Search results for: IoT devices

Authors: A. Ras, I. Nait Zerrad, N. Benmouna, N. Boumechra

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Use of base isolators in the seismic design of structures has attracted considerable attention in recent years. The major concern in the design of these structures is to have enough lateral stability to resist wind and seismic forces. There are different systems providing such isolation, among them there are friction- pendulum base isolation systems (FPS) which are rather widely applied nowadays involving to both affordable cost and high fundamental periods. These devices are characterised by a stiff resistance against wind loads and to be flexible to the seismic tremors, which make them suitable for different situations. In this paper, a 3D numerical investigation is done considering the seismic response of a twelve-storey steel building retrofitted with a FPS. Fast nonlinear time history analysis (FNA) of Boumerdes earthquake (Algeria, May 2003) is considered for analysis and carried out using SAP2000 software. Comparisons between fixed base, bearing base isolated and braced structures are shown in a tabulated and graphical format. The results of the various alternatives studies to compare the structural response without and with this device of dissipation energy thus obtained were discussed and the conclusions showed the interesting potential of the FPS isolator. This system may to improve the dissipative capacities of the structure without increasing its rigidity in a significant way which contributes to optimize the quantity of steel necessary for its general stability.

Keywords: Steel structure, energy dissipation, friction-pendulum system, nonlinear analysis.

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Authors: Thossaporn Thossansin

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This paper presents the development of a mobile application for students at the Faculty of Information Technology, Rangsit University (RSU), Thailand. RSU upgrades an enrollment process by improving its information systems. Students can download the RSU APP easily in order to access the RSU substantial information. The reason of having a mobile application is to help students to access the system regardless of time and place. The objectives of this paper include: 1. To develop an application on iOS platform for those students at the Faculty of Information Technology, Rangsit University, Thailand. 2. To obtain the students’ perception towards the new mobile app. The target group is those from the freshman year till the senior year of the faculty of Information Technology, Rangsit University. The new mobile application, called as RSU APP, is developed by the department of Information Technology, Rangsit University. It contains useful features and various functionalities particularly on those that can give support to students. The core contents of the app consist of RSU’s announcement, calendar, events, activities, and ebook. The mobile app is developed on the iOS platform. The user satisfaction is analyzed from the interview data from 81 interviewees as well as a Google application like a Google form which 122 interviewees are involved. The result shows that users are satisfied with the application as they score it the most satisfaction level at 4.67 SD 0.52. The score for the question if users can learn and use the application quickly is high which is 4.82 SD 0.71. On the other hand, the lowest satisfaction rating is in the app’s form, apps lists, with the satisfaction level as 4.01 SD 0.45.

Keywords: Mobile application, development of mobile application, framework of mobile development, software development for mobile devices.

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Authors: Kostas Siozios, Dimitrios Soudris, Antonios Thanailakis

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Modern applications realized onto FPGAs exhibit high connectivity demands. Throughout this paper we study the routing constraints of Virtex devices and we propose a systematic methodology for designing a novel general-purpose interconnection network targeting to reconfigurable architectures. This network consists of multiple segment wires and SB patterns, appropriately selected and assigned across the device. The goal of our proposed methodology is to maximize the hardware utilization of fabricated routing resources. The derived interconnection scheme is integrated on a Virtex style FPGA. This device is characterized both for its high-performance, as well as for its low-energy requirements. Due to this, the design criterion that guides our architecture selections was the minimal Energy×Delay Product (EDP). The methodology is fully-supported by three new software tools, which belong to MEANDER Design Framework. Using a typical set of MCNC benchmarks, extensive comparison study in terms of several critical parameters proves the effectiveness of the derived interconnection network. More specifically, we achieve average Energy×Delay Product reduction by 63%, performance increase by 26%, reduction in leakage power by 21%, reduction in total energy consumption by 11%, at the expense of increase of channel width by 20%.

Keywords: Design Methodology, FPGA, Interconnection, Low-Energy, High-Performance, CAD tool.

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Authors: Martin Leroux, Sylvain Brisebois

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Eating a meal is among the Activities of Daily Living, but it takes a lot of time and effort for people with physical or functional limitations. Dedicated technologies are cumbersome and not portable, while general-purpose assistive robots such as wheelchair-based manipulators are too hard to control for elaborate continuous motion like eating. Eating with such devices has not previously been automated, since there existed no description of a feeding motion for uncontrolled environments. In this paper, we introduce a feeding mode for assistive manipulators, including a mathematical description of trajectories for motions that are difficult to perform manually such as gathering and scooping food at a defined/desired pace. We implement these trajectories in a sequence of movements for a semi-automated feeding mode which can be controlled with a very simple 3-button interface, allowing the user to have control over the feeding pace. Finally, we demonstrate the feeding mode with a JACO robotic arm and compare the eating speed, measured in bites per minute of three eating methods: a healthy person eating unaided, a person with upper limb limitations or disability using JACO with manual control, and a person with limitations using JACO with the feeding mode. We found that the feeding mode allows eating about 5 bites per minute, which should be sufficient to eat a meal under 30min.

