1mm.

Keywords: Dynamic hohlraum, Shadowgraphy image, Foam evolution.

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2256 Approximating Maximum Speed on Road from Curvature Information of Bezier Curve

Authors: M. Y. Misro, A. Ramli, J. M. Ali

Abstract:

Bezier curves have useful properties for path generation problem, for instance, it can generate the reference trajectory for vehicles to satisfy the path constraints. Both algorithms join cubic Bezier curve segment smoothly to generate the path. Some of the useful properties of Bezier are curvature. In mathematics, curvature is the amount by which a geometric object deviates from being flat, or straight in the case of a line. Another extrinsic example of curvature is a circle, where the curvature is equal to the reciprocal of its radius at any point on the circle. The smaller the radius, the higher the curvature thus the vehicle needs to bend sharply. In this study, we use Bezier curve to fit highway-like curve. We use different approach to find the best approximation for the curve so that it will resembles highway-like curve. We compute curvature value by analytical differentiation of the Bezier Curve. We will then compute the maximum speed for driving using the curvature information obtained. Our research works on some assumptions; first, the Bezier curve estimates the real shape of the curve which can be verified visually. Even though, fitting process of Bezier curve does not interpolate exactly on the curve of interest, we believe that the estimation of speed are acceptable. We verified our result with the manual calculation of the curvature from the map.

Keywords: Speed estimation, path constraints, reference trajectory, Bezier curve.

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2255 Inter-Organizational Knowledge Transfer Through Malaysia E-government IT Outsourcing: A Theoretical Review

Authors: Nor Aziati Abdul Hamid, Juhana Salim

Abstract:

The main objective of this paper is to contribute the existing knowledge transfer and IT Outsourcing literature specifically in the context of Malaysia by reviewing the current practices of e-government IT outsourcing in Malaysia including the issues and challenges faced by the public agencies in transferring the knowledge during the engagement. This paper discusses various factors and different theoretical model of knowledge transfer starting from the traditional model to the recent model suggested by the scholars. The present paper attempts to align organizational knowledge from the knowledge-based view (KBV) and organizational learning (OL) lens. This review could help shape the direction of both future theoretical and empirical studies on inter-firm knowledge transfer specifically on how KBV and OL perspectives could play significant role in explaining the complex relationships between the client and vendor in inter-firm knowledge transfer and the role of organizational management information system and Transactive Memory System (TMS) to facilitate the organizational knowledge transferring process. Conclusion is drawn and further research is suggested.

Keywords: E-government, IT Outsourcing, Knowledge Management, Knowledge Transfer

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2254 Physical and Mechanical Phenomena Associated with Rock Failure in Brazilian Disc Specimens

Authors: Hamid Reza Nejati, Amin Nazerigivi, Ahmad Reza Sayadi

Abstract:

Failure mechanism of rocks is one of the fundamental aspects to study rock engineering stability. Rock is a material that contains flaws, initial damage, micro-cracks, etc. Failure of rock structure is largely due to tensile stress and was influenced by various parameters. In the present study, the effect of brittleness and loading rate on the physical and mechanical phenomena produced in rock during loading sequences is considered. For this purpose, Acoustic Emission (AE) technique is used to monitor fracturing process of three rock types (onyx marble, sandstone and soft limestone) with different brittleness and sandstone samples under different loading rate. The results of experimental tests revealed that brittleness and loading rate have a significant effect on the mode and number of induced fracture in rocks. An increase in rock brittleness increases the frequency of induced cracks, and the number of tensile fracture decreases when loading rate increases.

Keywords: Brittleness, loading rate, acoustic emission, tensile fracture, shear fracture.

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2253 Analysis of Green Wood Preservation Chemicals

Authors: Aitor Barbero-López, Soumaya Chibily, Gerhard Scheepers, Thomas Grahn, Martti Venäläinen, Antti Haapala

Abstract:

Wood decay is addressed continuously within the wood industry through use and development of wood preservatives. The increasing awareness on the negative effects of many chemicals towards the environment is causing political restrictions in their use and creating more urgent need for research on green alternatives. This paper discusses some of the possible natural extracts for wood preserving applications and compares the analytical methods available for testing their behavior and efficiency against decay fungi. The results indicate that natural extracts have interesting chemical constituents that delay fungal growth but vary in efficiency depending on the chemical concentration and substrate used. Results also suggest that presence and redistribution of preservatives in wood during exposure trials can be assessed by spectral imaging methods although standardized methods are not available. This study concludes that, in addition to the many standard methods available, there is a need to develop new faster methods for screening potential preservative formulation while maintaining the comparability and relevance of results.

Keywords: Analytics, methods, preservatives, wood decay.

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2252 Student Feedback and Its Impact on Fostering the Quality of Teaching at the Academia

Authors: S. Vanker, A. Aaver, A. Roio, L. Nuut

Abstract:

To be sure about the effective and less effective/ineffective approaches to course instruction, we hold the opinion that the faculty members need regular feedback from their students in order to be aware of how well or unwell their teaching styles have worked when instructing the courses. It can be confirmed without a slightest hesitation that undergraduate students’ motivated-ness can be sustained when continually improving the quality of teaching and properly sequencing the academic courses both, in the curricula and timetables. At Estonian Aviation Academy, four different forms of feedback are used: Lecture monitoring, questionnaires for all students, study information system subject monitoring and direct feedback received by the lecturer. Questionnaires for all students are arranged once during a study year and separately for the first year and senior students. The results are discussed in academic departments together with student representatives, analyzed with the teaching staff and, if needed, improvements are suggested. In addition, a monitoring system is planned where a lecturer acts in both roles – as an observer and as the lecturer. This will foster better exchange of experience and through this help to make the whole study process more interesting.