Keywords: Assistive robotics, Automated feeding, Elderly care, Trajectory design, Human-Robot Interaction.

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Authors: Nicolò Vaiana, Giorgio Serino

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In this paper, an advanced Nonlinear Exponential Model (NEM), able to simulate the uniaxial dynamic behavior of seismic isolators having a continuously decreasing tangent stiffness with increasing displacement in the relatively large displacements range and a hardening or softening behavior at large displacements, is presented. The mathematical model is validated by comparing the experimental force-displacement hysteresis loops obtained during cyclic tests, conducted on a helical wire rope isolator and a recycled rubber-fiber reinforced bearing, with those predicted analytically. Good agreement between the experimental and simulated results shows that the proposed model can be an effective numerical tool to predict the force-displacement relationship of seismic isolation devices within the large displacements range. Compared to the widely used Bouc-Wen model, unable to simulate the response of seismic isolators at large displacements, the proposed one allows to avoid the numerical solution of a first order nonlinear ordinary differential equation for each time step of a nonlinear time history analysis, thus reducing the computation effort. Furthermore, the proposed model can simulate the smooth transition of the hysteresis loops from small to large displacements by adopting only one set of five parameters determined from the experimental hysteresis loops having the largest amplitude.

Keywords: Base isolation, hardening behavior, nonlinear exponential model, seismic isolators, softening behavior.

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Authors: Mehmet Balci, Sakir Tasdemir, Mustafa Altin, Ozlem Bozok

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Our globalizing world has become almost a small village and everyone can access any information at any time. Everyone lets each other know who does whatever in which place. We can learn which social events occur in which place in the world. From the perspective of education, the course notes that a lecturer use in lessons in a university in any state of America can be examined by a student studying in a city of Africa or the Far East. This dizzying communication we have mentioned happened thanks to fast developments in computer and internet technologies. While these developments occur in the world, Turkey that has a very large young population and whose electronic infrastructure rapidly improves has also been affected by these developments. Nowadays, mobile devices have become common and thus, it causes to increase data traffic in social networks. This study was carried out on students in the different age groups in Selcuk University Vocational School of Technical Sciences, the Department of Computer Technology. Students’ opinions about the use of internet and social media were obtained. The features such as using the Internet and social media skills, purposes, operating frequency, accessing facilities and tools, social life and effects on vocational education and so forth were explored. The positive effects and negative effects of both internet and social media use on the students in this department and findings are evaluated from different perspectives and results are obtained. In addition, relations and differences were found out statistically.

Keywords: Computer technologies, internet use, social network, higher vocational school.

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Authors: A. Khelifi, D. Ahmed, R. Salem, N. Ali

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Large patients’ queues at pharmacies and hospitals are a problem that faces the supposedly smooth and healthy environment in United Arab Emirates. As this sometimes leads to dissatisfaction from visiting patients, we tried to solve this problem with additional beneficial functions by developing the Hospital-Pharmacy Management System. The primary purpose of this research is to develop a system that joins the databases of a hospital and a pharmacy together for a better integrated system that provides a better coherent working environment. Three methods are used to design the system. These methods are detailed literature review, an extensive feasibility study and surveys for doctors, hospital IT managers and End-users. Interviews and surveys with related stakeholders were done to depict system’s requirements; design and prototype. The prototype illustrates system’s features and its client and server architecture. The system has a mobile application for visiting patients to, mainly, keep track of their prescriptions and access to their personal information. The server side allows doctors to submit the prescriptions online to pharmacists who will process them. This system is expected to reduce the long waiting queues of patients and increase their satisfaction while also reducing doctors and pharmacists’ stress and facilitating their work. It will be deployed to users of Android devices only. This limitation will be resolved, as one of main future enhancements, once the system finds acceptance from hospitals and pharmacies in United Arab Emirates.

Keywords: Hospital, Information System, Integration, Pharmacy.

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Authors: R. Bansal, A. Jain, M. Kumar, R. S. Meena

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Present wireless communication demands compact and intelligent devices with multitasking capabilities at affordable cost. The focus in the presented paper is on a dual band antenna for wireless communication with the capability of operating at two frequency bands with same structure. Two resonance frequencies are observed with the second operation band at 4.2GHz approximately three times the first resonance frequency at 1.5GHz. Structure is simple loop of microstrip line with characteristic impedance 50 ohms. The proposed antenna is designed using defective ground structure (DGS) and shows the nearly one third reductions in size as compared to without DGS. This antenna was simulated on electromagnetic (EM) simulation software and fabricated using microwave integrated circuit technique on RT-Duroid dielectric substrate (ε_r= 2.22) of thickness (H=15 mils). The designed antenna was tested on automatic network analyzer and shows the good agreement with simulated results. The proposed structure is modeled into an equivalent electrical circuit and simulated on circuit simulator. Subsequently, theoretical analysis was carried out and simulated. The simulated, measured, equivalent circuit response, and theoretical results shows good resemblance. The bands of operation draw many potential applications in today’s wireless communication.

Keywords: Defective Ground plane, Dual band, Loop Antenna, Microstrip antenna, Resonance frequency.

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Authors: Stéphanie Leheis

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To fight against the economic crisis, French Government, like many others in Europe, has decided to give a boost to high-speed line projects. This paper explores the implementation and decision-making process in TGV projects, their evolutions, especially since the Mediterranean TGV-line. This project was probably the most controversial, but paradoxically represents today a huge success for all the actors involved. What kind of lessons we can learn from this experience? How to evaluate the impact of this project on TGV-line planning? How can we characterize this implementation and decision-making process regards to the sustainability challenges? The construction of Mediterranean TGV-line was the occasion to make several innovations: to introduce more dialog into the decisionmaking process, to take into account the environment, to introduce a new project management and technological innovations. That-s why this project appears today as an example in terms of integration of sustainable development. In this paper we examine the different kinds of innovations developed in this project, by using concepts from sociology of innovation to understand how these solutions emerged in a controversial situation. Then we analyze the lessons which were drawn from this decision-making process (in the immediacy and a posteriori) and the way in which procedures evolved: creation of new tools and devices (public consultation, project management...). Finally we try to highlight the impact of this evolution on TGV projects governance. In particular, new methods of implementation and financing involve a reconfiguration of the system of actors. The aim of this paper is to define the impact of this reconfiguration on negotiations between stakeholders.

Keywords: High-speed train, innovation, governance, sustainability.

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Authors: Renata Mekovec, Dijana Peras, Ruben Picek

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The advent of the Internet, mobile devices and social media is revolutionizing the experience of retail customers by linking multiple sources through various channels. Omnichannel retailing is a retailing that combines multiple channels to allow customers to seamlessly leverage all the distribution information online and offline while shopping. Therefore, today data are an asset more critical than ever for all organizations. Nonetheless, because of its heterogeneity through platforms, developers are currently facing difficulties in dealing with personal data. Considering the possibilities of omnichannel communication, this paper presents channel categorization that could enhance the customer experience of omnichannel center called hyper center. The purpose of this paper is fundamentally to describe the connection between the omnichannel hyper center and the customer, with particular attention to privacy protection. The first phase was finding the most appropriate channels of communication for hyper center. Consequently, a selection of widely used communication channels has been identified and analyzed with regard to the effect requirements for optimizing user experience. The evaluation criteria are divided into 3 groups: general, user profile and channel options. For each criterion the weight of importance for omnichannel communication was defined. The most important thing was to consider how the hyper center can make user identification while respecting the privacy protection requirements. The study carried out also shows what customer experience across digital networks would look like, based on an omnichannel approach owing to privacy protection principles.

Keywords: Personal data, privacy protection, omnichannel communication, retail.

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Authors: Kyung-Jung Lee, Young-Hun Ki, Hyun-Sik Ahn

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In this paper, we propose a hardware and software design method for automotive Electronic Control Units (ECU) considering the functional safety. The proposed ECU is considered for the application to Electro-Mechanical Actuator systems and the validity of the design method is shown by the application to the Electro-Mechanical Brake (EMB) control system which is used as a brake actuator in Brake-By-Wire (BBW) systems. The importance of a functional safety-based design approach to EMB ECU design has been emphasized because of its safety-critical functions, which are executed with the aid of many electric actuators, sensors, and application software. Based on hazard analysis and risk assessment according to ISO26262, the EMB system should be ASIL-D-compliant, the highest ASIL level. To this end, an external signature watchdog and an Infineon 32-bit microcontroller TriCore are used to reduce risks considering common-cause hardware failure. Moreover, a software design method is introduced for implementing functional safety-oriented monitoring functions based on an asymmetric dual core architecture considering redundancy and diversity. The validity of the proposed ECU design approach is verified by using the EMB Hardware-In-the-Loop (HILS) system, which consists of the EMB assembly, actuator ECU, a host PC, and a few debugging devices. Furthermore, it is shown that the existing sensor fault tolerant control system can be used more effectively for mitigating the effects of hardware and software faults by applying the proposed ECU design method.

Keywords: BBW (Brake-By-wire), EMB (Electro-Mechanical Brake), Functional Safety, ISO26262.

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Authors: Zunaira Asif, Zhi Chen

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The sustainable measures on air quality management are recognized as one of the most serious environmental concerns in the mining region. The mining operations emit various types of pollutants which have significant impacts on the environment. This study presents a stochastic control strategy by developing the air pollution control model to achieve a cost-effective solution. The optimization method is formulated to predict the cost of treatment using linear programming with an objective function and multi-constraints. The constraints mainly focus on two factors which are: production of metal should not exceed the available resources, and air quality should meet the standard criteria of the pollutant. The applicability of this model is explored through a case study of an open pit metal mine, Utah, USA. This method simultaneously uses meteorological data as a dispersion transfer function to support the practical local conditions. The probabilistic analysis and the uncertainties in the meteorological conditions are accomplished by Monte Carlo simulation. Reasonable results have been obtained to select the optimized treatment technology for PM_2.5, PM₁₀, NO_x, and SO₂. Additional comparison analysis shows that baghouse is the least cost option as compared to electrostatic precipitator and wet scrubbers for particulate matter, whereas non-selective catalytical reduction and dry-flue gas desulfurization are suitable for NO_x and SO₂ reduction respectively. Thus, this model can aid planners to reduce these pollutants at a marginal cost by suggesting control pollution devices, while accounting for dynamic meteorological conditions and mining activities.