Keywords: Student support, learner motivation, feedback, undergraduate education.

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2251 Parallel and Distributed Mining of Association Rule on Knowledge Grid

Authors: U. Sakthi, R. Hemalatha, R. S. Bhuvaneswaran

Abstract:

In Virtual organization, Knowledge Discovery (KD) service contains distributed data resources and computing grid nodes. Computational grid is integrated with data grid to form Knowledge Grid, which implements Apriori algorithm for mining association rule on grid network. This paper describes development of parallel and distributed version of Apriori algorithm on Globus Toolkit using Message Passing Interface extended with Grid Services (MPICHG2). The creation of Knowledge Grid on top of data and computational grid is to support decision making in real time applications. In this paper, the case study describes design and implementation of local and global mining of frequent item sets. The experiments were conducted on different configurations of grid network and computation time was recorded for each operation. We analyzed our result with various grid configurations and it shows speedup of computation time is almost superlinear.

Keywords: Association rule, Grid computing, Knowledge grid, Mobility prediction.

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2250 Ensembling Adaptively Constructed Polynomial Regression Models

Authors: Gints Jekabsons

Abstract:

The approach of subset selection in polynomial regression model building assumes that the chosen fixed full set of predefined basis functions contains a subset that is sufficient to describe the target relation sufficiently well. However, in most cases the necessary set of basis functions is not known and needs to be guessed – a potentially non-trivial (and long) trial and error process. In our research we consider a potentially more efficient approach – Adaptive Basis Function Construction (ABFC). It lets the model building method itself construct the basis functions necessary for creating a model of arbitrary complexity with adequate predictive performance. However, there are two issues that to some extent plague the methods of both the subset selection and the ABFC, especially when working with relatively small data samples: the selection bias and the selection instability. We try to correct these issues by model post-evaluation using Cross-Validation and model ensembling. To evaluate the proposed method, we empirically compare it to ABFC methods without ensembling, to a widely used method of subset selection, as well as to some other well-known regression modeling methods, using publicly available data sets.

Keywords: Basis function construction, heuristic search, modelensembles, polynomial regression.

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2249 Content Based Image Retrieval of Brain MR Images across Different Classes

Authors: Abraham Varghese, Kannan Balakrishnan, Reji R. Varghese, Joseph S. Paul

Abstract:

Magnetic Resonance Imaging play a vital role in the decision-diagnosis process of brain MR images. For an accurate diagnosis of brain related problems, the experts mostly compares both T1 and T2 weighted images as the information presented in these two images are complementary. In this paper, rotational and translational invariant form of Local binary Pattern (LBP) with additional gray scale information is used to retrieve similar slices of T1 weighted images from T2 weighted images or vice versa. The incorporation of additional gray scale information on LBP can extract more local texture information. The accuracy of retrieval can be improved by extracting moment features of LBP and reweighting the features based on users feedback. Here retrieval is done in a single subject scenario where similar images of a particular subject at a particular level are retrieved, and multiple subjects scenario where relevant images at a particular level across the subjects are retrieved.

Keywords: Local Binary pattern (LBP), Modified Local Binary pattern (MOD-LBP), T1 and T2 weighted images, Moment features.

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2248 Continuous Functions Modeling with Artificial Neural Network: An Improvement Technique to Feed the Input-Output Mapping

Authors: A. Belayadi, A. Mougari, L. Ait-Gougam, F. Mekideche-Chafa

Abstract:

The artificial neural network is one of the interesting techniques that have been advantageously used to deal with modeling problems. In this study, the computing with artificial neural network (CANN) is proposed. The model is applied to modulate the information processing of one-dimensional task. We aim to integrate a new method which is based on a new coding approach of generating the input-output mapping. The latter is based on increasing the neuron unit in the last layer. Accordingly, to show the efficiency of the approach under study, a comparison is made between the proposed method of generating the input-output set and the conventional method. The results illustrated that the increasing of the neuron units, in the last layer, allows to find the optimal network’s parameters that fit with the mapping data. Moreover, it permits to decrease the training time, during the computation process, which avoids the use of computers with high memory usage.

Keywords: Neural network computing, information processing, input-output mapping, training time, computers with high memory.

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2247 Production Line Layout Planning Based on Complexity Measurement

Authors: Guoliang Fan, Aiping Li, Nan Xie, Liyun Xu, Xuemei Liu

Abstract:

Mass customization production increases the difficulty of the production line layout planning. The material distribution process for variety of parts is very complex, which greatly increases the cost of material handling and logistics. In response to this problem, this paper presents an approach of production line layout planning based on complexity measurement. Firstly, by analyzing the influencing factors of equipment layout, the complexity model of production line is established by using information entropy theory. Then, the cost of the part logistics is derived considering different variety of parts. Furthermore, the function of optimization including two objectives of the lowest cost, and the least configuration complexity is built. Finally, the validity of the function is verified in a case study. The results show that the proposed approach may find the layout scheme with the lowest logistics cost and the least complexity. Optimized production line layout planning can effectively improve production efficiency and equipment utilization with lowest cost and complexity.

Keywords: Production line, layout planning, complexity measurement, optimization, mass customization.

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