Keywords: Air pollution, linear programming, mining, optimization, treatment technologies.

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Authors: Kurniawan D. Irianto, Demetres D. Kouvatsos

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The growth of wireless devices affects the availability of limited frequencies or spectrum bands as it has been known that spectrum bands are a natural resource that cannot be added. Meanwhile, the licensed frequencies are idle most of the time. Cognitive radio is one of the solutions to solve those problems. Cognitive radio is a promising technology that allows the unlicensed users known as secondary users (SUs) to access licensed bands without making interference to licensed users or primary users (PUs). As cloud computing has become popular in recent years, cognitive radio networks (CRNs) can be integrated with cloud platform. One of the important issues in CRNs is security. It becomes a problem since CRNs use radio frequencies as a medium for transmitting and CRNs share the same issues with wireless communication systems. Another critical issue in CRNs is performance. Security has adverse effect to performance and there are trade-offs between them. The goal of this paper is to investigate the performance related to security trade-off in CRNs with supporting cloud platforms. Furthermore, Queuing Network Models with preemptive resume and preemptive repeat identical priority are applied in this project to measure the impact of security to performance in CRNs with or without cloud platform. The generalized exponential (GE) type distribution is used to reflect the bursty inter-arrival and service times at the servers. The results show that the best performance is obtained when security is disabled and cloud platform is enabled.

Keywords: Cloud Platforms, Cognitive Radio Networks, GEtype Distribution, Performance Vs Security.

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Authors: Aisha Hassan Abdalla Hashim, Fauzana Ridzuan, Nazreen Rusli

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Mobile IPv6 (MIPv6) describes how mobile node can change its point of attachment from one access router to another. As a demand for wireless mobile devices increases, many enhancements for macro-mobility (inter-domain) protocols have been proposed, designed and implemented in Mobile IPv6. Hierarchical Mobile IPv6 (HMIPv6) is one of them that is designed to reduce the amount of signaling required and to improve handover speed for mobile connections. This is achieved by introducing a new network entity called Mobility Anchor Point (MAP). This report presents a comparative study of the Hierarchical Mobility IPv6 and Mobile IPv6 protocols and we have narrowed down the scope to micro-mobility (intra-domain). The architecture and operation of each protocol is studied and they are evaluated based on the Quality of Service (QoS) parameter; handover latency. The simulation was carried out by using the Network Simulator-2. The outcome from this simulation has been discussed. From the results, it shows that, HMIPv6 performs best under intra-domain mobility compared to MIPv6. The MIPv6 suffers large handover latency. As enhancement we proposed to HMIPv6 to locate the MAP to be in the middle of the domain with respect to all Access Routers. That gives approximately same distance between MAP and Mobile Node (MN) regardless of the new location of MN, and possible shorter distance. This will reduce the delay since the distance is shorter. As a future work performance analysis is to be carried for the proposed HMIPv6 and compared to HMIPv6.

Keywords: Intra-domain mobility, HMIPv6, Handover Latency, proposed HMIPv6.

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Authors: Chuencheewin Yimfuang

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The WIPO copyright treaty (WCT) was established by the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO). This agreement required the contracting nations to provide adequate protection to technological measures to prevent massive copyright infringement in the internet system. Thailand had to implement the anti-circumvention rules into domestic legislation to comply with this international obligation. The purpose of this paper is to critically discuss the legislative standard under the WCT. It also aims to examine the legal development of technological protection measures in Thailand and demonstrate that the scope of prohibitions under the copyright Act 2022 (NO.5) is similar to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act 1998 (DMCA) of the United States (US). It could be found that the anti-circumvention laws of Thailand prohibit the circumvention of access-control technologies, and the regulation on trafficking circumvention devices has been added to the latest version of the Thai Copyright Act. These legislative evolutions have revealed the attempt to reinforce the legal protection of technological measures and copyright holders in order to be in line with global practices. However, the amendment has problems concerning the legal definitions of effective technological measure and the prohibited act of circumvention. The vagueness might affect the scope of protection and the boundary of prohibition. With this aspect, the DMCA will be evaluated and compared to gain guidelines for interpretation and enforcement in Thailand. The lessons and experiences learned from this study might be useful to correct the flaws or at least clarify the ambiguities embodied in Thai copyright legislation.

Keywords: Legal Development Technological Protection Measure, prohibition, circumvention, Thailand.

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Authors: Pegah Farshadmanesh, Jamshid Mohammadi, Mehdi Modares

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In nearly all earthquakes of the past century that resulted in moderate to significant damage, the occurrence of postearthquake fire ignition (PEFI) has imposed a serious hazard and caused severe damage, especially in urban areas. In order to reduce the loss of life and property caused by post-earthquake fires, there is a crucial need for predictive models to estimate the PEFI risk. The parameters affecting PEFI risk can be categorized as: 1) factors influencing fire ignition in normal (non-earthquake) condition, including floor area, building category, ignitability, type of appliance, and prevention devices, and 2) earthquake related factors contributing to the PEFI risk, including building vulnerability and earthquake characteristics such as intensity, peak ground acceleration, and peak ground velocity. State-of-the-art statistical PEFI risk models are solely based on limited available earthquake data, and therefore they cannot predict the PEFI risk for areas with insufficient earthquake records since such records are needed in estimating the PEFI model parameters. In this paper, the correlation between normal condition ignition risk, peak ground acceleration, and PEFI risk is examined in an effort to offer a means for predicting post-earthquake ignition events. An illustrative example is presented to demonstrate how such correlation can be employed in a seismic area to predict PEFI hazard.

Keywords: Fire risk, post-earthquake fire ignition (PEFI), risk management, seismicity.

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Authors: R. Kamalakannan, N. Ravi Kumar

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The global energy consumption is increasing persistently and need for distributed power generation through renewable energy is essential. To meet the power requirements for consumers without any voltage fluctuations and losses, modeling and design of multilevel inverter with Flexible AC Transmission System (FACTS) capability is presented. The presented inverter is provided with 13-level cascaded H-bridge topology of Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor (IGBTs) connected along with inbuilt Distributed Static Synchronous Compensators (DSTATCOM). The DSTATCOM device provides control of power factor stability at local feeder lines and the inverter eliminates Total Harmonic Distortion (THD). The 13-level inverter utilizes 52 switches of each H-bridge is fed with single DC sources separately and the Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) technique is used for switching IGBTs. The control strategy implemented for inverter transmits active power to grid as well as it maintains power factor to be stable with achievement of steady state power transmission. Significant outcome of this project is improvement of output voltage quality with steady state power transmission with low THD. Simulation of inverter with DSTATCOM is performed using MATLAB/Simulink environment. The scaled prototype model of proposed inverter is built and its results were validated with simulated results.

Keywords: FACTS devices, distributed-Static synchronous compensators, DSTATCOM, total harmonics elimination, modular multilevel converter.

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Authors: Srinivasan Aruchamy, Partha Bhattacharjee, Goutam Sanyal

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Optic disk segmentation plays a key role in the mass screening of individuals with diabetic retinopathy and glaucoma ailments. An efficient hardware-based algorithm for optic disk localization and segmentation would aid for developing an automated retinal image analysis system for real time applications. Herein, TMS320C6416DSK DSP board pixel intensity based fractal analysis algorithm for an automatic localization and segmentation of the optic disk is reported. The experiment has been performed on color and fluorescent angiography retinal fundus images. Initially, the images were pre-processed to reduce the noise and enhance the quality. The retinal vascular tree of the image was then extracted using canny edge detection technique. Finally, a pixel intensity based fractal analysis is performed to segment the optic disk by tracing the origin of the vascular tree. The proposed method is examined on three publicly available data sets of the retinal image and also with the data set obtained from an eye clinic. The average accuracy achieved is 96.2%. To the best of the knowledge, this is the first work reporting the use of TMS320C6416DSK DSP board and pixel intensity based fractal analysis algorithm for an automatic localization and segmentation of the optic disk. This will pave the way for developing devices for detection of retinal diseases in the future.

Keywords: Color retinal fundus images, Diabetic retinopathy, Fluorescein angiography retinal fundus images, Fractal analysis.

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Authors: Jing Fang, Yao Cui, Mingming Wang, Shengli She, Jianping Yuan

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Wearable robotics is a potential solution in aiding gait rehabilitation of lower limbs dyskinesia patients, such as knee osteoarthritis or stroke afflicted patients. Many wearable robots have been developed in the form of rigid exoskeletons, but their bulk devices, high cost and control complexity hinder their popularity in the field of gait rehabilitation. Thus, the development of a portable, compliant and low-cost wearable robot for gait rehabilitation is necessary. Inspired by Chinese traditional folding fans and balloon inflators, the authors present an inflatable, foldable and variable stiffness knee exosuit (IFVSKE) in this paper. The pneumatic actuator of IFVSKE was fabricated in the shape of folding fans by using thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) fabric materials. The geometric and mechanical properties of IFVSKE were characterized with experimental methods. To assist the knee joint smartly, an intelligent control profile for IFVSKE was proposed based on the concept of full-cycle energy management of the biomechanical energy during human movement. The biomechanical energy of knee joints in a walking gait cycle of patients could be collected and released to assist the joint motion just by adjusting the inner pressure of IFVSKE. Finally, a healthy subject was involved to walk with and without the IFVSKE to evaluate the assisting effects.

Keywords: Biomechanical energy management, gait rehabilitation, knee exosuit, wearable robotics.

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Authors: Rallapalli Revanth, Shivakumar Bhavi, Vijay Kumar Turaga

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Dispensing powders manually can be difficult as it requires to gradually pour and check the amount on the scale to be dispensed. Current systems are manual and non-continuous in nature and is user dependent and it is also difficult to control powder dispensation. Recurrent dosing of powdered medicines in precise amounts quickly and accurately has been an all-time challenge. Various powder dispensing mechanisms are being designed to overcome these challenges. Battery operated screw conveyor mechanism is being innovated to overcome above problems faced. These inventions are numerically evaluated at concept development level by employing Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) of gas-solids multiphase flow systems. CFD has been very helpful in the development of such devices, saving time and money by reducing the number of prototypes and testing. In this study, powder dispensation from the trocar's end is simulated by using the Dense Discrete Phase Model technique along with Kinetic Theory of Granular Flow. The powder is viewed as a secondary flow in air (DDPM-KTGF). By considering the volume fraction of powder as 50%, the transportation side is done by rotation of the screw conveyor. The performance is calculated for 1 sec time frame in an unsteady computation manner. This methodology will help designers in developing design concepts to improve the dispensation and the effective area within a quick turnaround time frame.

Keywords: Multiphase flow, screw conveyor, transient, DDPM - KTGF.

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Authors: Carmen Grigoraş, Victor Grigoraş, Daniela Boişteanu

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The standard investigational method for obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS) diagnosis is polysomnography (PSG), which consists of a simultaneous, usually overnight recording of multiple electro-physiological signals related to sleep and wakefulness. This is an expensive, encumbering and not a readily repeated protocol, and therefore there is need for simpler and easily implemented screening and detection techniques. Identification of apnea/hypopnea events in the screening recordings is the key factor for the diagnosis of OSAS. The analysis of a solely single-lead electrocardiographic (ECG) signal for OSAS diagnosis, which may be done with portable devices, at patient-s home, is the challenge of the last years. A novel artificial neural network (ANN) based approach for feature extraction and automatic identification of respiratory events in ECG signals is presented in this paper. A nonlinear principal component analysis (NLPCA) method was considered for feature extraction and support vector machine for classification/recognition. An alternative representation of the respiratory events by means of Kohonen type neural network is discussed. Our prospective study was based on OSAS patients of the Clinical Hospital of Pneumology from Iaşi, Romania, males and females, as well as on non-OSAS investigated human subjects. Our computed analysis includes a learning phase based on cross signal PSG annotation.

Keywords: Artificial neural networks, feature extraction, obstructive sleep apnea syndrome, pattern recognition, signalprocessing.

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Authors: L. Yu, W. K. Li, S. K. Ong, A. Y. C. Nee

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In this paper, a scalable augmented reality framework for handheld devices is presented. The presented framework is enabled by using a server-client data communication structure, in which the search for tracking targets among a database of images is performed on the server-side while pixel-wise 3D tracking is performed on the client-side, which, in this case, is a handheld mobile device. Image search on the server-side adopts a residual-enhanced image descriptors representation that gives the framework a scalability property. The tracking algorithm on the client-side is based on a gravity-aligned feature descriptor which takes the advantage of a sensor-equipped mobile device and an optimized intensity-based image alignment approach that ensures the accuracy of 3D tracking. Automatic content streaming is achieved by using a key-frame selection algorithm, client working phase monitoring and standardized rules for content communication between the server and client. The recognition accuracy test performed on a standard dataset shows that the method adopted in the presented framework outperforms the Bag-of-Words (BoW) method that has been used in some of the previous systems. Experimental test conducted on a set of video sequences indicated the real-time performance of the tracking system with a frame rate at 15-30 frames per second. The presented framework is exposed to be functional in practical situations with a demonstration application on a campus walk-around.

Keywords: Augmented reality framework, server-client model, vision-based tracking, image search.

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Authors: Kholood Baron

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Radiologic interventional studies use fluoroscopy imaging guidance to perform both diagnostic and therapeutic procedures. These could result in high radiation doses being delivered to the patients and also to the radiology team. This is due to the prolonged fluoroscopy time and the large number of images taken, even when dose-minimizing techniques and modern fluoroscopic tools are applied. Hence, these procedures are part of the everyday routine of interventional radiology doctors, assistant nurses, and radiographers. Thus, it is important to estimate the radiation exposure dose they received in order to give objective advice and reduce both patient and radiology team radiation exposure dose. The aim of this study was to find out the total radiation dose reaching the radiologist and the patient during an interventional procedure, and to determine the impact of certain parameters on the patient dose. The radiation dose was measured by TLD devices (Thermoluminescent Dosimeter; radiation dosimeter device). Physicians, patients, nurses, and radiographers wore TLDs during 12 interventional radiology procedures performed in two hospitals, Mubarak and Chest Hospital. This study highlights the need for interventional radiologists to be mindful of the radiation doses received by both patients and medical staff during interventional radiology procedures. The findings emphasize the impact of factors such as fluoroscopy duration and the number of images taken on the patient dose. By raising awareness and providing insights into optimizing techniques and protective measures, this research contributes to the overall goal of reducing radiation doses and ensuring the safety of patients and medical staff.

Keywords: Dosimetry, radiation dose, interventional radiology procedures, patient radiation dose.

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Authors: L. Grinis, N. Lubashevsky, Y. Ostrovski

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A jet pump is a type of pump that accelerates the flow of a secondary fluid (driven fluid) by introducing a motive fluid with high velocity into a converging-diverging nozzle. Jet pumps are also known as adductors or ejectors depending on the motivator phase. The ejector's motivator is of a gaseous nature, usually steam or air, while the educator's motivator is a liquid, usually water. Jet pumps are devices that use air bubbles and are widely used in wastewater treatment processes. In this work, we will discuss about the characteristics of the jet pump and the computational simulation of this device. To find the optimal angle and depth for the air pipe, so as to achieve the maximal air volumetric flow rate, an experimental apparatus was constructed to ascertain the best geometrical configuration for this new type of jet pump. By using 3D printing technology, a series of jet pumps was printed and tested whilst aspiring to maximize air flow rate dependent on angle and depth of the air pipe insertion. The experimental results show a major difference of up to 300% in performance between the different pumps (ratio of air flow rate to supplied power) where the optimal geometric model has an insertion angle of 60⁰ and air pipe insertion depth ending at the center of the mixing chamber. The differences between the pumps were further explained by using CFD for better understanding the reasons that affect the airflow rate. The validity of the computational simulation and the corresponding assumptions have been proved experimentally. The present research showed high degree of congruence with the results of the laboratory tests. This study demonstrates the potential of using of the jet pump in many practical applications.

Keywords: Air bubbles, CFD simulation, jet pump, practical applications.

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Authors: Sepehr Lajevardi Esfahani, Shohre Rouhani, Zahra Ranjbar

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Graphene has gained much attention owing to its unique optical and electrical properties. Charge carriers in graphene sheets (GS) carry out a linear dispersion relation near the Fermi energy and behave as massless Dirac fermions resulting in unusual attributes such as the quantum Hall effect and ambipolar electric field effect. It also exhibits nondispersive transport characteristics with an extremely high electron mobility (15000 cm²/(Vs)) at room temperature. Recently, several progresses have been achieved in the fabrication of single- or multilayer GS for functional device applications in the fields of optoelectronic such as field-effect transistors ultrasensitive sensors and organic photovoltaic cells. In addition to device applications, graphene also can serve as reinforcement to enhance mechanical, thermal, or electrical properties of composite materials. Electrophoretic deposition (EPD) is an attractive method for development of various coatings and films. It readily applied to any powdered solid that forms a stable suspension. The deposition parameters were controlled in various thicknesses. In this study, the graphene electrodeposition conditions were optimized. The results were obtained from SEM, Ohm resistance measuring technique and AFM characteristic tests. The minimum sheet resistance of electrodeposited reduced graphene oxide layers is achieved at conditions of 2 V in 10 s and it is annealed at 200 °C for 1 minute.

Keywords: Electrophoretic deposition, graphene oxide, electrical conductivity, electro-optical devices.

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Authors: Atul Khurana, Rajul Rastogi, Hans-Joachim Gamperl

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The pharmaceutical companies are getting more inclined towards patient support programs (PSPs) which assist patients and/or healthcare professionals (HCPs) in more desirable disease management and cost-effective treatment. The utmost objective of these programs is patient care. The PSPs may include financial assistance to patients, medicine compliance programs, access to HCPs via phone or online chat centers, etc. The PSP has a crucial role in terms of customer acquisition and retention strategies. During the conduct of these programs, Marketing Authorisation Holder (MAH) may receive information related to concerned medicinal products, which is usually reported by patients or involved HCPs. This information may include suspected adverse reaction(s) during/after administration of medicinal products. Hence, the MAH should design PSP to comply with regulatory reporting requirements and avoid non-compliance during PV inspection. The emergence of wireless health devices is lowering the burden on patients to manually incorporate safety data, and building a significant option for patients to observe major swings in reference to drug safety. Therefore, to enhance the adoption of these programs, MAH not only needs to aware patients about advantages of the program, but also recognizes the importance of time of patients and commitments made in a constructive manner. It is indispensable that strengthening the public health is considered as the topmost priority in such programs, and the MAH is compliant to Pharmacovigilance (PV) requirements along with regulatory obligations.

Keywords: Drug safety, good pharmacovigilance practice, patient support program, pharmacovigilance.

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Authors: Thomas V. Prevenslik

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Ovshinsky initiated scientific research in the field of amorphous and disordered materials that continues to this day. The Ovshinsky Effect where the resistance of thin GST films is significantly reduced upon the application of low voltage is of fundamental importance in phase-change - random access memory (PC-RAM) devices.GST stands for GdSbTe chalcogenide type glasses.However, the Ovshinsky Effect is not without controversy. Ovshinsky thought the resistance of GST films is reduced by the redistribution of charge carriers; whereas, others at that time including many PC-RAM researchers today argue that the GST resistance changes because the GST amorphous state is transformed to the crystalline state by melting, the heat supplied by external heaters. In this controversy, quantum mechanics (QM) asserts the heat capacity of GST films vanishes, and therefore melting cannot occur as the heat supplied cannot be conserved by an increase in GST film temperature.By precluding melting, QM re-opens the controversy between the melting and charge carrier mechanisms. Supporting analysis is presented to show that instead of increasing GST film temperature, conservation proceeds by the QED induced creation of photons within the GST film, the QED photons confined by TIR. QED stands for quantum electrodynamics and TIR for total internal reflection. The TIR confinement of QED photons is enhanced by the fact the absorbedheat energy absorbed in the GST film is concentrated in the TIR mode because of their high surface to volume ratio. The QED photons having Planck energy beyond the ultraviolet produce excitons by the photoelectric effect, the electrons and holes of which reduce the GST film resistance.

Keywords: Ovshinsky, phase change memory, PC-RAM, chalcogenide, quantummechanics, quantum electrodynamics.

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Authors: S. Doyle, G. A. Aggidis

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Wave energy converter technologies continue to show good progress in worldwide research. One of the most researched technologies, the Oscillating Water Column (OWC), is arguably one of the most popular categories within the converter technologies due to its robustness, simplicity and versatility. However, the versatility of the OWC is still largely untapped with most deployments following similar trends with respect to applications and operating systems. As the competitiveness of the energy market continues to increase, the demand for wave energy technologies to be innovative also increases. For existing wave energy technologies, this requires identifying areas to diversify for lower costs of energy with respect to applications and synergies or integrated systems. This paper provides a review of all OWCs systems integrated into alternative applications in the past and present. The aspects and variation in their design, deployment and system operation are discussed. Particular focus is given to the Multi-OWCs (M-OWCs) and their great potential to increase capture on a larger scale, especially in synergy applications. It is made clear that these steps need to be taken in order to make wave energy a competitive and viable option in the renewable energy mix as progression to date shows that stand alone single function devices are not economical. Findings reveal that the trend of development is moving toward these integrated applications in order to reduce the Levelised Cost of Energy (LCOE) and will ultimately continue in this direction in efforts to make wave energy a competitive option in the renewable energy mix.

Keywords: Ocean energy, wave energy, oscillating water column, renewable energy, review.

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Authors: Christopher Paterson, Richard Curry, Alan Purvis, Simon Johnson

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Emerging Bio-engineering fields such as Brain Computer Interfaces, neuroprothesis devices and modeling and simulation of neural networks have led to increased research activity in algorithms for the detection, isolation and classification of Action Potentials (AP) from noisy data trains. Current techniques in the field of 'unsupervised no-prior knowledge' biosignal processing include energy operators, wavelet detection and adaptive thresholding. These tend to bias towards larger AP waveforms, AP may be missed due to deviations in spike shape and frequency and correlated noise spectrums can cause false detection. Also, such algorithms tend to suffer from large computational expense. A new signal detection technique based upon the ideas of phasespace diagrams and trajectories is proposed based upon the use of a delayed copy of the AP to highlight discontinuities relative to background noise. This idea has been used to create algorithms that are computationally inexpensive and address the above problems. Distinct AP have been picked out and manually classified from real physiological data recorded from a cockroach. To facilitate testing of the new technique, an Auto Regressive Moving Average (ARMA) noise model has been constructed bases upon background noise of the recordings. Along with the AP classification means this model enables generation of realistic neuronal data sets at arbitrary signal to noise ratio (SNR).

Keywords: Action potential detection, Low SNR, Phase spacediagrams/trajectories, Unsupervised/no-prior knowledge.

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Authors: Pavel V. Balabanov, Daria A. Liubimova, Aleksandr P. Savenkov

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The increase of technogenic and natural accidents, accompanied by air pollution, for example, by combustion products, leads to the necessity of respiratory protection. This work is devoted to the development of a calorimetric method and a device which allows investigating quickly the kinetics of carbon dioxide sorption by chemisorbents on the base of potassium superoxide in order to assess the protective properties of respiratory protective closed circuit apparatus. The features of the traditional approach for determining the sorption properties in a thin layer of chemisorbent are described, as well as methods and devices, which can be used for the sorption kinetics study. The authors developed an approach (as opposed to the traditional approach) based on the power measurement of internal heat sources in the chemisorbent layer. The emergence of the heat sources is a result of exothermic reaction of carbon dioxide sorption. This approach eliminates the necessity of chemical analysis of samples and can significantly reduce the time and material expenses during chemisorbents testing. Error of determining the volume fraction of adsorbed carbon dioxide by the developed method does not exceed 12%. Taking into account the efficiency of the method, we consider that it is a good alternative to traditional methods of chemical analysis under the assessment of the protection sorbents quality.

Keywords: Carbon dioxide chemisorption, exothermic reaction, internal heat sources, respiratory protective apparatus.

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